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Tom Brady attends Fanatics and Topps ‘Hobby Rip Night’ Event with Michael Rubin, Tom Brady, Kevin Hart and Travis Scott on September 30, 2023 in Linwood, New Jersey. 

Dave Kotinsky | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Since the New York Comic-Con launched in 2006, the convention has evolved well beyond comics into a wide-ranging fandom celebration of anime, video games, television, movies and all things pop culture, drawing more than 200,000 attendees last year.

Now, Fanatics wants to do the same thing but for sports, hosting a three-day event in New York City in August that is aiming be at the center of sports fandom, culture and collecting.

Lance Fensterman, CEO of Fanatics Events and the former president of ReedPop — where he produced pop culture events like New York Comic-Con, Complex-Con, and Star Wars Celebration — said he sees several parallels between pop culture fans and sports fans. However, he noted, while events like New York Comic-Con have evolved to embrace multiple difference fanbases and communities, the sports-focused event space is “ready to be disrupted a bit.”

“You’ve got collector shows and card shows, and there are thousands of those across the U.S., and they’re awesome for collectors. You also have league- and team-sponsored fan fests that are very specific for that sport or team,” Fensterman said. “What we’re trying to do is combine the best elements of all of that, and then culture and entertainment.”

The three-day event, called Fanatics Fest NYC, will be held at New York City’s Javits Center, the massive expo center that has hosted the New York Comic-Con, the New York International Auto Show, and other big conventions and events. The event will feature multiple stages and theatres, interactive features and games, merchandise and trading card areas, and a museum display of rare cards and sports memorabilia. Tom Brady, Derek Jeter, Eli and Peyton Manning, Kevin Durant, Sabrina Ionescu and Hulk Hogan are just some of the big sports names scheduled to appear, Fensterman said.

The event will also look to go beyond sports, integrating entrepreneurs, entertainers and cultural influencers into the programming, Fensterman said, providing a platform to talk about how sports serve as a platform for inspiration. There will be exclusive apparel collaborations and a variety of unique products from the hundreds of teams and leagues that are Fanatics partners, which includes nearly every U.S. professional sports entity such as the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, MLS, UFC, and WWE.

“Those are the moments that we get excited about, and we just don’t see it being done anywhere else in the world of live sports events,” Fensterman said.

Fanatics Events, which was launched last July in partnership with Endeavor-owned talent management company IMG, held its first large-scale activation last week, overseeing WWE World at WrestleMania, a five-day festival that ran alongside WWE’s premier event in Philadelphia. The festival was the highest-grossing and most-attended fan event in WWE history, according to Fanatics.

Fanatics Events’ WWE World at WrestleMania, a five-day festival that ran alongside WWE’s premier event in Philadelphia.

Fanatics

With this broader sports effort, the Fanatics Fest NYC will help the Fanatics Events team pursue coinciding business goals: elevating the other Fanatics vertical businesses and creating a new business around sports events.

Tickets for the event will range from $20 to $400, and general admission adult tickets will be priced at $50 per day. Fensterman said his goal is to draw between 50,000 and 100,000 fans for this inaugural event, which could potentially spawn other smaller-scale events across the country. The company will also look to host events in international markets, aiding its league partners looking to build fanbases abroad, he said.

These new set of events will also help to fuel the other business lines of the company: its commerce and merchandise division, its collectibles and trading cards business, its livestream shopping business, and its sports betting division.

Fanatics, the three-time CNBC Disruptor 50 company which ranked No. 21 in 2022, has evolved beyond the merchandise roots that Michael Rubin founded the company on. The company’s quick ascension has helped it garner a more than $31 billion valuation and put it on a path for a likely IPO. It has also put a magnifying glass on the company’s moves. The company says it was incorrectly blamed for issues related to Major League Baseball jerseys this spring, while it also finds itself in a legal battle with DraftKings over its expansion into sports betting.

Fanatics plans to reach profitability faster than anyone in the betting industry, says CEO Matt King

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Amazon’s ad business grew 19% in first quarter, topping estimates

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Amazon’s ad business grew 19% in first quarter, topping estimates

A woman cleans the store window of the Amazon house after activists sprayed paint on its logo during a protest on the opening day of the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 20, 2025.

Yves Herman | Reuters


Amazon reported a 19% increase in online ad revenue in the first quarter, beating analysts’ estimates.

Ad sales climbed to $13.92 billion, while analysts on average were expecting $13.74 billion, according to StreetAccount.

The numbers were contained in Amazon’s first-quarter earnings report. The company reported total first-quarter sales of $155.67 billion, compared to Wall Street projections of $155.04 billion.

Although Amazon’s online ad business represents a fraction of overall sales, it has emerged in recent years to become the third-biggest platform in the global digital advertising market, behind only Alphabet and Meta.

Online advertising is a particular area of focus for investors due to economic uncertainty and increasing tensions between the U.S. and China over trade. While President Donald Trump’s China tariffs will likely affect Amazon’s core retail business, the company’s online ad unit could also feel some pain.

So far, tech companies with online ad businesses have reported solid first-quarter earnings, but warned of potentially tougher times later in the year.

Meta reported stronger-than-expected first-quarter earnings this week, but said ad sales in the Asia-Pacific region came in at $8.22 billion for the quarter, trailing analysts’ estimates of $8.42 billion.

The company’s finance chief Susan Li said during an earnings call that “Asia-based e-commerce exporters” have slowed their online ad spending likely due to the de minimis trade loophole ending this Friday.

When Alphabet reported first-quarter earnings last Thursday, it revealed that ad sales grew 8.5% year over year to $66.89 billion and YouTube ad revenue increased 10% to $8.93 billion. But Alphabet executives told analysts that it expects headwinds to its Asia-Pacific-focused advertising business.

Snap on Tuesday said it had “experienced headwinds to start the current quarter,” which resulted in the company saying it would not provide guidance.

Last week, Microsoft reported its latest quarterly earnings and said search and news advertising sales, minus payments to its affiliates, grew 15% year over year to $449 million.

Reddit also reported first-quarter earnings on Thursday that beat on sales and guidance. The company’s first-quarter sales soared 61% year over year to $392 million.

Although Reddit’s second-quarter guidance topped analysts’ projections, CEO Steve Huffman said there is some economic shakiness.

“Ever-shifting macro environments like these create both challenges and opportunities,” Huffman wrote in a letter to shareholders. “We’ve grown through challenging times before — people need connection and information just as much in uncertain times.”

Pinterest reports earnings on May 8.

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Meta rallies on Q1 earnings

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Apple has managed tariffs so far, but Cook says it’s tough to predict beyond June

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Apple has managed tariffs so far, but Cook says it's tough to predict beyond June

Apple CEO Tim Cook, after nearly a month of anticipation from investors, on Thursday finally revealed how Apple was navigating the Trump administration’s tariffs.

The company only saw a “limited impact” on tariffs between January and the end of March, Cook told investors on an earnings call for the company’s second quarter results.

For the current quarter which ends in June, Apple is predicting about $900 million in additional costs for those tariffs — assuming nothing changes, Cook said. That surprised analysts who said on the call that they expected the costs to be higher.

The vast majority of Apple’s products are “currently not subject” to Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, Cook said. But beyond June, he didn’t say much.

“I don’t want to predict the future because I’m not sure what will happen with tariffs,” said Cook, adding that “it’s very difficult to predict beyond beyond June.”

Apple doesn’t usually give a lot of details or guidance beyond the current quarter, but investors didn’t like Thursday’s lack of clarity. Apple shares fell as much as 4% in extended trading on Thursday despite the company reporting results that beat Wall Street expectations for revenue and showed strong sales growth for iPads and Mac computers.

“As we look ahead, we remain confident,” Cook said.

Apple’s uncertainty highlights how even a company with a reputation for world-class operations can get whacked by the unpredictability of the Trump administration’s shifting tariff rates and dates.

Cook, who built his reputation in Silicon Valley as Apple’s operations guru, discussed how the company has dealt with the tariffs to minimize their impact so far on Thursday. He praised his old division on a call with analysts.

“‘l’ll just say that the operational team has done an incredible job around optimizing the the supply chain and the inventory,” he said.

Apple is currently sourcing American-bound products from India and Vietnam, Cook said. Those countries currently have 10% tariffs on them, and the company is sourcing Apple computers for rest of the world from China, which the Trump administration has hit with a 145% tariff rate.

Cook also said that Apple had built up inventory ahead of the tariffs, which would be reported as manufacturing purchase obligations in the company’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Cook said there was no “obvious evidence” that consumers were buying more Apple products ahead of tariffs.

“We do expect the majority of iPhones sold in the U.S. will have India as their country of origin,” Cook said. “Vietnam will be the country of origin for almost all iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and AirPods products sold in the U.S.”

Apple will still pay higher 145% tariffs on some Chinese imports for AppleCare, its extended warranty program, and accessories, Cook said.

One issue for forecasting tariffs going forward is that both Vietnam and India are in line to get hit with hefty tariffs on imported goods as soon as July.

Trump previously targeted both countries under his “reciprocal tariffs” on April 2, but a week later, he paused the tariffs for 90 days. Apple expanded its supply chain to those countries in recent years as a hedge for its business, but the Vietnam and India strategy won’t work if Trump’s tariffs ultimately take effect.

Cook also mentioned the possibility that technology products such as semiconductors might receive additional tariffs under a process called a Section 232 Investigation.

Apple is not the only big tech company to get rattled by the Trump administration’s tariffs.

Amazon finance chief Brian Olsavsky said Thursday that Amazon would offer a wider range of guidance because of tariff uncertainty, and he also alluded to the possibility of weakening consumer demand. Microsoft raised Xbox prices on Thursday, despite tariffs coming up just once on the company’s Wednesday earnings call.

Apple didn’t offer guidance for its profitable Services division on Thursday, but offered the same kind of top-line forecast that it has in previous quarters. Apple expects overall revenue to grow “low to mid-single digits” on an annual basis during the current quarter. Apple reported $85.78 billion in sales during the June quarter last year.

And at least during that quarter, Apple investors will know what to expect.

WATCH: Deepwater’s Gene Munster digs into Apple post-earnings

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gets first salary raise in a decade

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Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang gets first salary raise in a decade

Nvidia’s CEO Jensen Huang delivers his keystone speech ahead of Computex 2024 in Taipei on June 2, 2024. 

Sam Yeh | AFP | Getty Images

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang has made tens of billions of dollars in recent years from his stake in the chipmaker, but he’s getting his first salary increase in a decade.

Huang’s base salary rose to $1.5 million, a 49% increase from 2024, according to a proxy filing with the SEC on Thursday. His variable cash also went up by $1 million, or 50%, from the 2024 fiscal year. Stock awards grew to $38.8 million, bringing total pay to $49.9 million.

The compensation committee “believed this was appropriate in consideration of internal pay equity with the base salaries” of other top executives, the filing said, and “it represented Mr. Huang’s first base salary increase in 10 years.”

Nvidia is in the midst of a boom that’s turned it into one of the most valuable companies in the world, thanks to its graphics processing units (GPUs) that power the most powerful artificial intelligence models and workloads. Revenue in the 2025 fiscal year jumped 114% to $130.5 billion, the company reported in February.

The company’s stock price increased more than ninefold between the end of 2022 and the end of last year. Huang’s roughly 3.5% stake is currently worth about $94 billion.

Huang’s 2025 pay also included $3.5 million in residential security and consultation fees and driver services, the company said in the filing. In the previous year, residential security and consultation fees for Huang totaled $2.2 million. 

Google in a recent filing said it paid $8.27 million for CEO Sundar Pichai’s personal security and travel, representing a 22% increase from the year prior.

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Nvidia-Anthropic feud over AI chips and national security

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