SBJ: No. 1 Influencer: Change agent. Disrupter. Visionary.

All eyes are on what Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin will do next. To anoint someone as supremely influential, especially the top rung in that rarified group, definitional clarity is a prerequisite. Webster’s says influence is “the power to change.”

Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin has been a polarizing figure and a disrupter/change agent over the past decade. He has rolled up merchandising rights across the big leagues, along with 150 colleges, while transforming the model in what was a relatively sleepy sports licensing business to one marching to the strictures of digital commerce: an emphasis on direct-to-consumer; vertical manufacturing capabilities; acquisitions of some of the largest licensees; and administering both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar operations for some of the largest properties…