Michael Rubin on Building Fanatics Into a Billion-Dollar Empire

Yahoo

14 hours ago

Michael Rubin lives a life. Take a few swipes down your Instagram feed, and you're likely to see him chopping it up with Hall of Fame athletes or Grammy Award-winning musicians. He's seemingly everywhere all the time. Every big game, the most exclusive parties.
But none of that really excites the 52-year-old. Spend enough time talking to the the mercurial Philly-born businessman and you learn that the thing that occupies the majority of his mental is Fanatics, the company he's grown since 2011 from a from a small offshoot of GSI Commerce, which he sold to eBay for $2.4 billion, to a sports merchandising and gambling empire unlike anything we've seen before.
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The journey has taken immense vision and risk tolerance, forethought and confidence, and, above all, steadfast leadership. But, to let Rubin tell it, that success can be traced back to what he believes are two of his core strengths: Sizing up a company or opportunity and figuring out whether or not it's even a good business to be in. 'I think one of my strengths is [being] able to size up what's a big and interesting business,' he says from his palatial Westside headquarters. 'Two, can we do something to make it better? And then also, is it a good business to be in?'
Those three principles have backed most of the decisions made around the growth of the Fanatics business, from it being a simple e-commerce sports business to locking down deals with all the big leagues to it transforming into a tech and logistics platform used by the teams in those leagues.
(David Cabrera)
But the big rocket ship moment came in 2018 when Fanatics inked a 10-year deal with the NFL that would make it the exclusive manufacturer and distributor of all Nike-branded NFL merchandise. This gave the company an enviable position in the sports merchandise market and allowed it to gain market share at a rapid clip.
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Then COVID hit.
When nearly every company was simply trying to find ways to stay solvent and keep its employees on payroll, Rubin and Fanatics were thinking bigger and looking towards the future. Instead of resting on its impressive laurels, it raised billions to power growth in key new sectors like sports betting, ticketing, and NFTs. The latter being the first true public fumble Rubin has taken in the business world.
'I knew it wasn't going to work,' he remembers. 'We gave our investors the money back basically and said, this isn't going to work.' Instead of retreating out of embarrassment, Rubin kept his head up and plowed ahead, asking himself and those around him, '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'll become irrelevant.'
One growth sector that turned out to be a massive win has been Fanatics Fest. And not for the reasons you may think. Billed as the 'world's largest arena for sports and collectibles,' it's basically become a combination of Rolling Loud and ComicCon for sports fans. But, unlike Rubin's other endeavors, this one isn't meant to make money. That's right, one of Fanatics' newest and most popular consumer brands isn't meant to directly impact the company's revenue. It's all one big marketing activation. 'It's about how do we bring together all the best parts of fanatics, all this sports ecosystem for the sports fan,' says Rubin. In that way, with a consumer base that is increasingly difficult to reach, it may be one of the most valuable pieces of IP the company owns.
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As his team prepare for the 2025 Fanatics Fest, I sat down with Rubin, a longtime friend, to get into the weeds about what makes his sports empire really run, what's it like acquiring storied brands like Lids and Mitchell & Ness, what he's learned over the years, and where he sees it all going in the future.
This interview has been edited for length & clarity
Rich Kleiman: Your story, which never gets old, has been told, and the idea that you built this from the ground up and the way that you just kick doors down your entire life is something that I think everybody has been inspired by. You were successful going into [the COVID-19 pandemic]. You had built something spectacular going into COVID, but, as a friend, I felt like something flipped in your brain that changed your outlook on what you were building and what you wanted to accomplish. Is that true?
Michael Rubin: Well, first, I don't see it like that. I truly feel like we're just getting started. I tell people that all the time, and people look at me like I have seven heads. Like, why do you think that way? But to me, you've always got to stay humble, hungry, think big, keep pushing. I don't ever not want to reflect on where we are. I kind of 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 going.
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RK: When people hear you say that, they think you have seven heads, but they also know that that's what makes you great. If you were resting on your laurels, you wouldn't be who you are. I imagine that the paranoia that I always hear when I hear you talk about your businesses, as if somebody's chasing you, almost, is what drives you every day.
MR: I just wish it was one person who was chasing me. It's actually multiple people at all moments, including kids on top of it.
RK: 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.
MR: I think the real thing that happened was when we started ... they said, 'Hey, we've got a couple of businesses we don't want. And so, we bought back Fanatics. It was a small business, nothing like what it is today. And I really thought this business wasn'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 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, were really focused on how do we materially grow the business, enhance the fan experience, really build a business that was built to last.
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I didn't think we had the chance to think bigger, and so I really solidified that business. Even though COVID was something that was just starting, 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 for Next Commerce, which is fan gear, to launching the trading card and 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.
(David Cabrera)
RK: When you're analyzing this, you have 80 million-plus customers that are engaged with Fanatics. How do you land on those two verticals?
MR: There's a lot of things I suck at and a lot of things that — you look at any person, they've got strengths and weaknesses. I think one of my strengths is [being] 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're going to 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 ticket company they buy from. It's super competitive. And for us, we want to offer tickets to our customers, but we don't want to be a ticketing platform.`
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So, when I looked at the business we were in — the fan gear business and e-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 that, in addition to the business that we were in, we loved the betting and gaming business. We loved the collectibles business.
And then we also looked at the media business. There's so many credible companies, whether it's Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Netflix, that were going to be getting into this business, and anyone who said they weren't getting into 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 want to watch and learn there. That's not a business I'm going to get into, and 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.
RK: When you set out the strategy, I would imagine 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?'
MR: I think it was a really easy conversation, and what made it so easy is that it was like an obvious evolution. People said to us for years, 'You should get into this sports betting business.' People said to us for years, 'You should get in the trading card business.' People told us for years, 'You should get into the ticketing business.' Years, should get into the media business. So for years, people came to us with all these different ideas, but like, hey, we've got to really focus on the next commerce and the fan gear business. It wasn't until 2019, 2020, we really started to think about what's next. And so, going to investors and saying, 'Look, we're now going to grow the business into a digital sports platform. They're like, 'We've been telling you that for years,' and they're just nothing but excitement and passion around it. It's such a natural thing to say, 'Look, 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.
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RK: 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 that there are some people who are great entrepreneurs and innovators, there are some great CEOs, and then there are great fundraisers and people who truly know how to raise money. You are really good at raising money. Would you agree?
MR: No, I don't. I think if you have the right consumer value proposition, you have the right business strategy, and people can air-check the math, and then all of the diligence kind of validates the air check and their math. It's a pretty easy decision to go to somebody to 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 going to be just in North America alone. Look at how big the collectible business is going to be. And we'd already signed these deals to 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 want to do this,' because it's such a massive opportunity.
RK: So, what was the strategy for the gambling vertical?
MR: So, for the betting and gaming business, it was pretty natural that the biggest cost for companies like DraftKings and FanDuel was acquiring customers. And we already 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 obviously, look, if the biggest expense is customer acquisition, we have so many direct relationships with a hundred-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, then wow, what a massive opportunity we have. A brand that everybody knows and respects, a hundred million plus customers, and then we take a value prop and make it better.
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The reason our value prop is better is that, one, we have a really great product. You say it to me all the time, that people tell you how much they like the Fanatics Sportsbook. No. 2, every time you bet with us, you earn fan cash. And so it's a better value proposition. We're going to give away, next year, 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 Topps. So, you've got this pretty incredible currency, and every time you bet, we're going to 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. It's kind of like free insurance.
RK: So, when you're in a sector like that where you have two dominant players, does the goal start to become to go for the top guys? Or is it to go and gain market share and figure out your place and fine-tune your product?
MR: First of all, you know me to be a very transparent person. I have huge respect for FanDuel and DraftKings. They're both great companies, and they're very dominant players. People say to me all the time, Hey, there's a duopoly between FanDuel and DraftKings.. You have no chance. I fucking love that. Go tell your guy. KD has no chance in the basketball game. He's going to say, fuck you, I'm going to go dominate that game. So, for me, people telling us we have no chance in business, that's love. That's love language, too.
RK: Where are you now in market share, and where are DraftKings and FanDuel?
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MR: Today, we have about 7-7.5% of the sports market. Two years in, not even two years into it, 20 months into it. FanDuel and DraftKings have 75, 80% of the market combined. So call it ... 35, 40% of the market. That's OK, we're in this for the long term. We got a good value proposition. We keep making that value proposition better. And to me, the question is, how do our customers feel about using Fanatics Sportsbook? And the feedback I'm getting is that people love it and that they feel like it's a better deal, it's a better value proposition. They like the product.
RK: Can you talk about the numbers you'll do?
MR: Last year was our first year of 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 on our revenue.
RK: And that's how much of the market share?
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MR: In sports? About seven and half percent. 7%, but it's grown every month too.
(David Cabrera)
RK: And for context, what would FanDuel or DraftKings do on a year?
MR: 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.
RK: Even 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.
MR: Look, I remember when we started in the fan gear business 2011, we were a distant No. 3, No. 4 player. Now we're a strong leader in collectibles. We started in 2022, and now we're the leader. And I'd be full of shit if I said, I didn't sit here saying I dream about being number one and to me, I'm going to work tirelessly to become number one. Now, I think if FanDuel and DraftKings here that they laugh at me and they say it's got no fucking shot. But great. How many athletes? And by the way, I'm the worst athlete in the world. I think I've publicly shown a few times, but how many times you go tell someone they can't do something, they just want to do it that much more.
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RK: Yeah. So, in the collectibles vertical, you saw an opportunity as well.
MR: 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 had three companies, Panini, Topps, Upper Deck, that were all, I'd say, living off 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 just being blunt, how bad the competition was.
RK: And it felt like the way you saw it was pretty interesting to a lot of people. There was a bubble that was being created during COVID, right? 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.
MR: No, it's what everybody thought. And to be honest, had we not entered it, I think that's what would've happened.
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RK: 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?
MR: I don't think it was a masterclass. The reason I don't think it was a master class, when we went to them and said, 'Look, there's no marketing trading cards. There has not been much innovation at all in the product. The collector experience is awful. There's so much negativity about the collector experience.' All these, by the way, so many of the hobby shops looked old entirely, 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 going to 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 road 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.
RK: Where can this continue to grow?
MR: Baseball is probably the best example. There were less than 10 baseball players who collected baseball cards when we bought Topps, Jan. 1, 2022. Now, there are more than a hundred current baseball players who 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 of 'em. So think about it, Ani, when he played his first game in the major leagues, we had that debut patch. We weren't doing it yet. Now we take that, we put that into a one-on-one card, and who will want to have Ohtani's first card? Who will want to have KD's first card? Who will want to have Michael Jordan's first card? So, it's such a special thing we can do with the debut patch in it. I mean, that's been such an innovation, the trading card business.
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RK: So, you said in 2019, you've got your commerce business where you wanted to be?
MR: 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 how do I keep getting better at design and developing product. I think about how do I keep getting faster at 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 on that. I haven't even started.
RK: And the Travis Scott collaboration was new for what you had done in the past. Is there more of that in store?
MR: So, you got to think about, How do I serve each customer well? We introduced Lululemon this year in a partnership with the NHL and Lululemon, and hockey fans absolutely flipped out for that merchandise. You think about what we're doing with the offseason and Kristen and the team there, you're going after a different customer base. So with Travis, what we knew was Travis has a feel that nobody else really has spelled out where is 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.' We said, 'Trav, all you brother, go do it. Whatever you want to do, we're going to do.' And it was one of the most successful launches ever. We had an eight-figure launch over a few days with only half the colleges.
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RK: And Mitchell and Ness and Lids were two companies you acquired as well, right? How do they play into the big picture?
MR: Look, the way you got to think about it, you have different segments. Lids is like a younger customer. Again, more streetwear. Cool. I want my different hats as 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. Our job is to make sure we can take care of every customer for whatever they want.
RK: Can you still think about future verticals, or is it too early to think that way?
MR: I think it's too early. I think we need to be locked in on how do we keep this. Again, if you looked at each business we sat down and talked about with the CEO of each of these three businesses, what do they need to do? They have so many things that they need to do. And so we're talking about the duopoly that exists between FanDuel and DraftKings, that they have 75 or 80% of the market. ... I ain't shit. 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.
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RK: What was the strategy as you thought about someone like Tom Brady and how he adds value to the business?
MR: 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 don't really read. I actually haven't read a book since ninth grade. True story. No one believes me. ... I don't read now. I read emails, but I'm not reading books. I was terrible at school. Everyone knows that, 780 combined on my SATs. That's bad. You have 400 for putting your names on the test. ... And so the way I learned is by having great people around me, and then we each learn from each other. So we each 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 start 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've nothing to do without the incredible people that play on the field, on the court, on the ice. And so I'm hugely appreciative of all the athletes that we build a business around.
No. 2, we have to direct relationships with 5,000 athletes today. We pay hundreds of millions of dollars directly to athletes who sign memorabilia and trading cards for us that we have partnerships with. And for that reason, we think about how we can do great things together. And so my view is if I'm really invested in the people that we work with, who 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 with certainly any of the key athletes and most of the big athletes. We have truly special partnerships, and then we're trying to help them in the things that are important to them. I mean, I spend a lot of time, I bet you 20% of my week goes to helping my friends and things that they're very involved in and invested. And I think that that pays dividends just because your relationship is that much stronger and 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 grow up. It's one of the things I don't understand about certain people. I want everyone around me to do fucking great.
RK: Yeah, I can attest that that's how you are.
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MR: For sure. And I've always been that way. And other people, 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. I want to push everybody up. I can. People have helped me so much. Why do I not want to help everybody around me? So I think that mentality just makes these relationships extra authentic and special.
RK: Who's helped you?
MR: Oh, so many people. I mean, the first person I always think about is the Kraft family. I mean Robert, Jonathan Kraft. I mean, those guys found me in 2008, 2007. 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 just the great business advice that came along the years learning from all the people that are around me. I mean, you brought up Travis and Tommy, I've learned so much from those guys. I'm always picking nuggets up in every conversation. That's the way I grow.
RK: When you say still nowhere, I can understand the mentality. I think people like you, people especially who 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 impostor syndrome and feeling that you're not there. But do you not take one second to ever look at what you've built?
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MR: Not one second. I don't care. 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 shit.
RK: But it is.
MR: It's not. It's not. And by the way, I don't ever want to be covered. I'm just getting going. And you talked about, 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.
And so that's competition, that by the way, that's healthy. It makes you better. You know what? The better your competition is, the better you are. And so I like that, but I'm pretty humble about where we are. I think in our original business, the fan gear business, we're 25% of where we want to get to. Maybe we're half from a revenue perspective, but from all things I want to do from a product innovation, from a consumer perspective, 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 are telling us they like what we're doing better and better. We've reduced shipping costs, we've increased shipping speeds, we're better on stock. We're just doing so many things better than business. But we still have so much more to do in the trading card business. ... Why would I be comfortable? We haven't done shit.
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Now, I could look back to things that we did wrong in our original business, the commerce business. The thing is with us that when we make a mistake, we acknowledge it, we fix it, we're right on it. And so that's our mentality, and you need to have that mentality. If not, someone's going to take you out. That's just the way it works.
RK: Don't you find mistakes motivating in some ways love 'em, like inspiring?
MR: Yeah, absolutely. 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, we got into the NFT business in 2021, raised a hundred million dollars from outside investors within four months. I knew it wast going to work. We gave our investors the money back basically and said, this isn't going to work. That was a fast great ally oop, and I wasn't embarrassed, so I was proud that I acted quickly. I like taking Ls, you tell me I take an outbreak, 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] become irrelevant.
RK: Why FanaticsFest? What was the vision around that?
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MR: I had been to so many music festivals where I just saw these incredible showings. And then when we got on the trading card business, I went to the 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 that you're like, this is insane. What an incredible, 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 20, 30, 40 years ago. I don't think it really changed much from when I was in high school and middle school and cared about trading cards. It Like that, antiquated. And so then I went to Comic-Con like, man, this is sick. This is great. Why can't we 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 WW and UFC and NHL and said, Hey, we want to create this first all kind sports festival, people said, Hey fanatic, 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 told me you came there, you brought Ant and kd. What'd you guys think when you came to this first-of-a-kind sports festival.
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. So many people that are coming this year that weren't there last year. So to me, it's kind of an honor for us to be able to create this first-of-a-kind sports festival. It's incredible. I think 70,000 people the first year. I think we'll have more than a hundred thousand people this year. And the joy that you see in people's faces ... and be able to see each activation from each sleeve, all these different athletes and celebrities and artists and streamers all there. That's incredible. It's pretty incredible.
(David Cabrera)
RK: Can you take this outside of New York?
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MR: Look, 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 state. The outreach to people who 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. Forget about everything we talked about in our three core businesses. Fanatics Fest is the hardest thing by far and away, organizing hundreds of athletes, celebrities, and artists, a hundred thousand-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. And 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. Okay, we didn't have autographs, right? We had crazy lines and things that weren't working with autographs and pictures, and we had security issues. And you get back, you say, 'OK,' then you go into just a complete focus on 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 that most athletes really care about their fans a lot. 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. And I love doing that.
RK: Yeah. Without question, is there anything else you want to do in your life? Is there something still on Michael Rubin's bucket list? You've owned sports teams, you have three wonderful daughters. You've 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?
MR: 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. I was a little pudgy kid a couple of years ago. Now, I'm 40 pounds lighter. 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 how do I get that balance? But I just love the action of building Fanatics so much that I struggle with balance.
But I'm never going to own a sports team again. I have no interest in it. I don't need anything else in my life. I just want to make Fanatics the greatest company in the world. And then look, I think the other thing is I do love giving back, but 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 it with the REFORM Alliance that I started with Jay and Meek Mill and Robert Kraft and everybody else. And I do it with Make-A-Wish, and we love doing stuff like that. ... That's an honor to do stuff like that. So, I think I like making a difference in this world because it's fun.
But what is my ultimate passion? It's building Fanatics.