Dick Clark Productions CEO Mike Mahan (R) and visitor attend the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Backyard Area on Could 20, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jeff Kravitz | Filmmagic, Inc | Getty Photos
Sports activities platform Fanatics mentioned Thursday that it has tapped former Dick Clark Productions CEO Mike Mahan to steer its buying and selling playing cards and digital collectibles enterprise.
Fanatics Collectibles, which launched in 2021, consists of its NFT arm Sweet Digital, sports activities buying and selling card model Topps, and zerocool — a buying and selling playing cards model solely targeted on popular culture, artwork and leisure.
Mahan stepped down from his position at Dick Clark Productions, identified for main tv occasions just like the Golden Globe Awards and the Billboard Music Awards, in 2020. Beginning his profession as an funding banker for Bear Stearns, he most lately struck a cope with male grooming firm Manscaped to take it public in a $1 billion SPAC deal — but to be accomplished — via his clean verify firm Vivid Lights Acquisition Corp.
“Our collectibles enterprise has seen great progress since launching final 12 months, and we could not be extra assured in bringing Mike on board to form the brilliant way forward for this division and its alignment inside our bigger Fanatics digital sports activities platform,” Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin mentioned in a press release.
Mahan will report on to Rubin.
“As a collector and passionate sports activities fan, Mike’s imaginative and prescient for each the buying and selling playing cards pastime and rising digital collectibles properties, pushed by distinctive merchandise, will additional place Fanatics as a frontrunner in these classes, creating unimaginable alternatives for followers, collectors, pastime retailers, retailers and our companions.”
Fanatics is almost all proprietor of Sweet Digital, and Mike Novogratz, founding father of crypto service provider financial institution Galaxy Digital, additionally owns a stake. The corporate’s board members embody Novogratz, Rubin, and investor Gary Vaynerchuk. Buyers embody SoftBank’s Imaginative and prescient Fund 2, Perception Companions and Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer Peyton Manning.
Although it should stay as its personal entity, Sweet Digital CEO Scott Lawin will report back to Mahan throughout the Fanatics Collectibles reorganization.
“I couldn’t consider a extra excellent subsequent step in my profession than to steer the extremely gifted groups inside Fanatics Collectibles, the place I am going to have the chance to mix my entrepreneurial passions that lie inside sports activities, advertising and marketing, and content material creation, with my love for buying and selling playing cards and collectibles at giant,” Mahan mentioned in a press release.
“The worlds of buying and selling playing cards and digital collectibles have been ceaselessly reshaped over the previous a number of years, and these new property and the connections they create have the flexibility to deliver followers and collectors nearer than ever earlier than to the gamers, groups and entertainers they love.”
Final week, Fanatics introduced that Topps is launching a line of buying and selling playing cards that includes faculty athletes this fall, a deal that the corporate mentioned will reduce some gamers in on the earnings and pair them up with faculty logos on playing cards for the primary time.
Fanatics most lately raised a $1.5 billion funding spherical in March that values the sports activities platform firm at $27 billion. The corporate ranked No. 21 on this 12 months’s CNBC Disruptor 50 listing.
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