The visionary owner of Fanatics, with a fortune of $11.5 billion, has become friends with dozens of celebrities, who have been invited to celebrate Independence Day at his home in the Hamptons
For most mortals, sending party invitations simply involves sending a message to friends or, in the best of cases, a little card with the date, place and an RSVP note.
But of course, Michael Rubin is not most mortals.
Nor are his parties. The parties of the 51-year-old American businessman, with a fortune of more than $11.5 billion, according to Forbes
are not of this world, nor are his invitations, his venues or the list of stars who are invited. And if there is a U.S. holiday inspires wild parties, it Independence Day on 4th of July.
And at Rubin’s mansion, everything is already ready for the big event of the year, which will be attended by Kim Kardashian, Tom Brady and Emily Ratajkowski.
As he has been doing for four years now, Rubin will throw a magnificent party at his home in East Hampton, about three hours from New York (or less than an hour by helicopter, as he likes to get around). Last year, his White Party was attended by the likes of Beyoncé and Jay-Z, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck, Justin and Hailey Bieber, Mbappé and Kendall Jenner. This year, the invitations were sent out in mid-May: an original, personalized work by acclaimed artist George Condo, with each invitation estimated at more than $35,000. What’s more, last week Rubin sent each guest white Nike sneakers, numbered and customized, in a briefcase. One pair is estimated to cost $50,000. They came with a message: “Don’t puke on them! Not for resale — I know who you are.” But at what point did a Philadelphia sports businessman from humble origins turn into the host of one of America’s biggest parties?
Rubin’s name has been buzzing around showbiz for years. Mostly because of his money: although he is now a billionaire, he has been very rich for a quarter of a century. And his wealth is thanks to one of his passions: sport. Thirteen years ago he founded Fanatics, a company that licenses and sells online merchandising products of almost a thousand U.S. sports teams, both professional and college level: from NBA jerseys and field hockey caps to baseball player figurines and, now, European Championship and Paris Olympic Games gear. Since Fanatics manufacture more than half of what they sell themselves, they are very agile when it comes to giving the market what it wants, and they have achieved a tremendous growth. Last December, The Wall Street Journal valued the company — which is privately held and has investment partners such as Jay-Z — at $31 billion in an article that Fanatics itself posted on its website.
Rubin’s story is of a self-made man, a narrative that is very popular in the U.S. He comes from a middle-class Jewish family — his mother is a psychiatrist and his father is a veterinarian father — and since he was a child he has been earning his own money. At the age of 12, he set up a small ski repair shop in the basement of his house and with his profits and the money from his bar mitzvah — about $10,000 — he opened a real shop at the age of 14, with his father signing the paperwork. He owed $200,000 when he was only 16 years old, but his family lent him money for a lawyer, he won the lawsuit and ended up becoming the owner of five ski shops with annual sales of $2.5 million, as reported in Philly Mag.
He has little formal education. For less than a semester he attended Villanova University, a Catholic university in Pennsylvania, because his worried parents thought that his business ventures would ruin his life. He was always in the parking lot, doing business on the phone and skipping class, and quickly saw that studying wasn’t his thing. He continued to lose a little, win a lot, and he created a sneaker company and a logistics company. Rubin saw that the internet was the platform of the future and helped many brands enter e-commerce, he triumphed with various companies, especially with Fanatics, and ended up becoming a billionaire.
Sports have always been the key to his businesses. Every year, Fanatics throws big parties, and two are especially important: the pre- and post-Super Bowl party. What’s more, between 2011 and 2022, he was a partner of the Philadelphia 76ers basketball team and the New Jersey Devils hockey teams. Thanks to this, he has often rubbed shoulders with the big names from the main U.S. leagues, from businesspeople to players, as well as celebrities such as the Kardashian sisters, actors, models… As a result, he has become a regular face in interviews, television shows and parties. He goes to most of these events with his partner, model Camille Fishel, 33, with whom he has two young daughters, Rumi and Gema. He also has a daughter, Kylie, 18, with his previous partner Meegan Spector, a dance instructor from whom he separated in 2011. At the time, she said she was “tired” and “fed up with the pressure” and intensity of her husband’s work.
