Speaker 1:
From the library of the New York Stock Exchange at the corner of Wall and Broad Streets in New York City, you're inside the ICE House. Our podcast from Intercontinental Exchange on markets, leadership and vision and global business, the dream drivers that have made the NYSE an indispensable institution of global growth for over 225 years. Each week we feature stories of those who hatch plans, create jobs, and harness the engine of capitalism right here, right now at the NYSC and at ISIS exchanges and clearing houses around the world. And now welcome inside the ICE House.
Lance Glinn:
Amid widespread lockdowns and stay at home directives, individuals sought novel forms of indoor entertainment and hobbies to occupy their time. Consequently, many gravitated towards sports card collecting, perhaps a product of ESPN's release of the last dance documentary following Michael Jordan, Phil Jackson, Dennis Rodman, and the 1997, 1998 NBA Champion Chicago Bulls, sports card collecting offered both nostalgia and engagement. The allure of revisiting cherish memories and connecting with beloved athletes through trading cards resonated deeply with both veteran collectors and novices alike, resulting in a surge of interest in the sports card market.
In 2021, the Global Sports Trading card market hit almost $14 billion and the number of sales on eBay Rose 142% from the year prior. Count me among the millions who reengaged with the hobby during the COVID-19 pandemic with sports sideline throughout the country, I filled the normal rush of adrenaline I get as a fan by opening a pack of tops chrome, and tops finest, searching for the Aaron Judge Auto that I desired and that I may say now own. This surge in sports cards led to an influx of card shows and exhibitions nationwide. Collectors wanted the opportunity to meet fellow hobbyists, buy, sell, and trade cards as well. Identifying and then seizing the opportunity presented with the increased interest in hobby events was Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin.
Having established Fanatics in 2011 and transforming it into a global digital sports giant in the present day, Michael continued fanatics expansion in 2023 by launching Fanatics Events. With the goal of building the largest and most exciting network of sports and collector fan events around the world. Michael Rubin Tabb, today's guest, Lance Fensterman to lead Fanatics Events, the company's newest business as CEO. In just a minute, Lance will join us inside the ICE House to unpack his career in the live events industry. From Comic-Con to Star Wars celebration to Now Sports, we will dive into his plans for the future of Fanatics Events and detailed Fanatics Fest taking place August 16th to the 18th at the Javits Center here in Manhattan. Our conversation with Fanatics event CEO, Lance Fensterman is coming up right after this.
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Lance Glinn:
Welcome back. Remember to subscribe wherever you listen and rate and review us on Apple Podcast so that others know where to find us. Lance Fensterman is the CEO of Fanatics Events, one of five branches of parent company Fanatics, which also includes Fanatics Commerce, Fanatics Collectibles, Fanatics Live and Fanatics Betting and Gaming. Prior to Fanatics Events, Lance served as president of ReedPop, a subsidiary of RELX, that's NYSE, ticker symbol RELX, overseeing a portfolio of events consisting of New York Comic-Con, Star Wars, celebration packs and many others. As we record at the end of July, we sit a mere few weeks out from Fanatics Fest, the first ever immersive sports festival where fandom culture and collecting collide. Lance, thanks so much for joining us inside the ICE House. Welcome to the New York Stock Exchange.
Lance Fensterman:
Lance, thanks for having me.
Lance Glinn:
So I want to sort of get, we got to hit on the elephant in the room, right? I had mentioned before we started recording that I think this could be the first episode where the host and the guest have the same name. Our name, I actually did some research and look, who knows how truthful this statistic is. Our name is 540th most popular in the United States. I can't remember frankly the last time I had a conversation with someone named Lance. I don't know if you can, but it is I think a little bit special that I'm Lance and I'm sitting across from a fellow, one of my Lance brethren. So...
Lance Fensterman:
What's the plural of Lance? Is it Lanci?
Lance Glinn:
Lanci, Lancis.
Lance Fensterman:
Lancis.
Lance Glinn:
Yeah, I don't know. I think we'd have to look back because obviously Lance is in medieval times a sword. So I think we may have to look back on what a multiple of one Lance is.
Lance Fensterman:
I used to refer to myself as the only living verb and it doesn't get a lot of traction, but some people that get it, get it. And as a fellow Lance, you might. So I offer that to you. Feel free to use it uncredited. It can be yours. It's fine.
Lance Glinn:
Yeah. And look, one of the things I enjoyed growing up was that there weren't many lances and I felt a little bit special, but now that there's two of us here at the New York Stock Exchange, I think this is setting up to be a great conversation as we have a lot to obviously discuss, mainly upcoming Fanatics Fest in mid-August, but the bulk of your career spanned outside of sports. And as you switch genres, obviously the interests change, the interests of someone going to going to be the same as the interests of someone going to Fanatics Fest. As you plan these different events with different interests, does the event planning change or is it all really the same, you're just sort of now planning it for a sports audience instead of a Comic=Con audience?
Lance Fensterman:
Totally. It's a great question. There's a ton of shared DNA amongst fans and whatever you are a fan of and there's a shared DNA amongst collectors, whatever it is you're collecting. And that is what is the bulk of the similarities, right? Just the passion, the desire, the want to gather with other people, discovery, get something I've never seen before. All of that drives these people, these fans. You can just get some subtle differences. This is a little maybe too insider, but at a Comic-Con, we do tons of panels and talks and main stage and you get to see creators and stars and celebrities.
That doesn't happen in the world of card shows. So we're introducing it at Fanatics Fest. We're saying we want this to be really interactive and immersive and tons of cool content and the fan base is not sure what to do with it because it's novel, right? It hasn't been done before. So they're like, "What do you mean Tom Brady's going to be on stage talking?" Like, "Yeah, he's going to talk about his career and what has inspired him," and it's a very novel concept. So you see the DNA can be similar, but some of how it gets expressed within a live environment like we're building is a little bit different and nuanced and we're learning that as we go.
Lance Glinn:
And what are the challenges in sort of normalizing that in a sports show, in a sports exhibition?
Lance Fensterman:
It's like any product, you've got to tell the story, right? I don't mean to unromanticize it and say it's like any other product, it's like macaroni and cheese or hair gel, but you're trying to tell the story of what this is and why people should connect with it or what they're going to get out of it. And it's just a longer form story to tell, and that's where candidly coming to speak with wonderful Lances like yourself is great because a podcast gives us that opportunity to share the journey, tell the story, which is more conducive to this sort of a new concept than a social media ad spot. You want to be able to give people more and then they can seek out the rest.
Lance Glinn:
And when you compare the habits or the tendencies of a card, sports memorabilia, baseball collector compared to a action figure collector, comic collector, what are the differences there? Are there similarities? Are there a lot of similarities? How would you compare the two?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, there's a lot of similarities. In fact, demographically it can look quite similar, like a little more male, a little bit just slightly older. But splits, you kind of have young collectors and then you have more seasoned collectors. Where I think it is quite different is the sport and memorabilia collector is a little used to being in a more insular environment, like card shows look very similar today that they did in 1980 and they're very much catering to the converted. During the pandemic, to your reference point, that changed. It brought a lot of new sort of investors into this space.
But still those card shows, those communities of people getting together looked very similar. The format where in the world of pop culture events, you had a much kind of bigger mix of different genres and interests and things. And it's a bit of what we want to introduce here because that means those card shows are great for the converted, they're unbelievable for the people that already collect, but for people that are curious or maybe don't even know they're interested in collecting, it's not a very effective way to on-ramp. So we're trying to do some more genre mashups and content mashups that will bring in all sorts of different fans that can discover different ways to express their passion and fandom.
Lance Glinn:
And you bring over two decades of experience to Fanatics having planned some of the most famous events worldwide, really. I mentioned New York Comic-Con, Star Wars Celebration packs among others, but dating back to the early and mid two thousands, how did you get your start and find your interest in creating events and taking something in your mind and making it tangible?
Lance Fensterman:
I was always interested in where art and commerce collided and then serving people, bringing people together. So I spent time in publishing and book selling, which really was the nexus of art and commerce, and it was a wonderful way for people to connect through a shared passion, whether that passion was the author or the passion was the medium of books and publishing. And that really translated well to the live event environment where you were bringing people together that had similar but disparate interests to sort of discover and celebrate and it was just a natural extension. So for most of my life and career, I've been bringing people together in some way, shape or form. I've been serving people. I enjoy that idea of making people happy and creating moments, whether it's a restaurant or a bookstore or a live event, of just bringing happiness and joy to people. And I sleep really well, I think that's a fairly good pursuit for the world. So I enjoy it and I think it leaves hopefully a positive mark on where I live, so.
Lance Glinn:
Do you remember the first event you put together?
Lance Fensterman:
I did actually, I'm trying to think here. The first...
Lance Glinn:
Was it in the book selling or the?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, it was. I'm certain it was an author event, and I'm not going to remember the very first one, but what I do remember was there is authors and then there's celebrity authors and authors are really weighty and serious and it's great. Celebrity authors sell books. When you're an independent book seller, you're always wanting to sell books. We did an in-store event with a hunky handyman from a TV show that wrote a book and it was like we'd get 75 people to an author event, a hundred people. There's like 900 of a very specific demographic that was lined up around the block to meet this. I'm doing air quotes if you can't see me, "author". So that was an introduction to what fandom looks like and a reminder to never judge somebody's fandom. You're just happy they're out and participating in the world, so.
Lance Glinn:
Absolutely. So take us back to that initial conversation with Fanatics, whether it was an immediate offer to run this business or not. What were sort of your first interactions with leadership and how intrigued, just from those conversations, were you with everything that Michael Rubin had planned for both Fanatics Events and the company as a whole?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, I'll tell you two little stories. So the first is the first call I got was from a guy named Tucker Kain, who's the chief strategy officer at Fanatics. And I'm like, "I don't know who this guy is." So I googled him and I saw he had been president of the Dodgers, so I was like, "This is it. This is my moment. They need middle relief help." You know what I mean? I get it. I'm not an athlete, but I could eat a couple of innings in a blowout. This is my time. And then I kept reading that he actually was at Fanatics now, so it ruined my childhood dream of being a bad-
Lance Glinn:
Would you have chosen if he, Tucker Kain comes to you and says, "Lance, we need you on the Dodgers," is middle relief your role of choice or are you choosing DHS because you just want to bet? Are you in the field? Are you a starter?
Lance Fensterman:
No, here's what I'm thinking. I'm picturing get a little bit of a mullet, get the sports goggles, and I could create a whole persona. And the fact that I couldn't maybe throw a strike or a-
Lance Glinn:
Like a wild thing persona similar to major league? Yeah
Lance Fensterman:
Hundred percent. Yep, yep. I'd be the comic relief. You know what I mean? And so the fact that I couldn't throw more than 60 miles an hour, I'd become a fan favorite. So in a very quick period of time, I crafted my journey here and it got all messed up when he was like, "No, I want to talk to you about live event opportunities at Fanatics and get your advice." That was very disappointing. However, I picked myself up, dusted myself off and had a conversation. And really what they were seeking was Michael Rubin had gone to New York Comic-Con, a show that I ran. I'd walked around and just asked a pretty fundamental question that seems simple, but I think great entrepreneurs see opportunities in some otherwise benign situations. And he just looked at it and said, "Why doesn't this exist for sports?" So they had a few questions, they asked me a little bit of advice here and there.
I gave them my advice, they ignored it roundly, and then came back for more advice, which I gave them more advice. And eventually I flew up to New York and had a long meeting with Michael, and that was kind of where I started to see his vision for the company. We also aligned in that he is not formally educated in any way, and he's proud of that fact. I'm not formally educated in any way, and I saw an alignment about focusing on customers, around a vision, around results, not around pedigree. And that was something that through my whole career has been a mainstay for me, which is like I'm going to be as close to the customer as humanly possible to drive that result, to get the insight that will move the needle because I'm not an NBA guy. And that was something that I just immediately felt like I could do well in a place like this with a leader like that.
Lance Glinn:
And what was Michael Rubin's vision?
Lance Fensterman:
It was why don't we have a Comic-Con for sports? And as we started talking about it, you just look around and you say, look at Coachella for influencers in music or CES for technology, VidCon for influencers, South by Southwest for music, film, television, all of these sort of big industries have that large live platform that brings fans together. It brings brands together, it brings creators together, and they're using that platform to first and foremost, celebrate. Celebrate what they love, wallow in the cool stuff of their given industry or medium or genre, but also business gets done, products are launched, announcements are made, brands are unveiled or revitalized creators, athletes, artists, what have you, are there to show their new project, to connect with fans.
And I think that is missing in sports. And there's a question as to why it hasn't been done, and as you looked at or as I looked at, the assets and the resources Fanatics possesses, if there is an entity that can do it, that cuts across all sports, all sort of genres and cultural verticals, Fanatics has those relationships, has those resources, has those assets, but also importantly speaking to Michael, has the ambition that says, "We want to do this," and it's a big swing that we're taking, but I think if it can be done, we can do it. That's not to say we're going to get it right straight away, but I think we can do it as Fanatics.
Lance Glinn:
And when Michael Rubin, Glenn Schiffman, Tucker Kain come to you and they say, "Lance, we want you to run Fanatics Events, we want you to be the CEO of this new branch of the business," does it take a lot of convincing? How persuasive are they in that meeting? And just right away, was it a, "This is what I want to do," or was it a little bit of, "Hey, we need to convince Lance a little bit to come join us?"
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, good, thanks. That's a good question, a personal one. I built a company with values and a culture and people that I loved and brands that I built that I loved. I was a part of building, I shouldn't say I, customers that I loved and it was successful, scaled, profitable. It was a increasingly easy place to be at a time in my life where I have a young family and there was some nice trade-offs there. I also felt a degree of comfort that can easily become kind of atrophy. And so it was time, I think, to find a new opportunity. I'm not a Michael Rubin entrepreneur. I'm not a, "Let me go raise $50 million and start something from scratch." I'm a better intrapreneur, which is let me build a culture, let me build a brand and a team and a vision, but as sort of a subset or an offshoot of something else, that really checked the box for me.
The second thing that checked to box for me was again, those similarities between the collectors, the card shows, and what I saw in '07 when we were launching and building New York Comic-Con, it was very similar. The worlds were very insider, lo-fi, the community's a bit insular, but it was really ready for something bigger. So I felt a high degree of comfort under the leadership and vision of a guy like Michael and Tucker and Glenn. And the similarities I felt and that profile of an intrapreneur that I really enjoyed, it made for a relatively easy decision. And now being at Fanatics, I have a better understanding of the draw, the magnetism that company has right now and the people that want to be a part of it, either they want to work there, they want to partner with, they want investment from, they're interested in investing in. And so I didn't really grasp that until I was on the inside. And so I think now looking back, it was probably maybe more of a no-brainer than I even recognized at the time. And then I'll say with that also comes expectations, right?
Lance Glinn:
Yeah.
Lance Fensterman:
We got to deliver. And we're, again, taking a very ambitious swing here at this concept.
Lance Glinn:
And now with ReedPOP, obviously a subsidiary of RELX, one of the great listed companies here at the New York Stock Exchange, tons of resources, a brand name company behind you, you have that now at Fanatics. How much easier is it or more beneficial is it to have that name recognition already, to have those resources behind you? I mean, Fanatics has four other branches of business alongside Fanatics Events. Do you collaborate with those branches of business when you're putting it together a Fanatics Fest and just again, having that big brand behind you, how much does that help when starting a new branch like you did with Fanatics Events?
Lance Fensterman:
It's insane. What it means to call company A, B, C and be with Fanatics, and the returned call factor is ridiculous. The desire for people to want to be engaged, whether they're brands or leagues or athletes because of who Fanatics is is incredibly helpful. Again, it also comes with expectations, right? Sometimes those expectations are, it will be a massive, wildly successful show. Sometimes the are like, "There's going to be a ton of resource that I'm going to have access to if I'm participating in this show." And so there's two sides to it, but you have to manage it, but it's ridiculously helpful.
Lance Glinn:
Now we're going to get to Fanatics Fest shortly. It's not the first event that Fanatics Events has put together. Back in April, you hosted WWE world at WrestleMania in Philadelphia. The five-day festival, I have it here in my notes, was the highest grossing and most attended fan event in WWE history. Just what do you credit for the success of that event, and then how do you translate what you learned from WWE world now to Fanatics Fest in August?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, so I'll kind of zoom out a little bit. From our ReedPop days, we know that those joint venture types events, we did them with UFC way back in the day. We've done them with Wizards of the Coast, which do Magic The Gathering. We did them with Star Wars, with Lucasfilm. Those are really great ways to build a profile and to understand your capabilities and your gaps because you've got a partner to lean on. So we deliberately used that platform to be the first event that we launched because then we weren't doing all the lifting.
We had WWE helping us, and it was allowing us to learn what are we good at? How's our team that we just built pretty quickly, but also how does Fanatics as a whole entity, support, understand, deal with this new business model? Because they haven't done anything like this. So we're really pleased with the success because it not only was a success for our incredibly important partner at WWE, but also is a success to say, "All right, some of our hypotheses here about how we're approaching this new business, the team that we've built, we're not off the mark."
And I think I'm going to answer your prior question a little bit about how we interact with other parts of Fanatics because what we saw was when bringing all those fans into WWE world, there was a business model with that and it was good. What was more important was we activated all different parts of the Fanatics ecosystem. So Fanatics does all of the merchandise and apparel for WWE. And because of the fan event we created, the footfall was up dramatically in sales in that store that another part of Fanatics built were something like six times what they had been the prior WrestleMania. And so we're now showing we're able to create enterprise value, not just for this little division, but for all of the ecosystem. And the same is true with betting and gaming was there, obviously commerce was there. In future years, collectibles will be there as we have the rights to the trading cards. So we see that those events we build, engaging those passionate fans will create enterprise wide value, which was an incredibly important hypothesis of our business model that we got to see proven true with WWE.
Lance Glinn:
So now as we shift towards Fanatics Fest, how do you go about creating an event that both appeals to those that are fans of an entire sport, those who just love baseball, whether it's Cincinnati Reds, Colorado Rockies, New York, Yankees, New York Mets, whomever, and also fans that just love the Yankees or just love the Chicago Cubs to make sure that anyone who goes, anyone who heads to the Javit Center in August enjoys what you've obviously put on?
Lance Fensterman:
I think it's one of the biggest challenges we have actually, because sports are local, right? People don't typically say, "I'm a fan of Major League baseball." They say unfortunately like you do, "I'm a Yankees fan," right?
Lance Glinn:
Let me ask real quick. Mets fan?
Lance Fensterman:
Twins.
Lance Glinn:
Twins.
Lance Fensterman:
I grew up in Minnesota.
Lance Glinn:
Oh well, then I think I Lance have the upper hand on you Lance, since I know the Yankees and Twins, the rivalry's a little one-sided.
Lance Fensterman:
You're a very polite host in the way you position that. Just a little, if you could see his gesture, one hand was very low to the floor, the other was very high. I think when I typically say I'm a Twins fan, I get a pat on the head. Do you know what I mean? "Oh, that's super for you. They still have a club up there?" You can't help where you were born. I'm true to my fandom.
Lance Glinn:
There you go.
Lance Fensterman:
So the challenge around sports is local. And so we had to be thoughtful around, we don't want to be a New York sports show, that's done and there's some great ones out there, but we also needed to engage the tri-state area because that's where a huge part of our audience is going to come from. So we've tried to strike that balance well, and I think you'll see we have a ton of rangers, a ton of Knicks, a ton of Yankees, some Mets.
The Mets are in town that weekend actually. So we're doing some cool stuff with the Mets more in a live environment, but we've still got a really broad cross section then of other, we had a great Celtics lineup, we've got some Pats, but then we've just got great luminaries from sports. Do you know what I mean? When you think of, this is probably an extreme example, but you think of Kareem, he is an amazing basketball player. Absolutely, he spent his entire career with the Lakers, but he's transcended the team. And even Tom Brady to a point has done that, even Jeter, as much as he's a New York guy, no doubt, I think-
Lance Glinn:
He's still Derek Jeter.
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, baseball. He is a baseball guy and it's hard not to be a fan of him now. And so I think we tried to get that balance, right, of leaning into local while also getting a lot of other things and other players. And the other piece I would say is we've got huge activations, so meaning interactive pieces, and you can go and play all the sports video games. You can go and run the 40 yard dash against other NFL players. You can go do pop a shot in the NBA. It is sports and it is hands-on and it is feel it and do it and live it and get to meet these great heroes. And so I think you try to create a really well-rounded experience both in local versus national and do versus see, touch and collect.
Lance Glinn:
So you mentioned a few of these earlier. There's obviously South by Southwest, there's CES, there's Comic-Con, there's Star Wars celebration that you were part of. Do you draw inspiration or have you drawn inspiration from these events that have these long storied histories and brought some of the teachings over or learnings over now to Fanatics Fest?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, I've said I've tried to lean on my experience without being trapped by it and recognizing that there are things that we have brought over that are just no question, just do it. It's best practice. And there are things that we've brought over that have been, they haven't fit. Our fans don't quite know what to do with that. And we have to, I'll give you an example. We sell our tickets online. Most of these card shows don't. With that, there's fees like any other ticket provider. That's not normal, cash at the door, most of these card shows.
So we had a really negative reaction to that. And to us it was just like, "It's just par for the course. You understand that's how it works." And that was one where we made an assumption, and it's like a silly one, but an important one. We made an assumption, no big deal, didn't even think about it, didn't question it, but it didn't fit with this audience, they weren't used to that. And so we've tried to find the right moments to import something plus up what prior practices are, but we've also learned through some mistakes and we make a lot of them in a startup, that we need to be more thoughtful around certain things and be more attuned to the fact that this is a different audience.
Lance Glinn:
And you mentioned card shows, the National Card Show and Fanatics Fest are close together when it comes to when they're happening, timeline, everything like that. Do you envision Fanatics Fest sort of acting as a competitor of sorts to the card show? Do you envision it acting in tandem? How do you see these two? Because National Card Show has that long story history. It moves around on a yearly basis. It's been in Atlantic City, it's been in the Midwest, it's been on the West coast. How do you see the two events, whether it be this year or years to come acting together?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, I'm leaving in the morning. It's in Cleveland this year, I fly tomorrow morning for the balance of the week just to see customers pay homage to an incredible event. We do not view ourselves as a competitor, nor do we want to compete, that is in, it's the Super Bowl of events in sports for fans and for collectors in particular. So we view ourselves as saying, "Can we add, can we onboard new people into the hobby?" If we were able to bring people into card collecting or collecting memorabilia that then leads them to go to the national, we've done our job. So we want to be something different and additive and a different vibe than the national. The national is an amazing event. And if we could be a quarter of what that show is, we'll be very happy.
Lance Glinn:
So at Fanatics Fest, you have the obvious autograph photo op session, something common we see at exhibitions as we discussed before, but Fanatics Fest is really making the athlete sort of a storyteller. You're having panels, I know I was looking through Jalen Bronson, Josh Hart, and I think Ben Stiller is one, and I'm not a huge Knicks fan, but if I were to choose a basketball team, I'd probably choose the Knicks. And I know that's one I'm looking forward to seeing. How are you sort of changing the role of the athlete at an event like this where it's not just, "Hey, come sign a basketball, come sign a jersey, come sign a card." It's more of we'll do that, but we'll also then later on tell you our story, tell you how we got to be an NBA superstar.
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, we found that this was an area where not just fans, but athletes needed to be kind of helped along the journey because athletes typically have been happy to go sign something, but then to get up and talk about their craft, their backstory, their inspiration, their side hustle was new to them. And I think I boil it down to anytime we can help to create a porous connection between a fan and what they're a fan of, the creator, the athlete, the artist, it generates this wonderful intimacy and it ignites the passion of fandom even further, which then starts to create all sorts of really positive ripples through the whole ecosystem.
So our vision is instead of these athletes just signing, them telling their story, getting the story behind the story, allowing fans to be in the room when they told something that they've never talked about before is huge for creating that connection and talking about the cultural impact that these athletes have is incredibly powerful, more powerful than the game winning hit story or the game winning drive story. So we really just want to bring these athletes to life and create those connections between fans and them that make these wonderful moments that really, really resonate with fans and make that special.
Lance Glinn:
And I spent part of my introduction discussing my own ventures into the sports card hobby, right? Mining for those graded Yankees, finally getting that Aaron Judge Auto that I've been searching for, really was searching for during the whole pandemic, finally have it in my possession. I think at Fanatics Fest, over 300 plus dealers and booths with cards and collectibles. I know Tops I'm sure will be there too, as obviously that's a company that Fanatics owns. What does Fanatics Fest look like from a cards perspective when it comes to buying, selling, trading? And I think most importantly, and I think you touched on it earlier, learning about the hobby too.
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah. So we will have about 300 dealers there, which will be some of the best in the country. And it's easy to say this will be the largest card show that's ever happened in New York City, period. Forget all of the other things that are happening, just focus on those cards for a minute. So we view it as a vibrant marketplace where buying, selling, trading will be happening constantly. We then have created basically an interactive area on the show floor that is all about learning and hands-on, so you'll have a stage where you'll have various sort of leaders in the industry talking about 101 classes, tell me about cards. What are the difference in all the different cards? What does a graded card mean? How do I get it graded? Just basic 201, 301, right? And not just on a stage with people seated, but we'll have high tables, chairs, where we'll just have packs of cards and it'll be like instead of telling somebody what cards are like, "Here's a pack, open it, what are you looking for? What's in the upper right? What's in the bottom? How do you tell if it's in good condition? What do the edges look like?"
Just talk them through it. But also that sort of central area becomes a spot where people can gather, interact, trade, et cetera, et cetera. And we'll have cool exclusive products as well. This weekend we announced Travis Scott is coming and he's going to have a really cool exclusive product that collectors will love. Tops is going to be releasing some cool exclusive products. So he'll be able to go and if you're a hardcore guy and you want to go get that stuff, it's there for you. If you're curious and you wander over to that part of the show and you're like, "What is this?" There'll be an opportunity to put your hands on cards and learn. So we're trying to kind of appeal to the converted and those that have yet fallen in love with the hobby.
Lance Glinn:
Fanatics Fest August 16th to the 18th. When we hit August 19th, you sort of look back on the previous three days, what worked, what didn't, what you want to do differently for 2025, how do you measure success for this first Fanatics Fest? Is it quantifiable based off ticket sales and revenue, or is there more to it?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, so surviving is the first one. If I can make it through, I'll be happy. I'm less focused on financial metrics at this stage in focused on happy fans. I want people in the building, I want a giant crowd of very happy people. That's probably the number one metric. I want a lot of fans there that love the experience. Two will be were our athletes, were our brand partners, were sponsors, were they happy? Did they feel like they got a return on their time and dollar investment in this venture? And I think then the third is likely, how did we do for the rest of Fanatics? Did Mitch and Ness feel like they saw some new customers?
They got to tell a story, they deepened a relationship with their customer base? Because we know live events are very good at that longer form storyteller, deeper relationship building, and I think every brand needs that. But I also think Fanatics as a whole in its development right now is in need of that deeper relationship building and I want to make sure that we're delivering fans to those brands and they are then able to build those relationships. And then the last thing I would say is, did we bring new people in? Did somebody discover the hobby, right? Did somebody start collecting cards? Did somebody start collecting memorabilia? Did somebody activate their fandom in a new way? Because that's, again, what events can do really well when they're successful.
Lance Glinn:
So as we begin to wrap up, this is only year one obviously of Fanatics Fest, and I'm sure there are amenities features that maybe you have in your mind that either you imagined too late or that you just weren't able to fit in this first ideation of Fanatics Fest. Is it too early to think about what expansion looks like in 2025, 2026, or are gears in your mind already churning of, "Hey, this is what I want in years moving forward?"
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, I've got a list going of all of the-
Lance Glinn:
How long? Paper, two papers, three?
Lance Fensterman:
It's about 30 lines long already, and it's just things I've learned, right? And it's just stuff I need to keep track of. That, of course, doing this well and then learning is the way we'll scale, right? Because we're going to sift through this stuff that didn't resonate, that didn't work, and we're going to lean into the stuff that did. I see a world where we're running a handful, maybe 10 smaller card shows around the US that have really great card shows with a little bit of culture and experiential, then this big flagship concept that we're launching. That's a big lift. And I don't mean for us, I mean for athletes, for brands, for leagues. We're not going to run 10 of those. I can see us running two, probably New York and LA and then we look at global markets where you have different fan communities, different leagues, different brands, different teams, different players, different products, different needs.
Does the NFL need us to grow their fandom in the US? Probably not. Is South America a priority to the NFL? Clearly it is. So can we go into a market like that where we're maybe a better partner to a league like that where we're going in and building a fan community together? That's where I see some really interesting opportunities. I'm using Brazil, but I think you can imagine the six or seven global markets where a big show like that appropriate for that local market could be really exciting for us and some of our partners.
Lance Glinn:
So Michael Rubin and the leadership team have obviously built Fanatics into a global sports giant, and Fanatics Events is a very young part of the overall Fanatics business. How do you then take it, you mentioned Brazil, South America, Europe, Asia. How do you sort of take Fanatics Events worldwide?
Lance Fensterman:
Yeah, I think we start to build it one piece at a time, meaning find that next market, that's really vital. But I think most of all, the value we bring to the organization is marketing. We are putting the Fanatics name out there in a new and different and exciting way that's going to generate headlines. Two is relationships, building relationships between fans and Fanatics, and whether that is in Europe, the UK, Asia Pacific or the US, that is deeply, deeply valuable and then activating new customers for the enterprise. I think those are the ways that we are really making a difference for the entire company in markets all over the world.
Lance Glinn:
So finally, Lance, if fans listening want to go to Fanatics Fest at the Javit Center on August 16th to the 18th, how do they buy tickets to one session or to all three?
Lance Fensterman:
I would strongly encourage anyone listening to do that for selfish reasons and selfless reasons, because it's going to be a really killer show. It's going to be awesome. You mentioned every sports league is there with interactive features, 300 dealers. We've got 300 plus athletes that are going to be appearing or speaking or signing or photo ops. Podcasts are going to be live. If you like sports or collecting, there is going to be something there for you, massive collection of memorabilia, millions of dollars of cars, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Just go to fanaticsfest.com. There, you can buy tickets, you can buy it for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or all three days. And more importantly, if you've got ideas, I'm very easy to Google, send me a note. I want to hear from you. So we love being close to the fans. We love to know what it is that those fans want. Don't hesitate to reach out and buy a ticket too.
Lance Glinn:
Well make sure when you Google, you Google Lance Fensterman, not Lance Glinn. We might have the same first name, but we do two different things. But Lance, when Fanatics Fest, excuse me, turns 10, and Fanatics Events obviously joins in turning 10 or 11 too, we look forward to having you back inside the ICE House to talk about what would then be a decade of Fanatics Events. Thanks so much for joining us.
Lance Fensterman:
My pleasure. Great to be here, Lance.
Lance Glinn:
That's our conversation for this week. Our guest was Lance Fensterman, CEO of Fanatics Events, a subsidiary of Fanatics. If you like what you heard, please rate us on Apple Podcasts so other folks know where to find us. Got a comment or question you'd like one of our experts to tackle on a future show, make sure to leave a review. Email us at [email protected] or tweet at us at ICE House Podcast. For Josh King, Pea Dash and Ken Abel. I'm Lance Glinn. Thanks for listening. We will talk to you next week.
Speaker 1:
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