Fanatics diversifies its business. The American company, based in Florida, has raised $ 325 million and has registered a valuation of $ 18,000 million in a round of financing, as advanced The Wall Street Journal. In its last appraisal, the company amounted to 12,800 million, and a year ago, it stayed at 6,200 million.
New investors for the company attended the round, including artist Jay-Z and his entertainment company Roc Nation, as well as SoftBank and Major League Baseball (MLB), which were already shareholders of Fanatics.
The company, specialized in the production and design of merchandising licensed sports car, has stated that its objective is to break into new sectors, including sports betting, video games and the market of non-fungible tokens (NFT). Fanatics launched a first NFT project last June, a company called Candy Digital.
Michael Rubin, current chairman of Fanatics, expects the company’s new division to contribute $ 3.4 billion to its revenue for the year. It will function under the leadership of Matt King, former CEO of FanDuel. Also the former president of the Los Angeles Dodgers baseball team, Tucker Kain, joined the leadership of Fanatics, and will occupy the position of head of strategy and growth of the company.
Fanatics expects the new division of its business to add 3.4 billion dollars to its turnover
Fanatics was the company in charge of managing all the sales spaces of merchandising of the different stadiums that hosted this year’s Eurocup, in addition to being associated with numerous clubs in the NFL league for American football, the NBA or the Nascar, for motor racing.
The company, which has been listed on the stock market since 2020, currently has 112 stores throughout Europe and five factories in the United States that produce all the merchandising from the major American leagues, as well as important clubs in Europe such as Chelsea FC. In total, it operates fifty stores within sports venues and manages the e-commerce of more than three hundred sports entities.
Fanatics opened the doors of the first flagship NBA Store in the Soho neighborhood of London, the first of the three planned for this year. Lids, part of Fanatics, will manage the London store, as the company recently did with the Paris Saint-Germain store in Los Angeles.
