Aspire with Emma Grede
The Founder Playbook: How Michael Rubin Built Fanatics by Betting on Obsession
Tue, 13 May 2025
Emma is joined by the relentless entrepreneur Michael Rubin, founder and CEO of Fanatics for a deep dive into his extraordinary journey from a self-described "god-awful athlete" to one of the most successful business minds in the sports industry. Michael pulls back the curtain on the mindset and drive that fuels his success, revealing how outworking the competition has been a cornerstone of his career. From launching his first business at age 8 to building Fanatics into a global powerhouse, Michael shares how his obsession with business—and his ability to thrive during the toughest times—has shaped his rise. Whether it's pushing through failures or seizing opportunities in the face of adversity, Michael’s relentless work ethic and ability to pivot when needed have been crucial to his journey. He talks about the sacrifices he's made, the lessons he's learned about leadership, and how his obsession with staying ahead of the competition fuels both his personal and professional life. Emma and Michael also explore the importance of being in tune with your audience, identifying untapped markets, and building a team of game-changers who share your vision. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Chapter 1: How did Michael Rubin start his entrepreneurial journey?
Welcome to the Aspire podcast with me, Emma Green. If you're serious about doing something big, today's episode is so for you. Whether you're launching a brand or scaling a company or just dreaming about your first move, my guest today is someone who's done all of it over and over again.
He's not just a founder, but he's a builder, a visionary and a complete master of culture and one of the most relentless entrepreneurs that I know. We also happen to be in business together on my new sports apparel brand with Kristi Juszczyk off-season. I'm talking about the one and only Michael Rubin. Michael started his first business at just eight years old.
And since then, he's built and sold companies worth billions of dollars. He's now the founder and CEO of Fanatics, who are a global digital sports platform valued at over $25 billion. What makes Michael different is his ability to spot opportunity where others don't, to move fast and to build with precision at massive scale. Welcome to the show, Michael.
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I am so happy to have you on the Aspire podcast. I cannot tell you how happy I am when I text you the immediate, unsurprising, but immediate yes that came back, just like made me die, like totally die.
Well, first of all, I'm honored to be here with you. Number one. Number two, you get the fastest yes of anybody because I have so much respect for you. You're a beast and I like to learn from you. So I'm looking forward to having fun today.
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Chapter 2: What is the secret to Michael Rubin's success?
Honestly, what I really want to get out of today, and I think that so many of the people that will be listening just want to understand how you've been successful. And what I love about you is that you talk like no BS. You're extremely truthful, extremely transparent.
And I think in this time where it feels like people are so careful and so deliberate about what they say, it's really refreshing to hear from someone like you.
Well, you know, first of all, I think authenticity is so important. I think you have to be yourself. And I think I couldn't be anything other than that because people would see through it and say he's full of shit. So, you know, for me, it's just like always telling you what I think, how I feel, being real about it. I think people then trust you and a lot of good things happen.
No, that's true. And what's really interesting is how that extends to your customers as well. I think that what you do feels so authentic to you, but I want to kind of get into a bit of your origin story and understand it, you know, because, and I'm sure you've told this so many times. I don't want to belabor the point, but I do want to understand a little bit. You grew up in Philadelphia.
It feels like you were just a born hustler, but you have been in business for a very long time. And since you were a kid, essentially.
Yeah, look, I really believe people gravitate to what they do best at. And I think a lot of people think I'm being self-deprecating when I say like, I really was an awful student. Like I had every learning disability you could possibly have. My mom was a psychiatrist, dad was a veterinarian. So they were like, used to like sophisticated, smart people. And I just came out of the womb different. So-
Um, I really struggled in school. Um, always, you know, couldn't speak well, couldn't read well, you know, struggle with my grades. And so for that reason, I hated school. Like I hate, I didn't dislike it. I hated it. And by the way, as bad as students, I was, I was a pretty shitty athlete too. Like I just, you know, I didn't have good hand-eye coordination. I just wasn't what I was good at.
So at a really young age, I loved business. Like I loved it with every bit of my heart. And so I remember, you know, I can go back to when I was eight years older, I probably had four or five different jobs. I mean, I was, you know, buying seeds, like in a catalog and selling them door to door. When it would snow in Philadelphia, I would hire five, six kids to work for me.
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Chapter 3: How does Michael Rubin view authenticity in business?
And I would sell the snow shoveling for 20 bucks a driveway and then, you know, pay the guys to work for me. And I was, you know, buying and selling trading cards and I was making stationary on the computer. So I was good at that. So I gravitate to what I was good at. And, you know, for me, I absolutely loved it.
And when you were that young, like when you're eight years old, what was the thrill for you then? Because it's obviously so different when, you know, you don't have bills to pay, you don't have anything. What was the thrill of actually going out and making those like, you know, partnerships with like people in your neighbourhood?
I think the biggest thrill was being good at something. It was like, you know, if you're not a good student, you know, if you're not a good athlete, you know, that might not make you feel good. But like, if you're really good in business and you see you have that superpower, even at a really young age, it makes you feel good.
And so I've worked nonstop since I've been eight years old and I felt like it's the greatest honor in the world. And Even today, people say to me, like people, like I've always had an incredible work ethic. It's one of my best skills, but like I'm working the hardest I've ever worked. And I love it. It doesn't feel like work. It's like, I'm honored to get to learn and grow every single day.
And I'm just picking up tidbits in every conversation I have. So it's like, you know, I go back to when I was eight years old and just know it felt good to get to do what I do. And it doesn't feel any different today. It just feels great.
I love that you say you actually work harder now. So at this level of success, when you have a company that's worth $25 billion, you think you're working harder than you did in your 20s and your 30s and your early 40s when you were actually building?
Yeah. Even though our business would be over $9 billion this year, over $11 billion in revenue next year, we have 22,000 people. I feel like a startup. And I want to always have that mentality.
One of the things I hate- You feel like a startup with a $25 billion valuation. Yeah.
I feel like a startup. I feel like we're just getting going. And look, Here's the reality. That's humble. I have so much fear about, and fear in a good way, like fear that drives me about what are all the things we're not doing right. And by the way, when I go through our business, there's a lot of things we do well, and there's a lot of things we don't do well.
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Chapter 4: What does it mean to have a startup mentality?
We're investing aggressively. It's all right, because I know you're profitable in the other two. Look, the collectibles and trading card business is a very good business. Commerce business is a big business that's grown its profitability. But for us, think about the trading card and collectibles business. That idea popped in my brain the day before Thanksgiving of 2020.
That business next year will be a $3 billion business.
Okay.
So it shows you when you get something right, how quickly you can do it. But we've really gone from one business to three businesses. And then how do you bring it all together for the fan? And so that takes, you have to be on top of it. Like one of the things that we don't probably talk enough about, I think one of the key jobs of a leader is to stop dumb shit from happening. Okay.
And you know, I'm right when I say this, like how many times you're like, what the fuck? Like, why is someone thinking this? Why is someone doing that? So as a leader, you need to be on top of your business. You need to make sure you're working with your team. You're paying attention to what's going on. And sometimes you need to stop dumb things from happening.
So it's like, one, you need to lead the organization. You need to have the right vision, get everyone bought in. But then when you're growing very fast, when you go from one business to three businesses, you go from 8,000 people to 22,000 people, like, you know, kind of, crazy shit can happen. So you got to be on your business to stop that from happening.
So there's so much to do in any given day for what we do.
I love the way that you talk about that, actually, like stopping dumb shit from happening, because I feel like as a leader, and you spoke about it as well, like this idea of being this excellent communicator, right? My job is to paint the vision, make sure everybody understands what are the three most important things that we're doing and how we all collectively go in towards those things.
And that takes you being a really amazing communicator, being an excellent, almost like a salesperson to your own organization. I know what my strengths are, is that I can tell everybody like, hey guys, we're going this way. This is how we're going to get there. All come with me.
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Chapter 5: How does Michael Rubin approach competition?
It gives me great confidence to go for things and, you know, not have any fear about if it doesn't work, we're just going to rip the bandaid off. I mean, think about what we've done in the past four years. We were only in the, you know, Fangir business, which now is, you know, this year it's about a $7 billion business. And we started the collectibles business. We started the gaming business.
Within the collectibles business, we started a live commerce platform, a marketplace. We started a fanatics events business. We started, but by the way, I started an NFT business. Four months into that, I was like, this isn't a real business. It's a bullshit business. And I knew, okay, we're getting out of it. I got the investors the money back. I'm like, I'm moving on.
But I love that you would do that within four months, right? Because in that moment, like, what was this? Just after COVID, we were in NFT madness. I wonder, like, because you've had so much success, have the failures become easier to deal with? Do you just fail less now? Because I know earlier in your career, you really, I mean, you have come
really close to the line with a couple of businesses, right? It's like, it's not all been like billions and billions of dollars and you making great decisions all over the show.
I've seen death in its eyes.
Death in its eyes.
So many times. I'm sorry. I got to tell you something, that's fun. Oh, stop it. It's fun.
Wait a minute. You are going to seriously sit here and tell me that when that's happening, did you, I mean, when you say I saw death in its eyes, did that mean like everything's on the line for you? Like your home's on the line or is it like you're just- Many times. No. How is that fun? That can't be fun.
It's fun. It's fun. It's like, because I remember even recently, the last time that I really thought I was done was 2009. We're in the middle of the financial crisis. My stock and my company had been worth $250 million. It went down by 90%. Okay.
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Chapter 6: What leadership qualities are essential for success?
Because I wasn't scared of failing. Here's what I knew. If I fell apart and it was all over, I would just do it again. And it would be fun.
First of all, I have absolutely no doubt. But where does it come from in you that you could be right on the brink like that, right? If you trace it back and think, okay, I could build it all again. I get it because you've shown that you can do it over and over again. And you can find these pockets of billion dollar businesses seemingly everywhere. But where do you get that from?
What in your life has signaled to you that you can just bounce back?
I think ever since I was a little kid, I have not had fear in business. I've just always been fearless like that. And so it doesn't even seem off to me. I think a lot of entrepreneurs think that way. I mean, it doesn't, you know, no matter what you tell me, I'm like, okay, how do we deal with it? Because you want to keep everyone calm, cool, and collected all the times.
Think about Tom Brady when he was down 28-3. against the Atlanta Falcons. Do you think he was in there saying like, I'm dejected, I'm quitting? It's just like, fuck that.
Is that what you think about in those moments or you just like, you go into yourself?
It's when I work the absolute hardest is like, that's when you need to step up. And you know, when the game's on the line, when you're losing, that's when you have to work the smartest and the hardest. And I always work hard, but that's when like nothing's getting in the way. It's like you have tunnel vision.
So what do you do in that moment? Your stock is worth almost nothing. You owe more than you're actually worth. You're sitting there with a company that's been essentially completely devalued by the crash. Then what goes through your head? Like, what do you do next?
So I owed JP Morgan $50 million from 2008. I kept paying them back and I got it down to $3 million. I couldn't get the money. Like I had called friends. No one, like I could, there was no- No one's coming out. 2009, nobody's coming out.
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Chapter 7: How does Michael Rubin handle failure?
You're just made of something different. But the resiliency to actually call someone 50 odd times is enough for me. I mean... But it doesn't bother me. And there's no embarrassment there. There's nothing in you. You're like zero. I just want to go back because obviously to sell a company for $2.4 billion, 18 months after it was essentially worthless. This is... GSI, right? GSI Commerce.
So, but you held on to a piece of that company that eventually then becomes Fanatic. So did you have, first of all, how did you manage to extract the most, like, I guess the most valuable part of the, you know, company out? because that feels like unbelievable that you could even do that. And did you have a vision for Fanatics at that point?
2011.
Yeah.
So it's like, it's a long time ago. $2.4 billion is a shit ton of money. So I just want to understand, how do you manage to get away with the bit that ends up being 25, worth $25 billion? Well, two things.
It would be wrong for me to not say, When I sold the company to eBay for $2.4 billion, I think I had screwed up a lot of pieces of the business and I had actually been a better CEO then. I think the company could have been worth $100 billion. If you think about what we built, we built one of the first e-commerce technology engines. Think about what Shopify is worth today.
We built an incredible email platform. Think about what exact target that was bought by Salesforce was worth. So if you go through each of the pieces of what I built, I didn't do a great job. So I actually think I failed up. by selling it for $2.4 billion. But I think you're actually giving way too much credit to me In 2011, FedEx was nothing, okay?
It was a completely undifferentiated e-commerce site of licensed sports merchandise. And eBay didn't want it because they're like, look, we don't want to be an inventory-owned business. It wasn't a good business. It was nothing business. When I bought it, and it's the only thing I focused on, that allowed us to think about how to really build a strategy.
So the only thing I really thought when I bought the business, I had one giant fear, which is there's this little company in Seattle called Amazon. Have you heard of them? You've heard of them?
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Chapter 8: What is the impact of mission-driven companies?
So like, you know, a lot of people would say like, is the CEO of a 22,000 person, you know, $11 billion revenue company next year going to chase- That is literally what we said. And, you know, I was like, I loved it because I had so much respect for her vision, so much respect for you. I'm like, these guys are killers. Like, what could the three of us do together?
And what could we do for sports fans? So the second you get comfortable and think like, look at like all the changes that are happening. in their parallel footwear business today. And you say like, nothing's forever. And you know what? We have to keep figuring out how to do what we do better. And there's so much that we can be better at. And so, you know, one of the mistakes I think I made
you know, in the first decade of the business, we were so worried about competition. We weren't focused enough on how's everything we do going to make it better for the fan. And now, like, we actually, I'll tell you, talk about turning a failure into a success. We had, obviously, it's well known at this point, we had a pretty, you know, tough experience in baseball last year with the jersey.
And, you know, as everyone knows, we're partners with Nike, we're partners with MLB. We make the jerseys together and, you know, everyone in the desire to innovate wants to kind of change the baseball jersey. And it's not what fans wanted. And during that period of time, and by the way, we got, you know, Fanatics took the brunt of most of the, and there was a lot of consumer noise.
You know, hey, these pants are C3, these jerseys suck, this, that. And what did we do? Number one, we listened and we reverted back together with Nike, baseball, and ourselves. We got to revert back to what fans loved. Number one. Number two, how do I use that to make my company better? And literally, we'd been talking about brand purpose. for the last year.
And I was like, what is this brand purpose bullshit? Like, is this just like, you know, consultant noise? And then it hit us. It's like, we need to relentlessly enhance the fan experience in everything we do. And if you ask us, when you go to do things and we do a lot of things, is this going to relentlessly enhance the fan experience? If the answer is no, don't do it.
Well, I could look back to a bunch of things we did in the past where it didn't. Relentlessly enhance the fan experience. And now we're going back and we're saying, we're re-questioning everything we've ever done to say, how do we be better?
So you feel like everything is anchoring back into that brand purpose.
Everything has to go into that brand purpose of relentlessly enhance the fan experience. When we started the sports betting business, we said, hey, if we give you back money in every bet that you make, you can use anywhere on our platform. The other thing we do is players get injured in sports all the time. If a player gets injured in the first quarter of a game, we cancel that bet.
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