Send us Fan Mail

This episode of Selling on Giants takes a deep look at the business models behind Fanatics and Starter, and why their stories matter far beyond sports merchandise.

Starter became one of the most iconic sports apparel brands of the nineteen nineties. Starter jackets were cultural status symbols across the NFL, NBA, NHL, college sports, and streetwear. The brand had relevance, demand, and identity.

But underneath that cultural momentum was a structural weakness.

Starter relied heavily on wholesale distribution, traditional retail cycles, and slower operational systems. It had brand heat, but it did not fully control the customer relationship, fulfillment speed, or demand response.

Fanatics represents a different model.

Instead of operating like a traditional sports merchandise company, Fanatics built a vertically integrated commerce engine. It controls licensing relationships, manufacturing, ecommerce infrastructure, fulfillment, customer data, and real-time demand response.

That gives Fanatics a major advantage when demand spikes. When a team wins a championship, a player gets traded, or a major sports moment happens, Fanatics can react quickly and capture demand while attention is still high.

This episode breaks down why that matters for modern eCommerce operators.

In this episode, we cover:

The rise and decline of Starter

How Starter became a cultural force, why the brand mattered, and what structural weaknesses made it vulnerable when retail changed.

Why Fanatics built a stronger operating model

Fanatics is not just a merchandise company. It is an infrastructure company built around speed, licensing, fulfillment, and customer data.

Vertical integration as a competitive advantage

The more of the value chain a company controls, the more margin, data, and flexibility it can capture.

Why brand heat is not enough

Cultural relevance can create demand, but infrastructure determines how much of that demand a company actually captures.

What marketplace sellers can learn from this

Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, and DTC brands face the same strategic question: what part of the customer journey do you actually control?

Why infrastructure matters more as markets change

Ad costs rise, fees increase, fulfillment gets more expensive, and platform rules shift. Durable businesses are built to absorb those changes.

The operator takeaway:

Starter had culture, but Fanatics built control.

That is the real lesson.

Strong branding matters, but branding without operational durability becomes fragile. The best eCommerce brands are not just better marketers. They are better system builders.

They understand their supply chain, fulfillment model, data, customer relationship, pricing power, and channel dependency.

As commerce evolves, the advantage is moving toward brands that control more of the infrastructure underneath their growth.

The edge is not in hype. It is in control. Vertical integration. Operational speed. Infrastructure ownership.

If you are building a brand on Amazon, Walmart, Shopify, or across multiple marketplaces, this episode gives you a practical way to think about long-term durability, not just short-term performance.

Follow Selling on Giants for operator-level breakdowns on marketplace strategy, eCommerce growth, retail trends, and the business models shaping the future of commerce.

Subscribe to Selling on Giants for weekly insights that go beyond headlines and focus on what actually impacts your business.