Fanatics Builds Data Engine to Personalize Sports Commerce

A sports fan’s relationship with their team doesn’t stay in the stands. It follows them online, into team stores, onto betting apps and through endless searches for the right jersey at the right moment. For a retailer sitting at the center of that behavior, the opportunity is obvious. So is the complexity.

Global sports platform Fanatics logs more than 2 billion fan signals daily across its commerce, collectibles, betting and gaming services. More than 100 million fans generate that volume through browsing, purchasing and engagement activity across Fanatics-owned properties. The company is now building systems to turn those signals into sales before a fan knows what they’re looking for.

Fanatics has partnered with Google Cloud to deploy artificial intelligence (AI)-powered product discovery across its digital storefronts, using behavioral data to surface the right product at the moment purchase intent peaks.

Justin Tsai, Fanatics Commerce’s chief product officer, told Sports Business Journal the company spent months in user interviews and focus groups identifying shopping friction. Product discovery ranked first. Tsai said he spent his early months mapping where fans dropped off rather than pushing new features. The challenge compounds during major events: Fanatics added roughly 2,400 new products during March Madness alone. When inventory scales that fast, search quality determines whether new items sell.

Building the Fan Profile

Fanatics’ ability to act on those signals depends on unifying them. The company runs a first-party data layer called FanGraph, which connects fan data across its commerce, collectibles, sportsbook and live events businesses. That consolidated profile lets Fanatics segment fans by team affiliation, player loyalty and purchase history. It’s the inputs that make personalization work at scale.

The same foundation powers a newer business line. Fanatics launched an advertising network built on FanGraph. Brand partners can reach fans whose purchase behavior, team loyalties and betting activity are all visible within a single profile. That’s a different proposition than a standard digital ad buy against a broad sports audience.

The company operates more than 2,000 retail locations and holds licensing deals with more than 900 sports properties, including major professional leagues, players associations and college conferences. It has direct commercial relationships with more than 5,000 athletes and celebrities. Each relationship adds transaction data back into the fan profile, deepening the picture of what fans buy and when.

Relevance at Checkout

The push to personalize doesn’t stop at search. Fanatics selected Rokt, an eCommerce technology company, to surface offers to fans before and after checkout across Fanatics-owned platforms and partner team and league sites. Rokt’s network processes more than 7.5 billion transactions annually. It matches what a fan is buying in the moment to relevant follow-on offers rather than relying on purchase history alone.

Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin said the partnership is aimed at making shopping “more seamless and relevant.” Rokt CEO Bruce Buchanan said the two companies would work to deliver greater relevance throughout the shopping journey, starting with checkout and post-purchase products.

Sports commerce runs on moments. Demand spikes when a team wins, when a player breaks a record or  when a tournament bracket shifts. A fan searching for a jersey three hours after a playoff win converts differently than one shopping on a Tuesday in October. Fanatics is building the infrastructure to catch that fan at exactly the right moment. The next step is proving the signals are good enough to do it reliably.