Ladies and gentlemen, Rosenberg back on the program, friend of the show, Michael Rubin. We've been interviewing you since I think since you took over the Sixers, right? That's how long you've been. It's been a minute.
I was young and vibrant then. Now I'm old, but you know, we keep running it back.
Nah, the energy is... You got the energy of a 19-year-old, bro. You're out having a good time.
Listen, I got the energy of a 19-year-old. I try to dress like a 19-year-old, but I still got the body of a 52-year-old.
Yeah, but in all fairness, I feel like even when you were 19, you probably had the body of a 52-year-old, which I identify well with.
To be clear, pre-Jouro, pre had a little extra hair up front. If you saw me when I was 25, there are some pictures that you could just abuse me and have so much fun with. I mean, some of those early pictures I look back and I'm like, 'Wow, it was rough.'
Well, Fanatics Fest is on the way the weekend of June 20th. Everybody's going to be in town. It was phenomenal last year. Thank you for getting us access. Shout out to your whole team over there and everybody. You know what? You know, I never gave you credit for, Michael. You'll like this. This is dead ass truth. We have all been to many events, me, Laura, and Ebro, right? I hosted a panel. I don't know that I have ever had a smoother arrival. The level to which, Ebro, when we were taking, when you, the way you handle talent arriving there was top notch. Top notch, never had better, honestly.
Well, I want you to know I love hearing that, but there are many disasters as well. So you're giving me the great story but don't think it all went like that. You f***ed a lot of s*** up too.
So, I'm sure. But overall, the consumer experience though, like right, because I went there, I went with a couple friends. Like everyone had a fantastic time. Like you seriously put on a great, great, great event.
Thank you. I can't wait to have you guys back. We always look... I love you guys. We love hosting you guys. I mean this year is going to put last year to shame. And last year was the first year we had no idea whether it was going to work or it wasn't going to work. We had 70,000 incredible sports fans show up for the first inaugural Fanatics Fest.
You were expecting probably 125, 150,000 people.
Yeah, there's so many more athletes, celebrities, artists coming. We got the Fanatics Games this year. So, it's going to be a literal movie. I mean, I was looking last night at some of the stunts they have planned. And man, we're like, we got two goals. Goal number one is for the 125, 150,000 people that come, they have the time of their life. Goal number two is that we break the internet. Not Friday, not Saturday, not Sunday, but for the three days of the weekend plus like the next week afterward because we got so many incredible things coming. We got so many things up our sleeve. It's going to be a blast.
So, is the 4040... what was that? What was that called? It was like the 4040 reinst...
Yeah. Look, as you guys know, Jay-Z loves the 4040 brand. He loves the 4040 club. So when he called me and said, 'Hey, you know, I'd love to do a popup and reimagine exactly as it was.' I was like, 'Okay, well that's pretty bold. We're going to build like an entire 4040 club.' It was phenomenal. It looked just like it, right? I'm like, 'All right, pocket. Let's go.' You know, it's an amazing idea. Let's do it. And it was spectacular. I remember and I don't get to spend enough time in the 4040 at Fanatics Fest. This is really for the people that are most important to Fanatics. A lot of the, you know, athletes that come to support us, you know, guys like you, our most important partners. And I remember, Jay looked at me, he's like, 'This is insane.' He's like, 'By the way, Travis like just took over his DJing for hours. You guys probably saw that.' Jay's like, 'You got everyone on planet Earth.' I mean, it was pretty spectacular. So, but that's really, you know, credit goes out to Jay. Credit goes out to Tribe. These guys know how to make these things incredible. I was running around the show trying to be a B-level executive producer and worry about the 70,000 people that were there but it was great. So we're running that back. We got so many people coming for the first time this year. Last year we had in the inaugural Fanatics Fest we had the NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, NHL, WWE and UFC all come and do major activations.
We saw Peter, he was practicing when no one was there. He was practicing his WWE walk out. I'm like, who is this guy? This guy just kept doing the WWE walkout time over and over again.
Yeah. Over and over again. He got better, by the way, with time. But seriously, we had six incredible activations this year. In addition to those six sports, we have FIFA coming, Premier League, USA, F1, Nike, Nike Lego, Dick's Sporting Goods, and then you have so many athletes coming for the first time. LeBron James coming for the first time, KD coming back, James Harden coming for the first time, Victor Wembanyama coming back from China directly to us. KAT coming. You got in the football, we moved this from August till June just so we can get active NFL players to come. We got Peter's favorite and only football player that he cares about, Jayden Daniels coming.
That's right. The guy. The guy.
Yeah. CJ Stroud, you know, Micah Parsons, Caleb Williams, Russell Wilson, Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase.
But wait, what about this? This I just saw this now. It's official on Sunday. I believe on Sunday, Michael, you'll now have the official press conference for Canelo Crawford that was announced yesterday as well.
Yep. Absolutely. Yo, that's big. It's going to be huge. We have... So, here's the crazy thing. I still know the amount of things we haven't announced that we're adding. So, I mean, I can't wait. I hope to... actually I just made the decision about five minutes ago. I'm here for the day. Running down to Indy for the Indy OKC game and I actually having the first mature moment of my life. I have to be up tomorrow at 5:00 a.m. So I said I'm actually going to leave the game at halftime.
You responsible, responsible Reuben. This is a good new leaf. Responsible Reuben in the building. I love it. Now you feel bad leaving when they invite you because I imagine they'll put you in a great place. Do you feel bad at all trying to slip out at halftime of an NBA Finals game? How does that work?
You know what? I didn't... so I realized they start me tomorrow at literally... I'm on CNBC morning show early and they have me finishing 11:00 tomorrow night. I said, you know what? I got 12 days till Fast. I'm not getting myself sick. So, I'm going to make sure I get that four or five hours of sleep.
Why? So, Michael, you said that this was a loss for you guys last year. You said financially it will be a loss again this year. Why is it so worth it for you to put in this much time for something that's not going to make Fanatics money on paper?
Yeah, you know, for me, I think the way Fanatics is growing, we have a chance to be a big company or a beloved company. Big companies suck. Beloved companies are exciting. I want to be beloved and we have to do a lot of work to be beloved. And so something like Fanatics Fest is a real give back to fans. I mean, the three of you were there last year. Can't wait to host you guys again. Bring your friends, your family. We got you guys all taken care of.
I brought my whole family. I brought nieces, nephew. Ebro really rolled up.
No, Ebro has borderline... How many kids did I have with me? I had like five. It was baby's kids. It was Ebro's kids up in here. I never seen anything like that. All right, here's the good news. There are a lot of events that we do that you guys know I'll be like, 'Yo, come on your own.'
