Impressions - Sports Fan Retailer - Spring 2014 - 33

properties and major media brands. So
someone who's savvy and passionate
about licensed sports products should
be in his position.
As such, when Sabo talks, people want
to listen. Case in point: At the 2014 Sports
Licensing and Tailgate Show, held this
past January in Las Vegas, he participated
in a question-and-answer session, moderated by Brian Hakan, a sports marketing and licensing veteran, and founder
and president of Hakan & Associates,
Overland Park, Kan. Shortly before the
session began, dozens more chairs were
brought in to fill the seminar room, as
significantly more attendees than those
who had preregistered showed up. In fact,
a standing-room-only crowd resulted.
In case you missed it, following is a
sampling of questions and comments
from that session, where Sabo discussed
the state of online retail, the importance
of truly innovative products and more.
(Editor's Note: Questions and answers
have been edited for length.)
BRIAN HAKAN: What was it that
moved Fanatics to be an online retailer exclusively?
JOHN SABO: We were trying to figure
out the best way to reach displaced fans,
and bricks-and-mortar locations only
allow you to have so much space. There's
a tremendous amount of product in our
marketplace and an online store is really the only way to showcase it. There's a
big advantage in the depth of inventory
that we can offer for a college or professional team. For example, right now we
have so many colleges, showcasing all
their licensed product is something we
really couldn't achieve with the brickand-mortar model. That was really what
went into the decision for us to be strictly
an online company. We previously had
bricks-and-mortar stores and we divested ourselves of those as we moved to a
strictly online model.
BH: How does Fanatics look for new
products?
JS: Th is is the reason we come to the
Sports Licensing and Tailgate Show. We
SportsFan Retailer

Fanatics offers hundreds of thousands of ofﬁcially licensed sports products from all
major sports leagues, as well as hundreds of collegiate institutions.

have all of our buyers here, with the exception of a couple of our college apparel
buyers. We love this show, and it is a great
starting point for us, as far as the beginning of the season. We'll take the time to
go to every single booth and try to look at
every single product. That'll take us until
the lights are turned off on the last day
of the show, but we don't want to miss a
single thing. We want to take the time
to walk the show and see everything because we're here to find unique product.
We will spend a great deal of time being

"We pride
ourselves on
being a very
relationship-driven
company."

thorough during the show, but then also
do a lot of follow-up afterward.
BH: What do you look for in a vendor
or licensee relationship?
JS: We're going to see a tremendous
amount of product over this three-day
period. Really, what we have to do in a
very short amount of time is make decisions on how we can bring everything
to the marketplace. We have to be very
thoughtful when we're walking the show.
We want to be very focused on making
sure that we're not missing anything. Images, information on deliveries, anything
that we need to be able to do business has
to be communicated.
But there's also a tremendous amount
of follow-up that has to happen after the
show. If we don't get that really great
communication afterward, anything that
we get here is going to be late to the marketplace. We pride ourselves on being
a very relationship-driven company. I
look at this business as if there are three
Spring 2014 33

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