Hour 2: Flag Football Draft, plus Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin In-Studio

24:03He was, of course, poking at Jaden and Joe Burr for a couple of Heisman trophies. He wasn't valuing those as much. I would imagine so. Yeah, but you just got so many incredible athletes. You know, by the way, I grew up in Philly seeing, you know, having Jalen, Saquon's with other guys from the Eagles. I mean, just amazing.

24:20Rich Eisen:Yeah. And so, well, that's part of your brand now, man. I mean, as I was talking to you in the back, you know, being at the last few Fanatics Fests, your head's on a swivel. And you're like, oh, wow, he's here. Oh, wow, she's here. Oh, wow. You are a collector of stars in the way that people who come to your event are a collector of collectibles, like right now. You know, like that's what's happening. Look, I'm really fortunate. We work in the best industry in the world. I mean, like you can't not love working in the sports business. You know that. Everyone in this building, we're so lucky to wake up and do what we do every day.

24:52and we work around the best sports fans in the world and a couple billion of the most passionate fans in the world, they all make us better. They push us to do great things. And Fanatics Fest is, I think, one of the hardest things that we do. It's one of the most rewarding things that we do. Now, by the way, we were talking about your little race there. I'm thinking there's going to be a rematch this year between you and Schefter. I heard you didn't have the right gear last time. Well, I mean, Schefter's the one who challenged me

25:16Rich Eisen:and I'm like, what am I going to turn down this challenge? So do you feel like you came with the right shoes when you were mentally prepared to smoke them? Of course. Okay, so we're going to see this at Fanatics Fest 3 of this year. Yeah. I just didn't know I had to wear the proper footwear for that sort of thing. I didn't know. I guess I should be ready at any time. Ready at any time. That is the Michigan. I should take my cue from Brady, that you should wake up and be able to compete no matter what. By the way, so we created the Fanatics games last year at Fanatics Fest. Yes. We took 50. Saw that.

25:44That was wild. It was wild. So we took 50 of the best athletes, artists, celebrities, mostly athletes, versus 50 average Joe fans. By the way, it was a million-dollar first prize. It was like a half-million-dollar Ferrari's the second prize, like a quarter-million-dollar Tops LeBron James, Rookie Carter's the third prize. And the competition was insane. It was basically six different sports. Like, you know, how do you do throwing a football? How do you do hitting a golf ball? How do you do throwing baseballs? How do you do, you know, getting hockey into a washer and a dryer? and your WWE walk out, how hard can you punch?

26:20And so I walked, and this is a great, this is maybe indicative of what we're about to see this weekend. So I walked with Brady for the first competition. We matched two people up and it was him and Eli Manning. And so I watched, Eli was like, he looked like he was the most incredible pitcher ever and he looked a lot better than Tom. And so I like just was talking smack to Tom, I'm like, you suck, you're old, you don't got it anymore. Or Eli's getting you again? Yes, I was, everything that could come out out of my mouth. I would give him a hard time. Never thought about it again. I got home. I said, let me go to the Fanatics app and see who's winning.

26:52I'm like, Tom Brady's number one. I'm like, no way. He's not really winning this thing. And of course he called. No one can beat me. I got these guys. I'm in everyone's head. And then he won for the weekend. He won the top prize. He was number one. He won the Fanatics games out of 100 people. And so he's the reigning Fanatics game champion, seven Super Bowl time champion, and he wants to be the champion this weekend. So I will tell you, he's preparing for this like a Super Bowl.

27:15Rich Eisen:he's ready to go i don't know part of what's the name of the you know let's give him props the the name of the quarterback of team usa yeah daryl who said hoosh right hoosh i mean he doesn't seem to be a wallflower you know but this is their way to basically say with the commissioner there you're there these athletes here that that in in the town of the olympics to basically say we are the team like this is it so i'll tell you a couple interesting things one of the great things about business and sport is you always have to be iterating. And when Tom called me a year ago and said, look, I want to do the biggest flag football game ever.

27:52Can you help us put this together? It's going to be really hard. You know, we got to get everyone out, you know, to produce the game. Absolutely, Tom, your family, let's go do this together. Our original idea was to have three NFL-based teams. And then literally three weeks ago, Mike Mahan, who runs our collectibles and trading card business, called and said, we can make this so much better. Let's see if we get Team USA into this. They're the best flag football team. Let's see how the NFL guys do versus the best flag football team. And that just took this from like a friendly match to like, this is going to be serious.

28:24You know, people are really fighting to win this. No one wants to be embarrassed. I mean, if Team USA wins, NFL guys aren't going to feel so good. And by the way, if Team USA loses, that's pretty embarrassing for the best flag football team to lose. So, I mean, and again, last night when we were doing some introductions, I reminded everyone from the NFL that they were six and a half point underdogs, six point underdogs from fanatic sports books. So you're going to see serious competition, but I think this format is one that's great to showcase and highlight not only flag football on a global stage, but also what the, you know, I don't think the, you know, USA flag football teams had any type of visibility like this.

29:00So there's going to be, I think tens of millions of people are going to watch this and tune into this on Saturday. So to watch this competition is I think terrific for the growth of flag football globally.

29:09Rich Eisen:I want to go back to what you said to start your response. You said you always need to be iterating? Is that what you said? Yeah, look. What do you mean by that? I mean, three weeks ago, we were doing this game in Saudi Arabia. Right. In Riyadh. Reality's made you pivot. Yeah, with three NFL-based teams. Right. A couple weeks later, we're doing this in L.A., where they're going to have the 28 Olympics at BMO, where they're going to play football games with a completely different format. I mean, that's about innovating, pivoting, figure out how to do it better. I mean, you tell me, how much more interesting is this format of having two NFL-based teams and the best flag football team playing against each other?

29:47I mean, do you really have any idea what's going to happen? Because I don't know.

29:49Rich Eisen:No, not at all. I'm just talking about just growing businesses and things like that. You know, because that's part of what we're doing around here is we've done nothing but pivot on this show for like six years. And sometimes it's realities that cause you to pivot. And other times you've got to start thinking about it. And I think there's a lot of people out there maybe trying to start their own small business right now, listening to us, watching us on our platform that would love to get your two cents on that for somebody who's grown fanatics the way that you have over the last. Yeah. Well, first of all, I think we haven't done anything yet.

30:19I think we're just getting started. And we're always going to have that mentality. And from my perspective, you know, I think to be a successful entrepreneur, you have to just be, you just have to have a will to win always. And you always got to be figuring out how can you be better, never accepting where you are. Someone said, how did you feel about last night? I said, because we did the draft yesterday and by the way, the draft was, it was hilarious I mean the guys, just watching everyone just laughing for 45 minutes straight, but I'm like here are all the things we still do better because you have to have that mentality, if you ever accept whatever you do is good enough, you're never going to be good enough, so, and you also have to know you're going to take lots of L's in business and that's, you know, that's part of growing a business, that's part of playing sports, that's part of business, things never go the way you think they're going to go, you know, consistently you know, some things go the way you do, some things Because you just got to keep pivoting.

31:04You got to keep innovating. You got to keep listening to your customers and keep being better in everything that you do. Fanatic Studios, what's that? What are you trying to grow here? So it's interesting. We really think about not getting a business unless we can do something that's significantly better for the fan. And also, it's a big opportunity for everybody around us. And if there's one theme that kept coming up, it's that in our three primary businesses, the Fanatics Commerce and Fan Gear business where we started, the collectibles and trading card business, and the betting and gaming business.

31:32You know, we work with the best athletes in the world, the best sports properties, best teams in the world. And there's such a big opportunity for us to work with them to create content that's strategically important to them that could, you know, really be very strategic to the businesses that we're in. So we started this business. And by the way, this game this week is put on by Phonetic Studios. We've got a bunch of shows that we've launched with. And I think we like to be, you know, one of the more important sports content companies. But we want to make sure it's super strategic to everything that we're doing.

32:00Rich Eisen:Meaning you're obviously partners with leagues, you're partners with athletes, you're partners with everybody who probably considers their own world, their own, I guess, accolades and the things that they're doing is their own content. So how do you find out what your content is? I'll give you an example. Look, we work with 5 ,000 of the greatest athletes in the world, and we have so many partnerships that are incredibly important to us. And people want to make sure they tell their story in the right way. And we have a very long-term approach. So we don't need to go out and, you know, sell a show to somebody to make it.

32:33I mean, even like this weekend, I mean, whatever it takes for us to do something great, whether it's Fanatics Fest when we started it, you know, we're losing tens of millions of dollars in this game that has a huge investment in it. You know, we're going to always do what's right for the long-term of the business. So it gives us that ability to invest in these things, to get behind people to tell stories in the way they want to tell stories, but also do it in a way that's good for, you know, fanatics in our ecosystem as well. And I think, you know, when you watched, you know, the F1 movie is an example.

32:59Right. Or Drive to Survive. You're like, you know, we as a company think about, well, we built that. How can we integrate? You know, we have a big F1 collectibles business. We have a big F1 merchandise business. The F1 betting and gaming business is growing. So you just think about how can you integrate your businesses in a really smart way into the type of content you build and do it on a long-term basis with the people that are most important to you.

33:19Rich Eisen:Are you going to make movies? Is that what you're saying? I mean, I think we're going to do it all. I mean, I think we're going to do it all. Are movies the first thing I think about? No, but when there's a movie that makes sense, we'll absolutely do that. I think when you think about media take, it could be from short-form things on YouTube to movies to every iteration in between to putting on events like the Fanatics Flag Football Classic. I think for us, we think this is a great opportunity for us to bring tens of millions of fans together to watch this game this weekend. We love that. We love bringing people together.

33:50That's the great thing about sports. It unifies us. It brings us together. It's the only thing that's not divided.

33:53Rich Eisen:this world if i told you spent 20 years ago then that you're gonna you know needle robert craft to come to your event that the commissioner of the nfl is coming to because you got all these nfl stars for a sport that is as popular as it's ever been and for an initiative that is important to the nfl because you're it's your business and you're the one who's bringing it all together you'd have said what well i would have said look none of this stuff fazes me because i just feel like we haven't even begun. We got to keep doing better in everything we do. You don't stop. We're lucky to have great partners.

34:25I mean, I just talked to Roger on the way over here. He's excited about building flag and he's working tirelessly at the NFL to do that. Robert's, you know, such an NFL first guy. And so, you know, I think for Robert, it's partially, you know, and by the way, I get it. Sometimes you wake up tired one morning, but then he's like, Hey, I helped build this business. I'm so behind fanatics. Like I want to come see how this comes together. And by the way, I'll be asking them not, would you like, would you not like, Like, what can we do better? How do we make this better? I remember going to the Pro Bowl this year in San Francisco and just saying, okay, we just take a note after note after note to say, how do we change our game and make it that much more interesting?

34:57Rich Eisen:You know, it just, again, you have to, I totally understand what you're saying, Michael, because you have to constantly be thinking about what the next thing is. and perfect example of that is the man that you spoke to on the way over here my boss of the last 23 years is only my boss for 12 more days until i'm fully completely with the network that's airing us right now as we're talking because the nfl network got bought by espn or sold or what have you it's one big happy family do it but it's just great i can't believe it like these things i never could have thought were possible i mean you thought i guess possible that would ever happen And the media world, the sports world, the content world is constantly changing.

35:37But that's the way the world works. And what I've learned is if you stay still, you get knocked out. And so you've got to always be innovating. You've always got to be changed. You've got to always be listening to the fans, listening to the competition. And if you're not, you won't stay on the spot for very long. So I like these things. To me, when I watch Disney and ESPN getting together with NFL's media assets, I think about how can they produce a better product for the fan. And I think that's exactly what they're going to do. and I think it's going to be a better and stronger company when you put it together.

36:03And by the way, I love entrepreneurialism, always working to create new things. Then how do you build those things? Sometimes independently, sometimes it's part of something bigger.

36:11Rich Eisen:Yeah, for sure. TJ Jefferson is an Arch Manning card that he's hoping becomes much more valuable at the end of the day. I mean, do you want to strike a deal right now? Listen, TJ, I'm very passionate about the collectibles business. There's not been a business we've had more fun building in the last five years than coming up with the idea to start the trading card and collectibles business. And then in 2020 to where we are today. And here's the good news for you, TJ. We are just getting started in that business. I'll tell you a crazy stat. When we took over Topps, January 1st, 2022, 10 MLB players of the 780 collected cards.

36:51Today, more than 250 collect cards. They're so into it. You know, getting the athletes involved in the trading card business, getting, you know, such product innovation that didn't exist. Like in baseball as an example, a couple of years ago, we came up with this idea when someone comes up into the majors for the first time to put a debut patch, a rookie patch on their jersey, comes off after the first game and goes in a one-on-one card. Could you imagine instead of that card, you had the Otani one-on-one card for when he plays first game. By the way, you'd be buying this, you'd be buying this company, and Roger would be working for you.

37:24That's how valuable that card would be. So, you know, the collectible space has, we're just getting started. We only have, you know, there's like 11, 1200 hobby stores in the U S outside of the U S there's less than a hundred. You know, we are marketing, innovating the product, getting the athletes involved and having so much fun doing it. So I think we are really in the early stages of the growth of that industry.

37:46Rich Eisen:He thinks the arch card is, you think it's going to buy you a boat though. Oh, by the time arch is done winning six Superbowls and 18 MVPs and throwing for a 100 ,000 yards in. I'm getting a boat. Any specifics on this card? Is it just like a one-on-one or is it just like a base card? What do you got? It's an Archmating High School card that I bought about five years ago. Okay, and it's a Dorn Newman card. Is that what you're saying? Yes. All right. Well, listen, I'm bullish for you. I'm excited for you. I'm excited to see what you can buy with it. I'm going to stick with some of my, right now, some of my Brady cards.

38:17One of the things I love doing is collecting people that I have good relationships with because it makes you more invested in their future. You know, the one thing last night When Tom was giving Jaden a hard time, I realized I was with Josh Harris when he spent, or the two of us kind of bought together a car for a half a million dollars. Right. That we had this at Fanatics Fest. Actually, Josh went up and bought it. I encouraged Josh to do it. So I got to say, I love being invested in the futures of the different players. So I collect certain things with people that I really like. It's been fun to see some of the owners get involved in this.

38:47Sure. And, you know, I'm glad that you're incredibly passionate, TJ, about this garden. And we're going to know your entire future is dependent on Arch Manning. So you better ball out. Yeah.

38:56Rich Eisen:He's also a diehard Sixer fan. Yeah. You know, I'll tell you one thing. I had a great experience being involved with the Sixers from 2011 until 2022. You know, we never got it done. We were a perennial second round exeter of the playoffs. That's a failure on our part. Talk about not succeeding. If you don't win a championship, you're not doing your job. Right. And, you know, these guys, you know, look, I'm always Sixers are always in my blood. But that is a tough job to own a sports franchise and try to win every year. year and if you don't win you haven't done your job dude thanks for coming i always appreciate you coming here and uh inviting us to fanatics fest you know well listen i think look i gotta tell you next year for fanatics fest we made it the same weekend as uh the world cup final july 16th through the 19th okay i went through the schedule a couple weeks ago and you've been to both and i think the first one was great the second one was a huge step up from it you could tell yeah i went through the schedule my mind was blown and nothing blows my head out how good how many incredible people there's so many things that people don't know about but i think the most important event that's going to come is the rematch between you and adam sheff i agree i just want to say i heard i heard the betting lines have used an underdog as well so you better start working out get it together sir i do not because if i see shefter whip you again we might revoke your that could be your last finax fest oh we can't have that i'll never get that white party invite.

40:17Rich Eisen:We like winners, so I need to be at the highest level. I totally understand that. I'm running at St. Jude in two weeks for my charity, so I'm going to be already having run it and I'll be expecting it this time. By the way, amazing what you do with that. We're always honored to help with that. You are so generous every time, Michael. It's incredible what you do with that. I appreciate that. But I want to make sure you're not getting older and slower. I mean, I gave Robert that pop-up speech yesterday. Hey, you're going to be 85 soon. I want to make sure you're still working 18 hours a day. Call me the night before.

40:47Listen, I want to see a faster score. You need to be defying age. I don't want to hear about this father time BS.

40:54Rich Eisen:I want to hear about you killing it out there. I look forward to giving you the result that you are hyping. And you're right. Let's go, baby. Don't overhype it. Adam Schefter and I are going to totally blow away. And number one event at Fanatics Fest, July 16th and 19th. That's going to be awesome. Schefter, eyes of rematch. I will do it. I can't wait for it. I'm always appreciative of you and your support. and certainly Fanatic Studios presents Fanatic's inaugural flag football classic this Saturday right here in Los Angeles, California. You can watch it on Fox Sports, Fox 1 and Tubi from 4 to 8.30 p.m.

41:26Rich Eisen:Eastern time. For those who are watching us and listening to us internationally, we know you're out there. You can check it out on the Fanatic's YouTube channel, Ticketmaster, if you're in the area to go see it with your own two eyeballs. So before we leave, you got to tell me, who's winning? Tom and Jalen? Yeah. Jaden and Joe? I don't want to hear the rest of it. Team USA. No, everyone in this place, we're writing it down. We're going to see how you guys do. Who do you got? I will never, ever say Tom Brady can't do it. Okay, so you got Brady and Jalen's team. I 100%. All right, guys, rest of the room, what do we got?

41:58Yeah, absolutely, Tom Brady.

41:59Rich Eisen:He's a New England fan over there. What do you got? Brady. TJ. Well, we did a mock draft before you came out, and I drafted Brady and Gronk. So, yeah, I'm going with that squad. By the way, I went full Eagles. I went Hurts, Saquon, and Smith. And that's where you missed it. The funny thing, here's what I'm going to do. I'm going to leave here. I'm actually going to my first practice. I'm going to tell Brady, yo, I was just going to reach out. Everyone thinks you're going to get your ass kicked. And then we'll wind up being right. Yeah. Because he's going to kick everyone's ass. Right. We've got to keep him highly motivated.

42:29Rich Eisen:Nothing can come too easy. Hey, man, congrats on pulling this off, putting it together. And I wish you the best of luck. Thanks so much. You got it. That's Michael Rubin right here. Thank you. Michael Rubin right here. Follow him on Instagram at Michael Rubin on The Rich Eisen Show. The Rich Eisen Show, the podcast.

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43:52Rich Eisen:Back here on the Rich Eisen Show. That was a lot of fun right there with our friend Michael Rubin. 844-204-RICH number to dial. for all small businesses you know every hiring counts we so does your time on top of it all hiring can quickly become overwhelming from sorting applications to figuring out who's truly qualified that's where linkedin hiring pro helps it streamlines the process so you can focus on connecting with the right candidates not managing the noise hire right the first time people post your job and get a hundred dollars off towards your job post at linkedin.com slash That's LinkedIn.com slash Eisen.

44:28Rich Eisen:Terms and conditions apply. You got the updates on scores over there, Christopher? What do you got over there? Sure, let's do it. Looking at the NCAA tournament men's side kicking off here. Let's see. Did Ohio State lose? Yeah. Yeah, they did. Hold on. No, they haven't lost. The game's still on, right? As a matter of fact, they are back in it. It's 49-47. Sorry. Under nine minutes to go. TCU 49, Ohio State 47. By the way, Ohio State outscored them in the second half, 23-10 right now. Have climbed back in it. Sure have. Nebraska putting it on Troy at halftime, 41-25. The four seed there, Nebraska handling their biz.

45:07Rich Eisen:And under 10 minutes to go first half, Louisville 17, South Florida 11. And it's also Wisconsin 5, high point 3, which could be the high point of the game. High point University is in high point North Carolina. Did you know that? Wisconsin doesn't score a lot, do they? Yeah, they do. They throw in a ton of threes on Michigan. A little too much for my liking. Jason in Tampa, Florida. Let's sneak in his call in a minute. We have left here on our radio outlets. What's going on, Jason? Hey, man. How's it going? Great day, right? First day of the tournament. Hey, are you watching your Buckeyes coming back right now?

45:47Rich Eisen:What do you got? You see this? No, I'm actually a Gator. Oh, okay. Yes, sir. So that was something I wanted to get your opinion on is because this team's kind of intrigued me this season. So you look at the slow start they had. They dropped, I think, what, four of the first two games out of the gate. And then the rest of the way they go on this run and they look like the Florida of last year. and to include i mean they beat sec champion arkansas just three weeks ago hung 11 or excuse me 11 points on them 34 point win right but then you look at so now you've got all this talk around them just last week about them being the team to beat for all intents and purposes next to Duke.

46:38Rich Eisen:And then it's like the life just gets sucked out of them after that Vanderbilt game. Listen, Jason, you are in survive and advance mode. Are you a dad, Jason? Or you're single? What are you? You're a father? No, no, I don't have any kids. Let me just tell you. Three kids. Chris will tell you, have any kid on the weekend, just get through hour to hour, day by day, survive and advance, man. And thanks for the call, Jason in Tampa. Race to bedtime. If he was a father, he would have totally understood my analogy. For sure. Hour three, Mike Florio coming up. The Rich Eisen Show podcast. Monster Energy.

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