Digital Sports activities Agency Fanatics Names Former Dick Clark Productions Chief Mike Mahan CEO Of Buying and selling Playing cards And Collectibles Unit

Digital Sports Firm Fanatics Names Former Dick Clark Productions Chief Mike Mahan CEO Of Trading Cards And Collectibles Unit

Digital sports activities agency Fanatics has employed former Dick Clark Productions chief Mike Mahan within the newly created position of CEO of its buying and selling playing cards and collectibles enterprise.

The collectibles division contains manufacturers like Topps, Sweet Digital and zerocool. Fanatics acquired Topps from former Disney CEO Michael Eisner’s funding agency Tornante Firm final January in a deal price a reported $500 million. The transaction adopted the information that Topps misplaced its Main League Baseball buying and selling card deal after greater than 70 years. (MLB rights at the moment are again beneath the Fanatics roof on an unique foundation.)

Fanatics’ card and collectibles unit is projecting annual income north of $1 billion, with expectations for progress as soon as new rights offers take impact with the NBA, NFL, WWE and different outstanding companions. With “identify, picture and likeness” guidelines now in play for faculty athletes, Fanatics made information just lately by asserting a line of faculty sports activities buying and selling playing cards.

Mahan, a former funding banker at Bear Stearns and govt at non-public fairness agency CDP Capital Leisure, has accrued expertise in digital media, content material creation, influencer advertising, leisure and finance. He has been an investor in a number of media, sports activities, gaming and shopper corporations, together with the Los Angeles Soccer Membership, the Oklahoma Metropolis Dodgers, Axiomatic (Group Liquid), Aviation Gin and Subsequent VR.

Mahan will report back to Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin.

“Our collectibles enterprise has seen great progress since launching final 12 months, and we couldn’t be extra assured in bringing Mike on board to form the brilliant way forward for this division and its alignment inside our bigger Fanatics digital sports activities platform,” Rubin mentioned. “As a collector and passionate sports activities fan, Mike’s imaginative and prescient for each the buying and selling playing cards interest and rising digital collectibles properties, pushed by distinctive merchandise, will additional place Fanatics as a pacesetter in these classes, creating unimaginable alternatives for followers, collectors, interest retailers, retailers and our companions.”

Mahan will oversee the worldwide, unique rights and future rights inside Fanatics Collectibles, spanning gamers associations, sports activities leagues, skilled and school groups, in addition to particular person athletes, manufacturers and leisure properties. He’ll discover alternatives in coordination with different divisions of the corporate, Fanatics mentioned.

“I couldn’t consider a extra excellent subsequent step in my profession than to guide the extremely gifted groups inside Fanatics Collectibles, the place I’ll have the chance to mix my entrepreneurial passions that lie inside sports activities, advertising, and content material creation, with my love for buying and selling playing cards and collectibles at massive,” Mahan mentioned. “The worlds of buying and selling playing cards and digital collectibles have been perpetually reshaped over the previous a number of years, and these new property and the connections they create have the flexibility to carry followers and collectors nearer than ever earlier than to the gamers, groups and entertainers they love.”


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