Michael Rubin and Fanatics (A)
In 2016, Michael Rubin’s Fanatics was the U.S.’ largest sports e-commerce company, and operator of the official online store for all the major American sports leagues. That year, Fanatics began to dabble in manufacturing licensed sports merchandise, securing limited permissions from leagues to manufacture apparel in response to ‘micro-moments,’ sudden surges of interest in a team or player that were too abrupt for the league’s usual licensees to react to. The success of these efforts raised the possibility that Fanatics might make a play to displace a major athletic wear manufacturer as the official merchandise licensee of a major sports league. For a company with little manufacturing infrastructure and experience however, it was unclear whether this was an advisable step for Fanatics, or how they would go about it.
Keywords: Fanatics; licensed merchandise; e-commerce; Entrepreneurship; Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Sports; Apparel and Accessories Industry; Retail Industry; Manufacturing Industry; United States;
Citation:
Higgins, Robert F., and John Masko. "Michael Rubin and Fanatics (A)." Harvard Business School Case 819-077, November 2018. (Revised June 2019.) View Details