Michael Rubin on Building Fanatics Into a Billion-Dollar Empire

6 Aug 2025 · 52 min

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Podcast Summary: Boardroom with Rich Kleiman - Episode with Michael Rubin

Episode Overview In this episode of "Boardroom," Rich Kleiman sits down with Michael Rubin, the founder and CEO of Fanatics. They discuss Rubin's journey in building Fanatics into a billion-dollar empire, emphasizing pivotal moments, business strategies, and the mindset that fuels his entrepreneurial success. Rubin shares insights on navigating challenges, evolving in the sports industry, and the importance of maintaining a customer-first mentality.

Key Themes and Discussions

  1. The Evolution of Fanatics
  2. From Merchandise to Digital Sports Platform:
  3. Originally focused on licensed sports merchandise.
  4. Transitioned to a digital sports platform during COVID-19, expanding into collectibles and sports betting.
  5. Rubin views Fanatics as a "22,000-person startup" still in its growth phase.
  1. Pivotal Moments During COVID
  2. Reinvention: COVID prompted a significant shift in how Rubin viewed Fanatics' potential, catalyzing the expansion into new business verticals.
  3. Market Assessment: Recognized opportunities in collectibles and betting, informed by existing customer relationships and market demand.
  1. Business Strategy and Risk Management
  2. Identifying Growth Opportunities:
  3. Explored multiple business areas, ultimately focusing on collectibles and betting due to market potential.
  4. Decided against entering the ticketing and media sectors due to high competition and unfavorable conditions.
  5. Investor Engagement:
  6. Rubin describes raising capital as straightforward due to the clear value proposition and market size.
  1. Leadership and Team Building
  2. Key Personnel: Rubin emphasizes the importance of hiring top talent to lead different business verticals.
  3. Collaboration: Maintains a close-knit and collaborative atmosphere, learning from friends and colleagues in the industry.
  1. Betting and Gaming Business
  2. Strategic Advantages:
  3. Beneficial customer acquisition due to Fanatics' existing customer base of over 80 million.
  4. Enhanced value propositions (e.g., "fan cash" rewards system).
  5. Market Share Goals: Aims to grow market share from 7.5% amidst dominant competitors like FanDuel and DraftKings.
  1. Collectibles and Trading Cards
  2. Market Disruption:
  3. Rubin identified inefficiencies in the trading card industry and pivoted to create a better consumer experience.
  4. Innovations included direct-to-consumer sales and enhanced collector interactions.
  5. Revenue Growth: Projects significant revenue growth in collectibles, expected to exceed $3 billion.
  1. Fan Engagement and Community Impact
  2. Fanatics Fest:
  3. A large-scale event aimed at connecting fans, athletes, and the sports community.
  4. Focuses on creating memorable experiences and fostering deeper connections among fans.
  5. Social Responsibility: Rubin is committed to philanthropy, particularly through initiatives like Make-A-Wish.
  1. Personal Motivation and Work Ethic
  2. Hustle Mentality: Rubin expresses a relentless drive to improve and innovate, dismissing any notion of resting on past successes.
  3. Growth Mindset: He believes in learning from mistakes and constantly striving for better outcomes in all business facets.

Key Takeaways

  • Stay Humble and Hungry: Rubin's mindset emphasizes the importance of humility and continuous ambition, regardless of success levels.
  • Customer-Centric Approach: A focus on enhancing fan experiences is central to Fanatics' growth strategy.
  • Innovation is Key: Embracing change and responding to market needs quickly can differentiate a business in competitive sectors.
  • Passion for the Game: Rubin's drive stems from a genuine love for sports and the communities surrounding them.

Conclusion Michael Rubin's conversation with Rich Kleiman provides valuable insights into the entrepreneurial journey of building Fanatics. His experience illustrates the importance of adaptability, strategic thinking, and maintaining a customer-first philosophy in the fast-evolving landscape of sports and e-commerce.

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Transcript

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0:00What's up everybody and welcome to the June boardroom cover story and today we are in New York, New York at the fanatics headquarters with a generational once in a lifetime entrepreneur and CEO and truly a very dear friend of mine. please welcome the man himself, Mr. Michael Rubin. My God, I need like a hug and a kiss for that. Please, bro. You know, cause I do say my friend before most conversations cause in some ways, like you know, in this industry everyone's like a friend, but you truly are a friend. Now you're fam. Fam. Without question. So I feel like I know you very well. When we take our walks, I get to ask you questions about your business and it never gets old for me.

0:43And me questions about your business. That's true. We get to learn from each other. Indeed, indeed. And I think that your story, which never gets old being told, has been told. And the idea that you built this from the ground up and the way that you just kicked doors down your entire life is something that I think everybody has been inspired by. What I want to use today's interview for is talk about the business. Talk about the business you've built and talk about the last five years in particular. So I want to ask you, you were successful going into COVID. You had built something spectacular going into COVID.

1:21But as a friend, I felt like something flipped in your brain during COVID that changed your outlook on what you were building and what you wanted to accomplish. Is that true, you think? Well, first, I don't see it like that we're successful today, that we've done anything big yet. I truly feel like we're just getting started. I tell people that all the time. I said that to you this weekend and people look at me like I have seven heads. Like, why do you think that way? But, you know, to me, you've always got to stay humble, hungry, you know, think big, keep pushing. You know, I don't want to ever reflect on where we are.

1:55I kind of feel like we're just a 22 ,000 person startup. And, you know, that's what I love most about what I do every day. So we have so much to do in this business and we're truly getting on. But look, did we reinvent the company during COVID? Absolutely. Do we start as a, you know, kind of a fast growing, you know, place where you get all of your dang gear? And today we're really a digital sports platform. Absolutely. Today we have three businesses, the original business, Finax Commerce, the collectibles business and trading card business, and the betting and gaming business. But still, in each of these businesses, we feel like we have so much to do and we just can't go on.

2:31Yeah, but I mean, I would imagine that, like, yes, you're right. When people hear you say that, they think to themselves, you have seven heads, but they also know that that's what makes you great, right? If you were resting on your laurels, you wouldn't be who you are. And I would imagine - Yeah, you'd be dead. And I would imagine that that paranoia that I always hear when I hear you talk about your business is if somebody's chasing you almost, is what drives you every day. Well, I just wish it was one person that was chasing me. It's actually multiple people at all moments. Well, that's what happens - Including kids on top of it.

3:00Well, that's what happens when you lead the way. But something happened during that time. You envisioned something. I don't know if it was the idea that you were isolated, the world was isolated, but you must have envisioned something greater than what you were. I think the real thing that happened was when we started, I sold my first real company to eBay in 2011, GSI Commerce. They bought it for$2.4 billion in 2011. And they didn't want to own inventory. So they said, hey, we've got a couple of businesses we don't want. And so we bought back Fanatics from them. It was a small business. Nothing like what it is today.

3:35And I really thought, like, this business isn't interesting at that point. It was really a company that sold licensed sports merchandise that was commonly available, didn't have a lot of differentiation. And I really thought to myself, how do we take this business, you know, to a completely different level? So the first eight or nine years from 2011 to 2019, 20, it was really focused on how do we materially grow the business, enhance the fan experience, really go to business that was built to last. And so I didn't think we had the chance to think bigger until I really solidified that business.

4:14So I think in 2019, 2020, I said, okay, even though COVID was kind of something that was just starting and a giant thing for the world to overcome, for us to think about how to handle that as a sports business where they weren't even playing sports. But I really think I felt like this was the time that we could reinvent the business into a digital sports platform. And yes, the idea of going from the original business for NextCommerce, which is Ray Fangier, to launching the trading cart collectibles business and launching the bed and gaming business was a big evolution for us and one that I really, again, feel like we're a startup today.

4:47So at that point, when you're analyzing this, you have 80 million plus emails or fans, right? Customers. customers that are engaged with fanatics. How do you land on those two verticals? That's a great question. I think one of my there's a lot of things I suck at and a lot of things that that, you know, you look at any person, they've got strengths and weaknesses. I think one of my strengths is to be able to size up one, what's a big and interesting business to can we do something to make it better? And then also, is it a good business to be in? So sometimes you're going to to have a big business.

5:22I look at ticketing as a really big business, but I don't think it's a good business to be as an operator. Most customers hate the ticketing company they buy from. It's super competitive. And for us, we want to offer tickets to our customers, but we don't want to be a ticketing platform. So what I looked at, I looked at the business we were in, the Fanger business, Finax Commerce. I looked at trading cards and collectibles. I looked at betting and gaming. I looked at ticketing. I looked at media. The conclusion I came to was, in addition to the business that we were in, we loved the betting and gaming business.

5:57We loved the collectibles business. We thought that ticketing was a really hard business to make the consumer proposition better and have it be a good business that you could make money in. So we were like, hey, we don't want to be in that business. And then we also looked at the media business and said, look, there's so many credible companies, whether it's Amazon, YouTube, Apple, Netflix, that we're going to be getting into this business. And anyone who said they weren't getting into the sports media business over the last five or 10 years, you're like, yeah, that's bullshit. I don't believe that.

6:27And so you thought to yourself, I don't, like, I want to watch and learn there. That's not a business I'm going to get into. And I really said, let's focus on these three businesses. By the way, these three businesses are an enormous opportunity for us and one that we have so much to do in each of the businesses. So when you set out this strategy, I would imagine, A, you have to go and raise capital. You have to go to your existing LPs. What is that conversation like when you start that process internally to say, listen, we're shifting the focus, we're thinking bigger, and we're expanding what this business is?

6:57I think it was a really easy conversation. And what made it so easy is it was like an obvious evolution. People said just for years, you should get it in the sports betting business. People said just for years, you should get it in the trading card business. People said just for years, you should get into the ticketing business. You should get into the media business. So for years, people came to us with all these different ideas. They're like, hey, we've got to really focus up in the X Commerce and the fan gear business. It wasn't until 2019, 2020, we really started to think about what's next.

7:24And so going to investors and saying, look, we're now going to throw the business into a digital sports platform. They're like, well, that's obvious. We've been telling you that for years. And there's just nothing but excitement and passion around. It's such a natural thing to say, look, you know, that we made 80 million customers. We have relationships with all the sports properties and players. And look, here are the different businesses that we could be in. So it really was a pretty easy strategic evolution, one that I think everyone bought into in real time. So but you still have to raise the money.

7:53What I think is so different about you and probably what sets you apart from most is like there are some people that are great entrepreneurs and innovators. There's some great CEOs. and then there's great fundraisers and people that truly know how to raise money. You are really good at raising money. Would you agree? No, I don't. I think if you have the right consumer value proposition, you have the right business strategy and people can like kind of air check the math and then all of the diligence kind of, you know, validates the air check and the math. It's a pretty easy decision to go to somebody and say, look, we're in one business today.

8:31when you look at the size of how big the TAM, the total addressable market is, of the betting and gaming business is gonna be just in North America alone. Look at how big the collectible business is gonna be. And we'd already signed these deals to, you know, kind of evolve and take over the rights from the NFL, the NBA and Major League Baseball within the trading card business. It was such an easy answer for investors to say, yeah, I wanna do this because it's such a massive opportunity. So what, do you set this roadmap that starts with leadership at these verticals? Look, I think the way I always advise you, you start with a strategy, okay?

9:06Once you get the strategy right at a high level, then you say, okay, well, how am I gonna execute this? And without people, you have nothing. So for me, it was about how do I get the best leaders to kind of lead and build each business? I spent a ton of time on that. I mean, I spent, you know, if I work 15, 17 hours a day, seven days a week, I'm spending, at that point, in 2021 2022 i'm spending 25 of my time just interviewing people that can help us to get to where we want to get to so for me that's um you know kind of the most obvious thing get the strategy right and figure out how are you gonna you know kind of execute that strategy by the way are you gonna do business development deals to make that happen are you gonna buy pieces to make that happen is it a combination of both and then who are the people that have been helping you execute that so what was the strategy for the gambling vertical and the collectible vertical So for the betting and gaming business, it was pretty natural that the biggest cost for companies like DraftKings and Vandal was acquiring customers.

10:03And we had a very big installed customer base in the Fanatics core business. At that point, I think we had about 80 million customers. Today, we probably have 120 million customers. So really obvious to say, look, if the biggest expense is customer acquisition, we have so many direct relationships with, you know, 100 million plus sports fans today. And then on top of it, we have a brand that's very well known. We felt like if we could make the value proposition better, wow, what a massive opportunity we have. So brand that everybody knows and respects, 100 million plus customers, and then we take a value prop and make it better.

10:39The reason our value prop is better is one, we have a really great product. You say to me all the time that people tell you how much they like the Fanatic sports book. Number two, every time you bet with us, you earn fan cash. And so it's a better value proposition. We're going to give away next year about$600 million of fan cash. That's not like membership rewards where a lot of people don't use it. With fan cash, people earn fan cash, and then they burn fan cash pretty quickly. And they can use it to make bets on sports. They can use it to get tickets to games. They can use it to buy merchandise.

11:11They can buy collectibles. They can go to Finax Live. They can go to Lids. They can go to Topps. So you've got this pretty incredible currency that every time you bet, we're going to lose. we give you fan cash. And on top of it, if your player gets hurt during the first quarter of a game, we actually take that player out of your player prop. And so it's kind of like free insurance. And so people say to us all the time, well, I get fan cash when I bet with you. And I just heard a story this morning. I just saw one on Instagram of somebody who made a bet and it was a seven leg bet. We could actually pull it up here.

11:45It was a seven leg bet and the player got hurt. They assume they lost. They woke up. They're like, what the fuck? I won the bet. How? Oh, Fanatics takes that player out of my parlay if they get hurt in the first quarter. So it's a fairer proposition. So brand that I know and love, big customer base, value prop between getting fan cash and fair play, it's a better value prop. So I think what I would say is if you bet on sports, how can you not bet with Fanatics Sportsbook? It's a better deal for the customer. Yes. But it's working. this is our second year in business. We're going to do 25 or$30 billion of bets with us this year.

12:22We're going to have close to a billion dollars in revenue in our second year in business. That's pretty, you have a pretty good start. So when you're in a sector like that where you have two dominant players, does the goal to start become, go for the top guys or is it to go and gain market share and figure out your place and fine tune your product? First of all, I, you know me to be a very transparent person. I have a huge respect for FanDuel and DraftKings. They're both great companies and they are very dominant players. You know, people say to me all the time, hey, there's a duopoly between FanDuel and DraftKings.

12:52You have no chance. I fucking love that. Go tell your guy KD has no chance at the basketball game. He's going to say, fuck you. You know, I'm going to go dominate that game. So, you know, for me, people telling us we have no chance at business, that's like, that's love language too. Yeah. So where are you now in market share and where are DraftKings and FanDuel? Look, today we have about 7, 7.5 % of the sports market two years into it, not even two years into it, you know, 20 months into it. FanDuel and DraftKings have 75, 80 % of the market combined. So call it the HF 35, 40 % of the market. That's okay.

13:25We're in this for the long term. We got a good value proposition. We're going to keep making that value proposition better. And to me, the question is, how do our customers feel about, you know, using Fanatic Sportsbook? And the feedback I'm getting is that people love it and that, you know, they feel like it's a better deal. It's a better value proposition. They like the product. And you talked about strategy sometimes times relying on acquisition. I think you probably are as ruthless and respected in that world as anybody. What did you acquire to start building the gambling vertical? Did you buy the tech stack or did you develop the tech stack internally?

13:58Yeah, we've only bought one thing since we started, which was we bought a company called PointsBet. And that gave us a trading platform that we thought would really help us to advance and really just take a step function up. Now, when we bought PointsBit had a 1 % market share, we only closed that deal September 23. Today, again, we have about 7, 7 ,5 % market share in sports. That's wild. And we're just getting started. And their tech stack was, you clearly saw the market. We didn't use a tech stack, but we used the trading platform. We migrated the customers over. We used some of the market access.

14:30You just let us move more quickly. And physical books, where does that come into play in the future? Yeah, look, I think physical books are an important marketing vehicle for what we're doing here. So we have today more than a dozen physical sports books. We have a bunch of Connecticut. We have one of the Oceansino. We have some different sports stadiums. And I think it's a good thing for us to do. It helps us build our brand. But ultimately, most of that business is handled through the app online. Do you still have to open a physical book in order to get a license in a state? Every state's different.

15:01Most states, you do not have to do that. But a few states, you do. And where do you see the New York State gambling license going? I mean, look, New York's a massive state. Obviously, the taxes are very prohibitive. It's a 51 % tax on the gross gambling revenue. It makes you invest less in marketing in New York State. So I think what people have done is said, look, this is such an expensive state to do business in. We're going to spend our marketing dollars in more low-tax states where you can get a better return on the marketing dollar. But it's still an important state. And, you know, last night we had, you know, hundreds of our best customers.

15:33Here we are right now in the Fnatic's basement, you know, having a great time, you know, watching the Knicks game. other than the outcome sucked yes the outcome sucked for nick fans yeah sorry haliburton love you buddy um and jay-z's affiliated with the gambling platform yeah jay jay jay and des were founders of it uh we started together uh they're they're real owners of the business and you know both have really helped build the business can you talk about the numbers you'll do yeah i mean this year i just mentioned we only launched in september of 23. um last year was our first year revenue i I think we had about$10 billion in bets placed between iGaming and Sportsbook, and we had about$350 million in revenue.

16:12This year, we should have about$30 billion in bets placed on our platform and have about a billion dollars in our revenue. And that's how much of the market share? In sports, about 7.5%, 7%. So for context... But it's grown every month, too. And for context, what would FanDuel or DraftKings do on a year? DraftKings this year would do about$6 billion and FanDuel would be about$7 billion. So call it six to seven times bigger than we are. And by the way, I like that. It makes me hungry. It makes me ready to go. I get it. And I would imagine even early days when I was speaking to you till now, it feels like your kind of expectation of where you can bring this has changed.

16:56Look, I remember when we started in the fangir business 2011, we were, you know, a distant number three, number four player. Now we're a strong leader in collectibles. We started in 2022 and now we're the leader. And, you know, I'd be full of shit if I said I didn't sit here saying I dream about being number one. And to me, I'm going to work tirelessly to become number one. now, I think if Van Dolen DraftKings hear that, they laugh at me and they say, it's got no fucking shot. But, you know, great. You know, how many athletes, and by the way, I'm the worst athlete in the world, as I think I've publicly shown a few times.

17:33But how many times, you know, you go tell someone they can't do something, they just want to do it that much more. Yeah. So in the collectibles vertical, you saw an opportunity as well. We did. That was very different because we saw a business that had grown because of COVID. and quite frankly, a very tired industry had three companies, Panini, Tops, Upper Deck that were, you know, all I'd say, you know, living off of the COVID bump. They weren't innovating the product. They weren't marketing the products. They weren't worrying about the collector. They weren't thinking about how to really grow the business.

18:11And so I'd say of all the things I've done in my business career, that's been so far the one that's been easiest to make a major impact overnight because of how I think, you know, it wouldn't be just being blunt, how bad the competition was. And it felt like the way you saw it was pretty, um, was pretty interesting because to a lot of people, there was a bubble that was being created during COVID, right? Like the prices soared. I bought a ton of cards that are 20 % of the value that I spent at that time. And people thought that that was a moment in time and that the industry would fade where it was quite the opposite.

18:45No, it's what everybody thought. And to be honest, had we not entered it, I think that's what would have happened. Really? Okay, absolutely. I'll tell you when we called, so I came up with the idea in November of 2020. And within hours of coming up with the idea, I was calling the different leaders in sports to say, hey, I've got this big idea. You've got this business, collectibles, trading cards. It's grown a ton because of the pandemic. You know, there's no marketing. there's not been much product innovation we hear all kinds of noise about how bad the collector experience is um by the way there's a lot of inefficiencies in how the cards are distributed selling through distributors versus serving the hobby shops and and breakers and retailers directly you know we think we could build a much better business and i kind of said like the first day come up with the idea hey i'll guarantee you what you're making today and i'm going to cut you in on all these ancillary businesses that you're not in it was like i had them at hello because all they were thinking was the business was going to revert, which is what I think would have happened.

19:47And they saw all the flaws in the business that I pointed out to them. And so when you took one of the most trusted partners of the entire league or the players associations, and they come and say, look, we're going to guarantee you off this high watermark. We're going to cut you into the secondary market, into the live commerce platform, into all these other businesses we can create. We're going to give you a higher road and we're going to guarantee you with these, you know, what you think is the high watermark. They were like, Let's go. How can we get this done as quickly as possible? They never monetized off of those ancillary parts of the business?

20:17No, not at all. So the way it used to work, and it made zero sense before we entered the business, the players and the sports leagues gave the rights to like a Panini, an upper deck, a tops, and they mostly sold the cards to distributors. They didn't service hobby shops or retailers or breakers directly. And so what happened was because the business was growing so much because of COVID, you had these distributors that were making an absolute fortune at the expense of the consumer and the hobby shops and the breakers. And so we came and said, well, why don't we just like any good brand? You would never an LVMH, a Nike, an Adidas.

21:03You just take any brand you have respect for. They would never sell through a distributor. So why don't we just service these hobby shops and breakers and retailers directly? They'll make more money. They'll be able to keep prices lower to consumers. And so it was a really easy thing for us to do. And it's funny. We just had our Topps annual conference a few weeks ago. And one person raised their hand and they stood up. They said, I just want to thank you because now I can count on getting merchandise from you directly. I'm not paying these inflated prices. And so it's still a business of scarcity and supply and demand.

21:34And so if you make a great product, the price goes up. And we've got to keep working on, you know, making product, putting it at Target, Walmart for the masses, because that's such an important consumer, keeping those prices, you know, where they are and not letting them go up. But there's so much demand for the products we're making because the products are so much better. Yeah. So, you know, it was, in a lot of ways, I think one of the easiest things we've ever done relative to getting into sports gambling, what we had to do in merchandise, because the industry made no sense. We were able to innovate it very quickly.

22:02But it was a masterclass in how you navigated the dealings with the teams and the leagues. Can you walk me through a little bit like that year or two that you played this incredible game? So I don't think it was a masterclass. The reason I don't think it was a masterclass, when we went to them and said, look, there's no marketing trading cards. There's not been much innovation at all in the product. The collector experience is awful. There's so much negativity about the collector experience. By the way, so many of the hobby shops looked old and tired of going to them. These cards aren't cool. It's like the nerdy guy in the corner.

22:44And here's our plan for how we're going to make it much bigger. Oh, by the way, you don't participate in the secondary market. That all goes through eBay. You don't participate in the live commerce market. That's all going through whatnot. By the way, we'll start these businesses, cut you in, give you a higher rate rate and guarantee it. Honestly, it was like, they're like, how quickly can we get this deal done? It was not a complicated sale. So you had to build the distribution channel and you had to buy tops. Well, I think once we won the rights, which is, I'd say, a relatively easy process, because the leagues were like, you walked into a league who was making, they had a guarantee for$10 million a year, like, hey, I'll guarantee you 40 million a year.

23:23And so I guarantee you this, you know what you're currently making. They think the business is gonna go backwards. Then you have all these great ideas. They're like, what the league said to us us how long can we make the deal? Yeah. And, you know, thank God Finax is standing behind this. Wait, Finax, who we know and love and have a giant partnership with, is he going to give us a giant guarantee for a long period of time? They thought we were suckers. Yeah. And you had made them money in licensing for years. I mean, we were paying a billion dollars of royalties, close to a billion dollars of royalties in our original paying gear business.

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23:50So where can this continue to grow? I mean, I think I see what you do in terms of the marketing and branding and storytelling around it has been a game changer, right? You've changed. I think the halo over that business now is considered a cooler business. Yeah, guys like you, when we got into this, a year until you called and said, hey, now we're going to do a trading card deal. We like this. It's cool. And, you know, we're doing so many things that work for the collectors. We do these rip nights once, twice a year. We bring out hundreds of athletes into all the hobby shops, which like those athletes connect with, you know, all.

24:20By the way, if you collect trading cards, you're the absolute best sports fan. That is like, that is a crazy great sports fan. So I know when you know all the different athletes were we've had hundreds of athletes that have been into hobby shops This is the biggest day they do in business. It brings such a hell think about Tom Brady now opening You know opening hobby shops all across the country. I was at a store in the Hamptons this weekend It was packed people fighting to get in the store So at least we're bringing passion and excitement into this hobby that was never there before I think before it was like in the corner and now it's like you know baseball is probably the best example there were less than 10 baseball players that collected baseball cards when we bought tops january 1st 2022 now there's more than 100 current baseball players that collect cards think about the debut patch that was the best invention i think in the history of trading cards we put a patch on a player on the first game they play there's only one in the world when they get done that first game we take that patch off of them so you know think about if otani when he played his first game in the major leagues we had that debut package we weren't doing it yet OK, now we take that, we put that into a one on one card.

25:25And who would want to have Otani's first card? Who would want to have KD's first card? Who would want to have Michael Jordan's first card? So it's like such a special thing we can do with the debut patch in it. I mean, that's been such an innovation in the trading card business. So, I mean, and we're just always thinking about product innovation, market idea, how to make the collector experience better. And the majority of the revenue still comes from the trading cards, right? Yeah, it's, yeah, 100%. So what will that business do? I mean, that business next year will be over$3 billion in revenue.

25:55And how does that break up across the different verticals and all those secondaries? Yeah, so that's just primary carts, basically. And that's really us selling to hobby shops, us selling directly to collectors, us selling to breakers, us selling to people like Walmart and Target, who are really important partners for us. And then we also created a platform called Finax Collect, which is both a live commerce platform and a marketplace. And that'll do over a billion dollars in GMB this year, where we charge about a 10 % commission onto the sellers. And that, I think, we think will double again next year.

26:30And talk about leadership that you mentioned earlier. Mike Mahan with Collectibles and Matt King on your gambling vertical are rock stars. They're both beasts. But, you know, you can't, if you don't work with the best talent in the world, you have no chance to be successful. So, you know, I can have an idea to get into Collectibles. I can have an idea to get into sports gaming. Without Matt King, we wouldn't have the gaming business that we have today. Without Mike Mahan, we wouldn't have the collectibles business we have. And the same goes for Andrew Loki and all the different, who runs our commerce business and all the different executives that we have.

26:58So you said in 2019, you got your commerce business where you wanted it to be. No, I said I got it to a point where it was big enough to where I could think about other things. It's not remotely where I want it to be. When I think about our commerce business today, I think about all the things that we're not doing well. I think about, you know, how do I keep getting better at designing and developing product? I think about how do I keep getting faster to the customer? I think about how do I keep personalizing the experience better? I think about a thousand things that we need to do better. I just got to a point to where I thought we could now reinvent the company into a digital sports platform.

27:29I'm not near done on that. I haven't even started. Is it still the biggest vertical? Yeah, it's about$7 billion this year. And is it continuing to grow every year? Yeah, absolutely. It's a single digit grower today. We're so much more focused on the experience and how we can absolutely delight our fans. And, you know, look, we live in a world of social media. You can get 99 % right, you get 1 % wrong. That's what we hear about. We're focused on how do we become perfect and we're far from perfect in that business. So what can that grow into? Look, I would hope that the Fanatics commerce business by 2030 is a$15 billion business.

28:07Still focused solely on licensed product? 100 % on licensed products. I think we can double it over the next five years. Are there licenses you guys don't have? I feel like you have everything in the world. No, no, not at all. Do we sell things from everybody in the world? Absolutely. I mean, do we work with everyone in one capacity or not? Absolutely. Is there so many more rights for us to acquire? We haven't even acquired a quarter or a third of the rights that we could acquire. Really? Absolutely. What is it all, like global sports? I mean, global soccer, we're just getting started in. And I mean, you know, even here today, you know, more than half the merchandise we sell are merchandise that we buy from other third-party brands.

28:43So, you know, we buy an NBA jersey that Nike makes. We buy a Adidas College product that they make. We buy a, you know, newer hat. So there are many things that we sell that we don't make. So there's far more rights to apply over time. And the Travis collaboration was new for what you had done in the past. Is there more of that in store? Yeah, you know, for us, I think one of the things we've learned is I think what we did well up until the last couple of years is service the average sports fan well. But there's so many niches in a business like that. So you could have somebody like you is going to be, you know, more streetwear, more culturally relevant.

29:22And you could have somebody who else could be a really high end customer. Somebody else who's like, you know, what's really incredible, you know, female different products. You know, kids is a completely different business. So you've got to think about how do I serve each customer well. It's like we introduced Lululemon this year in a partnership with the NHL and Lululemon. And hockey fans absolutely flipped out for that merchandise. OK, you think about what we're doing with offseason and Kristen and the team there. That's where you're going after a different customer base. So with Travis, what we knew was Travis has a feel that nobody else really has to feel about where is culture going.

30:00And so he came to us and said, look, I want to make sports products and I want to do them with you. He said, I want to do everything. I want to design the product. I want to pick the product. I want to do everything. We said, Trav, all you, brother, go do it. You know, whatever you want to do, we're going to do it. You know, it was one of the most successful launches ever. We had, you know, an eight figure launch over, you know, a few days with only half the colleges. That's wild. And the Lululemon partnership we talk about. So you have the NHL rights. Do you go to Lululemon licensed product from them?

30:30use your NHL license and then you - No, the way it generally works, like, look, Lululemon, you know, we knew there's a real need for that type of product. You know, customers are screaming to us, you don't have that. You know, customers are telling us, we want this product license. Lululemon was off talking to the leagues. And then eventually the kind of, you know, the partnership of them making the goods and selling the product to us that we then sell to consumers, you know, came to fruition. And Mitchell and Ness and Lids were two companies you acquired as well, right? Absolutely. And they fall under the commerce business?

30:56Yes. So how do they play into the big picture? Look, the way you got to think about it is you have different segments. Like Lids is like a younger customer. It's like, you know, again, more street wear. You know, cool. I want my different hats is kind of the core business. Richel Ness is more vintage. You know, we also make, you know, a lot of Nike merchandise. So all the NFL merchandise from Nike, we actually make that merchandise. And so you serve in each business kind of different customers. And our job is to make sure we can take care of every customer for whatever they want. So it's a$30 billion business.

31:25No, you want it to become a$30 billion business. Today, the commerce business is a$7 billion business. We hope that it could become a$15 billion business over the next five years. I think you're thinking about kind of our valuation has been in the$25 to$30 billion range. Yeah, I'm just thinking about your valuation, man. Yeah. I'm always thinking about your valuation. I'm not thinking about it at all because what I want to think about is how do I build the best company in the world? And then we're just getting started with that. And there's so many things that we can be better at. There's so many things that we need to lock in and focus on so we can just keep doing better for the consumer.

31:52That's the thing that gets me most excited. We've built a brand that a lot of people know. I want to build the most beloved sports brand in the world. I haven't even started with that yet. Your passion for all three verticals is the exact same. It's like each one of them is your business. Well, I think I have three children. Then I have three businesses. They're also my fourth, fifth, and sixth children. So that's the way I think about it. I am incredibly passionate about it. I think each has its unique set of opportunities and challenges. And I think that gets me really excited. So for not one second, when you started introducing these two new verticals, Did you even think about taking the foot off the gas on the licensing business?

32:27You knew commerce had to continue to grow at the same pace. No, I think quite the contrary. What I thought was, as we got into these new businesses, that if we did them really well, that they would help the original business. And that's exactly what's happened. Because if you think about, like, next year, we're going to spend$600 million in advertising. And$300 million of that advertising spend will be in the two new businesses that we created. And$300 million will be in the original business. So there's a real halo effect. Because where do you go? You go to Fanatics, you go to the Fanatics app, you go to Fanatics Sportsbook, Fanatics Live, Fanatics Collect.

32:59And so, so many of the businesses are really under the Fanatics brand that it really creates a halo for each of the businesses. Can you still think about future verticals or is it too early to think that way? I think it's too early. I think we need to be locked in on how do we keep... Again, if you looked at each business, we sat down and talked about, you know, with the CEO of each of these three businesses, what do they need to do? They have so many things that they need to do. And so, you know, we're talking about the duopoly that exists between FanDuel and DraftKings, and they have 75 or 80 percent of the market, and I'm a paltry 7.5 percent.

33:33Glass half-pull, I've gone from 1 to 7.5 percent. Glass half-empty, I ain't shit. And so I've got to think about how do we really build that market share? How do we keep making the value proposition better? How do we, you know, keep building there? And so in each business, we can tell you all the things that we're not doing well that we need to do better. So it's too early for you to even imagine what a media play could be, a ticketing play, any of that. Correct. I know I don't want to be in the ticketing business. I've been pretty clear about that. I think offering tickets to our customers through a partnership.

33:59We have a partnership with Ticketmaster where they give us tickets, then we give discounted fees on what they would normally pay to our customers. We love doing that because that's a service that we're providing to our fans. I don't like the ticketing business. I think it's a hard business. I think it's hyper-competitive. I think it's the economics. Look, no one likes the ticketing company, so I don't want to be in a business where nobody likes you. Yeah. Yeah, without question. That experience is always unenjoyable for people. Can everything live on one app? Well, certainly you always have a separate app for sports betting because of, you know, need to be 21, need to be in each state in the regulatory environment.

34:40Right now, the Fanatics app, which is growing incredibly fast, has the commerce business. It has free-to-play games. It brings all of our loyalty together, shows you what your fan cash is. and then it kind of links to, it has scores, it links to sports betting, it links to the collectibles business. So I think more and more can get a one-up, but no. Can we ever have anything one-up? No. The athletes that you have around your business, I mean, you have these incredible relationships and they're true, genuine relationships. And I think that's because of who you are, but there's certain champions like in your life.

35:15There's ones that are obvious, like that are doubled down with everything you're doing. What was the strategy as you thought about someone like Tom Brady or you think about Travis? And Travis, you explained, and his cultural impact. And there's no one in the world like him right now. But what was the thought around Tom Brady and how he adds value to the business? Well, take a step back. I think for me, I say this all the time. We all learn definitely. I think you probably learn more like I learn. I'm not, I don't really read. I actually haven't read a book since 9th grade. True story. No one believes me.

35:49I do. What's that? I do because it's the same. Yeah. So, yeah, I appreciate that. So I don't read. No, I read emails, but I'm not reading books. I don't, I wasn't, I was terrible at school. Everyone knows that. 780 combined on my SATs, that's like, you know. That's bad. You have 400 for putting your name on the test. Barely met at high school. Didn't go to college. I was in Villanova for part of a semester. And so the way I learned is by having great people around me, and then we each learn from each other. So we're talking about Travis or Tom. I think we're each learning from each other all the time.

36:24And I love that. I'm going to learn from you and you're going to learn from me. And so if we take a walk in the Hamptons, we each ask each other questions. We're learning from each other. And that's kind of the way I grow. And so for me, I think what's been a little different is, one, I believe that we would have nothing to do without the incredible people that play on the field, on the court, on the ice. And so I'm hugely appreciative of all the athletes that we've built a business around. Number two, we have direct relationships with 5 ,000 athletes today. We pay hundreds of millions of dollars directly to athletes that sign memorabilia and trading cards for us, that we have partnerships with.

37:00And for that reason, we think about how we can do great things together. And so my view is if I'm really invested in the people that we work with that are really important to us, they're going to be really invested in us. And you just build this super authentic long-term partnership. I think that's what we have with certainly any of the key athletes and most of the big athletes. We have truly special partnerships. They're a win-win. And then we're trying to help them in the things that are important to them. I mean, I spend a lot of time. I bet you 20 % of my week goes to helping my friends and things that they're very involved in and invested in.

37:33And I think that that pays dividends just because your relationship is that much stronger and you're helping each other grow. Like, I want you to do great and you want me to do great. I want to do that with everybody. I want everyone to go off. It's one of the things I don't understand about certain people. Like, I want everyone around me to do fucking great. Yeah, I can attest that that's how you are for sure. And I've always been that way. And other people, like, they're rooting for people to go down. They're rooting against people. I'm not like that, man. I want everyone in the world to do amazing.

37:59Yeah. Like, I want to push everybody up I can. People have helped me so much. Why do I not want to help everybody around me? So, you know, I think that mentality just makes these relationships extra authentic and special. He's helped you. Oh, so many people. I mean, you know, the first person I always think about is the Kraft family. I mean, Robin, Jonathan Kraft, I mean, those guys, you know, found me in 2008, 2007. You know, they helped me a lot. I wouldn't be who I was today without them, both from some of the relationships that they helped me forge, but also, you know, just the great business advice that came along in the years.

38:29You're learning from all the people that are around me. I mean, people, you know, talk about whether it's, you know, I mean, you brought up Travis and Tommy. I've learned so much from those guys. So, like, I'm always picking nuggets up in every conversation. that's the way I grow. So, you know, I've had, I think I won't be where I am today, which is still nowhere without, you know, the huge influence that so many people have had on me. When you say still nowhere, like I can understand the mentality. I think people like you, people especially that like took this unconventional path, did poorly in school, dropped out of college, had this mind that you have.

39:05It's like, you're always going to have this level of like imposter syndrome and feeling that you're not there. but do you not take one second to ever look at what you've built? Not one second. I don't care. Like here's the way I think about it. Until I build a brand that's a beloved brand by hundreds of millions of sports fans, until I build the most important company in sports, one of the most important companies in consumer products, I haven't done shit. But it is. It's not. It's not. And by the way, I don't want to be comfortable. I'm just getting going. And you talked about like I know while I'm sitting here right now doing this interview with you, there's a bunch of people plotting against me that's the world we live in yeah and so that's competition that by the way that's healthy you know it makes you better because you know the better your competition is the better you are and so i like that but um i'm pretty humble about where we are like you know i think in our original business the vanguard business you know we're 25 of where we want to get to maybe we're half from a revenue perspective but from a you know all things i want to do from a product innovation from a consumer fan expression we have so much more we can keep doing.

40:11And we think about it every day. We've just, by the way, in the last year, we've increased NPS, that's net promoter score, by 20 points. It's so hard to do because consumers are tons that like what we're doing better and better. We've reduced shipping costs. We've increased shipping speeds. We're better in stock. You know, we're just doing so many things better in that business. But we still have so much more to do. In the trading card business, we're launching Premier League next week. NBA, 10-1. NFL, spring of next year. We're going to ingest those rights. We're going to double the size of the finance collect business.

40:40In the betting game business, we have a poultry 7.5 % market share. So why would I be comfortable? We haven't done shit. You know, you're such a good human being. Like, I don't think people realize that no matter how busy you are, you pick up the phone or leave a voice note back any time of the day from any city in the world, right? But when you got to accomplish something in business, it feels like it doesn't matter who's in your way. Would you agree? Look, the way I think about it is who we have to put first always is the fan. Okay? And if we think that way, we're going to build a truly extraordinary company.

41:15And so, by the way, we haven't always thought that way. And we haven't always, like we are maniacally focused on the fan. How do we make sure that we are always just consistently enhancing the fan experience? If you put the fan first and you keep figuring out, how do I do things better? Think of when we created Gannatics Sportsbook. We didn't just say, hey, we're going to leverage our brand and our customer base, we said we've got to build a better proposition, so better value prop. So we're going to give$600 million in fan cash back to bettors next year, okay? We're going to, you know, I think we've had hundreds of thousands of bets that we've already taken losing bets and made them winning bets based on our fair play policy.

41:56It's like we made it better for the fan. And by the way, if you're listening to this and you bet on sports, I think you're crazy if you don't bet with Fanatics, which is a better deal, It's a better value proposition. And so we're always thinking about that. So what I'd say is I have huge respect for DraftKings and FanDuel. I have huge respect for all of my competitors. They all scare the shit out of me. Okay? But I'm going to make sure that I figure out how we can keep doing things better and better. I'll give you a perfect example. When we bought Tops, the number one thing I heard from collectors was we hate redemptions.

42:26If you're a trading card collector, redemption means you've got a card that says I owe you because it didn't have the autograph. So, you know, I keep going back to Kev because of you. But, you know, I got a KD card. And instead of it being a KD card signed, it's an IOU card for that signature. Yeah. And Topps had 70 ,000 cards that it owed people. Let's say other competitors owed hundreds of thousands, many hundreds of thousands of cards they owed to consumers. OK. And people told me it's the number one problem they had. So I remember calling Tony Clark, the head of the baseball union one day, I said, Tony, we have to eliminate redemptions.

43:04He said to me, explain to me exactly how redemption works. I said, look, it's when the card didn't get signed by the player and now you owe that card to somebody. And it was such a massive problem. I said, I want to eliminate them. He said, well, how do we eliminate it? I said, we need to work together. We need to take all the relationships we have and you have. We need to get the players to sign the cards more quickly. We need to be better at it. The players need to be better at it. We got to work together. Well, today, Tops is four times the size. So we just had the same rate. We have 280 ,000 redemptions.

43:33If the rate stayed the same, we have less than 10 ,000. Wow. Yeah. Because we grinded it one by one. So if you're a collector and you listen to this, you know I'm right. By the way, our competitors, they didn't do shit. They sat there fat and happy. Yeah. Okay? And so that was just an example of like solving a problem. That was the biggest problem I heard in 2022 was redemptions. We virtually made that problem go away. Now then you're off to the next problem, the next problem. So you gotta keep thinking about putting the fan first. So yes, if someone's in the way putting the fan first, I'm with the fan.

44:04So it feels like those companies were run by people that just didn't care about the fan first. And for whatever reason, it was to them a business and they cared about the bottom line and they never even saw it as a business that was serving fans. I think in the trading card business, people were, they got the COVID bump, they got lucky. No one cared before. They were fat and happy. They were just milking the cow and taking profits out. Now, I could look back to things that we did wrong in our original business, the commerce business. The thing is with us, though, when we make a mistake, we acknowledge it.

44:34We fix it. We're right on it. And so that's our mentality. You need to have that mentality. If not, someone's going to take you out. That's just the way it works. Don't you find mistakes motivating in some ways? Love them. Like inspiring. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I was just saying yesterday, we just did something in another business that I'm an investor in. And I think it's not working. And I said to the CEO of the company, look, you know, we got into the NFT business in 2021, raised$100 million outside investors. Within four months, I knew it wasn't going to work. We gave our investors the money back, basically, and said, like, this isn't going to work.

45:05That was a fast, great L I took. I wasn't embarrassed. I was proud that I acted quickly. And so, you know, like, I like taking Ls. Like, you tell me I take an L. Great, no problem. I'm going to figure out how am I going to be better? What are we going to do? How are we going to be stronger? If you don't have that mentality you're gonna be again you become irrelevant. Why fanatics fest? What was the vision around that I had been to So many music festivals We just saw these incredible showings and then when we got in the trading card business. I Went to the show called the national Have you ever been in the national Chicago?

45:40It's in different places. Have you ever been I went once in Chicago Okay, so you walk into the national you have two feelings one you're overwhelmed and enjoyed by the pure quantity of collectors that you're like this is insane. Yeah. Like what a you know what what an incredible. Where are these people coming from? What an incredible hobby that I'm fortunate to sit in the middle of. The second thing you see is it feels very antiquated. It feels like something from you know 20, 30, 40 years ago. I don't think it really changed much from um you know when I was in high school and you cared about middle school and cared about trading cards.

46:12It feels that antiquated. And so then I went to Comic-Con. I'm like, man, this is sick. This is great. Why don't sports fans deserve something like this? I think we were lucky. We recognized because I think next year we'll pay close to$2 billion to sports organizations, teams, leagues, players, players' organizations. And we knew that we had the ability to bring everyone together because of that. And so when we called the NBA and the NFL and Major League Baseball and WWE and UFC and NHL and said, hey, we want to create this first of a kind of sports festival. People said, hey, you know, fanatics, if you're behind it, we're going to do it.

46:53We had 70 ,000 people show up for the first time. I mean, you tell me you came there, you brought Ant and KD. You know, what do you guys think when you came to this, you know, first of a kind of sports festival? Mind blown. Right. And by this year, it's going to be 50 times better this year. People that weren't there last year that are coming this year, Nike, Dick's Sporting Goods, USTA, FIFA, Premier League, F1. LeBron. LeBron. There's so many people that are coming this year that weren't there last year. So to me, it's kind of an honor for us to be able to create this Percivicon Sports Festival.

47:28It's incredible. I think 70 ,000 people the first year. I think we'll have more than 100 ,000 people this year. and you know the joy that you see in people's faces to come and they spend whatever it is 60 or 70 bucks to come and be able to see each activation from each league all these different athletes and celebrities and artists and streamers all there it's pretty incredible and is what is there a business model behind it like for this is there a world where you're making money on this type of thing this is not something that's ever going to be a money maker for fanatics i mean it's about how do we bring together all the best parts of fanatics all of this sports ecosystem for the sports fan.

48:07It's a marketing moment for fanatics. It's a marketing moment. Yeah. Can you take this outside of New York? Look, we've had many of the richest countries in the world come to us and say, please bring this to us. Yeah. We've had many of the biggest states say, please bring this to my city. The outreach to people that are dying to get a fanatics fest in their country or city is pretty preposterous. it is the hardest thing I do each year by a mile like forget about everything we talked about in our three core businesses Finax Fest is the hardest thing by far organizing hundreds of athletes celebrities and artists, 100 ,000 plus fans all these sports properties together that is a really hard thing to do but it's worth it when you see the happiness on all these fans' faces and by the way, last year when we did it for the first year we got a lot right, we also fucked a lot of things up we didn't have autographs right we had crazy lines and things that weren't working and autograph some pictures and, you know, we had security issues and, you know, you get back, you say, okay, like, I remember, you know, like, Jalen Brunson had an issue where we screwed up.

49:10It was completely Fanatic's fault. And again, you talk about making a mistake. It wasn't like, oh God, like I lost. It was like, okay, we didn't get this right. People signed up to get his autograph, his picture, whatever it was. We mismanaged the lines. We had issues with, and you're like, okay, I fucked it up. Now, how do I fix it? And then you go into like, just a complete focus on how do I fix these things. But that's the way you build any business. And so for me, I think one of the great things is most athletes really care about their fans a lot. Okay? And Fanatics Fest is a way that the greatest athletes, streamers, artists, celebrities in the world can connect with their fans in a pretty unique and special way.

49:47And I love doing that. Yeah. It's really an incredible experience. Even the conversation we were just having, okay? And what you thought you were going to do for your panel. Now you came in, you're more motivated. You're charged up. Yeah. You want to build the best family you possibly can because you're that competitive. That's the way we keep making things better and better. Yeah, without question. Is there anything else you want to do in your life? Like, is there something still on Michael Rubin's bucket list? You've owned sports teams. You have three wonderful daughters. You've traveled the world.

50:14You're still building this juggernaut of a business. And I know in your mind, you're just starting. So I believe you in this say that. But is there anything else that you fantasize about in your life? There's nothing else I fantasize. Here's what I say. I'm living my dream every day. getting to do this 15 17 hours a day is the greatest joy in the world if i'd say what do i do in my life i need to be healthier i need to take better care of myself um you know i gotta find um you know i finally you know i was like a little pudgy kid uh a couple years ago now i'm 40 pounds lighter i'm not like i don't work out enough um i need to sleep a little bit more and you spend a little more time with my kids i have three incredible kids and just you know how do i how do i get that balance right but i just love the action of building fanatics you know so much that it you know i struggle with balance yeah i get it but do i have an issue i'm never gonna run a sports team again i have no interest in it um i'm not like i don't need anything else in my life like i just want to make finax the greatest company in the world you know um and then look i think the other thing is i do love giving back but i think that's a respect like i think that's a responsibility when you're in my position and you're afforded this incredible opportunity of building companies like ours you want to make an impact so we do a lot of that work we do with the the Reform Alliance that I started with Jay and Meek and Robert Kraft and everybody else.

51:27And I do it with Make-A-Wish. And we love doing stuff like that. The amount of wishes we're gonna fulfill at FNAX Fest is incredible. Any athlete that comes to us that has an open wish, and we can get those kids there, we're fulfilling those wishes there. That's an honor to do stuff like that. So I think I like making a difference in this world because it's fun, but what is my ultimate passion? It's building fanatics. Amazing, bro. Well, Michael, I feel like we just took one of our beach walks on steroids. Thank you, my friend. I'm fucking honored always to be able to get this game from you and learn more about your business.

52:01I appreciate your friendship. This is our June boardroom cover story with the one and only Michael Rubin. Tune in, subscribe, boardroom.tv. Thank you all for watching. See you later. Love you, brother. Love you.

From the publisher

In this exclusive interview, Michael Rubin — founder and CEO of Fanatics — shares the remarkable journey behind building one of the most powerful companies in sports and e-commerce. He tells the story of his journey to becoming a billionaire entrepreneur with deep ties to the NBA, NFL, and global athletes & musicians like Tom Brady & Travis Scott. Rubin opens up about the mindset, hustle, and pivotal moments that shaped his path.

Rubin discusses how he scaled Fanatics into a sports merchandising giant, and the key business principles he lives by. He also dives into leadership lessons, risk-taking, and what it takes to stay ahead in fast-moving industries. Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a sports fanatic, or someone inspired by success stories, this conversation offers rare insight into the mind of a visionary who turned passion into a business empire.

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