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Fanatics Inc., an American online manufacturer and retailer of licensed sportswear, sports collectibles, trading cards, sports merchandise, and NFTs, is offering something new to its customers. The company announced the launch of the Fanatics Live standalone app that will allow people to shop while the items are on livestream.
The livestream shopping will feature trading cards and collectibles and for this new business, Fanatics hired an executive who previously worked for Snap and Alphabet. According to CNBC, Nick Bell led the Google Search team while with Alphabet and he was the global head of content and partnerships at Snap.
At Fanatics Live, Bell will serve as its chief executive officer. This is the new business unit of the sports platform firm that is also into sports betting and iGaming. It was reported that the company is set to officially launch the livestreaming business in the second half of this year.
“All collectors are fans, but not all fans are collectors,” Bell said in a statement. “We have a big opportunity to really grow the hobby by bringing in people who would not necessarily classify themselves as a collector today and open them up to this hobby by the way of entertainment and a community where they can hang around like-minded people.”
He added, “This is not just about taking a product and selling it but it is about creating this really entertaining format and experience.”
The Fanatics Live CEO further said that one of the areas that they will be focusing on at this early stage of the operation is “breaking” which is a type of social trading card buying that is recently growing in popularity. This is said to be similar to a blind raffle which is a set number of individuals that purchase an entry from a seller called a “spot.” Afterwards, the seller opens an entire case of trading cards live online and distributes them to each one of them.
Bell will be moved to Los Angeles and directly report to Mike Mahan, the CEO of Fanatics Collectibles.
