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Dick Clark Productions CEO Mike Mahan (R) and visitor attend the 2018 Billboard Music Awards at MGM Grand Backyard Enviornment on Might 20, 2018 in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Jeff Kravitz | Filmmagic, Inc | Getty Photographs
Sports activities platform Fanatics mentioned Thursday that it has tapped former Dick Clark Productions CEO Mike Mahan to guide its buying and selling playing cards and digital collectibles enterprise.
Fanatics Collectibles, which launched in 2021, contains 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, recognized 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 just lately struck a cope with male grooming firm Manscaped to take it public in a $1 billion SPAC deal — but to be accomplished — by his clean verify firm Shiny Lights Acquisition Corp.
“Our collectibles enterprise has seen large progress since launching final yr, and we could not be extra assured in bringing Mike on board to form the intense way forward for this division and its alignment inside our bigger Fanatics digital sports activities platform,” Fanatics CEO Michael Rubin mentioned in an announcement.
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 passion 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, passion 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 embrace Novogratz, Rubin, and investor Gary Vaynerchuk. Traders embrace SoftBank’s Imaginative and prescient Fund 2, Perception Companions and Professional Soccer Corridor of Famer Peyton Manning.
Although it is going to stay as its personal entity, Sweet Digital CEO Scott Lawin will report back to Mahan inside the Fanatics Collectibles reorganization.
“I couldn’t consider a extra excellent subsequent step in my profession than to guide the extremely proficient groups inside Fanatics Collectibles, the place I will have the chance to mix my entrepreneurial passions that lie inside sports activities, advertising, and content material creation, with my love for buying and selling playing cards and collectibles at massive,” Mahan mentioned in an announcement.
“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 power to carry 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 school athletes this fall, a deal that the corporate mentioned will reduce some gamers in on the income and pair them up with faculty logos on playing cards for the primary time.
Fanatics most just 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 yr’s CNBC Disruptor 50 checklist.
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