CHICAGO — Lance Fensterman is CEO of Fanatics Events, a new venture with Fanatics Inc., that will focus on the growing community of sports fandom in the live events industry.
Fanatics Events will serve all aspects of sports, collecting, entertainment, fashion and lifestyle, beginning with the communities of sport collectibles and memorabilia.
“We want to grow the community of sports card and memorabilia collectors,” Fensterman said. “It’s been a relatively closed off community that can be difficult to join and understand. We want to improve the overall experience for collectors at shows, then attract more casual sports fans and wow them with amazing content. If we do this, we believe we can create an incredibly impactful and powerful stable of dynamic events around the world.”
An industry veteran of more than 25 years, Fensterman most recently spent the last 17 years establishing and growing ReedPop, a part of RX that had a focus on pop culture-related events. He served as President of ReedPop since 2009 before joining Fanatics Events.
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“The world of sports card collector shows looks eerily similar to what comic con events looked like in 2007 when I started building ReedPop: largely single show operators, minimal thought or resource given to experience, very difficult for a novice or outsider to access or find value in,” Fensterman said. “So, in that sense the playbook is clear; build around a passionate community, level up the game in terms of experience and bring in new and exciting content to bring new fans into the world. More broadly, sports and athletes are woven into the very fabric of popular culture.”
Fensterman understands and has experience with passionate fan communities and sees an opportunity to create a culture of constant innovation and fun for the collector community. Knowing that certain shows and events are working well for that community, Fanatics Events doesn’t want to disrupt those existing shows and instead add to and around them.
“Right now, we are a small team with big ambitions,” Fensterman said. “That means a lot of listening and learning both inside the company and outside. Even more important though is really immersing ourselves in the community of sports card collectors, the leagues and even players to understand what they want and need from a live event platform. From there we start to build out the best few ideas into a cohesive vision and plan.”
Reach Lance Fensterman at lfensterman@fanatics.com
