We are at the home of the White Party with the one and only Michael Rubin.
We both survived. Two days later, they're still breaking this down, I see outside.
Fun one. Let's give the White Party a grade. I'm going to give it a straight A plus. I prepped as if I was playing in a game seven. I got an IV. I'm sure you got an IV.
I might have got one in advance. Those we posted on Instagram.
What's up and welcome to a special Boardroom Talks live from the Hamptons. Michael, what's up, buddy?
Always good to be with you, my brother. A few days after the White Party, we're recovered, but feeling good, well nourished. But I'm excited to get my house back. Excited to have no drinking in my schedule for a long time, and it was fun one.
I've been to all of them. And each one has been incredible, but there was something different this year.
I think it was great. Look, for me, I love bringing people together, and you know, the White Party does that. It brings people from all different backgrounds, all different types of people, and people just come together, they let loose, they learn, they grow, they find business deals. It's just super fun. It's a marathon party, you know, it starts at 5:30, ends at 5:30 in the morning, 12-hour party. And I think you and I both made it to about 4:00 a.m. I was proud of my performance. I didn't quite get to sunup as I had advertised, but I'm still proud of my performance.
It's wild because I prepped as if I was playing in a game seven. And when you start coming into this house, you realize you're about to commit like 12 hours of your time. It's a lot, but it was a complete success, and I will tell you about business deals taking place. This was the most transactional I was in the best way. The ability to be around so many people in one room, and be able to talk about what you're doing, and people want to be together. It feels like all the attitude is left at the door. Everybody embraces everybody, and that clearly is a testament to you.
Look, the thing that makes the White Party so special, but also makes it so difficult, is we work on the curation so hard to make sure that we have a small group together. It's only 380 people and you have thousands of people that you like that you want to say yes to that you just can't say yes to, otherwise you don't have enough room in the house and you make the party just not as intimate as you need to be. But the great thing about that is that so many good things come from it and so many relationships are formed, deals are created and I love that. It's fun the day after seeing all the notes and people saying just how much fun they had, how many great things came of it. And again, most importantly, we both survived.
Yeah, we both survived. So, most people would probably take it easy for a little bit, maybe hit a boat in Saint-Tropez. You were probably working all day the next day and now have to gather over 100,000 people for the third annual Fanatics Fest. I want to talk specifically now about Fanatics Fest. This is the third year from original concept till now. Is this gone exactly how have you imagined or has there been a pivot or an evolution that you've started to make from year one till now?
Look, anyone who tells you they know when they start a business exactly how it's going to go is full of it. You know, I walked into Comic-Con and said, 'Why don't we have this for sports fans?' So, we're going to start a sports version of this. And it's gone, I think, in a lot of ways bigger and better than we could have ever imagined. But the thing is, no other company other than Fanatics would have had the relationships with all the different sports properties and all the different athletes necessary to really bring this whole thing together. So, it's exciting. I think we'll have close to 200,000 people over a four-day period at Javits, January 16th through the 19th. You know, I've been going through the content. I'll tell you, it's the first time I'm ever like, 'Wow, this is so cool.' I mean, look at Game Plan and what we're doing together. You have LeBron James there and KD and Adam Silver and Jimmy Pataro and me being the worst guest you have there. It's so awesome and that's just an example of what you can do when we can bring everyone together. Whether it's the White Party where we bring a super intimate group together in the Hamptons, or whether it's Fanatics Fest where we bring nearly 200,000 sports fans together and the best athletes, stars, celebrities in the world. You know, it's something we like to do is really convene people. I couldn't be more excited about this year being the third year. Also, we timed this around the World Cup final.
And having the World Cup final in New York at Fanatics Fest from July 16th through the 19th, it couldn't be better set up. One of the things I'm most excited for at Fanatics Fest is the World Cup press conference. So, for those real global football fans, they know that normally takes place in the stadium where the final is. Instead, they took that for the first time in the history of FIFA in the World Cup, they moved it to Fanatics Fest.
They're going to have both team captains and coaches at Fanatics Fest in front of tens of thousands of fans. So, if you think about this, on Friday, July 17th, if it were a repeat of '22, which it certainly looks like it could be, if France were playing Argentina, you'd have Messi and Mbappé at Fanatics Fest with tens of thousands of fans. And that is so exciting. I look at the agenda and content that we have over 4 days, we have so many incredible things happening.
How do you get FIFA and the World Cup to change a tradition like that to bring this to Fanatics Fest? For you, obviously, the relationships are there, but what's the conversation and the sell for that?
I'd say we're all about innovating for the fan. How do we do things that are better for the fan? I'll ask you a question. Tradition's tradition, but is a press conference better at MetLife, not in front of fans, or is it better in front of tens of thousands of rabid sports fans? For me, it was the easiest sell in the world because once we had the idea, they knew this would be great. We couldn't be more excited to execute. So, I think we're always trying to figure out how we can do things different and better. By the way, there's lots of things we do better and lots of things we need to keep working on to be better.
So, you moved it this year to July. You will do this from now on in June, right?
Yeah, it'll be the weekend after Father's Day each year going forward. The only reason we did it July 16th through the 19th this year is because of the World Cup final because we want to bring this around the World Cup, have the FIFA press conference at Fanatics Fest. The regular time going forward will be the weekend after Father's Day every year.
So, NBA and NFL, it's easy for them to be there. It's in the middle of Major League Baseball season. Talk about what you were able to align up with Rob and MLB.
Well, look, I'd say Fanatics Fest is really becoming sports week in New York City, as you know. Not only do you have this incredible festival, you have the ESPYs that moved to Wednesday night before Fanatics Fest because there's so much talent coming. You have Time 100 and what they're doing with sports. You have Boardroom moving Game Plan to Fanatics Fest. You have the Dodgers playing the Yankees in New York City. You have WWE putting on a big fight at MSG. So, I think everyone's saying, 'Look, you have 200,000 of the best sports fans in the world coming to Fanatics Fest. Let's really build this as sports week and everyone gather around this.' We're humble to be in the middle of that.
So, WWE is doing a fight Saturday night?
So, ESPYs, MLB All-Star Weekend, our conference, Fanatics Fest, WWE, it has truly become the epicenter of sports. This is almost like a gathering of the entire world in this one week. When you look at it from a business standpoint, for me, with the conference, I was always told early on to look at year three or four as when I could potentially turn a profit. I'm seeing that potentially coming true this year in year four. Is this something that you even think about from a making money standpoint, or is it not?
No. I mean, look, between ourselves and our partners, it'll cost 80 to 90 million dollars to produce this this year. This is where I give back to fans. It's something that just fans love. It's the way Fanatics can show up in its best ways, our partners can show up in the best way. By the way, the athletes, celebrities, and artists – take a look, you're a basketball guy first and foremost. You got KD there, LeBron James, James Harden, Anthony Edwards, SGA, Trae Young, Chet Holmgren, Victor Wembanyama, Cooper Flagg. The athletes love to come for one of the few times that they can really spend quality time with the fans. For me to be able to organize bringing this all together, it's so fun, and there are so many great things that happen for everybody involved at Fanatics Fest.
So, you talked about between you and your partners. When a league looks at Fanatics Fest, they go into it in the same way, right? They see this as a cost and a marketing opportunity.
They see this as a way to connect with super fans. And it's exactly what it is. I don't think anyone else could do this other than Fanatics because we work with all these different sports properties, teams, athletes, celebrities, artists. So, it makes it easy for us to bring this all together. One of the things I see is it's amazing – you look at the schedules of each person coming, you see how much people love doing things with it. KD, he loves doing Fanatics Fest because he wants to engage with his fans. How many great moments has he had each of the two years he's been there? He helped us start Fanatics Fest. You were one of the first calls we made when we had this idea. Of course, you and KD said, 'We're in. Let's go. Let's blow this out.'
Always, yeah. It's amazing. I can speak from experience. This isn't very Kevin to commit to something like this every year where he's not getting paid, but the return and the value that he feels, and like you said, just the ROI on being around fans and getting that love is incredible. And now you've created this platform for other people to build business off of, right?
