The upcoming NHL Draft will mark a career milestone for dozens of young hockey prospects. It will also be a seminal moment for one of sports’ most ubiquitous companies.
Fanatics is set to take over design of the league’s on-ice jerseys from Adidas at the end of the month. It’s a first for Michael Rubin’s fan-facing empire, which dominates licensed sports apparel but has yet to put its logo on the uniforms worn by pros. Fans will likely get some of their first looks at the new sweaters later this month at the draft in Las Vegas.
This expansion of its core apparel business—and major marketing step—was always going to be an important moment for Fanatics. But the stakes have grown significantly over the past few months. Fanatics manufactures the Nike-branded MLB jerseys, and it was caught in the crosshairs in February when obvious issues with the uniform redesign became a hot topic for players and fans alike. Both Nike and MLB were slow to react to a growing controversy, which allowed the story to fester in clubhouses and chatrooms.
Much of that anger seemed to focus unnecessarily on Fanatics. Despite the MLBPA eventually placing the blame on Nike, public criticism of Rubin’s company has become an increasingly common thread on sports social media. Some of that is deserved; much of it isn’t. “These Fanatics eclipse glasses better work,” one Twitter user joked in April.
It’s in this delicate moment that Fanatics will make its very public foray into authentic athlete uniforms. One hallmark of Rubin’s business is its overlapping network of investors, equity holders and league partners, so Fanatics isn’t going anywhere. But the NHL uniforms do feel like a high-leverage moment for the company’s reputation.
Nike’s misstep in February provides a convenient roadmap for what not to do when unveiling uniforms. The sportswear giant appears to have spent too little time with players in all stages of the process—from the design and the announcement to the basic education about changes to fit and tailoring. (A Nike rep didn’t respond to an email seeking comment.) Fanatics had a front-row seat to that process, and I would expect the company to be much more intentional about how it utilizes players in its own NHL debut.
The NHL has said it doesn’t expect any major changes to the on-ice sweater design, and the league asked franchises to hold off on significant team-specific redesigns that might happen alongside the new uniforms. Rubin has also said he intends to work closely with the players themselves.
“To make any great product you need input from all constituencies,” Rubin said in an NHL Network interview last year. “It really starts in the locker room, on the ice, with the players, with the teams to help us build the best products. We always want to work very collaboratively with them.”
There are other things working in Fanatics’ favor. The uniforms will be made in the same factory outside Montreal that has been making the NHL’s on-ice uniforms for the past 49 years. Fanatics also hired a number of executives with direct experience making prior NHL uniforms, including Dom Fillion, who led the design for the Reebok and Adidas authentics, and Keith Leach, who has worked at CCM, Reebok and Adidas.
In move likely to please a number of diehards, Fanatics will sell the actual authentic jerseys worn on ice by players, according to an April report by hockey jersey site Icethetics. Reebok abandoned that practice in 2014 and Adidas never tried, a development that angered many fans. For the past six years, fans looking for true authentic jerseys typically had to buy game-worn uniforms at team or league auctions, then strip the names and numbers in order to customize them themselves, a process that could easily cost upwards of $1,000. In 2022, Adidas was sued over the marketing of its so-called “authentic” jerseys (it later won).
For the past few seasons there have been two main tiers of fan jerseys available for purchase—Adidas sold that “Authentic” jersey ($230), and Fanatics sold a lower-priced “Breakaway” replica ($180). Starting next year there will be three, according to Icethetics—the actual authentic on-ice game jersey ($425), the “Premium” jersey ($230), and the “Breakaway” ($175), each designed and branded by Fanatics. Fanatics is also upgrading the practice jerseys, the report says.
The new on-ice jerseys are the latest in a two-decade relationship between the NHL and Fanatics that has consistently broken new ground. The two sides began working together in 2005—so long ago that Fanatics was called GSI Commerce and agreed to publish the league’s physical catalog as part of the partnership. In 2015, Washington Capitals star Alex Ovechkin became one of the first athletes to sign an exclusive memorabilia deal with Fanatics, the initial foundation for what has become a much larger Fanatics Collectibles vertical.
In 2017, the company’s NHL relationship expanded again with another series of Fanatics firsts. The 16-year deal gave Fanatics its first major performance gear rights, including apparel that NHL players and coaches wear in practice. It also gave the company the right to create and sell the replica jerseys, the first time its logo appeared on fan-facing uniforms for any major U.S. league. The company has since added similar replica rights in the NBA. Later that same year, the NHL became a Fanatics investor. (There's a full timeline of the NHL/Fanatics relationship in a 2023 story about these uniforms.)
Fanatics landing the full NHL jersey contract shows how priorities are changing in the world of athlete apparel, both for Fanatics and for the incumbent giants such as Nike and Adidas. For years, those companies found immense value in being the logo worn by players and adjacent to teams and leagues. Now their priorities have shifted more to the athletes themselves. Adidas reportedly chose not to pursue a new deal with the NHL, opening the door for Fanatics.
For Fanatics there appears to be less outward benefit in being viewed as a performance brand in the way that Nike and Adidas are. It doesn’t sell running shoes or compression tights, and its marketing features fans cheering, not athletes sweating. That said, it is clearly a priority.
“The fact is that we have a multibillion-dollar apparel creation business, but people don’t necessarily know all of our strengths and capabilities on that front,” Doug Mack, then-CEO of Fanatics Commerce, told Sportico last year when the NHL deal was announced. “So for our brand to be associated with a really advanced technical product, that begins to stretch the bounds of what people understand as the full capabilities behind Fanatics.”
Of course, Fanatics has made jerseys worn by pros for years. It purchased MLB jersey maker Majestic in 2017 and for the past five years, it has made the Nike-branded game jerseys in Majestic’s Pennsylvania factory. That setup allowed both sides to focus on their strengths—Nike in design and marketing; Fanatics in sourcing and manufacturing. The dual roles worked well … until Nike’s recent redesign.
Now a warier set of eyes are on Fanatics. Hockey fans around the country are eager to see the changes. I’m eager to see their reactions.
