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Fanatics

“Can a sports merchandise platform become the end-to-end financial and commerce OS for sports fans — spanning payments, BNPL, betting, brokerage, and loyalty across every touchpoint?”

Founded2011
HQNew York, New York, USA
FoundersMichael Rubin
Total raised$4B+
Latest roundSeries (General Corporate Purpose), 2022
Valuation$27B (2022)
IndustryE-commerce / Platform
The story

Founded in 2011 as an online licensed sports merchandise retailer, Fanatics rapidly scaled into a multi-vertical digital sports platform through licensing deals, league partnerships, and acquisitions. Beginning around 2021–2022, the company pivoted aggressively beyond merchandise into adjacent verticals: trading cards and collectibles (Topps acquisition), sports betting and gaming (Fanatics Sportsbook, PointsBet acquisition), live commerce, and financial services (Fanatics Markets brokerage). The embedded finance angle has deepened across all verticals — from BNPL at checkout (Affirm, QuadPay), payment infrastructure (Stripe, Paysafe, American Express), and identity verification (Socure), to a licensed introducing brokerage. Fanatics is positioning itself as the financial and commerce OS for sports fans.

Last 12 months
2025-10
2025-12
2026-05
Product timeline
2011
Fanatics founded by Michael Rubin in Jacksonville, FL as an online retailer of licensed sports merchandise.· pivot
2020
Fanatics began offering BNPL through Fiserv and QuadPay at checkout.· lending
2022
Fanatics raised $1.5B at a $27B valuation, with the NFL as the largest single investor; began aggressive expansion beyond merchandise.· banking
2023
Fanatics Betting and Gaming launched (Fanatics Sportsbook), integrating Paysafe for payments; acquired PointsBet assets.· pivot
2024
Fanatics became exclusive NHL jersey supplier; launched Fanatics Markets (financial markets / brokerage arm via Paragon Global Markets LLC); expanded collectibles and live commerce.· pivot
2025
Fanatics partnered with Affirm for BNPL across commerce properties; integrated Stripe's Agentic Commerce Suite for Meta checkout; partnered with Socure for identity verification.· lending
2026
Fanatics named American Express as its Official Payments Partner, integrating payments, loyalty, advertising, and premium fan experiences.· banking
Regulated entities
2
regulatory licences held by Fanatics
Licence types, jurisdictions and registered entities are in the Embedded Finance Index report.
The stack
4 layers disclosed in Fanatics’s embedded-finance stack
Payments / PSP
StripePaysafe
Card network
in the full report
Lending
in the full report
KYC
in the full report
Accounting gap: none
4 more providers across 3 layers, with confidence-scored evidence and source URLs, are in the Embedded Finance Index report.