Sports Card Seller Sues TikTok, Fanatics and NFL, Claims They Colluded to Kill Independent Sellers

A pandemic-era side hustle turned into a federal antitrust fight.

David Allan Skalsky, who ran a livestream sports memorabilia business called Quad City Breaks through his company QCBRIPNSHIP LLC, filed suit against TikTok, its parent company ByteDance, Fanatics and multiple NFL entities in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, according to Courthouse News. The suit was filed Monday.

Skalsky's business model is called "breaking." Sellers livestream themselves opening sealed boxes of sports cards or memorabilia, and customers who bought individual slots in advance get whatever comes out. It's part auction, part unboxing theater, and it exploded during COVID lockdowns when TikTok livestreams gave small operators a direct line to buyers.

At its peak, Skalsky says Quad City Breaks pulled in as much as $200,000 a month, according to both Courthouse News and the New York Post.

The allegation: pay Fanatics or get banned.

Skalsky's complaint claims TikTok, ByteDance, Fanatics and the NFL falsely represented that Fanatics held exclusive rights to sell broad categories of officially licensed NFL merchandise. He says independent sellers like himself had legally acquired authentic product and had every right to resell it.

"The object of the conspiracy was to exclude independent memorabilia sellers ('breakers') from TikTok unless they agreed to sell Fanatics' merchandise exclusively," the complaint states, as quoted by both Courthouse News and the Post.

According to Courthouse News, Skalsky says TikTok representatives told him the NFL had flagged his account and that it could be restored if he signed an exclusive deal with Fanatics. He says the bans continued anyway. Attorney Ariel Givner, commenting on the case, said on X that sellers received threatening communications on NFL letterhead and lost access to accounts along with years of built-up followers and platform visibility, a detail the Post highlighted prominently.

Skalsky says the account bans started in late 2024 and eventually forced Quad City Breaks into bankruptcy, costing his family their home, according to both outlets.

What's actually being alleged versus what's proven.

This is a civil complaint, not a verdict. Nothing in these filings has been tested in court, and none of the named defendants have publicly responded. Courthouse News reported that representatives for TikTok, the NFL and Fanatics did not immediately respond to requests for comment, and Skalsky's attorney, Jeremy C. Shafer of Banner Legal, also didn't respond to inquiries.

The complaint's core claim is that a dominant platform and a licensed merchandise giant coordinated with a sports league to squeeze out smaller competitors. This is a serious antitrust allegation. If true, it would fit a pattern regulators have scrutinized elsewhere: a big platform using account access as leverage to force smaller players into exclusive commercial arrangements. Antitrust law exists precisely to stop that kind of vertical squeeze play, and the suit invokes the Sherman Act, the Clayton Act and California's Cartwright Act to make that case.

However, NFL licensing agreements are common and legal. Sports leagues routinely grant exclusive merchandising rights to specific partners, and Fanatics has held major licensing deals across the NFL, MLB and other leagues for years. If Fanatics genuinely holds exclusive rights to certain categories of licensed product, then TikTok enforcing that against unauthorized resellers isn't necessarily collusion. It could be contract enforcement. The dispute may ultimately hinge on exactly what rights Fanatics actually holds versus what the complaint alleges the defendants claimed it held, and whether TikTok's account suppression was proportional enforcement or a coordinated shakedown.

A federal court will need to sort out that distinction through discovery.

What Skalsky wants.

According to Courthouse News, Skalsky is seeking monetary damages, restoration of his TikTok account along with its previous algorithmic standing, cancellation of any exclusive agreements tied to the alleged scheme, and an injunction barring the practices going forward. The Post's coverage adds that the complaint also includes false advertising claims tied to Fanatics' alleged representations about exclusive selling rights.

Neither the Post nor Courthouse News reports whether any other independent breakers have joined the suit or filed similar complaints, so it's unclear whether this is an isolated grievance or the first domino in a broader industry challenge to how TikTok and Fanatics have structured the livestream memorabilia market.

The case is now in the hands of the Central District of California. TikTok, ByteDance, Fanatics and the NFL entities named in the suit have not yet filed a formal response in court, and no hearing date has been publicly reported.