Fanatics Live
Building a direct-to-consumer live commerce application for collectors
Fanatics Live connects collectors with live commerce sellers through live auctions and asynchronous purchases with a goal of being a best-in-class experience for creators and fans. Flocked members created brand and product solutions for the fan app, seller platform, and marketing channels. At launch, Fanatics Live was primarily centered around the trading card ‘breaking’ space but has since expanded to memorabilia of all kinds and featured products outside the sports arena, including partnerships with WWE and VeeFriends.
Product Management, Engineering, Brand & Marketing, Seller Team, Partnerships Team, Executive Leadership, Trust and Safety, Legal
Fanatics Live connects collectors with live commerce sellers through live auctions and asynchronous purchases with a goal of being a best-in-class experience for creators and fans. Flocked members created brand and product solutions for the fan app, seller platform, and marketing channels. At launch, Fanatics Live was primarily centered around the trading card ‘breaking’ space but has since expanded to memorabilia of all kinds and featured products outside the sports arena, including partnerships with WWE and VeeFriends.
Research + Education: With only modest experience in collectibles, I fully immersed themselves into learning the space.By consuming collectible digital media, visiting card shops, and engaging directly with collectors and sellers alike, I became an expert in the space and a go-to internal resource for hobby insights.
Collaboration: Employing a deep discovery process consisting of analyzing competitors and learning seller behaviors, I partnered with key stakeholders across product and engineering, marketing, and sales teams to create a scalable product on a short timeline.
Design + Iterate: Despite a short launch ramp, I utilized a robust iteration process to get the app right before launch.Designing a magnitude of test options and performing internal and invite-only beta tests, we acquired real user data — both positive and negative — to hone a better app experience.
Brand Optics: Fanatics is one of the nation’s most recognizable sports brands. It’s also one of the most polarizing.Its expansion into collectibles by purchasing Topps was a concern for collectors who expected the brand to cheapen card products and reduce competition with monopolistic practices.We had to prove Fanatics Live came to “The Hobby” in peace to achieve success.
Audience: Card breaking is a polarizing topic within The Hobby, as many long-time collectors view it as gambling and rife with fraud. There’s a perception that breaking — and its proliferation by major corporations like Fanatics — is overly-commodifying collecting and raising prices.With Fanatics Live, we sought to strike a delicate balance of making breaking and collecting exciting to new collectors without alienating the veterans.
Prioritization: With the lofty goals set forth by leadership and ourselves, prioritization was exceedingly important. Staying in lockstep across product, design, engineering, and marketing to prioritize efforts between the fan app, seller platform, developing the brand, and building partnerships was crucial to ensure internal and external resourcing was used appropriately and effectively. This required frequent evaluation and collaboration early and often.
Timeline + Scale: Fanatics Live had a strict launch timeline, with the Beta app going live at the MLB All-Star Game on July 7, 2023, and by the official launch at the National Sports Collectors Convention on July 26.Aggressive revenue and user benchmarks demanded rigorous growth and retention campaigns, as well as new product features, partnerships, and services to expand the target audience scope beyond core collectors.
Aligning with all partners at the outset of a project in the earliest days possible will allow you to make decisions wisely throughout the product lifecycle. Not doing so will create tension, re-prioritization needs, and missed deadlines. Focusing on the end user first will lead to success and team alignment, but this can only be done by bringing real users into the process early.
