FULL SEND PODCAST - Michael Rubin x Nelk Boys | Ep. 75

Episode Date: February 10, 2023

Michael Rubin on Gambling with Drake, Working with Jay- Z & Partying with Travis Scott! Presented by Happy Dad Hard Seltzer. Find Happy Dad near you http://happydad.com/find (21+ only). Video is available on http://youtube.com/fullsendpodcast/videos. Follow Nelk Boys on Instagram http://instagram.com/nelkboys. Part of the Shots Podcast Network (shots.com). You can listen to the audio version of this podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts & anywhere you listen to podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

what's up this is the craziest house i think i've ever been in this is crazy so we're at michael reuben's house we got michael reuben on today yeah um you guys don't know him he's basically just a very very very successful business guy he owns fanatics yeah which they have the rights to pretty much every like jerseys NFL NBA i think all all major leagues yeah literally all of them so basically any sports like memorabilia that you buy is like basically through him run by fanatics yeah you go to fanatics site yeah you go to fanatics He has everything. It's pretty fucking cool.

He owns. Unless you get the fake ones, you probably have that. Well, you get the bullshit ones, of course. But this is, I mean,

it's the guy. These ones are cool, too, besides, I mean, uh, the internals we love to do, but it's always cool

to just sit down with a successful, yeah, fucking business person. You just get to ask questions. You get to learn from them. It's inspiring, right? I'm excited,

man. Four CEOs. Dude. Didn't you, uh, one episode? Four CEOs? Yeah.

Interim. I'm intern CEO when he's out. Yeah, Yeah, but like a three. Right now, I guess three. No, it's sick, though. Yeah. You're saying what?

No, it's going to say you hit him up. Did he leave you on red or? No, I didn't have his, I had his old number. Oh, okay. Oh, like you just, his boy? I met him a few times. Oh, so you're front and like you set this up? No, I heard Grubman set this up.

Oh, I heard Grubman set it up, I thought. No, shout out to Dave. Dave Grubman said this up for us. So shout out to Dave. It's our guy. It's cool. What's new, though, before Ruben comes. Anything new?

Bro. I mean, fuck. Oh, what? What? What? Who gives that smile. We got our pod going out today too? Yeah, our pod's going out today, me and you.

What's the title? It was like two hours. I don't know yet. That's the thing I got to figure that out. Your titles are so different, though. It's just like one line. It should be raw gear, full sun, collab. We talk all things, raw gear, full sun, collab.

It was at the end of it. We did talk about that's the thing we're going to do, but that was at the end of it. That's going to be crazy. That title, Jesse will be in the thumbnail, Kyle. You in the middle? I think that pause can do really well. We talk for like two hours. You shared a lot.

I liked it. It was really good. I listened to it back. It was sick. Yeah. I don't know one of my like this is you guys run this podwa. This one? Yeah.

I got this. I think this one, I want to just really. I want to get his whole story too, like how he started, right? Yeah, I got, I got, I got this.

What time did you get here, by the way? We're supposed to be here, what? I was at nine. Nine. Did you take a dip in the pool? You got here real early.

Yeah. Nine, you got here like 50 minutes earlier. I saw, there's a video of you dipping in the, you were swimming laps, fucking. Yeah, I did sauna, cardio.

I'm like, there's a gym downstairs. Steam room you were in? Yeah, honestly, I feel great. I like that. Yeah, we did a whole other podcast. The thing about it is no one's going to tell you like, yeah, what are you doing here? No, everyone's really sweet. He's got like all these like nice.

Chef made you breakfast or what? Yeah, full like five-course little breakfast. Yeah, it's like one of those houses where you walk in. There's like five different people doing different shit. That's how you got to do it, though, if you have this house. You should ask them about this crib in general. I have some details, but I mean, I'm last. Why?

You already looked at probably 100 M's. 70. Oh, 70? 70. Holy fuck. I thought it'd be more. I'm excited for this one. You think we get an invite to one of his parties after this?

I got a job. I got something ready for that. I got something ready for that. Huh? You've been there? You got rejected once. No, no, no. Don't tell them how you did not get let in.

No, no, no, no. You can't even show up to that without like an invite. You can't show up to that. You took one like the one parties or something like that? I went to Fanatics. His last Super Bowl. It was in L.A., right? Yeah.

It was pretty crazy. Decaprio was there. But the 4th July party is a party everyone wants to go to. Oh, is it? That's the one. What, at Nobu? No. The end of the Hamptons, I think.

It's good, bro. What up, man. How are you? I'll see you. Good see you. How's it over? Kyle. Good to meet you.

How are you guys doing? Doing amazing. Good. Well, bro, like, first off, thanks for letting us in your home. This is beautiful. Pleasure to have you got. This is incredible. This is incredible.

It could be worse. It could be a lot worse. It could be a lot of houses in L.A., I think this might be the nicest crib. Just like the natural. lighting the view shit's insane bro it's actually a little i don't find peace very often and it's definitely peaceful here for sure how long have you lived in this house i have been here for about when did i get i got here in september i actually went inside that i'm here a lot more for business

like you know we're in the sports entertainment business so you know basically it's like new york and l.a and i said like a new place in l.a we do so much business here and i came out and i looked at eight houses and this was actually the first house i walked into it was actually a guy who owns the Vancouver hockey team. And, yeah, small world. And we got together, worked it up pretty quickly. And I was like in here three weeks later. I was like, house is great.

We agreed on the deal. I said, leave everything. And Francesco was great. He's actually become a buddy of mine. Beautiful, man. And yeah, I love it here. It's insane. How many bedrooms is it here?

I don't even know. Yeah, can you give us like a whole house here? I'm not, I'm not, that's not my thing. I'm like, you guys, you guys go roam on you. You guys make yourself at home afterward. Oh, he's been here since 8 a.m. Sona. I was using the elevator.

You do the cold punch? Yeah, I did the cold punch. So I did my first cold punch. I told you. Huh? Yeah. Yeah. So I've never done the cold punch before.

I'm actually terrified of it. And so all my boys, like everyone tells me how great the cold plunge is. So I finally like I really like got myself ready. Like I can do this. I can get in this thing. I got in it. I made it three seconds. I'm like,

I'm the fuck out of this thing. It was like I thought I was going to die. I honestly was wondering whether the people that were with me could give me CPR of my heart shut down. from the cold plunge. So there's definitely a little bitch, but... It's crazy that you say that because, like, all you've accomplished to, like, not to, like, mentally,

because it takes so much. But I only try for the first time, like, last time I was here, so I'm going to try again. I'm going to get it. I didn't go in, by the way. I'll have it mastered. Yeah, I believe...

I didn't go in it, by the way. I was joking, totally. I'm not... You should go in it? I'd love to. I'll tell you. Go in my beach. Do you like the cold plunge?

I love it. How long can you... Seven minutes is most I've ever done. So you can do seven minutes today here? So should we finish this at seven minutes here? See how you do? I can do it, yeah. Oh, let's go.

I'm done in trying. We just went to Russia. Do you know the fighter Islam? No. They're from Dagestan. Like, do you know, Kabib? Yes, of course. It's like his prodigy went there and did like the real Russian cold plunge in like the lake.

It was so, I think it was like 32. You went in two? I went in two. How about you? You're quiet over here on the cold punch. What? No, I don't, I can't do that. He's definitely not a cold punch.

I don't do the cold punch. All right. So you should do the cold punch day, see how you do. I mean, I could do it. Like, I'm not a bitch. I'll do it. That's what I thought, but I got to tell you saying it humbles you very quickly. Oh, you've never done it?

I have, bro. Like a minute. Oh, this will be great because I know exactly what you're talking about. We're going to end this. This one's cold. But who convinced you? Like, who's the guy's like, Michael, you have to do this. It's going to change you.

I hate like the, like, a lot of my friends have pushed me on it. Yeah. Hard. Yeah. And they come here and they, my boys have been through the house. Like, this cold punch is amazing. Like, you got to get in. Did you see it, actually?

No, I was totally joking. I'm not running, running around. I'm going to go back to work. You guys run around and then you go in the cold punch. I expect you in it. No, I'll do it 100%. The end of this podcast needs to be you in the cold punch. I promise you.

Okay, go off that though. Let's take it back to like, I guess your story. I know you talked about this a few different times on a few different podcasts as far as business goes. The thing that I find so interesting about you is every time you did the ski stuff, you were shoveling snow at eight years old. You're doing all this like crazy stuff at such a young age. You said you were making, you made like 25.

at 13. I've watched a few different interviews. I guess my question to you without trying to go over the same information I know you've explained a lot is you've had so much like drive as like a young individual to make money. Where does that come from? Because at eight years old, most kids aren't thinking about making money, shoveling snow and trying to get other kids to work for them. So you know what I'm saying? I think in a lot of ways it's just something you're born with or you're not. Like I am, it's crazy. When I think about it now, I'm more driven than I've ever been. I work harder of today right now I'm working harder than I've ever worked like I'm thinking about this and I was actually going to bed last night after like I was sort of dizzy from working so hard and I'm thinking

like why am I killing myself like this but then I'm just like I go right back at it because he's just like it's the mentality I have I believe like um just hard work intensity will will persevere like anything I want to do I feel like I can get myself to do and if I really want to do the cold punch for seven minutes. I could figure out how to do it because I would just be determined to do it. And so I was the same way at eight years old. And I was always, I said this a hundred times I was like the shittiest student in the world, the worst athlete in the world. But like I always just had an insane work ethic and a little bit of common sense. Those two work pretty well together. Yeah. But a lot of people talk about like they have the drive, but they really

don't have the drive. But what like you just, because what an eight years old teaches you that? You just had it. And that's why I said, I think you were kind of born with it. Like I just like, Yeah, like I think, you know, you know, um, some people like to sleep a lot. And, you know, some people like to, you know, action. Like, I love action. Like, I was just here for, you know, Grammy's weekend with Robert Kraft. Guy's 2082 in June. The guy's got more energy than I have. And I'm like, endless energy. I'm like, Robert, how do you do this? Like, you're a beast. And it's like, said, what do you mean? He was, you know, we go nonstop, you know, most of the weekend. And then he literally gets on a plane, flies back overnight. I'm like, you haven't a man. I'm like, you

having to make the bed up. He's like, no, I don't need the bed. I'm like, what are you talking about? You have a four-hour flight. Like, have to make the bed up for you. You know, it's going right back, right in the office, right to do things. And it's just like, I don't know. Some people just have this killer instance of that drive. Yeah. Go ahead. Wait, no, I want to. So you said it 25,000 at 13. I think it would be cool for our audience to get to my, to get your story too. Yeah. I just want to know, what did you do with 25,000 when you're 13 years old? It wasn't drugs. Yeah, no, but do you just save that up, hide it on your bed or what? So I was the ski stuff. Yeah. So I truly.

was and people like yeah I do like to make fun of myself but like I literally was a terrible student you know when I took my SATs I got a 780 combined by the way not on half yeah I'm very good okay mine was higher yeah but everyone's was higher I'm not good is that's the point I'm right doing that out there Brad yeah I don't know I know SATs work yeah yeah yeah if you could get I think you get 400 for your name on it so like 70s you live in your sister's apartment though not here pretty dismal you know chill um why you've got to put me on blast like that dude sorry just because your reaction song. There's a self-deprecating crew.

We all got to make fun. I say it's a lot. Yeah, but I say it's a Waldorf sometimes just putting that up there. Yeah. Yeah, wait, wait, wait. Wait, you just say at the Waldorf sometimes just put that out there?

Once a month. So what does that mean? Just bro, you're saying this to a billionaire? You say at the Waldorf? No, but he's got to throw that out there. Like, not many people know that. Listen, your boys like you make fun of you. It's all love.

We love you, bro. But go ahead. I'm not getting any ass staying in my sister's couch. Go ahead. We have hug real quick. We should. Me and him might need to. Okay.

We'll do in the coal punch. Together. That's how we're going to. This is ending. You have to, guys, like you have to make a podcast. Great.

Like, you got to end in the, you got to end in the, uh, you got to end in the cold punch. Easy. We're doing it. It's like leaving it on the court.

So this is, this is, this is, yeah, so I'll tell you a quick story. Yeah. So I was like, terrible student.

Like I could never focus on, um, school. It was always hard for me. Like, I had terrible ADD from when I was like, I understand. and people didn't even know what it was.

I really wasn't a good athlete. I was the guy they picked last. Actually, I just had a basketball game. I didn't get picked last. I said it was the first time I haven't got picked last. And sometimes I thought I could bet in my life. But I loved to work from when I was a kid. So I was always selling things like at eight years old.

Like literally, it would snow. And I would go and I would sell the snow shoveling. And I would hire kids to work for me. And I was, you know, I was trading baseball cards as a business. And I was selling, you know, stationary door to door that I would make on that Apple 2 Plus, which no one probably even knows when an Apple 2 Plus computer was. Yeah. But did you, I guess the question is, did you have someone to show you this?

No, it was all just instincts I was born with. I loved it. I loved to work. I would do any job as a kid. And so I went to ski camp in the summer. And I learned how to tune skis. And a buddy of mine said, like, you love business so much. And basically, like, because we always made fun of each other, like, you suck at school and you suck at sports.

It's a good friend group. Yeah, it's good. So why don't you start a ski tuning shop? And I did. I did that at 12 years old. And then I got really lucky. It didn't snow that season. They had this big ski swap where all these different local ski shops were bringing in their inventory.

And I helped a ski shop. It was called Balman Ski Shop, sell their excess inventory. And I said, hey, why don't you lend me some of your excess inventory? So I put it in my parents basement. I took it on consignment. And that year, I made $25,000. She's just borrowing skis and selling them until like 13. 13.

fucking crazy. What did your parents think of that? He was a millionaire by 21. Well, by my mom was a psychiatrist. And so I think she knew I was crazy from day one. So I think I was diagnosed as definitely a little bit out there from day one. Yeah. What were you spending at that time when you were 13 and you have 25 racks?

Remember you bought it. You know, it's funny. I think at that age, I didn't really give a shit. The first dumb thing I did was definitely, I was, I guess, either 14 or 15. I did buy half a Porsche, which I was not legal to drop. Half a Porsche? Yeah, I bought it with a friend. And I hit it down the streets from my family.

And then my dad came home from a, like this club he was in one. And he's like, Michael, did you, one of the guys said you bought a Porsche, did you? I'm like, yeah. He's like, is it nice? I'm like, yeah. He's like, you ought to tell your mom. I remember my mom comes in. She was much more serious when she comes here.

The footsteps coming down. She says, my dad says, you know, Paulette, you know, Michael has something to tell you. And I said, mom, I bought a Porsche. She starts laughing and walks out of the room. I remember my dad says, Paulette, I think you ought to come back here. And then it was screaming at the top of her lungs when she realized that I was not kidding. So I did have that at 15. Actually, I guess I was 15 when I did it.

Yeah. In relationship to like family and stuff, because obviously it's not normal for a 15 year old or 12 year old, eight year old to be doing so much like work. Did your parents ever doubt you? Were they always just believing in you? Was there any sort of, no, I think, you know, if we're being blunt, keeping it real. I mean, my relationship with my parents was always incredible, but did they doubt me as a kid? Absolutely. I mean, my mom said, like, I shouldn't be in business.

I should go to school and be a normal kid. And, you know, my dad kind of just said, look, if you're grades are good, which they weren't, you know, I'll be supportive. And so, you know, I actually, there was only one time I ever barred money from my mom and dad. We grew up very middle class. Like, we did not grow up. You know, people always assumed like, hey, you grew up like a rich kid. I have a lot of friends who grew up as rich kids. I did not grow up as one of those kids.

We grew up in the house that I lived in from, you know, when I was born until, you know, I moved out on my own. That house today is about a $500,000 house. So we grew up a very middle-class family. It was a nice house. It was great, but we were certainly not well off. When you're a forward thinker, you don't just bring your A game. You bring your AI game. Workday is the AI platform that transforms the way you manage your people, money, and agents,

so you can transform tomorrow. Workday, moving business forever forward. Mom was always like, this isn't right. You should focus on school. And so at 16, when I already had the ski shops, and I had done maybe a half a million dollars in business the year before, the following year it didn't snow. So if now you're like 16, you're getting a little off track.

you know you're buying half of a Porsche it doesn't snow um we i literally was dead-ass like technically bankrupt and i had about a four-month period where the local sheriff became like my homie she would come to my house every day and drop off the lawsuits of the people that were suing me i got sued at least a hundred times for what at eight 16 because i couldn't pay the bills because i had two hundred thousand dollars and stuff yeah two hundred thousand dollars to vendors, and I had $80,000 in inventory and the half a push. Yeah, yeah. So I can't forget the half a push.

Right. Which, by the way, I think it was like $24,000 car at that point. It was, you know, 35 years ago or something. So I was basically, you know, broke. And I went to my, and so basically I had a bankruptcy lawyer. And I thought I was done. Like, I was dumb. I was done.

It was over. And the bankruptcy lawyer says to me, you know, you know, by the way, like, he gets all these creditors together. We have this meeting with the creditors and all these people who want to kill me because I can't pay the $200,000. Yeah. And someone says, by the way, how old are you?

I didn't even know this. I said, at this point, I said, I'm 16. Everyone, they look like ghosts. I guess you couldn't incur debt so you were 18 legally. That's a clutch. And so the $200,000, they said, hey, if you can pay us 18 cents on the dollar,

we'll, you know, we'll settle with you. And so I went to my mom and dad and said, hey, you know, can I borrow $30,000? which was a fortune to them. And they said, yes, on one condition, you agree to shut the business down and go to college. And so I agreed. But that created a couple issues.

One, I couldn't get into any college. It was the first problem. You know, I applied to Villanova Temple and Drexel all rejected me. I then happened to do a radio show on the sports station in Philadelphia. And Roli Massimino, God rest of soul, was the basketball coach of Villanova, obviously, who did the show after me. He actually got me in to Villanovey after I didn't get in.

So I actually tried to fulfill the promise I made to my parents. But I sat in the parking lot the first couple of weeks. And now at this point, I'm 18. I'm buying this on clubs since now I'm doing, you know, doing great in business. I was probably doing $30, $40 million at $18 buying and selling closeouts. Okay. And so I couldn't actually focus on school. I'm like, you know, I would literally drive to school.

The phone was like, what you see in like one of those drug dealer movies like 40 years ago, the phone was like this big. Yeah. I'd sit in my car, I mean, you know, buying and selling things and, like, you know, there's no way you get me to actually, you know, focus on school. So I made it about six weeks. So I, at 18, though, this was still just ski stuff, make doing 30. I was doing secrets at this point, too. Okay. Like I remember. 30 to 40 million? Yeah. In revenue. I was doing, by the time I was 21, I remember, I was doing over 100 million dollars in revenue by making 10 million of profit as a 21 year old. You got to go back. This is 30 years ago. So doing 100 million in business. And I remember, I was doing 100 million in business. And, and making $10 million 30 years ago. Free internet is actually a real business. That's insane. So let's talk about that a little bit.

Like the timing wise, how important do you think timing is? Because at the same time, not that you didn't work hard. Of course, the things that you've done is incredible. But like could someone today, like someone watching this, could they create the same sort of income, the same way you did now today? Or is it even greater now? Because it's such a different playing field. Yeah.

Like timing. Look, I think in a lot of ways it's a lot easier today for a young person to build a business. of the internet and technology, and you see so many kids now that are, you know, social media has created such a platform for people to build businesses very quickly. So I'd say, and technology has created such a platform. So I say it's much easier to, I'd say, I did it in the hard, in the hard times. Yeah. You know, selling sneakers, you know, one trail at a time or skis, you know, one lot of time is probably more complex than it is today. Yeah, for sure. What about social media now for you? Because you're pretty viral all over there.

you know it's funny i was never into it at all and then i always i had like the creeper account where i followed my friends yeah but i didn't um i didn't i never went on then like i literally went on in 2018 and i and what i realized was it really is a platform for talking about the things that i care about so what am i talking about i'm talking about things we're doing from a business perspective i'm talking about what we're doing with the reform alliance um um you know promoting my friends i'm making fun of myself so like it's it's fun for me now yeah yeah how did you start getting involved in. I mean, we know about the fanatics party, the Super Bowl, which Kyle went to last year. I don't know how you get, how you like decide who's on that list

or whatnot. Well, actually, it's the single thing that I hate most is actually, and you try to get an invite to a party right now? I've gone before. Okay. I went to one in Miami. I got you guys, but I got to tell you something. Yeah. There is right now for this weekend in the Super Bowl, I'd say we're going to have 8,900 people and there are probably 50,000 people trying to come to this party. How do you do that? How do you do that? How do you? decide who makes the list. I just know that a lot of people is not going to like me. I mean, we really do it. It's people. It's our business partners that are really important to us. It's, you know, people that are influential that, you know, help build the fanatics brand.

And it's our really, really good friends. And that's who comes to the party. How do you can tell you something right now? Yeah. Like, we just, I literally walked out of my office and, you know, we take, we actually take 250 people for the weekend to the game, okay? Then I have my suite that I do. And then we have this party. And it is absolutely. mayhem. You know, I thought the white party was the thing I got tortured most with with people trying to come to. I actually think right now this Super Bowl for the first time, we're actually having a music festival. We got, you know, Travis performing, Jay Balvin's performing, chain smokers are performing, babies performing, you know, a couple of my friends who I saw this weekend told me

they're going to just jump up and do some special performance. So it's going to be fun. I mean, now, I hope I can actually have fun at it, but it will be fun for everybody else. It seems like you're pretty much in the culture now because like these guys, like you just said, who's performing, they are your friends. like I mean you hang out with what we saw at the white party little baby megos but they're performing at the parties right yeah I mean a lot of those guys are brothers to me I mean so how do you get those relationships is there any business relationship or it's all just your boys so I'd say um you in anything I do I'm huge on doing things authentically and never forcing anything so

if you look at any relationship I have business personal whoever it is I always do things authentically. The second you try to force things, I think bad things happen. And so in business, you know, I think I've built, you know, a fair amount of deep relationships, but they've been built over long periods of time. You know, look, we have, we do have a lot of people that are important to sports entertainment that have become real friends of mine, but they're real, they're like my real friends. And, you know, I try to always give a lot more than I ask. I try to help a lot more than I ask, but I'm also someone, to be honest,

like the way I learn is as a sponge. Like, I don't learn by reading. I barely read. I don't, you know, watch much media. Like, I learned by, like, you know, asking people questions, having great people around me. And that's the way I learned. So, like, you know, we all learn from each other.

Like, there's not a day that goes by my life. We're like, you know, we're not all helping each other. So, you know, yeah, there's lots of great people around. But, like, you know, I always want to make sure I'm giving lots because I think that's what, you know, I always want to be a giver or not a taker. Yeah. I have a question on a note, kind of the celebrity thing. When to say when, the Drake's song, he mentioned the verse.

I watched Michael Rubin win a couple million, win a million off a couple hands. What was that like? What actually happened? This is a real story, I'm assuming. Yeah. You like to gamble? Yeah, Drake's might, look, I've always had the gambling gene. I mean, you know, in the spirit of telling stories, you probably shouldn't tell, but whatever, who cares.

Yeah. The first time I won in gambling, I think I won 2,500 bucks. And the problem was the gambling age was 18 at this point, but I was 14. Oh, my God. I remember calling my mom from a pay phone in an Atlantic City casino. I said, I was so excited. Like, mom, dad, like, I just want 2,500 bucks, you know, in the casino. And my dad's like, that's amazing.

My wife, I was like, you're grounded. I'm like, I'm excited. I just want $2,500. Get home, you're grounded. So, like, I always had the gambling gene. You know, for me, there aren't a lot of things that can get my brain to take its mind off of, like, work, what I'm doing. So, like, gambling is a place.

And, you know, look, I don't ever want to speak on Drake's behalf. But I think he would tell you the same thing. It's like, it's, and I think a lot of my friends would say the same thing. You get your mind to think about something other. And people don't, if you don't like to gamble, you know, you won't understand this, but it does, you know, distract you from, everything else in life. It's a good mental break. Now you need to do it with the control and within your means and all the things that obviously we all understand. But yeah, look, I've been,

you know, Drake and I have had many gambling nights. We've had some pretty bad ones and we've had, you know, some good ones too. Where do you get like in Vegas or, or online or? I, I, I know, well, and with us getting the gambling business a big way, I've actually never gambled online. I've only been live in casinos. And I think you would say where Drake and I've been in casinos, I think you've named just a few of the locations. I think we've done. We've definitely hit Bahamas, we've definitely hit Bahamas AC. What's the most you've ever won gambling? I'm like, yeah, I'm so curious.

Yeah, we've had good and bad days. Yeah, for sure. Fanatics is going to be getting into the eye gaming space, right? We're big gamblers too, so we can all fucking, our fans love to gamble too. But what's, can you say any plans on that? Look, you know, Fanatics today is in three businesses. The business we started in that we call commerce was the merchandise business. That business is, you know, grown quite a bit.

You know, we own leads. We own Mitchell Ness. We own Fanatics. We operate each of the league stores. That's about, you know, this year, it's about a $6.5 million dollar business. It's about $250 million business when we started, you know, 11 years ago.

And we're just getting started there, by the way. We have so much to do, you know, leaders are growing internationally, you know, fanatics is growing like crazy. Mitchell Ness growing like crazy. Again, we feel like there's so much we can do to make it better for the fan. Collectibles business we can talk about later.

But the gaming business, you know, I'm super bullshin. I think at the end of the day, we have, Fanatics has, you know, close to 100 million customers today. And when I think about, you know, those customers, probably half of them are sports gamblers. And then we have the collectibles business and trading cards. And so these business really fit together. So we think with the advantage we have from a marketing perspective

that we already spend probably half a billion dollars on marketing last year, that budget is growing each year, you know, the ability to leverage and make it better for the fan and kind of create one, you know, kind of integrate experience where you can get your merchandise, you can gamble you can get your collectibles over time lots of other things you'll be able to do with fanatics is i think a big opportunity for us when do you guys think you'll like launch that type of stuff um well i mean we'll i mean we just opened up our sports book last month we'll be in uh we'll be in in beta um next month and then we'll be in in public rollout within a few months but i mean by the end of this year we'll be in basically in every major how does the back end does like that

work do you guys get the licenses yourself or do you partner with operator okay we're absolutely going to be the operator and you know look we think about things very long term i mean For us, you know, the business, you know, it's getting to be a fairly sizable business. So we don't think about like, you know, what's going to work in the near term. We think about where do we want to be a decade from now, two decades from now, three decades from now. When I think about this business long term, I think about having, you know, billions of sports fans, everywhere in the planet, look at fanatics is the go-to place they go to to get their merchandise

to do online sports betting, to get, you know, training cards and collectibles and so many other things that we can give them over time, kind of the digital sports platform for everything they need. And so we're just getting started. By the way, we have so many things we can do better. We have so many things we're, you know, we're just going with. So, you know, I think this will be a really big business for us. Wow, that's cool. I got like, that's great. Two, two questions kind of along this line. Like, number one, like, why sports for you? Because you, you obviously got into it early on and your timing with like GSI, the company that you sold what you, you, this is when you officially be, I don't know if you officially became a billionaire at that point or not, but you knew to

e-commerce at the time, which was so new, you knew to, like, sell, like, products for people with these bigger companies, sports authority, like, you made these deals. Like, how did you have the foresight to what e-commerce would be today? And then why did you decide sports? Yeah. So the first company I started was in 1999 called GSI Commerce. That's what eBay bought in 2011 for $2.4 billion, which was a public company. I was a, you know, at that point, a small shareholder of the public company that had founded. Right. And, you know, the way I got in that business in 1990, 1998, 1999, was really by accident luck and entrepreneurialism. That's the way a lot of things in life happened for entrepreneurs.

What happened was the internet was going crazy, and I was like very anti the internet. If you were like, this is crazy. In 98, I was like kind of, everyone said to me, hey, you know, this internet bubbles happening, like you guys should be in e-commerce. I was like, I owned a couple footwear brands. I was in the business of buying and selling the close-up merchandise we talked about. My original thought process was kind of like, I don't know. like fuck these internet guys like they all do a lot of business the top line that none of them

know how to make money like i'm an old school entrepreneur this is my by the mid 20s i'm an old school entrepreneur um and so they there was the the real sort of what happened there's this guy who's you know still my partner day his name is mike con and he was an analyst on a wall street firm and he called me up and he said um you know michael you see what's happening with all these you know you know e-commerce companies and like i literally said to him like fuck those guys like i'm not interested in like, you know, we make real money. And he said to me, look, if there's so much you're worried about this, like, you ought to really think about it.

I hung up on him. Like, I don't want to hear this. And then he called me back on Black Friday. It was probably the only day of the year that I couldn't work because I was in the business of selling shoes and clothesouts to these retailers who they were all in the store selling this stuff. So there was nobody to sell anything to. And so he said, like, look, you're missing this, man.

You should really think about this. And so I did what any entrepreneur would do. I called the CEO, the sports authority and the CEO Models and the CEO of Dix. I said, what are you guys doing about this whole ecommerce? thing, and everyone said the same thing to me. Like, look, man, like, we don't understand any commerce. This is again, this is 1998, Christmas, and that's timing. Like, you're young. If, like, you have a solution for this, tell us. And, like, we'll do it with you. And after, like, 10 people said that to me, that's how I came with the idea starting GSI commerce in

98. So I did it kind of just because I fell into it because someone said, like, you should think about this thing. And then we sold the company in 2011 and eBay didn't want Fanatics, which was in nothing business at that point. And that's when I bought that back for them and kind of, you know, begun the long, you know, journey that we've been on and building it into, you know, what you're starting to see some other reforms up today. How does a deal like that go down with eBay for what did you say, 2.4 billion? Yeah. Like, how does that, I don't know, that's crazy?

How does that kind of start and the process of that? You know, eBay approached us and what eBay really wanted to do, and they were smart for doing this. It didn't work out exactly where everybody wanted to, but eBay approached us and said, look, you have this business and you work with all these big retailers and these big, you know, brands, companies like Ralph Lauer and Estee Lauder, GnC, Toyser, us, you know, Dick Sputting goes, they want to get these companies into their marketplace to be more competitive with Amazon. And so they want to buy GSI to get these relationships. And

it just didn't work. You know, it didn't work as well as they want to. But that's why they bought the company was to get these companies into their marketplace. And so they came and said, hey, we want to buy the company. We hired bankers to represent us. And ultimately, they bought the company for, you know, $2.4 billion. It's just crazy because originally you had the mindset of like the internet is you know fuck this at this point but now like would you say that most of your income is from e-commerce through fanatics definitely yeah which is insane yeah which means you can be wrong you just got to do the 180 I'm very good at you're so good at like I fuck things up all the time and I'm very good at you know yeah hey I thought I had it and I wasn't right but that's great that's like incredible

in life like I love to learn from my mistakes people I was just saying this to somebody over the weekend like I like take an ellis and like how do you like take an else because you learn from you grow and you do better next time me too yeah what are the biggest things you think that are important when you're like trying to sell a company? Well, I think there's the most important thing is to build something that's long lasting. Like, you know, think about what you guys are doing. You guys are building, you know, this great show that, you know, gets, you know,

incredible viewership. And the more successful you make this, the more valuable you make it. So to me, you build a great product. You build a great business. Everything works itself out. If you just try to sell a business to sell it, it's not going to work. So so many people say, hey, like, I want to build something to get rich. Well, that's wrong.

We build a great product, build something that people love, build a great business. everything will work itself out try to build something just to build it it ain't going to work yeah super so in regards kind of to that but in the self-belief of being able to do so like how important is self-belief in your opinion as far as like all the success that you've had and have you ever not had self-belief in yourself at any point yeah so I've always hey so what did you want to talk about well I want to tell you about Wagovi Wagovi yeah Wagoe what about it on second thought I might not be the right person to tell you. Oh, you're not? No, just ask your doctor about Wagovi. Yeah, ask for it by name. Okay. So why did you bring me to the circus? Oh, I'm really into

lion tamers. You know, with the chair and everything. Ask your doctor for Wagovi by name. Visit wagovi.comi.com for savings. Exclusions may apply. I've never, like, the thing that makes me a little bit different is I have no fear, no fear of failing at all. Like, I just don't. give a shit, still today. So, like, if you have that mentality, you just keep going for it. And so I'm always going for it. Like, I'm always, like, no fear like that at all.

And I think that's where I'm a little bit different. I think people, even as they get older and more successful, they become more nervous to take those chances. Like, I like risk. I like the action. And again, like, failing is cool. Like, there's no problem with that. You learn from your failure.

So long as you're, like, learning and growing. Like, the most important, thing to me every day is to learn and grow. That's what I love to do. I wake up, I go at it with everything I got and I want to learn and grow. And if I do that each day, life's great. Going off that, what do you think your lowest point in your career has been? It sounds like you've been pretty successful, just keeps getting bigger and bigger. Well, I've had many low points from a business perspective, but I've never felt like there were low points in my career. That's a very different. So, I mean, I can remember in the financial crisis of 2009 that our stock had dropped by 90%.

I almost pushed out of my company, and I was also almost broke for maybe like the 98th time. This is only 14 years ago, and I was never phased. Like, I like to fight every day. And guess what, I fought through it? Like, there was literally, and this is not an embellishment and an exaggeration. I owed a bank about $50 million in 2008 personally. I got this debt down to during the financial crisis down to about $3 million. And I couldn't pay the last $3 million off.

And the bank was going to sell. I was secured against the shares in my public company. And the bank was going to start selling my shares. And I couldn't find the money to pay them the last $3 million. But every day I kept coin people who I was invested with it, I couldn't get the money out of because they were in bad situations. I just, until I got it done, I didn't give up. And that was my mentality.

And so my point is, like, you could say it was a low point. I almost, you know, went bankrupt. I almost got kicked out of my company. My stock was down by 90%. I was nearly broke. I was like, man, that was a fucking blast. Like, I like this action. Yeah, that's what the inner damblers.

That's a big sweat, though. If you asked Brady when he was down 283 in the Super Bowl, was he depressed? I'm sure he tell you like, that like i want to go out like i'm just saying like it's like if you have that mentality you can overcome anything you want then like you you you almost like like if i go to a casino i get my ass whipped i'm not like like quitting i'm like i'm like i'm fighting back now by that you can still get my eyes too and gambling if you never quit you'll just but the nfl's scripted now you know that right was that's what nfl scripted no what do you mean it's scripted now have you heard that

no the rumors Trevor lawrence yeah they're like saying that because the uh chargers came back from that 310 lead. And if I was not script, that's bullshit. That's dumb. That's what they're saying. I got a question. I got a question. This is a little bit more like on a personal level.

Like you have essentially anything you could want, you could buy, right? So what would you say now in your life? Well, I don't agree with that at all. Okay. So there's other things you can't buy that you'd want. Well, the most important thing is you live a happy life. Well, this is what I'm asking you. So I'm not.

So like material things don't do a thing. Like you can have all, like let me say you're saying. I know so many people that are so rich and they're miserable. I talk about this with my friends all the time. There's nothing worse than rich, miserable people. Well, the question I was going to ask you was, like, what does someone give you now that is actually showing value? Their sincere friendship.

Yeah. Their love, having fun together, enjoying life. Like, I don't, like, I don't, like, yeah, it's nice. Is this a nice house? Absolutely. Is this a house changing my life? Absolutely not. If you told me right now, you're not going to believe me.

But if you told me I lost everything tomorrow morning, I lived in one bedroom apartment, I'd wake up with the same energy and same attitude. You can call bullshit on it I'm not calling bullshit I wonder what people were listening and say the guys say holy shit I don't believe

I mean you wouldn't be where you're at if that was not true right like I'd be like okay this can be fun this can be an adventure what do you that's why I'm so curious like why I just I just actually I'll tell you something that's interesting

so I started asking people I was at someone's birthday who's been really successful who's turning 70 and I asked him a question and they gave me the wrong answer and I said to him let me ask you a question

if you give all of your money up to be 55 you were dead ass broke would you do it how old was he 70 you said right yeah okay it was their 70 birthday okay they said hell no they said would you i said wait for 15 i can go from 50 to 35 i said fuck i'll buy him for 40 right now i'll give everything i have right now i'll get 10 years back in my life for sure everything i'll start with zero and have a blast doing it by the way that'd be so fun to subtract 20 years 10 years no i'll buy them 10 years what i'll give everything i have How much? Everything I have for 10 years.

Whoa, dude, that's a large statement. Not even a question. That's cool, though. Well, it does. It makes sense.

I mean, we know you would never do that, Brad. It's all about the journey. What's that? You wouldn't do that, you greedy fuck. Oh,

really? Okay, I'm sorry. Jesus Christ. How old are you? 33. Right. But by the way,

I'm 50. I've lived a little bit more than half my life probably. So it's like, I don't like, I don't want to be fit. By the way, the biggest thing you can't buy is age back. Like, of course,

or whatever, but a lot of rich people are so miserable. What do you think is missing in their life or why are they not happy? I think people get so obsessed with making money. Like, I like to make money for the game, for the action. I don't like to make money for the money of it. I also don't like, you know, I'm not out there. You know, I don't wear a lot of, like, I'm not like, you know, I drive the same car. Like, I drive range robbers.

I don't have like a collection of cars. I'm not like a showy person. Like, yeah, do I live a nice house? Because I like to live in a nice house because that's why I live. But I'm not like. You know, like, I don't really care about money. Like, I like to make money for the sport of it. It's like, I'm a shitty athlete.

I'm a shitty student. I compete in business. Like, so many rich people, they're just miserable. And so, like, I say, like, and by way, a lot of rich people also don't know how to live and, like, live their best life and, like, enjoy themselves. Like, yeah. There's sometimes just want to say somebody like, dude, be happy. I know.

I think people think that, like, I know a guy that just wanted to get rich so bad. And they think that once you accomplish that, you will be happy. and once they're like, oh, I have all this fucking money and I'm still not happy. What the hell is wrong with me? I know so many people or tens of billions of dollars that are so painful

that I don't want to spend that I run away from that I don't want to spend one second with. Fuck. Was that like a personal thing for you? Like, it sounded really personal. No, okay. I'm happy, dude.

I'm fucking with you. No, okay, so on this line. But I'm satch and you're a little sensitive. I just want to say. That's hilarious. That's kind of crazy. You'd say something like that. I just feel like, I feel like,

I feel like he, I feel like he's fucking me and it gets under your skin a little bit. Why would you say that? Because he's the big guy and I'm the small guy. No. Even your reaction is funny right now. It's a small guy or a small guy.

I'm all with small guys. Michael, I can assure you I'm not sensitive whatsoever. I just take things and I just keep going. Hmm. Yo, you know, you just. He looks a little. He does a little excessive, right? He'll text me later and be like,

yo, is that a good boss? How does everyone pick up on that, right? Bro, it's because it's his demeanor. It's fine. No, you're a little acting there, but yeah. It's not because it's off camera too. I still love you, though. Don't worry about it.

The group hug in that. 100% is going to happen. Okay, well, wait, let's switch up and let's talk basketball. Didn't you just sell, you sold your stake for the devils and the Sixers, right? I did. To your buddy. Yeah. And you couldn't do it.

Is that because of the sports book? It became really complicated. Like, I would say the leagues in general have tons of rules that make it impossible. Like for how big fanatics is getting. You know, when we were only in the merchandise business before we had thousands of individual contracts with athletes before we had all these athletes that were investors in our company. Before we had

we were taking bets on our own team before we had agents that were investors in the company. Like if there were a rule the leagues had, they had to do with conflict. I think we found a way to not conform with the rule. So it just became too complicated. It was an easy decision for me because

fanatics, I have like the greatest opportunity in the world. And this is the thing I'm probably most excited about like, look, business turns me on more than anything. And like to wake up every day, I know, have an opportunity to build one of the most amazing companies in the world and work with tens of thousands of amazing people that have a mission of, like, you know, build a great, you know, experience for sports fans and, you know, keep getting better and better, which we have so much work to do. You know, like, it's dreaming. And so I work around sports and technology with great people, great athletes, great entertainment, great business people, you know, great associates. And so the Sixers became in the way of that.

And so as soon as it was really in the way, it was in the way. and it was inhibiting fanatics. I was like, okay, I got to move up. Well, that's what I'm curious about, like how, since you have fanatics and you're so focused on that, how involved were you actually as an owner of the six-ers? I was pretty involved. And I'm still like, look, to be honest, and everyone knows this. It's a small one.

I'm still pretty involved. I mean, you know, first off, you know, Joe and James are brothers to me. I mean, I love those guys and, you know, they're family to me. You know, Josh Harrison Blitzer family to me, who were the two primary owners of the team. Dave Edelman, who bought my stock in the Sixers is family to me. So, you know, the Sixers are family. It's, you know, Fanatics makes you agnostic to sport. You almost, like, become numb to outcomes.

I believe for the Sixers. I think it's funny because you and Robert Kraft, your buddy, it seems like you guys, out of all the owners, are, like, most friendly with the players. Yeah, and that's something that came very naturally. Like, I didn't, like, if anything, I think a lot of people try to keep their distance, but, like, I like to learn from people,

and I like to help people. And that's the way, like, people have always been with me like to talk about robert crept he's helped me so much in business as is you know his old son john the craft these guys have been so helpful to just helping me build fanatics and like the same way they've helped me i want to help other people so you know when you know when james hardon called me you know an hour before i walked in there this morning and had a couple of business things he want to talk to me but like i stop and i want to help him and like you know push him to you know to be better he wants to push me to be better and like we're always push each other

whether it's by way whether i'm you know messing with him the way we're all messing with each other about, you know, being the healthiest you can be or, you know, like, I mean, we're all like we've got good banter on everything going on every day in our lives. Yeah, how much to those guys come to you for advice, like little baby or like business advice and stuff? Business advice a lot, you know, I don't think James or Joe has never asked me for advice on the basketball court. But I will talk about, but what I will say I talk a lot about with people is like,

like I'm a huge person on teamwork. Like I believe, you know, look, these guys are my friends, but look what just happened with the Brooklyn Nets. People would have said when you put KD. and H together, like that team should have won multiple championships and it didn't work. And, you know, there's a second time too, though. That didn't work. That's my point.

So what do we learn about that? You can get the best talent in the world in business, in sports. And if you don't work together as a team, you're fucked, okay? And so the big thing I'm focused on, and I talk about this at fanatics all the time is teamwork, okay? And so I do a company meeting with all of our associates every quarter. okay who's the first person I brought into my company meeting when we started doing this tom brady what did tom brady talk about not football he talked about how he leads and how he

brought people together and it you know you know and so by what kevin hart was the last guy we had it so i've tried to find inspirational people that people in my company can learn about and both these guys kev and tom were great to inspire my company of how to work together and so i'm so big on teamwork so i won't talk with athlete about what to do on basketball because that would be a joke because I don't know shit about it. But maybe we talk about this how to work through adversity, how to work through tough times, definitely. But you're a fan, too, at the same time.

So, like, you watch the game and you know how things go. Why do you think that never worked hard in Katie and Kyrie? I don't want to speak on that. But what I can tell you is in business, in sports, to win, you need great teamwork. If you don't have great teamwork, you're not going to win. I can tell you, you know what? Brady said this to the fanatics team this past summer. he said, look, if you have multiple people fight over the same ball, it ain't going to work.

And that's why people need to know their jobs and their roles. And so I think that's very important. Yeah, it's about the synergy. I have a question in regards to, like, potential. And how do you identify potential, like, projects or things you want to continue to move forward or how you want to move forward on them? And also, like, how are you determining if someone has potential, like, as far as, like, an actionable job within, like, your organization?

How do you determine potential? Well, first thing you need to say is, are people really important in your organization? And for us, people is everything. Like, you know, we build everything around teams. And by the way, it's the same thing in my life personally. Like, if you look, like, I got a lot of really good people around me. We're all learning from each other. And by the way, you were asking about baby before.

And like, you know, does he come to me for advice? He comes to me for business advice all the time. But I go to him for advice on stuff too. I'll ask him like, hey, well, this, you know, is this a good idea or a bad idea? Like, talk about, you know, I remember, you know, first time Jay and, And baby spent time in my house. I remember Jay was sitting and we were on this conversation. And Jay was talking about, I was asking Jay like, you know, I got to figure out how that we make

headwear, you know, consistently hot. And Jay looked at me and said, Michael, you think about the wrong way. The way you put your sneakers on every day, the way you put your jeans on every day, the way you put your hoodie on every day. Hats part of that. That's just part of the wardrobe. Like, you got to think about it that way. And by the way, all three guys are in hats today.

And so, you know, even like that wisdom that I got from Jay in that moment, I remember. I remember walking out and calling the guy who runs lids and calling the guy who runs our commerce business. I'm like, man, we're thinking about this isn't about like a fashion cycle. This is about whoever's part of the wardrobe. Like, why are we not even thinking that way? And like, that was like a great moment for me to learn from him. Okay. And so I get nuggets from my friends all the time.

So like we're always learning from each other. Who do you think you go to the most? Do you have a guy that you call to or like a mentor or anything? I mean, at this point, probably not. No, definitely. I got lots of people for sure. I'd say, look, the number one person for me. has probably been

and I'd say the Kraft family Robert and Jonathan Crack I mean these guys have been there for me and help me when people didn't believe in me and you know it's easy now for people to say oh I'm Ruben's boy

you know I'm on the bandwagon you know now it's obviously everyone wants to take us down because the bigger when you're getting bigger people want to help you do better and then as you get to you start doing better

people want to take you down but you know look I think the number one person's been probably you know you know I put you know rob and john the craft together these guys have just you know been there for me from the early days helping me um when a lot of people didn't believe in us and i ask a ton of questions there's no day that goes by where i'm not just throwing questions out there learning from people

gaining information you know i'll when i go to the soup ball this weekend you know i'll be studying and everything we do just picking up trends ideas listening to people um and by the way and then i come up with ideas and some are great some suck and that's you know part of the process Yeah. I have a question about work. You know the saying, like, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life. Is that true? Definitely. 100%. 100%.

Yeah. I've never worked a day in my life. It's a blast. You just like, every day you wake up and you enjoy what you're doing. Yeah, you guys not gifted to do. No, I'm so grateful. But then when the taxes come and they're like, go, you know what I'm saying? Or the flip side is what an honor is to pay those taxes. True.

Obviously, we all want to pay the lowest taxes. Of course. It's all about mindset, Brad. Oh, thank you. No, I appreciate that. Thank you. I'm glad you're giving it back to him a little bit. now too. I usually do. I'm kind of off my game, bro.

He is off the game today. I'm waived. Do you out last night? No, I didn't for this, for this. Maybe that was a problem. I think I would go out and when I know I'm doing Michael Rubin the next day. I just want to make sure. I just want to make sure you, if you're taking abuse, I just want to make sure you give us much of that. Oh, I give it back. We got to rest up for Super Bowl weekend anyway, right? Yeah. What does that look like? Yeah, what's your schedule like? When do you get in? It's brutal. When do you get in? It's brutal. So I get in Thursday

night. We host, so Thursday night at my house, I have just the top leaders of my company like my executive team what should I bring uh you're coming you what should I just come in hand mashed potatoes or like a Caesar salad or something just mash okay so it's a small dinner just kind of for the guys to really bind together and then on Friday I started something in Miami which has become like an iconic lunch we do um myself and Casey Wasserman host a lunch for kind of what I say the most 100 most influential people at the Super Bowl and so the lunch is incredible you have like you know probably half the owners, but the most business-oriented owners to, you know, obviously, you know,

Roger Goodell. But then you take about business partners like the CEO of Verizon will be there, the CEO of NBC, the CEO of Fox, the CEO of TikTok. That's fucking, fucking world, dude. Baby will be there. Meek will be there. You know, Travis coming this year. Jay Babel will be there.

DeMarre Hamlin's coming this year. Brittany Griner's coming. And it's only 100 people. So it's like, you cannot get to this lunch. So that's my Friday. Fuck, dude. And it is an incredible lunch. And everyone, everyone calls and says, can I come to this lunch?

And I love everyone, but the answer is like, we make it for the 100. Like, we try to, you know, put together a hundred incredible people that can all learn and grow from each other. And that whole spirit of my personality, we all want to learn from each other. So to me, it's so cool to have Brittany Greiner who went through what she went through. And DeMarne Hamlin, who, you know, nearly died in front of the whole world, you know, with the CEO Verizon and the owners of the teams and Roger Goodell. And also having baby and me can tribe there and Jay Balvin there. And the CEO of TikTok there. And by the way, I love when I see the CEO of TikTok,

you know, and I can pick up things from him about how I can build TikTok for, you know, fanatics. And so we're all learning from each other. You never get any nasty text or someone's like, thanks for the invite, bro. I get so many. You need to just almost not take it personally because it's like, okay, if the lunch I want to do

is for the 100 most influential people at the Super Bowl, then that's what's going to be for. And for anyone I offended, I'm sorry, I love you. But like, it is what it is. And then Saturday we do the party. Okay. And the party is, we don't sell tickets. It's purely a marketing party. It's, you know, for the fanatics. It's for the business partners that are most important to us. It's for the people that help us build our brand. And it's for like our really close friends. And by the like, the Eagles are in the Super Bowl this year. I've had literally the party we have probably 800 people. I'd say I've had thousands of people from Philadelphia to reach out to me saying, can I come to your party? And the answer is, no, I love you. But I can't do it. Because that's what the party is. The party is supposed to be special for these 800 people. And Robert Kraft and I host a suite at the Super Bowl. And it's got a crazy.

You probably get like 10. But so people are going to be mad at you all the time. And it is what it is. Like, I don't know what to tell you. Like, you know, call somebody. There's people out there playing the game, probably. Like, don't miss your happy birthday text. Make sure you get a Christmas gift.

I get so much guilt every day. But I'm just like, I just make up a smile. It is what it is. Yeah. There's no different than people hitting you up for things. You do what you think is right. Like, I get hit up every day for things. And I'm cool with that.

I'm fortunate to be in that position. I'm lucky as shit to be in that position. So what should I do? Make the decisions that I think are right. And if you do the right thing, then you wake up, you look at yourself in the mirror, you feel good about what you're doing, you go to bed. And by the way, I do so many things for people, but you can't make everybody happy. You can't respond to it. Everyone who's hitting you up and, you know, you have thousands of people a day.

How do you know when to draw the line when you're like, my time is valuable? I can't do this. So I have today, my life has got to, I legitimately work. And people don't. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you? matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus, IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Shop now at IKEA.ca.

People see the fun side of me because what do you see on Instagram? You see me at the Grammys this weekend, okay? But at the Grammys, you know that in my head I knew everyone I saw, like, what were the things I had to help them with or I want to learn from them or, you know, things that I thought we could do good together. Like, that's the way my brain thinks. My head's programmed out, okay? Like, I walk in each thing that I do saying, you know, here are the things I need to follow up on somebody they asked me to do. You know, by the way I want to connect these two people because, like, at this lunch I'm doing on Friday, I know 20 people want to do things with each other. I want to make sure that I pair people together, you know, because that's just the way my brain

thinks. So, like, you just, you try to do the best you can do. Look, I got a big organization. We have five full-time assistants for me who work, these guys worked. 24-7. I have a chief of staff. These guys hustle, you know, multiple people are just hosting people things, but you just, you do the best you can do. Have you ever done psychedelics? I don't know if I can ask that question. Yeah, you can ask me anything. I don't give a shit. No, I have it. I'm actually, my body does not respond well. I mean, obviously, like, I drink a fair amount. You know, I'm a guy's guy. I'm actually don't like alcohol, but I'm a guy's guy. So I could, like, in a personal setting, I never drink ever. No casuals. There's no

casuals. But like, when I go, I'm all in. So like, oh, when you drink, you drink, you drink. Yeah, I love that. I love that. I love that. I have that same problems. I fuck with that. So this is a story that, that, that sounds preposterous. But at the white party last year, oh, yeah, that's here.

At the white party last year, we had 366 people. That's all, it's all that's there. Some of who was there. Everyone knows. It was all over. It was all over there, yeah. Oh, 366 people. Yeah.

Any of all my friends were that. 366 people. How many bottles of tequila you think we went through? because this was a count of mathematically confirmed 365 people fuck 366 a couple thousand we went through 600 bottles

of tequila over 11 hours 600 bottles and that was just tequila by the way now I know triv I think he poured like 25 on the stage by accident yeah I was gonna say those guys probably just but it was crazy so yeah when I go and I go in I'm committed when I commit I commit I love that

that's crazy damn I'm just kind of curious with fanatics and that all these relationships Do you have our relationship with Adam Silver and Roger Godot? Yeah, of course. Like, are you guys boys? Like, how does that work? Because you're so important to them too.

I talked to Roger two hours ago this morning. And Adam, I talk to every week. Like casual talks? Yeah, of course. I mean, these guys are my most important business partners. Absolutely. That's wild. Yeah.

And look, look, I'll tell you something. You have to learn from different people, right? So I'm always learning from people. So I'll tell you, you asked me who my number of mentor was. I said it was probably Robert Kraft. Robert John on the craft. But I would say the biggest thing that I've learned from Robert early on

was the diversity of people around him. And that's what made him so special. And how could Robert beat Baby and Meek who's become really good friends of through me? But then he's dealing with, you know, the most serious political leaders, business leaders. And I think in a lot of ways, that's what makes me pretty unique.

Like, you know, I love, you know, spending time with Adam and Roger at the same time I love spending time with you know baby and meek or travi who are all really good friends of mine

think about Travis I mean this guy has become think about how lucky I am to consider Travis a brother to me this guy's become in my mind the number one most relevant cultural person

for product vision in the world okay Virgil's not with us anymore, unfortunately. Okay. You know, you think about, I mean, Trave, anything he touches is incredible. Okay? What he's done with Nike?

He's done with the Dior. What he did with, I forget where there was McDonald's Bergen. It was incredibly. This guy is literally, I've never seen a guy who's more of a product genius than Travis Scott. Yeah, I get to learn from the guy.

Okay. He calls me all the time and says, yo, Roob, let me show you this. He shows me the shit he's designing how he's designing it, okay? And I'm like, man, I'm humbled by that because he's making me better. He's making fanatics better. And by the way, and we're going to do stuff together too, which is great. And by the way, I didn't seek out to meet Travis.

By the way, I didn't even know he was good a product what I meant. I met him because he was, James Hart is one of his best friends. And we hung out together. And then what did he say, hey, can you come by my crib? I went to his house. And literally, I never took him seriously. And then I went to his house. And he's telling me all these things he's doing.

And he's showing me project after project after project after project after project. I left to have, holy shit, this guy is a product genius. And now I realize, like, by the way, I happen to sell six and a half billion dollars of merchandise this year. We'll sell a few billion dollars of trading cards. Travis is a product genius. There's nobody better in the world for connecting, you know, product vision and culture than Travis Scott.

And he's my boy. Like, yeah, it's amazing. I'm lucky. So that's why I'm saying these things all come authentically. But, you know, how did I meet him? Through James Hardin. It became like a brother to be five or six years ago. Yeah.

How do you make sure relationships like that don't get soured by like business deals and stuff like that that is a great fucking question yeah okay um i was just having a conversation about that uh last night so i think for me knowing that i'm in a pretty fortunate position i always want to make sure anytime i do something with a friend that i am pretty damn sure it's going to work for them first me second because if not you're dead okay and so i'll give you an example when we bought Mitchell and Ness. Okay? We bought Mitchell Ness a little less than a year ago. And they ran a sell processes to sell it. And actually, the way they came about, the true

story of how Mitchell Ness came about is Jay-Z said to me a couple years earlier, like, Michael, we should buy a licensed headwear and apparel company. Like, let's find something to buy together. So it was in my head. Then he called and he said, hey, you know, Pran and Mav were thinking about buying this. Maybe we should all do it together. Like, you know, you own fanatics, you own the NBA store and I've all shop, you own lids, you know, you have so many points to help make this successful. But we can understand how to make this better. So I said, hey, guys, why don't I drive

and we negotiated what I thought was a really good deal to buy the company? And then I actually had fanatics lend Mitchell Ness some money to make the equity check that went in even smaller. And to put this in perspective, the people we brought in bought in at about two times profit. Now, anyone who understands anything about business, that's probably 90% cheaper than a lot of those things would be because I want to make sure the deal would be great for them. Once I knew the deal should be great for them,

you know, not only did we do it with Jay and Brian, who kind of originally kind of came to me with the idea of Jay really early on and then Brian and Mav, but then we brought in so many other people that became our partners because I knew it would be a home run. And by the way, anyone who put a dollar and got 12% of the money back in the first year already. They invested one year ago.

They've already got 12% of the money back. And then that could eat. So I won't do a deal with someone if I don't think it's going to be great. I have no problem risking my own money. I don't want to risk my friend's money. So when I put my boys into stuff, I put it through a huge filter, much better than my own filter. I'm not always going to be right. She's going to get fucked up from time to time.

You know, lids that we do with partners, like I'm not afraid to share this. Like, you know, lids, I had a lot of my friends who are investors in it. That's paid back. Like, it's the best day we've ever done. So we've had many failures. This is the best ones. I'm giving you the best examples. It's like someone only talking about the good day in this, you know.

Okay. It's been a 60. you know holy shit you know me put in money me you know he was and he was you know got somebody out earlier you know like 40 times his money so like lids is a crazy one like this is a crazy one like I've been I'm from Canada I'm from Toronto but yeah I've been shopping at lids for fucking yeah my whole life like right yeah that's a crazy one and so um I the answer is I'm always very careful to make sure anything I do with my friends that I feel really good that's gonna work out and if not do not do it because life is long you don't want people pissed off

you. And by the way, when you talk about some of these influential people, the last thing that you want is a pissed off influential person at you. Okay, let's keep it real. You don't want someone coming at you like that. So you got to have a good filter. It's interesting. You said life is long and not short. Oh, look, I've been at this for 50 years. I guess I've been my brain's worked for maybe 47 of this 50 years. I'm not sure it works now. But, you know, like, look, I'm going to do this until I die. Hopefully I live till 90 or 100. So like nonstop working, you think. Yeah. I understand that for real. And by the way, let me tell you what's going to happen.

If I stop, I'll be dead. I believe you. Like, I'm like a shark. I believe you. I got to swim and eat. Is it what makes you feel good? Makes you feel like purposeful. Yeah, for sure.

Because what else am I good at? Like, you know, like I'm good. I'm pretty decent in business. So I like that. Of course, yeah. I mean, I love, you know, being with my family and, you know, with Camille and Kylie and the babies. But like, yeah, like, you know, this is what works. Like, that's what drives me.

Yeah, it's beautiful, man. This has been awesome. What's up with the collectible stuff, like the memorabilia? You think I always look at it because it's like such a hot and cold market, right? It seems like it would digital stuff coming up and about. You think it's really like there's that much upside? I think the collectible space has enormous upside for the most obvious reason. So we got into this two years ago.

We now have the collectible rights to not only tops that we own today, which has baseball and F1 and Bundes League. in your way, if we were all the rights coming out from the NFL, the NBA, NCAA, WWUFC. So we have a, you know, all these training carbons. And here's the craziest thing. This business has never been marketed. There's never been any marketing in this business, okay?

There's never been any more product innovation. I'm telling you right now, to every collector out there, the 12-month cycle in right now, we will do more for this industry that's been done in the last 70 years. And by the way, I'm not arrogant. I'm pretty humble. we will do more this year what's been done in the last seven years we're going to aggressively market this industry we're going to aggressively innovate this industry we got so much great shit coming like i am so bullish on it because this business done great by accident and by the way if you

plan a business to be lucky you're dead long term i don't plan on luck i plan on like like good strategy hard work you know getting everyone behind it yeah you're just you're just starting to do the live streaming of the opening of these things right absolutely yeah we're going to watch that later this year. I think it's really important. I think it's a new format. I think the format's really important. Look, I think one of the reasons I'm doing stuff like this, like, I learned so much like, I'm going to watch what you got. I'm going to like now pay, like, from this conversation today, I'm not going to pay attention to guys. I'm going to learn from all of you guys. That's going to make us better at what we do. That's the way my brain works. So like I'm always

learning. Like, one of the things fanatics actually has the biggest opportunity on today is kind of like natural social media. It's not been a place we've been strong. But like, with all the content that's around us. How are we not great at that? Okay. And so it's something like I want to learn about. And we got to be younger. We got to be better. It's like, why am I excited that the CEO TikTok's at my lunch on on Friday and I party on Saturday? Because I'm going to learn from him about how to, you know, we're not good on TikTok. But by the way, the demiliers are all family with us. Just saw Mark DeMessie last night. Charlie Dixie, Heidi, Mark, they're all like family to us. So it's like we all got to learn from each other. I saw you guys at the weekend concert.

Yeah. We had fun. Abel's great dude. By the talk about beast. That guy's a beast. Yeah, sold that stadium out five nights around insane I had no idea It's funny I always knew him a little bit You know, not one of my You know, I always knew him Not someone I know really well I had no idea

And and and Cash kept saying You know, come to the concert Come to the concert Yeah, I'm obviously, you know Cash and able have done this together And I got there And I'm like I didn't even strike me like wait

I'm going to you know So far not like to crypto And you know to the arena I'm going to the stadium And they're like oh yeah we're doing this five nights. I'm like, what? Five nights?

Completely sold out. That is fucking nuts. Yeah. That is nuts. Weekend did five nights in a roll. Yeah. Yeah. It was a beast.

Yeah. One of the things got canceled, they sold it out again and then they came back and did the show. Yeah. He completely sold out. This guy's insane. Insane. Got a lot of respect for that.

Yeah. Crazy. That's a different. I mean, I guess you got to be a little crazy to do this stuff. Do you watch anybody specific or like, are you schooling TikTok ever? Like watching. This is a good question.

That's a funny question. So I just went on TikTok a few. a few months ago I've not learned I've like I haven't got it yet like I need to like I need to hang

with Charlie and Dixie for the day and have them like teach me TikTok you're gonna be on it a bunch now I've seen you on there for sure but I've been on it but I've never like I have my own account but I just like I'm not

like Instagram is my voice like I like to make fun of myself like when I went in the cold plunge and like freaked out like a little bitch like I made fun of myself when I was trying to climb up the top to see you know if we could build a roof here

like of course I like to make fun of myself. I haven't, like, I need to start doing something better on TikTok, but I don't spend a lot of time. Like, I just kind of, whatever we catch naturally that, then, you know, TikTok's a crazy one. Yeah. Yeah. I'm, I need to learn TikTok. Like, I, like, that should be my goal in 23 is to actually learn TikTok. Because how great will that be for fanatics? Like, if I could actually, you know, be great on TikTok for fanatics, that will actually help us expand our collectibles business and our betting business. So I have to do that. TikTok's crazy too, because even if you don't have your own account, like people are just posting, like this will get clipped up by accounts that

we don't even own, right? Yeah, I saw it with my white party. I saw, I remember, like, someone showed me, like, a week later, like, this is insane. All over TikTok, like, and it's not even really a bad thing because it's like the first time we're like, steal my content, sure, like, it's more exposure, more eyeballs. Yeah, back in the day, it used to be like, don't take my content. Yeah, like, on YouTube, if someone re-uploads or you, like, flag it and be like, yo, that's my shit.

But TikTok, it's like, fuck it, go for it. I want everything going everywhere. That's where we build a brand. Yeah. That's pretty cool. And it also, like, it reaches down to the younger generation, the younger audience as well, continue like harbor that sort of fan base too and we got to look one of the things is hard like like i actually a kid but i got to remember i am 50 so which is kind of crazy because i don't like

i don't feel 50 i don't think i look 50 but like i got to keep thinking young yeah okay because that's how you keep otherwise you know you do you become a dinosaur and die okay i don't want to become a dinosaur and die fuck that that's not interesting robert how was robert 82 he'll be 82 in june and by the way that guy has the heart of a freaking lying ha ha does he like party with you? Robert came out Friday night. My boy Drew and Alex from chain smokers had a party for

the tequila company for Jaja. And Robert said, hey, let's stop by. I mean, the 1 o'clock in the morning, he was still going. Oh, shit. Shots of tequila. I keep getting hands of shots.

Savage. I keep getting handed shots. I'm like, Robert, I got to keep going. Shot o'clock, let's go. That's hilarious. Whoa, dude. Singing along to closer by the chain smoker shot a clock let's go what that's wow that's good though it's amazing yeah we got

get you in the cold punch yeah i got to do the cold punch fuck yeah it's amazing michael we appreciate it man yeah it's just it's sick to sit down with people like you man because it's inspiring for us us as young entrepreneurs hearing about you guys forever awesome got someone you guys have done appreciate it it's amazing i'm fired up now too so i'm ready to keep crushing now after that and now i'm gonna pay more attention i'm gonna watch you guys keep killing it so i know you guys are crushing so it's amazing and brad was asking before you got here we we understood I wasn't asking anything. Who's coming to the Super Bowl, by the way?

I mean, we need at least two. For the party, I got all three. By the way, I'm saying no to everybody. I want you guys to the party having a blast. Okay. The party's going to be sick. I'll be there. Let's go.

Okay, we can't wait. So we got you all lined up. Let's do it. Yeah. Thank you, Michael. Appreciate it. Thank you so much. Let's go.

Appreciate you, man. You did a crush.