Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin on two sports businesses he’ll never enter

Since founding Fanatics in 2011, Michael Rubin has built the company from a small online retailer of sports merchandise and apparel into a massive global sports platform.

Not only is Fanatics by far the largest player in sports apparel, with deals with nearly every major league on the planet, but it also now has a substantial footprint in collectibles, sports betting, and prediction markets. The company is even launching its own branded credit card this year.

Fanatics’ wide net across sports and sports fandom came to life this week at the annual Fanatics Fest, the company’s effort to create a Comic Con-style event for sports fans that is now in its third year.

Rubin, speaking with CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin at the CNBC Sport x Boardroom Game Plan Summit on Thursday, held alongside Fanatics Fest in New York City, said that the company expected more than 200,000 people to attend the event over its four-day run.

That is on top of the more than 150 million fans that are now customers of Fanatics somewhere across its various sports-focused businesses, whether that’s from buying a jersey, trading cards, or placing a bet.

Rubin, in an appearance on CNBC in May, said that the company will approach $14 billion in revenue this year. By comparison, the company had about $8 billion in total revenue in 2024, according to previous CNBC reporting.

“We believe we have probably the biggest opportunity in sports because it’s not like we’re in one specific business,” Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan. “I think of us really as a platform that gives a digital sports fan everything they want.”

Fanatics, with its three revenue focuses of merchandise, collectibles, and betting and gaming, “should create the most important company in sports,” Rubin said. “We think that could be the most valuable company in sports.”

The company’s last public funding round was in December 2022, when it raised $700 million, valuing it at $31 billion. The company, which has made the CNBC Disruptor 50 list three times, has been rumored to be interested in going public in recent years, but Rubin said on CNBC last year that “There’s no rush to be a public company.”

But even with all of that success, Rubin told Sorkin at Game Plan that, “We think there are several opportunities to create new businesses that we’re not in, leveraging the relationships we have with customers, with sports properties, with the athletes.”

“We think there’s a lot of growth for us,” Rubin said. “I’d say a decade from now, I bet you we have a few businesses that are equally as important to the three that we have today.”

Rubin declined…