LeBron, Jay-Z, and Tom Brady are headlining the most ambitious event in sports — and no, it’s not about the money

Fanatics Fest is expected to lose millions — again. Michael Rubin’s not worried.

“We’re still in investment mode,” the 52-year-old Fanatics CEO said of the celebrity-packed sports and culture convention, set to take place June 20 to 22 at the Javits Center.

Last year, 72,000 fans attended the inaugural festival. It was a massive success.

Sure, the company lost $15 million on the three-day celebration, but that’s a little more than a rounding error for Fanatics, which is projected to generate $12 billion in revenue in 2026.

Fanatics Fest isn’t designed to generate revenue on par with Fanatics commerce or collectible verticals, or its betting platform — it’s designed to bolster them.

“This is really about creating a sports festival that only we can create. It’s a great give back to fans,” Rubin told NYNext.

Rubin is expecting 150,000 attendees at this year’s fest. And the number of participating leagues and organizations will more than double, too. FIFA, Formula 1, the Premier League, USTA, Nike, and Dick’s Sporting Goods are joining returning partners including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, UFC and WWE.

Then there’s the surfeit of talent who will be there.

Jay-Z is spending millions on a pop-up 40/40 Club. Tom Brady is sitting on panels and tossing footballs to fans. And Victor Wembanyama, currently traveling in China, is coming in for a cold-plunge with Kevin Hart on a live-taping of “Cold as Balls.”

Fun can also expect to see LeBron James, Travis Scott, Henrik Lundqvist, Derek Jeter, Alex Rodriguez, Livvy Dunne, Kevin Costner, John Cena, Charlotte Flair and hundreds of other beloved athletes and entertainers at various autograph-signings and activations.

It will be “organized chaos,” Rubin said.

While he’s coy on specific event details, he teases “Crazy stunts, endless stunts … Twenty to 30 that no one knows about.” 

One bit he will share involves a yet-to-be-named athlete surrounded by 20 identical decoys in matching uniforms, unleashed into the crowd to confuse fans.

“We like chaos,” Rubin added.

While Fanatics Fest 1.0 was largely a hit, it wasn’t without friction. VIP badge-holders, who paid extra for their privileges, were allowed to cut lines for autographs and photos — a move Rubin now bluntly admits was a “disaster.”

“It sucked, it was terrible,” he said. “You can’t be afraid to go out and do things and make mistakes, but then you’ve got to be a great listener.”

This year, he promises that the autograph process has been overhauled and improved, as has crowd logistics, stage management and athlete transportation.

Since Rubin founded Fanatics in 2002, the sports-commerce giant has expanded from selling team merchandise to running trading cards, collectibles and its own sportsbook. The company serves more than 10 million customers annually across its stores and venue shops, and ships more than 40 million online orders a year.

The global spectator sports industry is worth more than $500 billion, but few companies have built a direct, multi-channel relationship with fans as successfully as Rubin has.

The idea for Fanatics Fest first came to Rubin after he attended SXSW and Comic-Con — flagship experiences that fans were annually traveling across the country and world to attend.

“I thought, ‘Why don’t we have this for sports?’” he said. “There wasn’t [anybody else] that could convene all of the sports properties and all of the athletes … We [had] to do this.”

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