A painting hangs just outside Michael Rubin’s Fanatics Manhattan office with a message that might as well be his motto.
“Let’s F*kin Go,” it reads.
Rubin, the Fanatics CEO who built the global sports platform, never sits down during a 20-minute video interview with the Daily News.
He rocks. He paces. He speaks directly, confidently and without equivocation. He is days away from hosting the second annual Fanatics Fest at New York City’s Javits Center, which kicks off Friday in New York.
And he is all in.
“That’s my mentality in everything I do and we do as a company,” Rubin said of the painting. “You just have to go for it.”
Fanatics Fest is a massive, three-day sports bonanza of fan experiences, celebrity meet-and-greets, autograph signings and star-studded panels headlined by the likes of LeBron James, Tom Brady, Victor Wembanyama, Jayden Daniels and Joe Burrow.
And Rubin is leaving nothing to chance — just as he did while shepherding Fanatics into a global licensing and merchandising powerhouse that makes and sells the Knicks jersey you’re wearing right now.
He spent four hours reviewing 38 athlete and celebrity schedules the night before to maximize each star’s fan interactions. He’s about to fly to Indianapolis to hold some meetings and attend Game 3 of the NBA Finals.
And he plans to leave at halftime so he can get another five-hour night’s sleep to do it again.
Because this weekend is about more than Rubin harnessing his network to build an even bigger event than last year’s, which attracted 70,000 fans to Manhattan’s west side.
(Courtesy of Fanatics)
The second edition of Fanatics Fest kicks off Friday at the Javits Center in Manhattan.
It’s Rubin’s baby. It’s Fanatics’ flagship. And there is nothing else like it.
Take Giants rookie quarterback Jaxson Dart: Two months ago, the Giants traded back into the NFL Draft’s first round to select Dart as their future franchise QB.
This weekend, Dart will be on the Javits Center floor interacting face-to-face with hopeful fans who are buying his No. 6 jersey (from Fanatics) — he is already an exclusive Fanatics athlete before having taken an official NFL snap — and praying that Big Blue has found a cure to its irrelevance.
Maybe Dart will be shooting hockey pucks in the NHL activation area.
Maybe he’ll be on the trading card floor, doing breaks and opening packs of cards like the Boston Celtics’ Grant Williams, who landed his own card last year and autographed it right then and there for fans.
It’s not an Instagram reel. It’s real life.
It’s fans putting Dart’s face to the name on the back of his jersey. It’s Dart seeing and hearing, first hand, the fans he will try to win games for.
“This is a place where everybody just wants to win, they want to be the top of everything, and as a competitor, that’s exactly where I want to be,” Dart told The News on the “Talkin’ Ball with Pat Leonard” podcast Thursday. “I want that expectation for myself and everybody around me. An environment like that helps me play to my potential.”
The biggest difference between last year’s inaugural Fanatics Fest and this year’s is that it’s happening two months earlier.
Last year’s kicked off in August, and while it was successful in many ways, it was difficult for Rubin to attract active NFL players because they were already in the middle of training camp.
Holding it in June resolves that issue. Nearly 50 NFL players, including almost half the league’s starting quarterbacks, will be at the Javits Center this weekend.
But Rubin is the first person to admit that the 2024 version of Fanatics Fest was a learning experience as much as it was validation of his vision.
“I had no idea whether it was going to work or not,” Rubin said. “The first year, we got a lot right. We also screwed a lot of things up. So the ability to kind of go back and just learn from everything we didn’t get right last year and we want to get right this year is pretty exciting.”
The No. 1 correction this year, Rubin said, is a cleanup of the autograph and photo process that led to long lines and general confusion.
(Courtesy of Fanatics)
This year’s Fanatics Fest was moved to June to allow better attendance from NFL stars.
“I think the biggest thing we screwed up was how we had autographs and pictures,” he said. “We basically had people [buy] VIP passes, and we let you get access into the lines with the VIP pass. That screwed up the entire autograph and photo thing.”
“We went back and completely revamped that this year,” he said. “That, I think, was a disaster last year. I think that will be good this year. It better be good this year, or there’ll be a disaster here.”
Rubin’s quip about internal consequences comes across like the words etched in his painting: It’s funny, but it’s not a joke.
Safety-wise, last year’s Fanatics Fest went off mostly without a hitch.
When artist Travis Scott appeared on a panel with Rubin and Michael Strahan and held an impromptu performance on stage, however, some fans said the crowded rush through barricades to the doors created a potentially scary situation.
“Yeah, anything you do with Travis you have a lot more security,” Rubin said matter-of-factly.
That was only a one-off. Still, nothing has gone unaddressed or unexamined in an effort to improve this year’s fan experience.
Rubin, 52, a self-made billionaire from Philadelphia, is honest about Fanatics Fest being the ultimate physical marketing engine for his omnipresent brand and company.
He said on a recent WFAN interview, in fact, that Fanatics lost $15 million hosting last year’s Fanatic Fest, and it was still worth it.
He saw generations of fans’ jaws on the floor while participating in the WWE superstar entrance. And the ‘Athletes Undercover’ concept was a hit, like when former LSU gymnast Livvy Dunne was walking around disguised as Pittsburgh Pirates ace pitcher Paul Skenes.
There is also a best dressed fan competition that sends the winner to huge events like the Super Bowl and FIFA World Cup Final. A Bills fan won the contest last year by dressing like a Buffalo Bills mafia folding table.
“We saw last year a great grandfather, a grandfather, a dad, and a son, all walking together,” Rubin said. “We saw a lot of full families with mom, dad, kids. It was an incredible scene.”
Rubin is dead serious about Fanatics Fest being better this year, though.
“I’m gonna run Fanatics ’til I die. I love doing this,” he said. “I’m honored to do what I do. So I’m not worried about anything other than ‘How do we create the best fan experience?’’’
That’s where the idea for the Fanatics Games came from: 50 athletes and celebrities, including Giants quarterback Russell Wilson, facing off against 50 selected fans for the chance to win $2 million in prizes.
The NFL activation has a 40-year dash. The NBA activation gives fans the chance to knock down around-the-world jumpers. Dick’s Sporting Goods will have a golf simulator. FIFA offers goal scoring. MLB’s tests pitching accuracy.
That’s in addition to countless star-studded panels available to all fans on the general admission ticket, a merchandise village three times large than last year’s with exclusive apparel drops, 25% more hobby shop booths to create the biggest trading card show in New York, live recordings of James’ and Kevin Hart’s podcasts and more.
A three-day general admission pass — the most popular — costs $65 for kids and $150 for adults. Daily passes are $60 for adults and $30 per kid on Friday and Saturday, which drops to $20 for kids on Sunday. VIP passes are sold out. Photograph and autograph opportunities must be purchased separately.
An example of what exclusive merchandise gets dropped? Mitchell & Ness announced that it has created an Eli Manning 2003 Ole Miss Legacy jersey that will be available for purchase first at Fanatics Fest this weekend.
Manning will be there in person, and so will the Giants’ new great hope from Ole Miss: Dart. He’ll probably end up running into his favorite athlete from his childhood, as well — No. 2.
“My favorite athlete growing up was Derek Jeter,” Dart said. “I have a few jerseys of his from growing up, and I was able to get a signed ball from him after my senior season before I got drafted.”
Given all that Fanatics Fest has to offer, it’s natural to ask: when is this event coming to other cities or countries? Is this going to remain a once a year convention, or is the demand so high — with more than 100,000 fans expected this year — that Rubin will inevitably expand it?
Rubin admits he has received a ton of offers to bring Fanatics Fest elsewhere.
“After we did the first Fanatics Fest, every governor, countries, everyone in the world called and said, ‘How do we get this?’” Rubin said. “The amount of people trying to steal Fanatics Fest from New York City, I had at least 10 governors call me and say, ‘Here’s why you should do this to my state.’”
“I had prime ministers, I had the biggest people in the world call me and say, ‘I want this in my country. How do I get it?’” he said. “And I think New York was really at risk of losing Fanatics Fest, and the CEO who took over [at the Javits Center], Joyce Leveston, has been amazing. She’s like ‘I want this, this is really important to me.’”
For now, at least Rubin is focused on getting New York right.
