🏈 Why Is Fanatics Launching A New Fashion Brand?

Fanatics is the world’s dominant sports merchandise, apparel, and collectibles company. They sell officially licensed products like team jerseys, sports cards, and memorabilia.

They just launched a new fashion brand called “Off Season,” created by designers Kristin Juszczyk and Emma Grede. The debut collection is a limited edition set of puffer jackets inspired by five different NFL teams.

Fanatics has cornered the market for official sports apparel through exclusive license agreements with all the major sports leagues and players associations.

What better way for Fanatics to expand their apparel business than by moving horizontally into an adjacent category?

Over the last year, Fanatics has been experimenting with several “Hype Drops,” limited edition collaborations and capsules that mimic classic streetwear collabs.

They’ve done collaborations with Travis Scott, Darius Rucker, and Erin Andrews. Fanatics also launched an NHL-themed collaboration with Lululemon.

I think Fanatics has tested all of these limited edition collaborations to see if they can launch full-scale fashion brands. That would be an additional revenue line that could theoretically scale to hundreds of millions in top line revenue.

Since Fanatics has deep relationships with teams and leagues, they are uniquely positioned to launch official sports-adjacent fashion.

By positioning themselves as the first real sports-fashion crossover brand, Fanatics can also expand their already massive business to more female consumers.

Sports and fashion has always been intertwined but that has increased over the last decade. Not only is it becoming more common to see sports teams do limited edition fashion collaborations, but athletes themselves are becoming billboards for fashion.

Fashion brands are looking more to athletes as cultural leaders to help push their brand forward in terms of relevance and desirability.

One of Fanatics’ biggest moats as a business has been their unique connection to athletes, teams, and leagues. If they can parlay that advantage as a tool to get deeper into the world of fashion, Fanatics 2.0 could include becoming a house of owned fashion brands.