PUCK: How Fanatics Studios is Revamping the ESPYs

Do you remember when Tom Brady threw the Lombardi Trophy to Rob Gronkowski at Fanatics Fest last June, only for it to drop and break? Or when Kevin Durant found out onstage that he had been traded to the Houston Rockets? That happened at Fanatics Fest, too. Michael Rubin’s annual multiday event in New York now routinely and naturally yields the kind of viral, unscripted clips that legacy media companies bend over backward to contrive.

Last week, Fanatics announced the launch of Fanatics Studios, a partnership with Michael Ratner’s OBB that would, among other projects, produce this year’s ESPYs—the forlorn ESPN tentpole awards show that has long worked exceedingly hard to mint its own cross-cultural sports moments. In a further nod to that reordering of the guard, I’ve learned that ESPN is moving the awards to New York this year, right in Fanatics Fest’s draft. The show, which has been in Los Angeles for the past 25 years, is scheduled for Wednesday, July 15. That’s a day after MLB’s All-Star Game and a day before Fanatics Fest begins its four-day run from July 16-19.  The following day, Sunday, July 19, is the World Cup final at nearby MetLife Stadium. Fanatics Fest will take place at the Javits Center; ESPN has not settled on a venue yet for the ESPYs, but both events hope to generate content that will surely transcend their fixed New York location. (For the record, Connor Schell’s Full Day Productions will continue to produce and showrun the ESPYs alongside Fanatics Studios.)