SBJ Unpacks at World Congress: Where Michael Rubin sees ‘massive growth’ for Fanatics

The first day of the CAA World Congress of Sports featured an agenda packed with some of the biggest names in sports business, and one subject kept coming up: global growth. And that was the cornerstone of Michael Rubin’s discussion with MLB’s Noah Garden as he looked at how Fanatics’ collectibles business and more could find new markets on the global stage.

Also tonight:

• Don Garber touts MLS’ continued growth at World Congress
• Bela Bajaria discusses Netflix’s sports content plan
• A new playbook for CMOs
• World Congress tackles inflation in sports

Listen to SBJ’s most popular podcast, Morning Buzzcast, where Joe Lemire, Austin Karp, Ben Fischer and Chris Smith chime in from the CAA World Congress of Sports with the Masters’ impressive showing on CBS, the NBA’s biomechanics program and a look at the first day of the conference.

Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin shared his vision for further growth centered on its global business through soccer merchandise and in emerging verticals like collectibles and prediction markets.

Taking the stage Wednesday at the CAA World Congress of Sports with MLB Deputy Commissioner/Business and Media Noah Garden, Rubin said Fanatics’ NFL and MLB businesses are both generating around $3 billion in revenue, but its soccer sales are only $1.3 billion, despite it being the more popular global sport. He noted that the international market is only 10%-15% of Fanatics’ business.

Soccer, Rubin added, “should be a multiple of what we do in baseball or the NFL,” with the FIFA men’s World Cup a potential opportunity to drive up interest in the sport broadly. He noted that another international competition, the World Baseball Classic, did $61 million in sales.

“I’m not sure why it could be half the business,” Rubin said of the global market. “So, we think there’s nothing but massive growth ahead of us.”

Rubin acknowledged issues with WBC merchandise inventory and said supply chains supporting licensed sports apparel were traditional and archaic and that Fanatics was looking to reinvent them, musing about the possibility of robots helping create products.

Collectibles were another area ripe for innovation, with Fanatics starting that business in 2022 and already reaching $4.5 billion in revenue last year. Topps had 300 employees at the time Fanatics acquired it, but that has grown to 2,500. Rubin likened new Topps CEO Mike Mahan’s impact on the business to Steve Jobs at Apple.

“We couldn’t find another industry within sports that had done so well by mostly luck,” Rubin said of collectibles, explaining that it needed new products such as debut jersey patches, plus better marketing and distribution. He said digital collectibles were interesting if paired with physical products but were not meaningfully interesting as a standalone business, effectively explaining that the NFT industry was not viable.

Fanatics was the first sportsbook to launch prediction markets in December and welcomed the change in offering, with Rubin saying, “I always believe you better disrupt yourself versus having somebody else disrupt you.” While acknowledging the uncertain future around possible regulation in the space, he said right now the sportsbook was only available in 24 states in a fully regulated and taxed market — conditions under which it generated $1.6 billion in revenue and ranked a distant third behind FanDuel and DraftKings.

“If you’re asking me how I feel about it, I couldn’t be in California or Texas or Florida or Georgia with a fully regulated product where I pay taxes,” Rubin said of sportsbooks. “Now I can have prediction markets in those states without paying taxes. So yes, I very much like this business.”

The overall Fanatics ecosystem has 140 million customers, with spending growing considerably when people are engaged in more than one vertical, he said, adding that a record 175,000 people are expected at this year’s Fanatics Fest.

MLS Commissioner Don Garber pushed back against skeptics of the league’s growth trajectory, pointing to a collective enterprise value he said exceeds $25B and its stability relative to top European leagues.

During a one-on-one interview at the CAA World Congress of Sports, SBJ’s Abe Madkour told Garber he had recently had lunch with four sports executives who expressed skepticism about MLS’ growth prospects. In response, Garber suggested many who are bearish on MLS’ prospects are older men who have been saying “soccer will never make it in America” for decades. He countered by citing the combined valuation of the league and its 30 clubs, as well as the fact MLS ranks second globally in total attendance among soccer leagues, behind only the Premier League.

He also asserted that a prospective investor would be better off purchasing an MLS franchise than a Premier League club. As proof points, he cited the massive financial losses suffered by some of the sport’s biggest European clubs, the risk inherent in promotion and relegation and the relative difficulty of building new venues in Europe compared to North America.

“[The investor is] going to buy an MLS team, he is going to build a great stadium, he’s going to have young, diverse, largest Latino fan base of any pro sports league. And guess what? He’s not going to get relegated,” Garber said.

He also pointed to several industry titans who have acknowledged missing out by not investing in MLS in its early days.

“Ted Leonsis said the worst decision he ever made in sports was not buying D.C. United for $35M -- they’re raising money at $950M. David Blitzer looked at MLS for many, many years -- could have bought the Philadelphia Union for $30M, ended up coming into Real Salt Lake for hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars,” Garber said. “At that time, they didn’t believe what MLS would be able to do, how it would capture a new audience -- the most diverse audience in sports.”

At the end of the session, Madkour and Garber gauged the audience’s enthusiasm about MLS’ business prospects, with Garber asking who would want to invest in an MLS team and Madkour asking who is bullish on the league’s future. Both received strong response in the form of raised hands.

Whitecaps in peril: Garber reiterated the Whitecaps are at risk of relocation due to unfavorable stadium economics and limited government support in Vancouver. Asked about attractive expansion markets, he pointed to Las Vegas, Sacramento, Phoenix and Tampa -- all of which could also emerge as potential relocation candidates.

Still happy with Apple: Even after MLS shortened its media rights deal with Apple by three years, Garber said he remains largely satisfied with the partnership. “In light of what we know today, we would do the same deal other than the subscription,” he said. The league this season eliminated the separate subscription package, moving matches into Apple TV’s broader platform. He added that he would prefer Apple to be more transparent with viewership data.

Netflix has been investing in the unscripted business since 2016, but as the company’s business has evolved, so has its appetite for sports content -- and that has the industry paying attention. Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s chief content officer, sat with Elle Duncan at the CAA World Congress of Sports and went through the overarching strategy behind what Netflix is seeking to do in sports.

“We want to be great at everything,” Bajaria said. “We knew there were certain kinds of programming that have to be live, and should be live. And we like things that are buzzy and conversational and surprising for the audience. And we knew at that point we had to build live capabilities. And that sounds basic probably to all of you, but when you are built as Netflix -- which is consumer choice and control, on demand, watch what you want -- the entire thing is built that way. And so to actually do something live and say, ‘This is the time we want you to watch something,’ is just a different strategy.”

Bajaria noted the ethos for sports revolves around “go big or go home,” like with the World Baseball Classic being their debut with the sport in Japan.

She called sports “the best soap opera” because the genre “very much connects to great storytelling.” Bajaria used the “Drive to Survive” show as an example of getting fans invested in a sport, and that subsequently leads to fandom for live events -- even if on another platform.

But Bajaria also made it a point to note that Netflix is first and foremost “an entertainment company.” And it was that thinking that led the company to do a halftime show for its Christmas Day NFL doubleheader. “Everybody’s like, ‘Oh, people don’t normally do halftime,” she said of the effort that started with Beyonce in 2024. “We’re like, ‘Well, obviously we know that, but we’re trying to … add a little zhuzh.”

Sports marketers are rethinking how they spend, who they work with and how they show up with consumers, moving beyond traditional sponsorship models and toward strategies built on collaboration, calculated risk and deeper cultural connection.

Speaking Wednesday at the CAA World Congress of Sports in L.A., New Balance Brand President and CMO Chris Davis and Samsung Electronics America’s Keena Grigsby, CMO and VP/Mobile Experience, outlined how their organizations are approaching athlete partnerships, increased social and digital investment and brand growth in a panel that CAA Sports’ Adam Sloan moderated.

A central theme is that today’s sports partnerships must go beyond logo placement and traditional endorsement deals. Davis said that New Balance views its athlete relationships as “co-authored,” with talent helping shape products, campaigns and storytelling.

He added that the company takes an athlete-first approach, using larger league and team relationships as amplifiers for those stories. New Balance partners with athletes such as Mavericks F Cooper Flagg and Dodgers P/DH Shohei Ohtani, then connects those relationships with broader properties like the NBA or MLB to extend reach.

Grigsby said that Samsung applies a similar approach, prioritizing authentic integrations that connect products, talent and media rather than inorganically attaching athletes to campaigns.

She pointed to Samsung’s recent NCAA men’s and women’s basketball tournament activations, which included a campaign featuring Duke basketball freshmen F Cameron Boozer and G Cayden Boozer and their father, former NBAer Carlos Boozer, alongside social media, giveaways, seat upgrades and media partnerships with House of Highlights and Bleacher Report. Grigsby said the effort was built to ensure the company had a “360 integrated campaign.”

Both panelists described their brands as challengers, even at global scale, and said that mindset influences how they allocate marketing dollars.

Davis detailed New Balance’s internal “50-30-20” framework: 50% of spend goes toward proven tactics, 30% toward calculated risk and 20% toward highly experimental ideas with a higher probability of failure. Successful experiments then move into larger budget buckets over time. Davis: “At the end of the day, we’re trying to act like a 120-year-old startup company.”

Grigsby added that Samsung has similarly been shifting more investment into digital and social platforms: “I’m not saying that linear TV is dead, it’s not. But we have been doubling down on our social and digital approach.”

Women’s sports and emerging properties were another focus. Grigsby noted Samsung’s founding partnership with Unrivaled, allowing the brand to reach female basketball audiences in a more authentic way. The company created a Samsung Rest Club where athletes can recover, recharge and review performance insights after games.

Davis and Grigsby noted their companies do not separate men’s and women’s sports internally, instead categorizing talent by “face of brand” and “face of sport.” Davis pointed to athletes such as women’s tennis player Coco Gauff and track and field stars Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone and Gabby Thomas as central to the company’s growth and cultural positioning.

Davis: “I don’t think it matters if they’re male or female. ... If an athlete can transcend sport, they can transcend sport.”

Amid a discussion centered on budget allocation, media platforms and growth strategy, both panelists returned to the emotional value of sports. Davis recounted one lesson he gets from watching his three daughters play soccer, simply saying, “Sports are fun.”

LOS ANGELES -- Inflation has become a global concern, but how is it impacting the sports economy?

Leaders in the NFL and Premier League were among the panelists who discussed the topic -- and shared views on other industry issues -- in the opening session of the CAA World Congress of Sports on Wednesday at the JW Marriott Los Angeles L.A. Live.

Kroenke Sports & Entertainment President of Team and Media Operations Kevin Demoff said teams have “a very good idea” of the “pressure points” that fans are experiencing when it comes to affordability to attend live sporting events.

“It’s not just the price of your tickets. It is about the price of your concessions and … the price of parking, the price of transportation,” said Demoff, who oversees KSE teams including the Rams, Nuggets and Avalanche. “A fan looks at their total bill when they come to a game.”

NFL EVP & Chief Revenue Officer Renie Anderson said that, while the league is not “feeling those pressures today,” it is “always really mindful” of its partners and fans.

“It’s really important that we provide great experiences for our fans at all levels that are variety of levels, from high end [to] those that are more affordable in a variety of ways. … We’re really focused on fan engagement, that fan accessibility, especially during times like this.”

Premier League Chief Commercial Officer Will Brass said inflation “headwinds” are not just being felt in the U.K. but “also in international markets where we might be present.”

“Ultimately, of course, what matters is that you manage all of those relationships, particularly with the end consumer, the fan, in a way that doesn’t deter them from playing their part in the sport, feeling part of the sport,” Brass said. “And today, our partners have done a good job of managing that.”

Raiders President Sandra Douglass Morgan said the team has “a high season ticket member base that’s still going to show up” but is looking to provide “low-cost options” for fans who travel to Las Vegas for games.

“We don’t want to take advantage of the fact that people are coming to our games to kind of escape all the other pressures around the world,” Douglass Morgan said. “We want to be cognizant of it and still offer low-cost options, whether it’s free open training camp practices or draft day experiences that are really low cost to keep that fan base still engaged.”

The discussion shifted to international growth, and it produced the most lighthearted comment from Anderson about the NFL’s overseas ambitions with its annual series of games outside the U.S., particularly in the U.K. where the Premier League resides.

“So we want people thinking about the NFL 365 days a year, which we do,” Anderson said. “But if there’s a day or two where they can think about soccer, that’s OK.”

Brass acknowledged that the Premier League has “a similar view” in that “there’s room for everyone.” However, he did hint at the competition between the two behemoths in football and soccer.

Said Brass: “In the end, and maybe taking it on a step to state the obvious, you live in a world where winner takes most.”

“We don’t spend our days in sort of dark tunnels or with blinkers on thinking only about one thing, so there is clearly room to coexist,” he added. “The key thing though is to sit [on] the right side of the line where you have the opportunity to have oxygen around your quality product to bring fans in, I think.”

• A federal jury in New York City determined on Wednesday that Live Nation operated as an illegal monopoly at both the federal and state levels, bringing a nearly two-month trial to an end and re-igniting a long-lingering question about a Live Nation-Ticketmaster breakup, reports SBJ’s Ethan Joyce.
• Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund is on the verge of cutting its support for LIV Golf, writes SBJ’s Josh Carpenter, as sources tell the Financial Times that an announcement could come as soon as Thursday but add a final decision has not been made about the league’s future.
• Louisville will host USA Gymnastics’ 2028 U.S. Olympic team trials, reports SBJ’s David Broughton, with 15 days of events at the KFC Yum Center and the Kentucky International Convention Center from June 5-19, 2028.
• CBS averaged 14 million viewers Sunday for Rory McIlroy’s win in the Masters, the best viewership total for the final round in 11 years, writes Carpenter. Also: The network is adding “Scorecard,” a post-round show following Saturday and Sunday telecasts.
• The NBA saw its best regular-season viewership since 2018-19, averaging 1.78 million viewers in the first year of media pacts with ESPN/ABC, NBC/Peacock and Prime Video, reports SBJ’s Austin Karp.
• Fubo became an 11th-hour suitor of the 13 NBA teams that have just exited Main Street Sports Group, multiple sources told SBJ’s Tom Friend, with a hybrid direct-to-distributer and direct-to-consumer model that would include rights fees likely in the vicinity of $10 million.
• The Big 12 reorganized some of its senior-level staffers, with CFO Nick Bowes taking on an expanded position as its COO, writes SBJ’s Ben Portnoy.
• Carpenter also notes that Bryan Karns, one of the PGA of America’s top officials, is taking a sponsorship job with GSE Worldwide as VP/golf sponsorship sales.
• Wednesday’s op-ed explores whether the College Sports Commission should become a nonprofit in this semipro era of college athletics.