Fanatics Inks Partnership Deal With WWE
Fanatics is partnering with the WWE on a long-term sports and entertainment deal that will expand the wrestling organization’s e-commerce and licensed merchandise offering. It will also include physical, digital and NFT trading cards.
As part of the deal, Fanatics will reintroduce a new e-commerce and mobile destination, WWE Shop, offering apparel, hard goods, such as title belts, headwear, accessories and other products. Fanatics will also work with WWE’s in-house team to design and distribute merchandise collections immediately to celebrate big moments in the sport.
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Fanatics Collectibles, the company’s trading cards and collectibles division, will also become the exclusive provider of licensed WWE physical and digital trading cards, which will once again bear the Topps logo. Fanatics acquired the 70-year-old Topps brand, which previously held a long-term relationship with WWE, earlier this year. That deal will commence when WWE’s existing trading cards rights expire over the next few years.
Later this year, Fanatics’ digital collectibles company, Candy Digital, will become one of WWE’s primary NFT partners under which Candy’s team of digital artists, designers and technologists will curate and build a full range of NFTs featuring WWE’s biggest moments and stars.
“WWE is one of the most widely admired sports and entertainment properties worldwide, and it made perfect sense to activate many parts of our Fanatics global platform to create a first-of-its-kind, all-in fan experience,” said Fanatics chief executive officer Michael Rubin. “From e-commerce and licensed merchandise to trading cards and more, we’re going to offer up an incredible set of capabilities to help WWE’s passionate fans worldwide celebrate their favorite Superstars, marquee events and the WWE brand overall.”
“We believe this multiplatform partnership will set a new standard for WWE e-commerce, apparel and merchandise, while providing our fans globally with more ways than ever to engage with WWE and our Superstars,” said Vince McMahon, chairman and CEO of WWE.
Earlier this month, Fanatics the digital sports and merchandising platform raised another $1.5 billion, which now values the company at $27 billion. The company started out as an online sports merchandising business but has been building a global digital sports platform that now includes Topps, as well as a sport betting and iGaming division. It also holds a 50 percent stake in Lids, a retail headwear, sports apparel and accessories retailer, and recently created Candy Digital, which sells NFTs.
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