Fanatics is taking over the sports world one jersey and trading card at a time.
Enigmatic CEO and founder Michael Rubin has built the company into an empire that has reshaped sports collectibles and gear, and has even entered the ever-expanding gambling realm.
Fanatics acquired Topps sports cards and obtained jersey contracts across the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL — a combination that gives them a chokehold on the sports merchandise and collectibles market.
But the path hasn’t been all smooth sailing.
Fanatics has faced challenges with jersey production in recent years, prompting Rubin to reflect on the company’s core mission of growing the collector base.
“The biggest challenge we have is how do we balance and create more collectors. Our goal when we started this is how do we 10X the amount of [sports card] collectors?” Rubin told The Post recently in an exclusive and wide-ranging interview.” We’ve made a big impact in four years. Maybe we’ve two or three times’d [the number of collectors] in Year 4, so far.”
Looking ahead, Rubin sees even bigger opportunities abroad.
“We think global football [soccer] could be our biggest business in the future,” he added.
Rubin pinpointed an athlete-first focus as the most important piece of the sports card and memorabilia game, and he recently enlisted 160 athletes to participate in an 800-store “Topps Rip Night” event, including Jets running back Breece Hall and Giants quarterback Jaxson Dart.
“We work with about 5,000 athletes on an individual basis. Do I know a lot of the most important athletes? Sure. When you run a business, your job is to figure out who the most important constituencies are … I flew to Japan to meet [Shohei] Ohtani for the first time at the Tokyo series last year because Ohtani is that important to us,” Rubin said. “We want to build and maintain relationships with the most important athletes that help drive the Fanatics ecosystem.”
Athletes are the jumping-off point, with betting, gear and cards feeding into each other through FanCash, which can be used to purchase Fanatics merchandise or place bets at Fanatics Sportsbook.
“Some people who say, ‘Hey, you’re in the betting business, you’re a horrible person, and you shouldn’t take bets,’” Rubin said. “Here’s the reality: Everyone bet on sports before. Now they’re going from illegal books to legal books, and we’re making it better through FanCash and ‘FairPlay’ [injury insurance on player prop bets].
“When I looked at Fanatics Sportsbook, I was like, ‘How do we make it better?’ We’re the only new entrant. When you really look at it, no new entrant has been successful. We already have 7-8 percent of the sports betting market and about six percent of the casino side. Our idea is, how do we make it better? We decided to give FanCash on every bet, and this year we’re going to give away a billion dollars in FanCash.”
While Fanatics has already bought a ton of land in the sports world – Majestic, Topps, PointsBet, Mitchell and Ness, among others — don’t expect more, despite a rumored purchase of Panini America.
“We like growing the business organically,” Rubin said. “We don’t think we need to buy anything to grow this business. We think we can grow this business completely organically. All in all, we’re not thinking of any acquisitions right now. We have no need, if I’m being blunt. Panini offers us nothing.”
One thing Rubin did note as it related to the sports cards industry is the re-packing business, where high-priced items are put into new products and sold by retailers.
This exists in other forms, though Fanatics is not involved in a big way at the moment.
Said Rubin: “I think re-packing cards is going to be big.”
