All eyes are on what Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin will do next. To anoint someone as supremely influential, especially the top rung in that rarified group, definitional clarity is a prerequisite. Webster’s says influence is “the power to change.”
Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin has been a polarizing figure and a disrupter/change agent over the past decade. He has rolled up merchandising rights across the big leagues, along with 150 colleges, while transforming the model in what was a relatively sleepy sports licensing business to one marching to the strictures of digital commerce: an emphasis on direct-to-consumer; vertical manufacturing capabilities; acquisitions of some of the largest licensees; and administering both e-commerce and brick-and-mortar operations for some of the largest properties…