CEO & Founder, Fanatics
Michael Rubin Reveals Fanatics Fest 2025 Lineup, Knicks All-Time Sales Record & More
Michael Rubin, CEO and founder of Fanatics, pulls up to HOT 97's Mornings With Mero to break down everything about Fanatics Fest (July 16–19, Javits Center, NYC). He reveals the insane 2025 lineup — LeBron, KD, Wemby, the championship Knicks, Jay-Z, Travis Scott, Lil Wayne — plus the Fanatics Games returning with Serena Williams, Kevin Hart, Novak Djokovic, John Cena, and more competing for a $1 million prize.
Plus: how the Knicks championship shattered ALL-TIME Fanatics sales records (nearly $100M in e-commerce alone), the wild moment KD's trade broke live on stage, World Cup mania driving T...
About Michael Rubin
Michael Rubin, CEO and founder of Fanatics, has been promoting the third annual Fanatics Fest, scheduled for July 16–19, 2026, at the Javits Center in New York City. In interviews, he described the event as a way to bring together fans, athletes, and celebrities, and noted that it will host the FIFA World Cup final press conference and a watch party. Rubin said the Knicks' 2026 NBA championship generated nearly $100 million in e-commerce sales for Fanatics, which he called the single biggest championship sales period in the company's history. He also discussed Fanatics' trading card business, stating that the company entered the market in January 2022 because he believed existing licensees were "complacent, fat and happy, not innovative, not marketing." Rubin participated in a panel at Fanatics Fest with artist George Condo, Tom Brady, and Karl-Anthony Towns, where he called Condo his "number one favorite artist" and discussed a collaboration in which Condo created 19 one-of-one hand-painted trading cards to be released in Topps products. In a separate interview, Rubin said he does not view his business relationships with Black artists and athletes as "black culture" but rather as "doing the right thing," and cited learning from figures such as Jay-Z and Travis Scott. He also addressed his approach to business, saying relationships are "so important" during tough times and that he gravitates toward what he is good at, noting he was a poor student and received a 780 combined SAT score.
Transcript (85 segments)
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Host0:00
We got the CEO of Fanatics. You know what I'm saying? Founder of Fanatics Fest, your favorite fest, you know what I'm saying? And he's best friends with Lil Baby. Do not tell James Harden that, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause you might cause some controversy, okay?
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Michael Rubin0:12
James would be sensitive about that.
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Host0:16
You heard the voice, man. You know the man. It's the man, the myth, the legend himself, Michael Rubin is in the house. Yes, sir. Mr. Hampton, Mr. White Party, you know what I'm saying? How we feeling, baby?
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Michael Rubin0:25
Feeling great.
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Host0:26
Fanatics Fest is July 16th through the 19th at the Javits Center in New York City. Talk a little bit about the inception of it, like how it came about because it's become a huge thing that everybody looks forward to every year.
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Michael Rubin0:38
So, what's insane, this is only our third year doing it, and you got to give credit where credit is due.
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Host0:42
I don't want to cut you off. It feels like it's been 10 years.
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Michael Rubin0:44
Yeah, I agree. And by the way, it's aged me like 20 years. It's actually the hardest thing we do at Fanatics, but it's such a great give back to fans. We're going to have 200,000 people come there this year. Tickets are really inexpensive, they're only 60 bucks. We do it as a fan giveaway. We actually like ourselves and our partners spent like 80 to 90 million dollars to put it on each year, but it's such great marketing for our partners for Fanatics. And how it came about, give you a real story about how you can just take inspiration from others.
I walked into Comic-Con one day. And I'd never been there before. I'm like, why do we not have this for sports fans? Like, I don't get it. I want this for sports. I said, find me the person that runs Comic-Con. Got him in and said, 'Hey, you got a great career opportunity. You're changing jobs. You're coming to Fanatics. We're going to do the same thing with sports.'
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Host1:30
Yeah.
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Michael Rubin1:30
Sometimes every once in a while you just got to copy somebody else, and that's what we saw with Comic-Con. We said, 'We need this in sports.' And we did it. We started it in 2024. This will be the third year doing it. There will be 200,000 people coming. Four days. The thing that's so amazing is we have the best athletes, artists, celebrities, streamers all coming together to give back to fans. You talk about basketball, I just look at the list of basketball players. You've got all the Knicks coming in. Come on.
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Host2:00
Couldn't be a better time. Yes, sir. So, I mean, you're looking pretty fire right now.
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Michael Rubin2:07
Hey, man. It's like the first day I didn't have a Knicks jersey on.
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Host2:10
Come on. You got to be supporting the Knicks. We need you in Knicks jerseys every day.
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Michael Rubin2:14
Yes, sir.
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Host2:15
You're going to have all the Knicks there. I just saw Jaylen Brunson, Josh Hart interviewing Aaron Judge one day. You've got James Harden, you got LeBron, you got KD, you got Wemby.
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Michael Rubin2:30
No egg. No. We're not doing an egg for Wemby.
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Host2:32
That'll be a dope booth, by the way. Egg Wemby.
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Michael Rubin2:35
No, no, no. We're not allowing that. He's a great guy. He's such a class act. That may not be popular to say in New York.
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Host2:49
You're right.
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Michael Rubin2:49
Yeah. Listen, Knicks won. They got the right outcome. Wemby's a great guy. He'll be there. Cooper Flagg will be there. SGA will be there. Anthony Edwards will be there. Trae Young will be there. Jamal Murray... We have that in every sport. By the way, talk about music. Jay-Z's there. Tribe's there. Wayne's there. So many different artists. It's great to have everyone come together to give back to fans. It's so fun. We have four days of incredible content.
Right now I'm in World Cup mania. The World Cup is so fun. We're going to have the actual official press conference that always happens in the stadium where the final is. They moved it for the first time in the history of FIFA to Fanatics Fest. So if this were 2022 again, you'd have Kylian Mbappé and Messi at Fanatics Fest, which by the way could be a repeat with the coaches in front of tens of thousands of crazy fans. I can't wait for that.
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Host3:45
I didn't know football... football by the way...
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Michael Rubin3:48
I said to our guys, 'How much security we're going to have for that?' They said, 'They're going to be like 100 people.' I said, 'Whatever you think, do it like 5x.' Those fans are...
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Host3:56
It's insane. Every single Fanatics Fest, it's like a sports Coachella, right? Like it's just everything for everybody. I've been on a lot of those stages where you're hosting a lot of the big live podcast and live events. And even last year, was it Jake Paul Mike Tyson when you had the press conference over there?
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Michael Rubin4:14
First one. Which is pretty insane.
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Host4:17
Which was absolutely nuts. Is it bad if I was rooting for them to get in a fight, right? You see Mike Tyson walking around amongst the athletes of our generation and he still has that aura. Like, 'Yo, that's still...' Like watching the top athletes still get starstruck from other athletes. It's the wild thing to see, you know? So, man, Fanatics Fest is going to be awesome. You bring back the Fanatics Games also, big here.
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Michael Rubin4:45
Yeah. We did that last year for the first time. People thought we were nuts. Someone said we should do a Fanatics Olympics. So we ended up getting 50 of the best athletes, artists, celebrities versus 50 average Joe fans. It was seven different sports you compete against. Last year it was throwing a football, getting hockey pucks into a washer and a dryer, WWE walkout, how hard can you punch UFC style. It's eight sports.
What was crazy last year... I went with Eli Manning and Tom Brady who were paired together. You go two at a time, you keep competing on your own, but it's two at a time. And Eli looked like Ohtani pitching. And Brady looked honestly not good.
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Host5:33
Yeah. Yeah.
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Michael Rubin5:34
So I went home. At the end of the night I'm like, 'Ah, Brady got smoked.' Brady hits me and he says, 'Yo, you see us in first place?' I'm like, 'Huh? How are you in first place?' He said, 'As soon as I left, he smoked everything.' He actually got first prize. Justin... the UFC fighter who just won the championship, got second. So Tom won a million bucks and ended up donating the money to everybody. Justin won a Ferrari, drove it out of there, $500,000 Ferrari. And then a gym teacher got third place. Beat out James Harden who was a hair behind in fourth place. He was salty, by the way.
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Host6:11
What did he leave with?
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Michael Rubin6:13
What's that?
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Host6:14
What did the gym teacher leave with?
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Michael Rubin6:15
He got a quarter million dollar trading card which he sold on the spot and got a quarter million bucks.
Yeah. So there's like two million in prizes. It's crazy.
And by the way, this year people are like... Someone's got to give me the list of who's in it this year. I have a list of who's in the games. It is the craziest list of people. And it's going to be so fun to watch this. You're going to be able to watch it live on YouTube as we stream the whole time.
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Host6:39
Serena Williams, Kevin Hart, Novak Djokovic, John Cena, Gronk, Cody Rhodes... What's his name, bro? Et cetera. Great job of having the list, bro. Yo, we got more with Mike Rubin after the break y'all. We got to pay some bills. You dig? Let's go.
You're still live on YouTube?
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Michael Rubin6:57
Yeah.
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Host6:59
So that was my question. You said a gym teacher left with how much money?
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Michael Rubin7:03
Quarter million bucks.
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Host7:04
So everybody could like sign up for this, right?
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Michael Rubin7:07
So thousands of people submit an application. There's 50 spots for average Joe fans. I think there were like three or four thousand people, then we picked and we kind of cast it. We find different interesting stories. Look, we're rooting for the average fans. Even though Brady's my brother, I'm rooting against him in this. I want him to get smoked. You already got Super Bowls. You're good. He talked serious about it. He's like, 'I'm the reigning Fanatics game champ. I'm getting this again.' And Novak's coming for him.
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Host7:48
They're looking forward to it.
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Michael Rubin7:50
No, no, I can't wait.
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Host7:51
I want to know more about the general population's experience when they go to these things 'cause of course it's star-studded, everybody's there, you have these big games. Like what is their experience? What does that $60 get you?
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Michael Rubin8:06
Yeah, so everything we wanted for this... this is like a giant give back to fans. First of all, every sport has a big activation there. So you can do the walkout in WWE, you can do field goal kicking and the 40-yard dash in the NFL, basketball shooting drills, UFC the punching. Each sport has their own activation, but then people love to go there and see all the stars. There's six different stages of content every day.
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Host8:38
Wow.
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Michael Rubin8:38
So like, the Knicks will do their starting five panel with all the Knicks talking about what it was like to win the championship. I can't wait, the Knicks are going to walk through with the trophies through the whole Fanatics Fest. Definitely going to be moving like Beatles. And then there's things like, 'Hey, if you're a car collector, we're going to announce different drops.' And people launch different things there. Ant's there for a shoe launch with Adidas. This has got to be the best value you could ever spend on a ticket. 60 bucks you get all this. We look at like, 'What's the difference whether we charge 60 or 100 or 200?' So we just make it 60 bucks that everyone can afford to get in and make it something that's really accessible for everybody.
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Host9:19
I think last year you also announced KD got traded to the Rockets like mid-Fanatics Fest. I remember watching that. Like if you're ever in a crowd of people when something goes viral and they all look at their phone and you just see the buzz happen.
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Michael Rubin9:37
I knew the trade was likely. I had no idea that it would happen on stage at Fanatics Fest. And that was crazy. KD was in the 40/40 Club that we have a pop-up for at Fanatics Fest. Someone threw a shoe from the side and all of a sudden like 50 people throw their stuff up there.
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Host10:02
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, on the top of the balcony.
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Michael Rubin10:05
It's an amazing clip but fans don't chill. They got no chill. But what happened on stage was pretty insane. When you put so many great people in one spot together, crazy things are going to happen.
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Host10:20
Mhm. That's what the show's like.
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Michael Rubin10:23
Yeah. And so we also do some surprises. We do some crazy stunts each year.
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Host10:30
Mhm.
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Michael Rubin10:30
So we got some big stunts. Last year we did the Brady to Gronk Lombardi trophy that was set up to like explode. The NFL called us over like, 'Yo, how'd you get that?' 'cause there's only two of them. Like how do you have the Lombardi trophy and you broke it?' It's a mock-up. It's not real. They were like worried that we got it out of the office somehow.
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Host10:51
I want to talk about before we go back live, the 40/40 pop-up that you do every year. Obviously Fanatics Fest is big but the hottest ticket in there is being in that 40/40 Club where everybody is having a good time. How do you guys and Jay-Z sort of put that together every year?
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Michael Rubin11:08
Look, Jay is so passionate about the 40/40 brand. He's always loved that brand. If you'd say to him one of the brands he loves the most, that's got to be top on the list for him. He came to us when we started Fanatics Fest and he's been involved with Fanatics really since I started it. He said let's build something like a great experience for the people that are most important to the festival. It's really in a lot of ways for the talent that comes, the fortunate people that come with their families, the stars that come to make the festival great for all the fans. And it's like a full-time party. I remember looking up last year and it was Bron, KD, CJ Stroud, Kevin Hart, which was obviously hard to see him 'cause you were looking up at him, he's little. Micah Parsons and a couple other guys. Bron was over me and he's like, 'This is the middle of a sports festival. Like this great party going on.' We like to keep this really special so people can come have a great time at the 40/40 and it brings them to Fanatics Fest.
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Host12:12
Absolutely. Absolutely. All right, Back Row Radio. Yes.
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Peter Rosenberg12:19
Okay. Can't say no more bad words, y'all, unfortunately. Hey. Yo, it's Hot 97. It's Ebro. It's your boy Peter Rosenberg, man. The human giraffe. Why? 'Cause I keep it wavy, baby. We got Michael Rubin in the building. You know what I'm saying? The Fanatics Fest God. CEO of Fanatics. Founder of Fanatics Fest, your favorite fest. You know what I'm saying?
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Michael Rubin12:41
It's a pretty fire fest. Not... it's a pretty fun one. It's a pretty fun one.
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Peter Rosenberg12:46
Yo, you throw a hell of a party, man. I was at MLB All-Star a year ago, I think, when it was in Texas. And you do a party and I was like, I'm going to go to this party 'cause I bumped into you during the Home Run Derby or something like that. I was like, go to the party. And you were like, it's at Cowboys Stadium. I was like, I know you, bull. You know what I'm saying? Like, how are you going to throw a party? And then, sure as ish, I pulled up and, bro, you had the DJ on the 50, Lil Jon was DJing on the 50-yard line. And it was AT&T Stadium. I was like, this is nuts, bro. How do you set these kind of... What is it... Who helps you with this stuff? Like, do you just have a vision in your mind like this is what I want it to look like, and then you like, 'Yo, team, let's execute?'
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Michael Rubin13:38
Well, certainly... Look, we have 22,000 amazing people at Fanatics who get up every day and say like, how do we relentlessly enhance the fan experience and do great things. But I'll tell you like for me, people think I'm being self-deprecating when I say this, and I'm not. I barely made it out of high school. I was a terrible student. Whatever success I've had has come from just grinding, working my ass off. And so I love bringing people together of different backgrounds. These events we do, they're always about how do we bring these different people together, and great things happen from that. Whether it's the MLB All-Star parties, what we do at Super Bowl, Fanatics Fest, the white party, it's really all with the theme of how do we bring different people together. And I love doing that, and great things come for everybody involved. You learn from each other, you grow from each other. There's only so many things we can do in a year. Every year we say, 'What can we get rid of? What can we cut?' Right now I do three big things. We do Fanatics Fest, which is the most important thing, for the average sports fan, 200,000 people come to that. We do a bunch of things around Super Bowl. And then I do the white party. They're each very different types of events, but they're all around one theme, which is how do we bring different people together.
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Peter Rosenberg14:57
At the center of everything you do with Fanatics, it's obviously the merch. You know, with the Knicks winning the championship, World Cup being here, I can imagine it's been a kick up as far as inventory is concerned. Talk to me about how that's been going, and how the Knicks winning in New York has affected business for you guys.
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Michael Rubin15:15
Yeah, well, let me say the single biggest championship sales in the history of Fanatics, the history of sports. New York Knicks, baby. Number one. They beat everybody. The Philadelphia Eagles, where I'm from, are number two. When the Eagles won, they had been the biggest championship winner. Before that it had been the Cubs after they won after more than a century. And then the Dodgers are number four. Knicks smoked them all. Knicks close to a hundred million dollars for the championship period. That's just our e-commerce business. Forget about what we do in stores, the NBA store that we own, Lids that we own. New York is an incredible sports market with incredible fans and the Knicks hadn't won for more than 50 years. So they could not have been more excited and it was so fun.
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Peter Rosenberg16:18
Now you're in World Cup mania.
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Michael Rubin16:20
Yeah. I'll tell you a crazy stat that people won't believe. Right now in our entire business, Team USA third in the business. People are going crazy for Team USA gear right now. Listen, I'm rooting hard for them.
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Peter Rosenberg16:35
France is really good. Argentina is really... There's some really good teams out there. Portugal's coming back. Ronaldo's really good.
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Michael Rubin16:42
People go out and say, 'Oh, Ronaldo's washed.' Two goals again. He just scored a goal in the last 20 World Cups. And then two in the last match. So what Messi's doing, what Ronaldo's doing is amazing, what Mbappé's doing, what Haaland's doing. I didn't grow up a football fan. I'm so into this right now. I've been to three matches. I'm going tomorrow to France Norway at Gillette. Got to see Mbappé and Haaland go at it.
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Peter Rosenberg17:13
Listen, we will be at Ecuador Germany.
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Michael Rubin17:16
Yes, we're playing it today. So fun.
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Peter Rosenberg17:18
Let's take it back to the Knicks real quick 'cause I know you understand how big the celebration was, especially here in New York City and...
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Michael Rubin17:24
Wait a second, it's still going on, right?
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Peter Rosenberg17:26
I mean, yeah. You see the merch, right? Now, there was a JP Morgan employee, she goes by the name of Angie Bayez, an executive in the DEI space. She saw that garbage can, she emptied it, she wants it in her house. She's going crazy for the merch as a leader in the corporate space. How would you handle it because she did get fired from her job. We don't think it's fair. You understand what it's like to be a fanatic for a team. How would you handle it?
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Michael Rubin17:56
Hire her on the spot. Yeah. First of all, we love incredible sports fans. Knicks fans are incredible fans and she's an incredible fan. I would have liked to have sent somebody else to get the trash can. That's what I would have done if I'm being honest. I would have sent somebody else to get that trash can for me. Look, everything's on camera these days. It's a complicated position 'cause JP Morgan's one of the biggest companies in the world and they got to worry about... like we're thinking about this like sports fans, and I love that. But they're saying, 'Hey, we got to touch everybody and is that the right example to set?' So what I would have done is send somebody to get the trash can for me for sure.
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Peter Rosenberg18:37
What do your company values, as somebody who is really loving what you do for work?
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Michael Rubin18:42
Look, I'll tell you one thing. We say this to people all the time about Fanatics 'cause people hit me in the street every day, get messages every day. People want to come to Fanatics. We tell people Fanatics is not for a lot of people. This is a culture of people. We grind. We work our asses off. We have one job to relentlessly enhance the fan experience. That's not BS. It's how do we get better at everything we do? There's lots of things we're not good enough at. We have to be better in everything we do. Our culture is to work really hard and that's not for everybody. But I'll tell you something. The people that are there, they are so passionate. They love it so much. They put so much into it. We would be nothing without the 22,000 people at Fanatics.
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Peter Rosenberg19:20
Shout out to the 22,000 people at Fanatics, man. And shout out to Mike Rubin. Chief Executive Officer, if you don't know what that acronym means, of Fanatics. And the founder of Fanatics Fest, your favorite fest. You know what I'm saying? It's my favorite fest 'cause I'm about to go for the first time.
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Michael Rubin19:34
Can't wait to have you guys out there. Yeah, yeah. We'll get one of you guys in the games next year. Anyone think they could win and get the top prize of a million bucks here? Anyone feel like they could?
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Host19:46
Easy. Lightweight. I got that. We got to get one of you guys in this thing. Jason's a great second baseman, by the way. You know what I'm saying? He's got a lot of range.
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Peter Rosenberg19:53
Yo, listen. Before Mike, before you get out of here, I want you to do this for me, okay? I want you to congratulate Michelle, caller number nine, on winning the Summer Jam tickets. Do it in the locker room.
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Michael Rubin20:02
Michelle, huge congratulations to you. Shows you you keep persevering. Keep dialing up. You're the winner of the Summer Jam tickets. Summer Jam. I'm around WWE so much I think Summer Slam. Summer Jam. Congratulations, Michelle. Let's go, baby. You did it.
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Peter Rosenberg20:20
You did it, Michelle. Yo, Mike Rubin in the house. How did he say it? Let's go.