Michael Rubin
FOUNDER & Chief executive officer - Fanatics
Michael Rubin, noted entrepreneur, philanthropist, and social justice advocate, has built several multibillion-dollar direct-to-consumer companies. Driven by a deep passion for business and a life-long love of sports, Michael is the Founder and CEO of Fanatics. Fanatics is a global digital sports platform that reimagines the fan experience across several verticals, including licensed merchandise, trading cards and collectibles, sports betting and gaming, live commerce, and sports and collector fan events. Michael previously founded GSI Commerce, which was sold to eBay in 2011 for $2.4B.
In addition to serving as Founder and CEO of Fanatics, Michael is a board member of the Fanatics Charitable Foundation, which, through a commitment of time and strategic philanthropic engagements, focuses on creating positive and lasting change across the global communities in which our employees and fans live, work, and play. He was the driving force behind Fanatics’ partnership with Make-A-Wish, through which the company uses its wide-ranging partner roster and relationships with thousands of athletes to support and enhance hundreds of sports-related wishes for kids and their families each year.
Michael serves as co-chair of REFORM Alliance, an organization with involvement from some of the biggest names in sports, business, and culture. REFORM Alliance is dedicated to advancing criminal justice reform and eradicating antiquated probation laws that perpetuate injustice in the United States.
Recognized as one of the most prominent leaders in sports business, Michael has received accolades from numerous publications. He was included on Billboard’s 2025 Sports and Music Power Players list and named one of the 50 Most Influential Figures in Sports in 2024 by Sports Illustrated. In 2022, Michael was recognized by both The Athletic/New York Times and Sports Business Journal as Sports Business Person of the Year and Sports Executive of the Year, respectively. Bleacher Report selected him for its “POWER 50” list of the most influential people in sports in 2018.
Under Michael’s leadership, Fanatics has been featured on Forbes’ “America’s Dream Employers - 2025” and “America’s Top Private Companies - 2024” lists; has repeatedly earned a spot on Fast Company’s “50 Most Innovative Companies in the World” list; has been named one of the “Best Employers in Sports” (2021-2023) by Front Office Sports; and was awarded the “Business Model of the Decade” (2010-2019) by Sports Business Journal.
Michael spent more than a decade as a partner of the Philadelphia 76ers before selling his ownership stake in the team in June 2022 to focus his efforts on Fanatics’ expansion across the broader sports landscape.
EARLY YEARS OF ENTREPRENEURSHIP
Michael grew up in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, and began his ascent as an entrepreneur at only eight years old, selling vegetable seeds door-to-door. He would soon add homemade stationery sales and a budding snow-shoveling service to his resume before setting up his own ski-tuning shop in his parents’ basement when he was 12. Two years later – using $2,500 in bar mitzvah gifts as seed capital and a lease signed by his father – he opened a formal ski shop, Mike’s Ski and Sport, in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania.
At age 16, following a ski season without snow, Michael saw sales diminish drastically and found himself in debt. He was able to settle with his creditors using a loan from his father under the condition that he attend college. Michael agreed and entered a co-op with his high school so he could leave school early to run his emerging ski shop enterprise, which had grown into owning and operating five ski shops before he entered college. He attended Villanova University for a semester before making the decision to drop out, having realized a large gain on an opportunistic transaction: buying $200,000 in overstock equipment at a deep discount with $17,000 borrowed from a friend and re-selling it for $75,000.
GSI COMMERCE ACQUISITION
Using the proceeds from his overstock transaction and the sale of his ski shops, Michael founded the athletic equipment closeout company KPR sports – named after his parents – which bought and sold overstock name brand merchandise. In 1993, the year Michael turned 21, KPR reached $1M in annual sales. Two years later, he increased sales to $50M and purchased 40% of the women’s athletic shoe manufacturer Ryka.
In 1998, he created Global Sports, which would later become GSI Commerce – a multibillion-dollar e-commerce company. At 38, Michael sold GSI to eBay for $2.4B, reaping a $150M windfall. Since eBay only wanted the order fulfillment business for large retailers to better compete with Amazon, he was able to buy back the consumer businesses of GSI at a fire sale price. He repurchased several brands, including Fanatics, Rue La La, and ShopRunner. In 2018, Rue La La acquired Gilt Groupe to form Rue Gilt Groupe – the premiere off-price, e-commerce destination that includes RueLaLa.com, Gilt.com, and ShopPremiumOutlets.com. In 2020, Michael sold ShopRunner to FedEx.
FANATICS: INNOVATING SPORTS MERCHANDISE
Immediately after repurchasing Fanatics from eBay, Michael set out to transform the slow, antiquated licensed sports industry. His vision was to create a differentiated sports merchandise business – known today as Fanatics Commerce – that would bring larger assortments of exclusive, high-quality apparel to fans craving real-time access to gear for their favorite teams and players. Michael accomplished this by pioneering vertical commerce, otherwise known as v-commerce – his first breakthrough innovation.
Through v-commerce, Fanatics has gained exclusivity of highly coveted manufacturing and merchandise rights for professional and collegiate sports. This allows Fanatics to control the end-to-end supply chain and create incredible speed to market for products, benefiting not only customers but the fans who shop with the company’s retail partners.
Over the past several years, Fanatics Commerce has added many category-leading brands under its umbrella, including Mitchell & Ness and Lids. All together, they offer the world’s largest assortment of high-quality, real-time products across the Fanatics network of online and offline shops. As the business continued transforming the licensed sports merchandise landscape, Michael began plotting his next chapter for the company.
In August 2021, Michael and Fanatics announced plans to evolve into a global digital sports platform, combine the existing Commerce business with several new offerings, and create a new corporate entity.
FANATICS: A DIGITAL SPORTS PLATFORM
Michael’s first move to expand beyond Commerce was establishing Fanatics Collectibles and Fanatics Betting and Gaming, two new businesses that would shake the status quo of their respective sectors.
Fanatics Collectibles
The trading card industry had roughly stayed the same for more than 100 years, and the hobby was ripe for innovation. Fanatics’ gathering of rights from top leagues and players’ associations – including MLB, MLBPA, NBA, NBPA, NFL, and NFLPA – gave the company an incredible opportunity to change the game for collectors. The company’s 2022 acquisition of preeminent hobby brand Topps created a solid infrastructure to build the business around, allowing Fanatics Collectibles to bring a jolt of energy to product marketing and innovation that hasn’t been felt in the hobby before.
Fanatics COLLECT
After successfully integrating the Topps business, the Collectibles team made the move into live shopping after recognizing an opportunity to expand its offerings. Fanatics Collect launched in 2023 and focuses on enhancing the digital shopping experience through personality-driven content and entertainment, including trading card “breaks,” limited edition merchandise and collectibles drops, and on-location streams. With the addition of the trading card marketplace PWCC later that year, Fanatics Collectibles gained another pivotal piece in becoming the one-stop shop for all a collector’s needs.
Fanatics Betting & Gaming
By utilizing Fanatics’ database of more than 100 million fans as its starting point, Fanatics Betting and Gaming launched in 2022, offering fans both an online and retail sportsbook experience. Since acquiring the U.S. operations for PointsBet in 2024, the business has amassed a portfolio of offerings available in more than 20 sports betting states (95% of the addressable market), with more on the way. The new platform, Fanatics Sportsbook, taps into the larger Fanatics network to create a truly rewarding experience for fans. This includes delivering increased value to sports fans by rewarding them with team merchandise, collectibles, one-of-a-kind perks, and exclusive sports experiences for select bets placed on the platform.
Fanatics Events
The latest addition to the Fanatics platform is Fanatics Events. Announced in 2023, the business aims to build the largest and most exciting network of sports and collector fan events around the world. Created in partnership with IMG, fans at Fanatics Events (including the flagship Fanatics Fest) have the opportunity to come together in person to celebrate all aspects of fandom – collectibles, memorabilia, fashion, music, and entertainment – and partake in truly unique experiences that only Fanatics can deliver.
MICHAEL RUBIN: Making an impact in our communities
Alongside his visionary business leadership, Michael is a dedicated philanthropist and criminal justice reform advocate. Leveraging his vast social network, he actively pursues innovative ways to drive positive change nationwide.
Leading Voice for Social Change
Michael’s life changed on November 6, 2017, while attending a technical violation hearing for his good friend, recording artist Meek Mill. Despite Meek’s probation officer and the Assistant District Attorney both recommending no prison time, Michael was stunned to witness the judge sentence Meek to 2 – 4 years in prison.
Michael’s witnessing of the systemic problems in the criminal justice system became the impetus for creating the REFORM Alliance, setting the course for his lifelong commitment to social activism. On January 23, 2019, Michael and Meek teamed up with a world-class group of philanthropists and activists – including Shawn “JAY-Z” Carter, Laura Arnold, Robert Kraft, and Robert F. Smith – to launch REFORM, with a goal of transforming probation and parole by changing laws, systems, and culture.
Since its founding, REFORM has passed 18 bills in 11 states, creating a pathway for 800,000 people to exit the supervision system and into stability and work. Further, first-of-its-kind job fairs have connected more than 6,000 system-impacted people with work opportunities and record expungement services. REFORM has also awarded more than 50 community grants to local organizations focused on youth violence prevention, job training, and supporting people returning home from incarceration and families impacted by the justice system.
FANATICS MAKE-A-WISH: Changing the Game for Critically Ill Kids
One of the organizations that both Michael and Fanatics have long supported and championed is Make-A-Wish. Michael, having personally seen the impact wishes can have on kids and their families, knew that Fanatics should and could be doing more to support the hundreds of sports-related wishes granted in the U.S. each year..
In October 2023, Fanatics formalized this relationship by enacting a first-of-its-kind partnership to become the Official Sports Partner of Make-A-Wish America. The partnership allows Fanatics to extend its incredible resources – more than 900 professional and collegiate sports partners and over 2,500 athlete relationships – to elevate sports wishes of all kinds. These include athlete meet and greets, and the opportunity to attend games and special events such as the NFL Super Bowl, MLB All-Star Game, NHL Winter Classic, and NBA All-Star Game.
In addition to supporting wish granting, the Fanatics Charitable Foundation made a $10M contribution to bolster the partnership for the next several years. Since the fall of 2023, Fanatics has helped grant and amplify hundreds of wishes, with many more to come.
ALL IN CHALLENGE
Michael was the architect of the viral ALL IN Challenge. Launched in April 2020, it became one of the largest digital fundraisers ever, raising more than $60M to feed those impacted by the global pandemic.
Michael and Fanatics teamed up with hundreds of the biggest athletes, entertainers, leagues, teams, owners, and corporations to donate incredible prized possessions and create once-in-a-lifetime experiences made available as online auctions or sweepstakes. Participants had the chance to win experiences and prizes such as playing golf at Pebble Beach with Justin Timberlake and Bill Murray, throwing out the first pitch at the World Series, winning Robert Kraft’s Super Bowl LIII ring, and spending a weekend in Tampa with Tom Brady, among others. More than a million fans worldwide donated, and the program elicited contributions from Patrick Mahomes, Tiger Woods, Phil Mickelson, Kevin Durant, Leonardo DiCaprio, Robert De Niro, Meek Mill, Ellen DeGeneres, Ariana Grande, Eli Manning, Peyton Manning, and many others.
MERCH MADNESS
Michael, always looking to push the boundaries of what’s possible, also initiated Fanatics Merch Madness – a one-time event during Fanatics’ 2023 Global Volunteer Day. Throughout the day, more than 300,000 pieces of licensed apparel valued at around $20M were donated to 100,000 underserved youth and their families in nearly 100 different locations across the country: a combination of jerseys, t-shirts, hoodies, hats, jackets, and more. Many athlete and celebrity friends of Fanatics jumped in to make the day extra special. They included Tom Brady, Eli Manning, Meek Mill, Lil Baby, Donovan Mitchell, A$AP Ferg, DJ Khaled, Joel Embiid, Chris Paul, Micah Parsons, Robert and Jonathan Kraft, and many more.
MICHAEL RUBIN IN THE News
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