We’re headed for one of the biggest summer sports weeks in decades, from Major League Baseball’s All-Star Game in Philadelphia to the World Cup final up I-95. But the week’s most interesting story may unfold in between, when Fanatics Fest returns to New York on Thursday for its third edition. I was skeptical when the event launched a few years ago, but its growth rate has been sufficiently staggering that ESPN eventually moved the ESPYs to New York for the first time in years to capitalize on the attention surrounding the festival.

I recently sat down with the two executives behind the whole shebang: Fanatics Studios C.E.O. Michael Ratner, who is overseeing this year’s revamped ESPYs, and Fanatics Events C.E.O. Lance Fensterman. Together, they explained what’s been driving Fanatics Fest’s rise; how sports fandom has evolved into a live, immersive, and shareable business; and why proximity to athletes now extends well beyond the arena. What follows are highlights from our conversation. You can also listen to the full interview here. The following has been lightly edited for length and clarity.

John Ourand: When you launched Fanatics Fest three years ago, I was a skeptic. I figured, “Who wants to see athletes unless they’re competing?” What was your vision?

Lance Fensterman: We didn’t know it would work, but it seemed like a great idea. There are fan fests—MLB does an amazing one at All-Star—but there was no unifying platform that brought together fans of all different leagues, sports, and teams to celebrate fandom where sports, collectibles, and culture collide. So the hypothesis was, we wanted to be the ones to build that platform—like South by Southwest, CES, Comic-Con, or Coachella—for sports fans. That was the premise we launched with in 2024.

I’m blown away by how the popularity of Fanatics Fest has grown. Are you?

Fensterman: I think of it less as, “Wow, we pulled off something miraculous,” and more as leveraging all of Fanatics’ assets, relationships, and resources, pointed at fans, to deliver something special. When you do that well, fandom rewards you by saying, “I’ll embrace this. I’ll come back.”

You also do a lot of work with brands. How did that part of your business develop?

Michael Ratner: This weekend, there are tons of brands activating—Starbucks, Raising Cane’s, Foot Locker, a Disney collab that Roger Goodell is part of with the NFL, Dick’s Sporting Goods—and we don’t look at them as sponsors. They’re partners. Brands know there are new ways to disrupt and break through the clutter. Putting up a traditional linear TV spot isn’t necessarily the way—and even if you get in front of a lot of people, they might look down at their phones, so you’re spending money for people to look away.

If you reallocate those dollars into the content itself, you could spend more money on making stronger content that people actually want to share. If you subtly integrate your brand into content that’s entertaining rather than a commercial telling someone to buy something, it lifts your brand, and you blend the audience and the customer without them even being hyperaware. So everybody wins.

Michael, you’ve been overseeing the new-look ESPYs, which you’re bringing to New York this week as a sort of precursor to Fanatics Fest. How will this year look and feel different?

Ratner: Part of that is leaning into the simple fact that social media plays a huge role in how the audience will receive something like this, and us being aware that digital media is a huge piece of how people are going to consume this—and that’s everything from the preshow and the red carpet all the way through the events and some of the awards. We’ve been really thoughtful about how it’s all intertwined in a way that leans into the multimedia nature of what an awards show looks like and should feel like today. It’s been an amazing mix of creativity and relationships with talent.

Having Marcello Hernández as the host is going to help with that—making it fresh, making it young, a little left of center, irreverent, while still honoring some of the world’s greatest athletes. It’s a total sprint over the next seven or eight days. What’s going to make “Sports Week” so special in New York—the World Cup final, WWE Saturday night, Fanatics Fest, the ESPYs—is the magic of people being able to be in so many places at once.

“Sports Week”—is that how you’re branding this Fanatics Fest?

Ratner: Well, I certainly think that’s what’s coming. If you’re a fan and you want to be in and around sports and culture, this is the place to be. There are parts built for media and social media so that it can be received globally, then there’s a lot for the community in real life—collectors, fans who want autographs and photos, etcetera. There’s something for everybody, and it’s really cool how it’s multisport, multiday. We’re going to push toward a couple hundred thousand people in and around the Javits Center over four days. It’s unbelievable how big it’s become in short order.

Turning this from a trade show into an absolute sports festival and spectacle has been magical, and it keeps getting bigger organically. Every sport is there, the biggest stars in the world—LeBron, K.D., you name it—are on panels. It’s not just more commoditized content you could watch on your laptop; it’s stuff you want to be part of, a real community experience. Getting to see these superstar athletes in a totally different way is partly what makes it so special.

What are you most jazzed about this week?

Fensterman: The Fanatics Games, which I think will be 10 times better than when we launched it. And I’m excited about the FIFA involvement. They built practically an entire city of interactive experiences on the show floor. Then we’ve got the FIFA finals press conference at the show. This has never happened outside the stadium where the match is—but more importantly, it’s never happened in front of fans. For the first time, the captains and managers of both finals teams will be onstage at Fanatics Fest, talking about the match they’re about to play in 48 hours for the World Cup championship. We’ve also brought in a ton of current MLB talent because we’re on the tail end of the All-Star break. We’ve added content, too: three stages last year, seven this year. So no matter where you are in the building, you’re going to be able to hear athletes and influencers and entrepreneurs talking about sports and culture.

Can you picture what Fanatics Fest looks like in 12 months?

Fensterman: I’ve got to get through the next nine days. But we’ve already started plotting for next year. I’ve got a file called my “Future Strategy Scratch Pad.” We really feel this can be a citywide, weeklong extravaganza of sports—the entire sports world gathering in New York. So we’ve started thinking about the key components, what we need to build now, even before this one starts. We’re always trying to think about what’s next, even when we’re exhausted and terrified of what’s right ahead of us.

Fanatics Fest is very New York–centric. Is there a thought of going to the West Coast, or the middle of the country?

Fensterman: Right now, New York is the place for us to be. The canvas is massive, the fandom is huge, and it’s the intersection of so many types of fandom—Knicks, Liberty, Yankees, Rangers, Giants, Jets. So to answer directly: New York is where we’re based, and we think we can make this one of the largest events in the world, period. Where we go from there—the world’s our oyster if we keep nailing this and delighting fans.

On salary caps: “MLB teams still lag far behind in valuations, in large part because of cost uncertainty without a salary floor or a salary cap. That’s one of the big reasons why owners are demanding it now. Once they get it, MLB valuations will catch up.” —A sports media executive

On World Cup ratings: “A lot has been written about the idea that some people watching Telemundo’s World Cup coverage do not speak Spanish. Have you considered that at least some of those people are watching Telemundo as a work-around? I know at least two people who do not get the Fox over-the-air broadcast channel. They do, however, subscribe to Peacock and have watched matches on Telemundo even though they don’t speak Spanish.” —A journalist

On the Seahawks sale: “The Khosla family patriarch co-founded Sun Microsystems. Now the family is buying the Seattle Seahawks. If you have a product that at one point was in every computer lab in every engineering school in the country, you’ve made enough money to buy an NFL team.” —A Varsity subscriber

On FanDuel’s Bryce Harper controversy: “With the contract and sponsorship deals he has, why is Bryce cutting Cameo videos?” —A Varsity subscriber

See you Thursday,
John