Michael Rubin (businessman)

Michael Gary Rubin (born July 21, 1972) is an American businessman. He is the founder and CEO of Fanatics, a global digital sports platform that consists of several businesses, including licensed sports merchandise, trading cards and collectibles, sports betting and iGaming, special events, and live commerce. He is also a board member of Rue Gilt Groupe, which includes RueLaLa.com, Gilt.com, and ShopPremiumOutlets.com. He previously founded GSI Commerce in 1998, selling it to eBay in 2011 for $2.4 billion.

Rubin was a partner of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team from 2011 and the New Jersey Devils hockey team from 2013 before selling his stakes in Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the holding company of both, in June 2022 to focus on the expansion of Fanatics. He is also the co-chair of the REFORM Alliance, a criminal justice reform organization that he launched in January 2019, together with Jay-Z, Meek Mill, Robert Kraft, and Daniel S. Loeb, among others.

Early life and education
Michael Gary Rubin was born on July 21, 1972, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Paulette and Ken Rubin. His mother was a psychiatrist and his father was a veterinarian. He was raised in a Jewish family. He grew up in Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania, where he started a ski-tuning shop in his parents' basement when he was 12 and two years later, using $2,500 in bar mitzvah gifts as seed capital and a lease signed by his father, he opened a formal ski shop in Conshohocken, Pennsylvania, named Mike's Ski and Sport.

By the age of 16, he was some $120,000 in debt and was able to settle with his creditors using a $37,000 loan from his father under the condition he attend college. Rubin agreed, continuing to operate the business, which grew to five ski shops before he entered college. He attended Villanova University for a semester before dropping out after realizing a large gain on an opportunistic transaction. This involved buying $200,000 in overstock equipment at a deep discount with $17,000 borrowed from a friend and re-selling it for $75,000.

Career
Using the proceeds from his serendipitous overstock transaction and after selling his ski shops, he went on to found the athletic equipment closeout company KPR sports—named after his parents' initials—which bought and sold over-stock name brand merchandise. In 1993, the year Rubin turned 21, KPR reached $1 million in annual sales; by 1995, KPR reached $50 million in sales. In 1995, Rubin purchased 40% of the women's athletic shoe manufacturer Rykä.

In 1998, Rubin created an apparel and logistics company, Global Sports Incorporated, which would later turn into GSI Commerce, a multibillion-dollar e-commerce company. At 38, in 2011, Rubin sold GSI to eBay for $2.4 billion reaping a $150 million windfall. As eBay just wanted the order fulfillment business for large retailers so it could better compete with Amazon, Rubin was able to buy back the consumer businesses of GSI at a fire sale price. He repurchased: Fanatics, Inc., a licensed sports merchandiser; Rue La La, a flash seller, and ShopRunner, a retail benefits program. Rubin serves as CEO of Fanatics and as executive chairman on Rue La La's board. In 2019, it was announced on CNBC that Simon Property Group would team up with Rubin to take their mall inventory online and contribute $280 million to the venture. In December 2020, ShopRunner was sold to FedEx.

Rubin has orchestrated partnership deals for Fanatics with more than 900 professional and collegiate leagues, sports and teams, including deals with Nike, the National Football League and Major League Baseball that grant Fanatics the rights to manufacture and distribute all Nike fan gear for both leagues. At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, Rubin shut down a Fanatics' MLB uniform manufacturing plant to generate hospital gowns and PPE for frontline workers. In August 2020, he secured $350 million Series E funding for Fanatics that raised the valuation of the company to $6.2 billion.

In March 2021, Rubin and Fanatics secured a $320 million funding round, followed by another $325 million in August 2021 that brought the company's valuation to $18 billion as of September 2021. During the latter funding round, it was announced that Rubin would transition to the role of CEO of Fanatics Holdings Inc., a broader Fanatics portfolio that would expand beyond merchandising into new sports verticals in order to create a global digital sports platform. It was reported at the time that these verticals may include NFTs, a space Rubin entered in May 2021 by co-founding digital collectibles company Candy Digital; sports betting and gaming; trading cards, ticketing and media. In January 2023, Fanatics divested its 60% stake in Candy Digital.

Fanatics raised another $350 million in September 2021, one month after its expansion into the trading cards business by acquiring the licensing rights for Major League Baseball and National Football League. In March 2022, Rubin and Fanatics raised $1.5 billion followed by another $700 million in December 2022, reportedly pushing the company's valuation to $31 billion. During the December round, Rubin announced Fanatics would be expanding into a third vertical in 2023, Fanatics Betting & Gaming.

Philadelphia 76ers and New Jersey Devils stake
In October 2011, Rubin bought a minority share in the Philadelphia 76ers. Rubin was a member of the investment group that won a $280 million bid for the team led by Josh Harris and David Blitzer. Other notable members include Art Wrubel, Jason Levien, Adam Aron, Martin J. Geller, David B. Heller, James Lassiter, Will Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith, and Erick Thohir. The NBA formally approved the deal on October 13, 2011.

In 2013, as a member of another investment group led by Harris and Blitzer, Rubin bought a share in the New Jersey Devils and the Prudential Center for $320 million. In 2022, Rubin sold his stakes in Harris Blitzer Sports & Entertainment, the holding company of both teams, to David J. Adelman due to a conflict of interest regarding Fanatics' growing sports betting business and player partnerships.

Make-A-Wish
In October 2023, Fanatics and Make-A-Wish announced a new partnership for Fanatics to become the organization's "Official Sports Partner" and support all sports-related wishes in the United States.

The partnership kicked off in New York City where Rubin, Fanatics and Make-A-Wish fulfilled nine wishes for kids around the country at a special event featuring Tom Brady, Aaron Judge, and Jayson Tatum.

ALL IN Challenge
Rubin started the viral "ALL IN Challenge", which raised more than $60 million to fight food insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, with donations being made to charities including No Kid Hungry, Meals on Wheels, World Central Kitchen, and Feeding America. Athletes, entertainers and businesses took part, including Justin Bieber, Kevin Hart, Lebron James, and Dwayne Johnson.

Merch Madness
As part of Fanatics’ annual Global Volunteer Day, in June 2023 Rubin and Fanatics hosted Merch Madness Fan Gear Giveaway, a one-time initiative that provided more than 300,000 pieces of sports apparel to underserved children and families. The event spanned 100 locations across 30 US cities and featured participation from special guests, including Russell Wilson, Meek Mill, Tom Brady, Eli Manning, DJ Khaled and Lil Baby, who later dropped the music video “Merch Madness” to celebrate the day.

Media appearances
Rubin has been interviewed or quoted in business, lifestyle and sports publications such as Forbes, Fast Company, Vanity Fair, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Fortune, Entrepreneur, People Magazine, and Sports Illustrated. He has been a guest on many popular podcasts, including On Purpose with Jay Shetty, The Bill Simmons Podcast, The Pat McAfee Show, and Pardon My Take.

Rubin has also been featured on Dateline NBC, Good Morning America, CBS This Morning, CNN, CNBC, and ESPN.

In 2010, he appeared in the premiere season of the CBS television show Undercover Boss, where he worked undercover in GSI Commerce's warehouse and call center. Once his identity was revealed at the end of the show, he gave an employee, who had recently struggled with the death of a baby, $10,000 so he and the baby's mother could have a dream wedding.

In fall 2023, Rubin was announced as a guest shark for the 15th season of the critically acclaimed and multi-Emmy Award-winning TV show Shark Tank. He joined Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary, as they continue their search to invest in the best up-and-coming businesses and products on the market.

Rubin has been a featured speaker and panelist at several business and sports industry events including the MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conferences, the Wharton Sports Business Summit, Recode's Code Commerce, the Fast Company Innovation Festival, TechCrunch Disrupt, and Wall Street Journal Tech Live.

Personal life
An avid sports fan since his youth, Rubin splits his time between the Philadelphia area, near where he grew up, and New York City, where in 2018 it was reported that he purchased a $43.5 million penthouse.

Rubin is divorced from local dance teacher Meegan Spector. They have one daughter. Rubin has two daughters with his girlfriend, professional model Camille Fishel. Rubin formerly dated television news anchor and author Nicole Lapin.

Since 2021, Rubin has hosted an annual "white party" at his estate in The Hamptons for Independence Day, attended by many athletes and celebrities including Jay-Z and Beyoncé, Justin Bieber, Tom Brady, and Kim Kardashian. The "white party" concept was popularized by record executive Sean Combs.

In November 2023, Rubin was credited with an interest in purchasing a majority shareholding in Scottish football club, Glasgow Rangers.

Rubin has been included in the Forbes 400: The Richest People in America, the Forbes: The World's Billionaires list, and the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. His wealth, as of February 2024, was valued at $11.5 billion.