Michael Rubin on Building Fanatics Into a Billion-Dollar Empire

You know, people say to me all the time, hey, there's a duopoly between FanDuel and DraftKings. You have no chance. I love that. Go tell your guy KD he has no chance in the basketball game. He's gonna say, I'm gonna go dominate that game. So, you know, for me, people telling us we have no chance in the business, that's love language to them. What's up everybody? And welcome to the June boardroom cover story. And today we are in New York, New York at the Fanatics headquarters with a generational once in a lifetime entrepreneur and CEO and truly a very dear friend of mine. And please welcome the man himself, Mr. Michael Rubin. My guy, I need like a hug and a kiss with that. Please, bro. You truly are a friend. Now you're a fan. Fan. Without question. I feel like I know you very well. When we take our walks, I get to ask you questions about your business and it never gets old for me. And me questions about your business each. That's true. We get to learn from each other. Indeed. What I wanna use today's interview for is to talk about the business. Talk about the business you've built and talk about the last five years in particular. You had built something spectacular going into COVID but as a friend, I felt like something flipped in your brain during COVID that changed your outlook on what you were building, what you wanted to accomplish. Is that true, you think? Well, first, I don't see it like that we're successful today that we've done anything big yet. I truly feel like we're just getting started. To me, you've always gotta stay humble, hungry, think big, keep pushing. You're not one to ever reflect on where we are. I kinda feel like we're just a 22,000 person startup and that's what I love most about what I do every day. So we have so much to do in this business and we're truly getting on. But look, did we reinvent the company during COVID? Absolutely. Did we start as a place where you get all of your dang gear and today we're really a digital sports platform? Absolutely. Today we have three businesses, the original business, Spinax Commerce, the collectibles business and trading card business and the betting and gaming business. But still in each of these businesses, we feel like we have so much to do and just get going. That's what makes you great, right? If you were resting on your laurels, you wouldn't be who you are. Well, you'd be dead. Yeah, you'd be dead. And I would imagine that that paranoia that I always hear when I hear you talk about your business is if somebody's chasing you almost is what drives you every day. Well, I just wish it was one person that was chasing me. It's actually multiple people at all moments. Well, that's what happens. Including kids on top of it. Well, that's what happens when you lead the way. But something happened during that time. You envisioned something. I don't know if it was the idea that you were isolated, the world was isolated, but you must've envisioned something greater than what you were. I think the real thing that happened was when we started, I sold my first real company to eBay in 2011, GSI Commerce. They bought it for $2.4 billion in 2011 and they didn't want to own inventory. And so they said, hey, we've got a couple of businesses we don't want. And so we bought back Fanatics from them. It was a small business, nothing like what it is today. And I really thought like this business isn't interesting at that point. It was really a company that sold licensed sports merchandise that was commonly available, didn't have a lot of differentiation. And I really thought to myself, how do we take this business to a completely different level? So the first eight or nine years, from 2011 to 2019, 20, was really focused on how do we materially grow the business, enhance the fan experience, really build a business that was built to last. And so I didn't think we had the chance to think bigger until I really solidified that business. So I think in 2019, 2020, I said, okay, even though COVID was something that was just starting and a giant thing for the world to overcome, for us to think about how to handle that as a sports business where they weren't even playing sports. But I really think I felt like this was the time that we could reinvent the business into a digital sports platform. And yes, the idea of going from the original business, Fanatics Commerce, which is very fan gear, to launching the trading card collectibles business and launching the betting and gaming business was a big evolution for us and one that I really, again, feel like we're a startup today. So at that point when you're analyzing this, you have 80 million plus customers that are engaged with Fanatics. How do you land on those two verticals? That's a great question. I think one of, and there's a lot of things I suck at and a lot of things that, you know, you look at any person, they've got strengths and weaknesses. I think one of my strengths is to be able to size up. One, what's a big and interesting business? Two, can we do something to make it better? And then also, is it a good business to be in? So sometimes you can have a big business, I look at ticketing as a really big business, but I don't think it's a good business to be in as an operator. Most customers hate the ticketing company they buy from. It's super competitive. And for us, we wanna offer tickets to our customers, but we don't wanna be a ticketing platform. So when I looked at it, I looked at the business we were in, the fan gear business, Fanatics Commerce. I looked at trading cards and collectibles. I looked at betting and gaming. I looked at ticketing. I looked at media. The conclusion I came to was, in addition to the business that we were in, we loved the betting and gaming business. We loved the collectibles business. We thought that ticketing was a really hard business to be, but that make the consumer proposition better and have it be a good business that you can make money in. So we were like, hey, we don't wanna be in that business. And then we also looked at the media business and said, look, there's so many incredible companies, whether it's Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Netflix, that we're gonna be getting into this business. And anyone who said they weren't getting in the sports media business over the last five or 10 years, you're like, yeah, that's bullshit, I don't believe that. And so you thought to yourself, I don't, like, I wanna watch and learn there. That's not a business I'm gonna get into. And I really said, let's focus on these three businesses. By the way, these three businesses are an enormous opportunity for us and one that we have so much to do in each of the businesses. So when you set out the strategy, I would imagine, A, you have to go and raise capital. You have to go to your existing LPs. What is that conversation like when you start that process internally to say, listen, we're shifting the focus, we're thinking bigger, and we're expanding what this business is? I think it was a really easy conversation. And what made it so easy is it was like an obvious evolution. And so going to investors and saying, look, we're now going to throw the business into a digital sports platform, they're like, well, that's obvious. We've been telling you that for years. And, you know, there's just nothing but excitement and passion around it. It's such a natural thing to say, look, you know, at that point, we had 80 million customers. We had relationships with all the sports properties and players. And look, here are the different businesses that we could be in. So it really was a pretty easy strategic evolution, one that I think everyone bought into in real time. But you still have to raise the money. What I think is so different about you and probably what sets you apart from most is like there are some people that are great entrepreneurs and innovators. There's some great CEOs, and then there's great fundraisers and people that truly know how to raise money. You are really good at raising money. Would you agree? No, I don't. I think if you have the right consumer value proposition, you have the right business strategy, and people can like kind of air check the math, and then all of the diligence kind of, you know, validates the air checking of the math, it's a pretty easy decision to go to somebody and say, look, we're in one business today. When you look at the size of how big the TAM, the total addressable market is, of the betting and gaming business is gonna be just in North America alone. Look at how big the collectible business is gonna be. We'd already signed these deals to, you know, kind of evolve and take over the rights from the NFL, the NBA, and Major League Baseball within the trading card business. It was such an easy answer for investors to say, yeah, I wanna do this because it's such a massive opportunity. Do you set this roadmap that starts with leadership at these verticals? Look, I think the way I always advise, is you start with a strategy, okay? Once you get the strategy right at a high level, then you say, okay, well, how am I gonna execute this? And without people, you have nothing. And so for me, it was about how do I get the best leaders to kind of lead and build each business. I spent a ton of time on that. I mean, I spent, you know, if I work 15, 17 hours a day, seven days a week, I'm spending at that point in 2021, 2022, I'm spending 25% of my time just interviewing people that can help us to get to where we wanna get to. So for me, that's, you know, kind of the most obvious thing to get the strategy right and then figure out how are you gonna, you know, kind of execute that strategy. By the way, are you gonna do business development deals to make that happen? Are you gonna buy pieces to make that happen? Is it a combination of both? And then who are the people that are gonna help you execute that? So what was the strategy for the gambling vertical? For the betting and gaming business, it was pretty natural that the biggest cost for companies like DraftKings and Bandle was acquiring customers. And we had a very big installed customer base in the Fanatics core business. At that point, I think we had about 80 million customers. Today, we probably have 120 million customers. So really obvious to say, look, if the biggest expense is customer acquisition, we have so many direct relationships with, you know, 100 million plus sports fans today. And then on top of it, we have a brand Fanatics that's very well known. We felt like if we could make the value proposition better, wow, what a massive opportunity we have. So one, we have a really great product. You say to me all the time that people tell you, you know, how much they like the Fanatics sports book. Number two, every time you bet with us, you earn Fan Cash. And so it's a better value proposition. We're gonna give away next to about $600 million of Fan Cash. That's not like membership rewards where a lot of people don't use it. With Fan Cash, people earn Fan Cash and then they burn Fan Cash pretty quickly and they can use it to make bets on sports. They can use it to get tickets to games. They can use it to buy merchandise. They can buy collectibles. They can go to Fanatics Live. They can go to Lids. They can go to Tops. So you've got this pretty incredible currency that in every time you bet, we're gonna lose. We give you Fan Cash. And on top of it, if your player gets hurt during the first quarter of a game, we actually take that player out of your player prop. And so it's kind of like free insurance. And so people say to us all the time, why get Fan Cash when I bet with you? And I just heard a story this morning. I just saw one on Instagram somebody who made a bet. It was a seven-leg bet. And their player got hurt. They assume they lost. They woke up, they're like, what the, I won the bet. How? Oh, Fanatics takes that player out of my parlay if they get hurt in the first quarter. So it's a fairer proposition. So what I would say is if you bet on sports, how can you not bet with an exports company? It's a better deal for the customer. And by the way, it's working. This is our second year in business. We're gonna do 25 or $30 billion in bets with us this year. We're gonna have close to a billion dollars in revenue in our second year in business. That's pretty, it's a pretty good start. So when you're in a sector like that where you have two dominant players, does the goal to start become go for the top guys or is it to go and gain market share and figure out your place and fine tune your product? I have huge respect for FanDuel and DraftGames. They're both great companies and they're very dominant players. You know, people say to me all the time, hey, there's a duopoly between FanDuel and DraftGames. You have no chance. Love that. Go tell your guy KD has no chance in the basketball game. He's gonna say, you know, I'm gonna, you know, I'm gonna go dominate that game. So, you know, for me, people telling us we have no chance in a business, that's like, that's love, that's love language. Yeah. So where are you now in market share and where are DraftGames and FanDuel? Today we have about seven, seven and a half percent of the sports market two years into, not even two years into it, you know, 20 months into it. FanDuel and DraftGames have 75, 80% of the market combined. So call it, they each have 35, 40% of the market. That's okay. We're in this for the longterm. We've got a good value proposition. We're gonna keep making that value proposition better. And to me, the question is, how do our customers feel about, you know, using Finance Sportsbook and the feedback I'm getting is that people love it. And that, you know, if they feel like it's a better deal, it's a better value proposition, they like the product. What did you acquire to start building the gambling vertical? Did you buy the tech stack or did you develop the tech stack internally? Yeah, we've only bought one thing from, since we started, which was, we bought a company called PointsBet and that gave us a trading platform that we thought would really help us to advance. Now, when we bought PointsBet, it had a 1% market share. We only closed that deal September 23. Today, again, we have about 7, 7.5% market share in sports. That's wild. And we're just getting started. And their tech stack was, you clearly saw the market. We didn't use their tech stack, but we used the trading platform. We migrated the customers over. We used some of their market access. You just let us move more quickly. And physical books, where does that come into play in the future? Yeah, look, I think physical books are an important marketing vehicle for what we're doing here. So we have, today, more than a dozen physical sports books. We have a bunch in Connecticut. We have one at the Ocean at C&O. We have some at different sports stadiums. And I think that's a, it's a good thing for us to do. It helps us build our brand. But ultimately, most of that business is handled through the app online at The Max Sportsbook. Do you still have to open a physical book in order to get a license in the state? Every state's different. Most states, you do not have to do that. But a few states, you do. And where do you see the New York State gambling license going? I mean, look, New York's a massive state. Obviously, the taxes are very prohibitive. It's a 51% tax on the gross gambling revenue. It makes you invest less in marketing in New York State. So I think what people have done is said, look, this is such an expensive state to do business in. We're gonna spend our marketing dollars in more low-tax states where you can get a better return on the marketing dollar. But it's still an important state. And Jay-Z's affiliated with the gambling platform? Jay and Des were founders of it. We started it together. They're real owners of the business. And both have really helped build the business. Can you talk about the numbers you'll do? Last year was our first year revenue. I think we had about $10 billion in bets placed between iGaming and Sportsbook. And we have about $350 million in revenue. This year, we should have about $30 billion in bets placed on our platform and have about a billion dollars in our revenue. And that's how much of the market share? In sports, about 7.5%, 7%. So for context- But it's growing every month, too. And for context, what would FanDuel or DraftKings do on a year? DraftKings this year would do about $6 billion and FanDuel would be about $7 billion. So call it six to seven times bigger than we are. And by the way, I like that. It makes me hungry. It makes me ready to go. Early days when I was speaking to you till now, it feels like your kind of expectation of where you can bring this has changed. I remember when we started in the Fang Gear business, 2011, we were a distant number three, number four player. Now we're a strong leader. In collectibles, we started in 2022 and now we're the leader. And I'd be, if I sat here saying, I dream about being number one, and to me, I'm gonna work tirelessly to become number one. Now, I think if FanDuel and DraftKings hear that, they laugh at me and they say, it's got no shot. But great. How many athletes, and by the way, I'm the worst athlete in the world because I think I've publicly shown a few times, but how many times you go tell someone they can't do something, they just wanna do it that much more. So in the collectibles vertical, you saw an opportunity as well. We did. That one was very different because we saw a business that had grown because of COVID and quite frankly, a very tired industry at three companies, Panini, Topps, Upper Deck, that were all I'd say living off of the COVID bump they weren't innovating the product. They weren't marketing the products. They weren't worrying about the collector. They weren't thinking about how to really grow the business. And so I'd say of all the things I've done in my business career, that's been so far the one that's been easiest to make a major impact overnight because of how I think, it wouldn't be just being blunt, how bad the competition was. And it felt like the way you saw it was pretty interesting because to a lot of people, there was a bubble that was being created during COVID. Like the prices soared. I bought a ton of cards that are 20% of the value that I spent at that time. And people thought that that was a moment in time and that the industry would fade where it was quite the opposite. No, it's what everybody thought. And to be honest, had we not entered it, I think that's what would have happened. Really? Absolutely. I'll tell you when we called, so I came up with the idea in November of 2020. And within hours of coming up with the idea, I was calling the different leaders in sports to say, hey, I've got this big idea. You've got this business, collectibles, trading cards. It's grown a ton because of the pandemic. There's no marketing. There's not been much product innovation. We hear all kinds of noise about how bad the collector experience is. By the way, there's a lot of inefficiencies in how the cards are distributed. So I went through distributors versus serving the hobby shops and breakers and retailers directly. We think we could build a much better business. And I kind of said, the first day I came up with the idea, hey, I'll guarantee you what you're making today. And I'm gonna cut you in on all these ancillary businesses that you're not in. It was like, I had them at hello because all they were thinking was the business was gonna revert, which is what I think would have happened. And they saw all the flaws in the business that I pointed out to them. And so when you took one of the most trusted partners of the entire league or the players associations, and they come and say, look, we're gonna guarantee you off this high watermark, we're gonna cut you into the secondary market, into the live commerce platform, into all these other businesses we can create. We're gonna give you a higher roach and we're gonna guarantee you with these, what you think is the high watermark. They were like, let's go. How can we get this done as quickly as possible? They never monetize off of those ancillary parts of the business? No, not at all. So the way it used to work and it made zero sense before we entered the business, the players and the sports leagues gave the rights to like a Panini and upper deck, and they mostly sold the cards to distributors. They didn't service hobby shops or retailers or breakers directly. And so what happened was, because the business was growing so much because of COVID, you had these distributors that were making an absolute fortune at the expense of the consumer and the hobby shops and the breakers. And so we came and said, well, why don't we just like any good brand, an LVMH, a Nike, an Adidas, just take any brand you have respect for. They would never sell through a distributor. So why don't we just service these hobby shops and breakers and retailers directly? They'll make more money. They'll be able to keep prices lower to consumers. And so it was a really easy thing for us to do. And it's funny, we just had our TOPS annual conference a few weeks ago. And one person raised their hand and they stood up and they said, I just wanna thank you because now I can count on getting merchandise from you directly. I'm not paying these inflated prices. And so it's still a business of scarcity and supply and demand. And so if you make a great product, the price goes up and we gotta keep working on making product that we put into Target, Walmart for the masses because that's such an important consumer, keeping those prices where they are and not letting them go up. But there's so much demand for the products we're making because the products are so much better. So it was, in a lot of ways, I think one of the easiest things we've ever done relative to getting into sports gambling, what we've had to do in merchandise because the industry made no sense. We were able to innovate it very quickly. But it was a masterclass in how you navigated the dealings with the teams and the leagues. Can you walk me through a little bit like that year or two that you played this incredible game? So I don't think it was a masterclass. The reason I don't think it was a masterclass, when we went to them and said, look, there's no marketing trading cards. There's not been much innovation at all in the product. The collector experience is awful. There's so much negativity about the collector experience. So many of the hobby shops looked old and tired. If you go into them, these cards aren't cool. It's like the nerdy guy in the corner. And here's our plan for how we're gonna make it much bigger. Oh, by the way, you don't participate in the secondary market. That all goes through eBay. You don't participate in the live commerce market. That's all going through whatnot. By the way, we'll start these businesses, cut you in, give you a higher royalty rate and guarantee it. Honestly, it was like, they're like, how quickly can we get this deal done? It was not a complicated sell. So you had to build the distribution channel and you had to buy tops. Well, I think once we won the rights, which is, I'd say, a relatively easy process because the leagues were like, you walked into a league who was making, they had a guarantee for $10 million a year. Like, hey, I'll guarantee you $40 million a year. And so I'll guarantee you what you're currently making. They think the business is going to go backwards. Then you have all these great ideas. They're like, what the league said to us is, how long can we make the deal? And thank God Finax is standing behind this. Wait, Finax, who we know and love and have a giant partnership with, is going to give us a giant guarantee for a long period of time? They thought we were suckers. Yeah. And you had made them money in licensing for years. I mean, we were paying a billion dollars of royalties, close to a billion dollars of royalties in our original Fangear business. Where can this continue to grow? Baseball is probably the best example. There were less than 10 baseball players that collected baseball cards when we bought Tops January 1st, 2022. Now there's more than 100 current baseball players that collect cards. Think about the debut patch. That was the best invention. I think in the history of trading cards, we put a patch on a player on the first game they play. There's only one in the world. When they get done that first game, we take that patch off them. So, you know, think about if Otani, when he played his first game in the major leagues, we had that debut patch. We weren't doing it yet. Okay. Now we take that, we put that into a one-on-one card. And who wouldn't want to have Otani's first card? Who wouldn't want to have KD's first card? Who wouldn't want to have Michael Jordan's first card? So it's like such a special thing we can do with the debut patch in it. I mean, that's been such an innovation in the trading card business. And the majority of the revenue still comes from the trading cards, right? Yeah, 100%. So what will that business do? I mean, that business next year will be over $3 billion in revenue. And how does that break up across the different verticals and all those secondaries? Yeah, so that's just primary cards, basically. And that's really us selling to hobby shops, us selling directly to collectors, us selling to breakers, us selling to people at Walmart and Target who are really important partners for us. And then we also created a platform called Finax Collect, which is both a live commerce platform and a marketplace. And that'll do over a billion dollars in GMB this year, where we charge about a 10% commission onto the sellers. And that, I think we think will double again next year. And talk about leadership that you mentioned earlier. Mike Mahan with collectibles and Matt King on your gambling vertical are a rock star. They're both beasts. If you don't work with the best talent in the world, you have no chance to be successful. So I can have an idea to get into collectibles. I can have an idea to get into sports gaming. Without Matt King, we wouldn't have the gaming business that we have today. Without Mike Mahan, we wouldn't have the collectibles business we have. And the same goes for Andrew Loki and all the different who runs our commerce business and all the different executives that we have. So you said in 2019, you got your commerce business where you want it to be. No, I said, I got it to a point where it was big enough to where I could think about other things. It's not remotely where I want it to be. When I think about our commerce business today, I think about all the things that we're not doing well. I think about, you know, how do I keep getting better at designing, developing product? I think about how do I keep getting faster to the customer? I think about how do I keep personalizing the experience better? I think about a thousand things that we need to do better. I just got to a point to where I thought we could now reinvent the company into a digital sports platform. I'm not near done in that business. I haven't even started. Is it still the biggest vertical? Yeah, it's about $7 billion this year. Is it continuing to grow every year? Yeah, absolutely. It's a single digit grower today. We're focused on how do we become perfect and we're far from perfect in that business. So what can that grow into? I would hope that the Fanatics commerce business by 2030 is a $15 billion business. Focus solely on licensed products? 100% on licensed products. I think we can double it over the next five years. Are there licenses you guys don't have? I feel like you have everything in the world. No, no, not at all. Do we sell things from everything in the world? Absolutely. I mean, do we work with everyone in one capacity or not? Absolutely. Is there so many more rights for us to acquire? We haven't even acquired a quarter or a third of the rights that we could acquire. Really? Absolutely. What is it all like global sports? I mean, global soccer, we're just getting started in. I mean, if you think even here today, more than half the merchandise we sell are merchandise that we buy from other third-party brands. We buy an NBA jersey that Nike makes. We buy an Adidas college product that they make. We buy a New Era hat. So there are many things that we sell that we don't make. And so there's far more rights for us to acquire over time. And the Travis collaboration was new for what you had done in the past. Is there more of that in store? So you got to think about how do I serve each customer well? It's like we introduced Lululemon this year in a partnership with the NHL and Lululemon. And hockey fans absolutely flipped out for that merchandise, okay? You think about what we're doing with off-season and Kristen and the team there. That's where you're going after a different customer base. So with Travis, what we knew was Travis has a field that nobody else in the market really has a field, but where's culture going? And so he came to us and said, look, I want to make sports products and I want to do them with you. He said, I want to do everything. I want to design the product. I want to pick the product. I want to do everything. He said, Trav, all you, brother, go do it. Whatever you want to do, we're going to do it. It was one of the most successful launches ever. We had an eight-figure launch over a few days with only half the colleges. Wow. And the Lululemon partnership we talked about, so you have the NHL rights. Do you go to Lululemon, license product from them, use your NHL license, and then do it? The way it generally works, look, Lululemon, we knew there was a real need for that type of product. Customers are screaming to us, you don't have that. Customers are telling us, we want this product licensed. Lululemon was off talking to the leagues. And then eventually, the partnership of them making the goods and selling the product to us that we then sell to consumers came to fruition. And Mitchell, Ness, and Lids were two companies you acquired as well, right? Absolutely. And they fall under the commerce business? Yes. So how do they play into the big picture? Look, the way you got to think about it is you have different segments. Lids is a younger customer. Again, more streetwear, cool. I want my different hats is kind of the core business. Mitchell, Ness is more vintage. We also make a lot of Nike merchandise. So all the NFL merchandise from Nike, we actually make that merchandise. And so you serve in each business kind of different customers. And our job is to make sure we can take care of every customer for whatever they want. So it's a $30 billion business. No, you want it to become a $30 billion business. So today, the commerce business is $7 billion business. Yes. We hope it could become a $15 billion business over the next five years. I think you're thinking about kind of our valuation has been in the $25 and $30 billion range. Yeah, I'm just thinking about your valuation, man. Yeah. I'm always thinking about your valuation. And I'm not thinking about it at all because what I want to think about is how do I build the best company in the world? And then we're just getting started with that. And there's so many things that we can be better at. There's so many things that we need to lock in and focus on so we can just keep doing better for the consumer. That's the thing that gets me most excited. We've built a brand that a lot of people know. I want to build the most beloved sports brand in the world. I haven't even started with that yet. Your passion for all three verticals is the exact same. It's like each one of them is your business. Well, I think I have three children. Then I have three businesses. They're also my fourth, fifth, and sixth children. And so that's the way I think about it. I am incredibly passionate about it. I think each has its unique set of opportunities and challenges. And I think that gets me really excited. Can you still think about future verticals or is it too early to think that way? I think it's too early. I think we need to be locked in. The duopoly that exists between Vanduul and DraftKings, they have 75 or 80 percent of the market and I'm a paltry seven and a half percent. Glass Half Full, I've gone from one to seven and a half percent. Glass Half Empty, I ain't ****. And so I got to think about how do we really build that market share? How do we keep making the value proposition better? How do we keep building there? And so in each business, we can tell you all the things that we're not doing well that we need to do better. So it's too early for you to even imagine what a media play could be, a ticketing play, any of that. Correct. And I know I don't want to be in the ticketing business. No one likes the ticketing company. So I don't want to be in a business where nobody likes you. Without question. That experience is always unenjoyable for people. What was the strategy as you thought about someone like Tom Brady or you think about Travis, but what was the thought around Tom Brady and how he adds value to the business? Well, take a step back. I think for me, I say this all the time, we all learn differently. I think you probably learn more like I learn. I'm not, I don't really read. I actually haven't read a book since 9th grade. True story. No one believes me. I do. What's that? I do because it's the same. Yeah. So you've, yeah, I appreciate that. So I don't, I don't read. Now I read emails, but I'm not like reading books. You know, I don't, I wasn't, you know, I was terrible at school. Everyone knows that, you know, 780 combined on my SATs. That's like, you know. That's bad. Get 400 for putting your name on the test. Barely made it out of high school. Didn't go to college. I was going over for part of a semester. And so the way I learned is by having great people around me. And then we each learn from each other. So when you talk about Travis or Tom, I think we're each learning from each other all the time. And I love that. I'm going to learn from you and you're going to learn from me. And so if we take a walk in the Hamptons, we're each asking each other questions. We're learning from each other. And that's kind of the way I grow. And so for me, I think what's been a little different is, one, I believe that we would, I would have nothing to do without the incredible people that play on the field, on the court, on ice. And so I'm hugely appreciative of all the athletes that we've built a business around. Number two, we have direct relationships with 5,000 athletes today. You know, we pay hundreds of millions of dollars directly to athletes that, you know, sign memorabilia and trading cards for us that we have partnerships with. And for that reason, you know, we think about, you know, how we can do great things together. And so my view is, if I'm really invested in the people that we work with that are really important to us, they're going to be really invested in us. And you just build this super authentic, long-term partnership. I think that's what we have. If you're helping each other grow, I want you to do great and you want me to do great. I want to do that with everybody. I want everyone to go up. It's one of the things I don't understand about certain people. Like, I want everyone around me to do great. Yeah, I can attest that that's how you are. Right, and I've always been that way. And other people, like, they're rooting for people to go down. They're rooting against people. I'm not like that, man. I want everyone in the world to do amazing. Like, I want to push everybody up. I can't. People have helped me so much, but I don't want to help everybody around me. So, you know, I think that mentality just makes these relationships extra authentic and special. Who's helped you? Oh, so many people. I mean, you know, the first person I always think about is the Kraft family. I mean, Rob and Jonathan Kraft. I mean, those guys, you know, found me in 2008, 2007. You know, they helped me a lot. I wouldn't be who I was today without them, both from some of the relationships that they helped me forge, but also, you know, just the great business advice that came along in the years. You're learning from all the people that are around me. I mean, people, you know, talk about whether it's, you know, I mean, you brought up Travis and Tommy. I've learned so much from those guys. So, like, I'm always picking nuggets up in every conversation. That's the way I grow. So, you know, I think I wouldn't be where I am today, which is still nowhere, without, you know, the huge influence that so many people have had on me. When you say still nowhere, like, I can understand the mentality. Like, I think people like you, people especially that, like, took this unconventional path, did poorly in school, dropped out of college, have this mind that you have. It's like, you're always going to have this level of, like, imposter syndrome and feeling that you're not there. But do you not take one second to ever look at what you've built? Not one second. I don't care. Like, here's the way I think about it. Until I build a brand that's a beloved brand by hundreds of millions of sports fans, until I build the most important company in sports, one of the most important companies in consumer products, I haven't done ----. But it is. It's not. And by the way, I don't ever want to be covered. I'm just getting going. And you talked about, like, I know while I'm sitting here right now doing this interview with you, there's a bunch of people plotting against me. That's the world we live in. Yeah. And so that's competition. That, by the way, that's healthy, you know? It makes you better. Because, you know, the better your competition is, the better you are. And so I like that. But I'm pretty humble about where we are. Like, you know, I think in our original business, the fan gear business, you know, we're 25% of where we want to get to. Maybe we're half of it from a revenue perspective, you know, all the things I want to do from a product innovation, from a consumer fan experience. We have so much more we can keep doing. We think about it every day. We've just, by the way, in the last year, we've increased NPS, that's Net Promoter Score, by 20 points. It's so hard to do it because consumers tell us they like what we're doing better and better. We've reduced shipping costs. We've increased shipping speeds. We're better in stock. You know, we're just doing so many things better in that business. But we still have so much more to do. In the trading card business, we're launching Premier League next week. NBA 10-1. NFL, spring of next year. We're going to ingest those rights. We're going to double the size of, you know, the finance collect business. In the betting game business, we have a poultry 7.5% market share. So why would I be comfortable? We haven't done sh... Now, I could look back to things that we did wrong in our original business, the commerce business. The thing is with us though, when we make a mistake, we acknowledge it, we fix it, we're right on it. And so that's our mentality. You need to have that mentality. If not, someone's going to take you out. That's just the way it works. Don't you find mistakes motivating in some ways? Love it. Like inspiring. Yeah, absolutely. I was just saying yesterday, we just did something in another business that I'm an investor in and I think it's not working. I said to the CEO of the company, look, you know, we got into the NFT business in 2021, raised $100 million from outside investors. Within four months, I knew it wasn't going to work. We gave our investors the money back basically and said like, this isn't going to work. That was a fast, great L I took. I wasn't embarrassed. So that was, I was proud that I acted quickly. And so, you know, like I like taking Ls. Like you tell me I take an L, great, no problem. I'm going to figure out how am I going to be better? What are we going to do? How are we going to be stronger? If you don't have that mentality, you're going to be, again, you become irrelevant. Why Fanatics Fest? What was the vision around that? I had been to so many music festivals where I just saw these incredible showings. And then when we got in the trading card business, I went to this show called The National. So when you walk into The National, you have two feelings. One, you're overwhelmed and enjoyed by the pure quantity of collectors there. You're like, this is insane. Like what an incredible hobby that I'm fortunate to sit in the middle of. The second thing you see is it feels very antiquated. It feels like something from, you know, 20, 30, 40 years ago. I don't think it really changed much from, you know, when I was in high school and middle school and cared about trading cards. It feels that antiquated. And so then I went to Comic-Con. I'm like, man, this is sick. This is great. Like, why don't sports fans deserve something like this? I think we were lucky. We recognized because I think next year we'll pay close to $2 billion to sports organizations, teams, leagues, players, players' organizations. And we knew that we had the ability to bring everyone together because of that. And so when we called the NBA and the NFL and Major League Baseball and WWE and UFC and NHL and said, hey, we want to create this first-of-a-kind sports festival. People said, hey, you know, Finax, if you're behind it, we're going to do it. We had 70,000 people show up for the first time. I mean, you tell me you came there, you brought Ant and KD. You know, what did you guys think when you came to this, you know, first-of-a-kind sports festival? Mind-blowing. Right. And by this year, it's going to be 50 times better. This year, people that weren't there last year that are coming this year, Nike, Dick's Sporting Goods, USTA, FIFA, Premier League, F1. LeBron. You know, so many people that are coming this year that weren't there last year. So to me, you know, it's kind of an honor for us to be able to create this first-of-a-kind sports festival. It's incredible. You know, I think 70,000 people the first year. I think we'll have more than 100,000 people this year. And, you know, the joy that you see in people's faces to come and they spend whatever it is, 60 or 70 bucks to come and be able to see each activation from each league, all these different athletes and celebrities and artists and streamers all there. It's pretty incredible. And is there a business model behind it? Is there a world where you're making money on this type of thing? This is not something that's ever going to be a moneymaker for Fanatics. I mean, it's about how do we bring together all the best parts of Fanatics, all this sports ecosystem for the sports fan. And it's a marketing moment for Fanatics. It's a marketing moment. Yeah. Can you take this outside of New York? Well, we've had many of the richest countries in the world come to us and say, please bring this to us. We've had many of the biggest states say, please bring this to my city. Like the the outreach to people that are dying to get a Fanatics Fest in their country or city is pretty preposterous. It is the hardest thing I do each year by a mile. Like forget about everything we talked about in our three core businesses. Fanatics Fest is the hardest thing by far, right? You know, organizing hundreds of athletes, celebrities, artists, 100,000 plus fans, all these sports properties together. That is a really hard thing to do, but it's worth it when you see the happiness on all these fans' faces. By the way, last year when we did it for the first year, we got a lot right. We also fucked a lot of things up, OK? Like we didn't have autographs right. We had like crazy lines and things that weren't working with autographs and pictures. And, you know, we had security issues. And, you know, you get back, you say, OK, and then you go into like just a complete focus to how do I fix these things? But that's the way you build any business. And so for me, I think one of the great things is most athletes really care about their fans a lot, OK? And Fanatics Fest is a way that the greatest athletes, streamers, artists, celebrities in the world can connect with their fans in a pretty unique and special way. I love doing that. Yeah, without question. Is there anything else you want to do in your life? Like, is there something still on Michael Rubin's bucket list? You've owned sports teams. You have three wonderful daughters. You traveled the world. You're still building this juggernaut of a business. And I know in your mind, you're just starting. So I believe you when you say that. But is there anything else that you fantasize about in your life? There's nothing else I fantasize. Here's what I say. I'm living my dream every day. Getting to do this 15, 17 hours a day is the greatest joy in the world. If I'd say, what do I want to do in my life? I need to be healthier. I need to take better care of myself. You know, I got to find, you know, I finally, you know, I was like a little pudgy kid a couple of years ago. Now I'm 40 pounds lighter. I'm not like, I don't work out enough. I need to sleep a little bit more. I need to spend a little more time with my kids. I have three incredible kids. And just, you know, how do I, how do I get that balance right? But I just love the action of building Finax, you know, so much that it, you know, I struggle with balance. Yeah, I get it. But do I have an issue? I'm never going to run a sports team again. I've no interest in it. I'm not like, I don't need anything else in my life. Like, I just want to make Finax the greatest company in the world. You know, and then look, I think the other thing is I do love giving back, but I think that's a, like, I think that's a responsibility when you're in my position and you're afforded this incredible opportunity of building a company like ours, you want to make an impact. So we do a lot of that work. We do with the Reform Alliance that, you know, I started with Jay and Meek and Robert Kraft and everybody else. And, you know, I do it with Make-A-Wish. And we love doing stuff like that. Like the amount of wishes we're going to fulfill at Finax Fest is incredible. Any athlete that comes to us that has an open wish and we can get those kids there, we're fulfilling those wishes there. Like that's, that's, that's an honor to do stuff like that. So like, I think I like making a difference in this world because it's fun. But like, what is my ultimate passion? It's building Fanatics. Bro, well, Michael, I feel like we just took one of our beach walks on steroids. Thank you, my friend. I'm honored always to be able to get this game from you and learn more about your business. I appreciate your friendship. This is our June Boardroom cover story with the one and only Michael Rubin. Tune in, subscribe Boardroom.TV. Thank you all for watching. See you later. Love you, brother. Love you.