October 28, 2025 • 34 mins
In sports merch, the clock is the boss. Fanatics SVP of Operations Wayne “Skip” Lee walks through a hot-market playbook where championship buzz turns into next-morning deliveries
We hear about sunrise delivery in the winning city and why the first 72 hours/7 days decide the season’s biggest sales. Skip breaks down how they stage inventory, make halftime calls on what to print and where to ship, and use AI to set size curves, place inventory, and block bad customizations before they hit a press.
Takeaways:
- Why “speed is the product” is an operating metric, not a motto
- The hot-market window: 72 hours → 7 days that drive outsized revenue
- How sunrise delivery works and when it’s worth the cost
- Network design that beats distance (local presses, nearshore partners)
- Halftime adjustments as real-time ops: re-printing, re-routing, redeploying
- Where AI actually helps: size curves, placement, and QC before print
- The fate of “loser merch” and lessons for responsible excess inventory
Links mentioned:
- The Logistics of the NFL
- Championship/Loser Merchandise
Feedback? Ideas for a future episode? Shoot us a text here to let us know.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Blythe (Brumleve) Milligan (00:05):
All right, today's topic, the speed
of sports logistics withfanatics.
Hello again, I am BlytheMilligan.
We are Everything is Logistics.
We're probably presented by SPILogistics, the best freight
agent program in the country for40 years and counting.
And I recently attended theFlorida Supply Chain Summit
where this great event heldright here in my hometown of
(00:28):
Jacksonville, Florida.
And also in my hometown ofJacksonville, Florida was a
company that got started up, alittle company you might know of
as Fanatics, which is nowpretty much a global empire when
it comes to not just sportsmerchandise, but they've gotten
into collectibles with theiracquisition of tops.
They've gotten into uh bettingand uh that whole ecosystem as
(00:53):
far as sports is concerned, andand many other acquisitions that
they've made throughout theyears, but you probably know
them best by all of their sportsmerchandise and their sports
partnerships with all of themajor sports leagues all over.
So it was really cool to havethe keynote or the closing
keynote at the Florida SupplyChain Summit to be held by the
Fanatics team.
(01:14):
And during that talk, it wascalled Inventing a Supply Chain
at the Speed of Sports.
And it was given by Fanaticssenior VP of Operations, Wayne
Skip Lee.
And you could really tell bywatching this talk that he knew
his stuff.
First of all, he was alast-minute replacement.
There was supposed to be the uhCOO of Fanatics, uh, had some
(01:36):
kind of a conflict, could notcome to the summit.
And so subbing in for thatspeaker was Skip.
And Skip uh gave a more than30-minute long presentation, and
he didn't have to look at hisnotes, he didn't have to look at
any index cards once.
And so you could really tellthat he knew his stuff.
And I recorded the entireconversation.
(01:57):
I can't exactly share thatpanel discussion with you, but
because I recorded it, I wasable to take a lot of notes
during the panel discussion, ornot panel discussion, but during
the speech.
And now I'm going to bring themto you today, as far as this
topic is concerned, becausepreviously I have covered sort
of the logistics around NFL gameday, the logistics of
(02:20):
championship merchandise andloser merchandise.
A lot of that logistics processhas been updated through the
years since I have rec since Ishared those stories, which I
will link to in the show notesin case you want to check those
out.
Uh, but it's remarkable.
And I think probably sports andmedical is the most intensive
(02:43):
when it comes to the logisticsprocess and the speed that is
required in order to fulfillthat obligation.
Obviously, medical shipmentsare a little bit more important
than sports, depending on whoyou ask and the timing that you
ask.
Uh, but this is theconversation that I wanted to
have today because there were abunch of takeaways that I wanted
(03:03):
to share with you about thatwhole entire sports logistics
process.
So let's go ahead and get intoit with the number one takeaway,
and that is the speed is theproduct and a heart hot market
playbook.
And that's how Skip describedthis during his presentation.
He said that historically withFanatics, that US delivery went
(03:24):
from about five days to aroundthree days, but the target for
sports merchandise delivery isaround one and a half days.
Now, if you compare this to anyother sort of global shipper or
any, you know, even just takeit to US base, how many other
retailers can get you yourproduct outside of Amazon within
a couple of days?
(03:45):
Uh Walmart, Target, those areyou know strong contenders as
well.
Uh, but I don't know of anyother sort of e-commerce
environment where they can aimto get you your merchandise in
three days or under with theirgoal of being a day and a half.
Now, obviously, this depends onwhere you're located, where
your the distribution process,where the distribution centers
(04:07):
are located, which we'll getinto in in just a second.
But um, the speed of the sportsmerchandise delivery is the at
most, utmost important becausewhen you think about it, when
people are ordering sportsmerchandise, they're likely
ordering it with the idea thatthey have a game that's coming
up very soon that they need somekind of gear in order to wear
(04:27):
for that game.
So it's time-based shipmentsthat have to get to your door
within a certain period of time,or otherwise, the you you don't
really need that merchandise.
Uh, if you're gonna wear it forone game, you know, one one-off
kind of purchase.
Um, but uh it depends,obviously, with a lot of
different sports merchandise andthe reasons that you're you're
(04:49):
buying that merch, but speed isthe utmost importance.
In fact, after a championship,fanatics runs what's called a
sunrise delivery campaign whereorders land the next morning in
the winning city.
Now, obviously, this isreferring to whenever a
championship takes place.
Uh, you know, we recently justin in baseball, for example,
(05:10):
recently had the AL in the inthe NL finals, not finals, uh,
the the Jesus, I'm blanking onthe name of it, but um, the
championship series, Jesus.
Um, so we had each of thoseseries running.
And so, whenever you know youhad a game seven in AL, and so
when you have a game sevenenvironment, obviously both of
those fan bases are very, veryuh enthusiastic.
(05:31):
And fanatics has found that ifyou can get them the winning
team, that championshipmerchandise, that is key to
purchases because they printedthe first 72 hours and the first
seven days drive the most salesduring a championship sort of
uh environment.
And this goes across all sportsleagues, not just baseball.
(05:53):
I'm just bringing up baseballbecause that's the most recent
in my brain.
Um, but then there is anotherexample for this year's Super
Bowl where Fanatics printed amillion shirts in 24 hours,
where some were delivered byemployees and even players,
which is just an incredible, youknow, logistic, logistical
operation where you're not justin involving your carriers, but
(06:16):
you're involving your employee,uh, dedicated employees and
players in order to distributeyour championship merchandise.
So the way that Fanatics doesthis is that they pre-print all
of the championship shirts.
And when I say championshipshirts, I'm referring to, you
know, when you ever see like alocker room celebrations,
(06:36):
immediately after a game isover, they have a particular
kind of hat on, they have aparticular kind of t-shirt on.
All of them are the same.
And so they take that print,and then that's the one that
they're that they have ready togo for obviously for team and
photo purposes.
But then for all of the fansthat are making purchases, they
want to make sure that they haveall of that same exact
(06:57):
merchandise ready to go becausewithin those first 72 hours,
that's when the overwhelmingmajority of that merchandise is
going to be printed.
Now, the goal is around atwo-day average without torching
margins.
So that means a smart carriermix and local partners is key
when trying to get theseshipments out as quickly as
possible.
(07:17):
Another strategy that they useis they pre-print at the venue,
they ramp hats out of Texas andtease out of Ohio.
So they have those distributionhotspots all over the country.
And that brings me into my nexttakeaway, which is where
real-time demand shocks.
So the this real-time demandthat that games can flip a
(07:40):
purchase order in minutes.
Players getting traded can fliporders in a minute.
If it if a player moves, thenthat uh it creates a level of
excitement that the fanaticsteam has to be ready for in
order to create.
If a major player gets tradedto a new team, they have to have
that new team, that new player,they have to have that design
(08:02):
ready to go immediately in orderto uh capitalize on that
movement and of that, you know,that buying cycle, that buying
mode immediately when ithappens.
And so um they there's also anote in here that the team makes
live call, the fanatics teamcan also make live calls at
halftime and right after thefinal whistle in order to make
(08:25):
those decisions on what's goingto get printed and why it's
gonna get printed and where it'sgoing as soon as it is printed.
So I thought that that wasinteresting that they they can
make these live calls during thegame and then print near the
stadiums in order to make surethat they can capitalize on that
local distribution network.
(08:46):
And that brings me to pointtakeaway number three, where
it's the network design thatshrinks time.
So they have a combination of anear shore plus US
manufacturing capability wherefanatics used to manufacture
primarily in East Asia, andthey've shifted that production
over to Central America.
And so they have that kind ofMexico plus one philosophy that
(09:08):
we've seen a lot of retailersand a lot of manufacturers take
on, especially in the last fewyears, where you're trying to
get that shorter shipping timeas short as possible because
people want things faster, butyou have the, you know, there's
certain parameters that you gotto put on that as far as like
how fast you can go and how youknow there's a lot of factors
(09:30):
that play in that decision.
I don't have to tell any ofy'all that, but that just
keeping that all in mind that ifit might be a couple bucks
cheaper to print a t-shirt overin East Asia, but if you don't
have that speed, that speed tolead, especially when it comes
to sports, it's really, reallyimpactful and it can impact the
business if those people can'tget their championship gear or
(09:52):
their player traded gear withinthat 72-hour window.
So I think that that's reallyfascinating that Fanatics was
ahead of the curve in thatregard, especially getting ahead
of some of the complicationsthat we've seen, you know, with
US-China relationships and thenalso with, you know, tariffs,
uh, especially when it comes toclothing in particular, where it
(10:12):
might not make the most sensefor you know US-based
manufacturers to be having, youknow, stitching together
clothing and things like that,especially when it comes to fast
fashion, but it's completelyflipped when it comes to sports.
And so I think that that is theinteresting takeaway there.
Uh, another note that they thatthey had is that they've had to
move some launches from a yearout to one to two weeks.
(10:36):
A recent rivalry jersey sold 10times the forecast.
The network absorbed it byretooling their capacity on the
fly.
And so they also balanceoverlapping seasons, where it's
the MLB, the NHL, the obviouslythe NFL, um, NBA, they all have
fanatics, meaning they all haveteams that are monitoring the
(10:59):
performance of those teams andthose star players in order to
make sure that they can hitdemand whenever it arises and
hit it immediately.
And this brings me to my nextpoint because AI is obviously
very helpful when it comes tomaking these inventory
predictions and these buyingpredictions because they have a
(11:19):
layer of AI that sits on top ofthe on-demand and the on-demand
personalization when it comes totheir merchandise.
So uh they said during thetalk, or Skip said during the
talk, that AI decides where toplace inventory and how many of
each size to make, which isanother big indicator because
you you never really know howmany of you know a size small
(11:42):
versus an XXL, like how many ofthose shirts do you need to get
printed?
If it's an XXL, obviously it'sgonna cost a little bit more as
far as a printing is concernedbecause it's more fabric that
you're using.
And so when you think about itfrom that lens, as a as a
business, fanatics doesn't wantto overprint a certain size
shirt or underprint a certainsize shirt and lose out money or
(12:05):
you know, have a bunch of extrainventory that is sitting
everywhere that either has to betrash, it has to be burned, or
it has to be donated, or evenheavily discounted.
And so they use AI to decidewhere to place that inventory,
how many of each size.
And when a size sells outonline, there are systems that
auto-trigger domestic reprintsand near shore backfills, where
(12:28):
on-demand jerseys run through acomputer vision to catch
misspellings and block slang andprofanity before it's even
pressed onto the shirt itself,which I imagine could be really
helpful from a customerexperience standpoint, where
customers make mistakes, theyinput, you know, customizations
wrong, especially when you'redealing with names and slogans
(12:50):
and things like that.
Obviously, fanatics as acompany doesn't want to print
anything highly offensive.
Like you can't get, you know,like a Hitler shirt on a
baseball jersey.
Like they're not gonna printthings like that.
Uh, but on the flip side, whereyou have families that are
wanting to get personalizedjerseys, uh, maybe a couple or
maybe a family is taking a tripto Disney and they all want
(13:11):
matching t-shirts for theirfavorite sports team, uh, you
know, all of that.
Uh, they want to try to catchmisspellings before that t-shirt
reaches the customer doorstep.
Because what happens whenever acustomer, even if it's the
customer's fault, what happensis they open up their package.
They're so excited to open uptheir package and get their new
gear, and then they open it upand they see the mistake.
(13:33):
And it it just probably puts ahuge damper on the day, on the
event of where they wanted towear this shirt, and it creates
a level of frustration thatfanatics likely wants to avoid.
And so having that additionalAI layer over the customization
aspect of their sportsmerchandise goes a long way to
(13:54):
prevent problems before theybecome a problem.
And and they want you know thebest experience possible, and
they want people to be able touh, you know, order things at
ease and get them quickly, andthen so they become repeat
buyers and they trust theprocess and they trust the
shipping process, probably moreimportantly than anything.
Now moving on to the nexttakeaway is scale equals
(14:17):
options, and it's the backboneof the fanatics uh shipping
process because their value, andit's proven because their
valuation has grown from 700 to800 million dollars, as was
estimated in 2015, to roughly$31 billion today.
They have 100 million fans intheir database, they have 900
(14:37):
partner facilities, and they'reshipping to 180 plus countries.
They have 2,000 retail doorsvia Lids, and that means you
know, retail locations.
Lids is the hat manufacturer,the hat company that's been
around for a while, but uh thatwas another one of the Fanatics
acquisitions, uh, along with uhthe you know, obviously their
e-commerce division, the topscollectibles we had mentioned
(14:59):
earlier, betting gaming, andthen also stadium retail.
So the Fanatics also has aretail footprint inside of
stadiums all over the country.
And then in addition to that,they have those individual
locations with lids that theycan sell their merchandise at.
So the scale equals the option,it's the backbone of the
(15:19):
company and probably a hugereason why they went from you
know around uh $800 millionvaluation in 2015 to over $31
billion.
That is absolutely insane.
Uh, but that takes us to ournext takeaway, and that's called
governance, risk, and post-peakflow.
So each league, the NFL, theMLB, and the NCAA, have
(15:43):
different approval rules for allof their merchandise.
Forecasting and AI helps keepapproved SKUs moving into
production.
Now, for folks who may notknow, a SKU is typically a you
know, a t-shirt and a certaindesign.
Um, and then they have varioussizes, all of those various
sizes for that one design, thatone material, that one t-shirt
counts as a skew.
(16:03):
And so when you think about howmany SKUs that they likely have
for every team across everyleague, across 180 plus
countries, that's a hell of alot of SKUs to be managing.
And so they have to have somekind of AI on top of all of
their different data sets inorder to be able to forecast
appropriately because theirtarget is to sell 90 to 95% of
(16:28):
their sell-through rate and thenreorder that merchandise that
performed well.
I've experienced thispersonally with Erin Andrews.
She has a great female sportsline.
Uh, it's called Where by EA.
And she's partnered withFanatics with a lot of different
sports leagues.
And so with some of her Jaguarsmerchandise, they only have
(16:49):
maybe like a handful of theseitems available, a handful of
these SKUs available.
So I have to around the Augusttime frame, whenever Erin
Andrews and her company decidesto release all of the new
designs for the new footballseason, I have to make sure that
I'm on it in order to make surethat I get the gear that I want
to get.
Because I'll never forget, twoyears ago, I tried to get this
(17:10):
Jaguars windbreaker and it's Iwaited a little bit too long, go
back to buy it.
It's sold out, it's never beenrestocked, and it haunts me in
my brain.
And so I wanted that jacket sobad.
And now I see a couple of girlshere and there, very sporadic
because they didn't make thatmany uh at Jaguar games, and I
just kind of want to just stealthe jacket off of them.
(17:33):
But I know that's not right, soI'm not gonna do that.
Um, but I am, you know, madrespect to them for being on top
of it.
And that was a lesson learnedfrom me that I need to be able
to get this gear quickly becausefor smaller market teams like
the Jaguars, Aaron Andrews isnot gonna be printing the same
amount of merchandise as say theGiants or the Steelers or you
(17:53):
know, God forbid the Steelers,Jesus.
Um, uh another story.
Uh but from a Jaguars fanperspective, I know that I have
to kind of be on top of it.
So that is the philosophy,though.
And I get it from a businessstandpoint that you don't want
to overprint because then you'regoing to be sitting on top of a
ton of merchandise.
And if it sells out, if it hitsthat 90 to 95% sell-through
(18:17):
rate, then you have anopportunity to analyze on if you
want to reprint those items.
Are they in high enough demandso that you are there enough
people that are on the wait listto justify another reprint of
those items?
And so all of that comes intoplay, and that's all that
they're able to make thesedecisions, not necessarily on
the fly, but make more educateddecisions on where they should
(18:39):
choose to you know put theirefforts as far as printing and
merchandising and distributionand all that good stuff, because
all of the leftovers, and we'vetalked about it in the other
episodes, all of thoseleftovers, uh the merchandise
that doesn't get sold, it has toend up somewhere.
And so, for a lot of uh thethis merch, you know,
historically what has happened,especially during championship
(19:00):
games, is that there's two setsthat are printed.
One team is obviously going towin and the other team is going
to lose.
And so, what happens to thatloser merchandise is
historically it's been donatedto an emerging country somewhere
around the world.
Um, I do remember this greatstory that we covered in uh the
championship uh merchandiseepisode.
(19:23):
And you remember the perfectseason or the almost perfect
season with the Patriots versusthe Giants, and Elaine Manning
had that incredible throw and aneven incredible, you know, the
helmet catch.
Uh, you know, the Patriots hador the fanatics had these shirts
that were printed for that gamefor the Patriots for their
(19:43):
perfect season.
And because of that, it neverhappened.
All of that limited runmerchandise that was eventually
donated to, I believe, a soccerteam in Haiti.
It was a girls' soccer team,young girls' soccer team.
I think it was like, you know,the 13 to 10-year-olds that were
playing.
Well, that team ended up, andthis is a great story, but that
(20:04):
team ended up wearing thoseperfect season Patriots shirts
for as their jerseys for theentire season.
And that girls' soccer teamwent on to win their
championship wearing that uhgear that was meant to be for
the Patriots.
So I think it's just kind of acool story that, you know, in
(20:24):
situations, rare situations likethat, where you have a ton of
merchandise where some companieslook into Burberry who will
burn their merchandise justbecause they don't want excess
inventory to, you know, reachthe little guy, they don't want
it to reach the poors oranything like that, um, or
anybody, you know, below theirkind of ideal shopping
(20:45):
demographic, Burberry will justburn that merchandise.
Whereas you have situationslike this with sports
merchandise where it's donatedinstead of burned, and then you
have a great story that comesout of it where you have this
girl soccer team that was ableto win a championship, unlike
the team that the shirts wereoriginally printed for.
So I thought that was a greatstory, and uh it kind of brings
(21:09):
us into that modern day becausewe're probably going to see less
and less outside of thoseparticular situations where you
have to print it both teams nomatter what, because you have no
idea who's going to win.
And in fact, in that Patriotsand Giants game, they had
brought out the Patriotschampionship merchandise, it was
(21:30):
on the sidelines, and they hadto bring it back out and bring
out the Giants merchandisebecause of what had happened in
that game.
Everybody thought that thePatriots were going to win until
that incredible catch.
And so there was a lot oflogistics process that was going
on.
So you'll always have to have,I think from a sports lens,
you'll have to have that thoseinstances where you know you
(21:53):
have to print both of them.
You can't print on demandimmediately after the game is
over because immediately afterthe game is over, they got the
boxes on the sidelines andthey're handing everyone hats
and their t-shirts.
A lot of times they're puttingthose t-shirts over their pad.
So they haven't even takentheir equipment off yet.
Um, but they're just alreadylike ready to celebrate.
And so you're gonna have thosemoments where the team is is
(22:15):
there, there's gonna be a losingteam and there's no way to
avoid that losing merchandise.
But in sort of the the modelthat Fanatics seems to be moving
in, you're gonna have a lotless of that loser merchandise
being printed because of theircapabilities of printing near
shoring in the US, localizedprint shops, print shops inside
(22:36):
of the stadium so that they canprint them out, you know, as
fast as possible.
And so I think that that's areally interesting evolution of
what's happening to different umsports merchandise and whether
to print it, not to print it,and how and why, and you know,
all of those good, you know, andall of those interesting
decisions that go into play.
Now, there's also a kind of alast few takeaways here, but uh,
(23:00):
fanatics is also reallyobsessed with the fan first
moments that travel.
So thinking like weddingrushes, funeral rushes, um,
same-day heroics, these all ofthese making sure that you can
get, you know, great customerservice and you can get these
items in the hands of fanaticsfor lack of a better phrase, uh,
(23:20):
for those sports fans outthere.
And if you can make thosemoments happen, then it's more
likely that, especially duringyou know, a funeral or during a
wedding, these sometimesespecially a wedding is a
celebratory, you know, occasion.
Sometimes funerals arecelebratory occasions as well,
but you can make those emotionalmoments, especially when it
(23:42):
involves a sports team, it'sit's much more easily to be
shared to social media.
And so that generates a ton ofbrand awareness and a ton of
brand sentiment um around theteam and the company fanatics
that made it happen.
So these stories set the barservice bar internally and
create word of mouth externally,is what Skip described in his
(24:03):
presentation.
So just to kind of recap a lotof the different points that uh
or a lot of the differenttakeaways that we've made during
this episode.
And is for fanatics, it's fromfive days to a day and a half.
That's the real product.
Championships don't give you aweek, they give you hours.
Near shore plus domestic isn'tabout cost alone, it's about
(24:25):
clock speed.
AI watches the size curve soyou don't break it.
And scale isn't vanity, it'soptionality.
And so Skip closed out thisspeech with answering some QA.
And I was able to ask my sportsmerchandise uh QA.
So that was one of the itemsthat I listed as far as a
takeaway in here.
Um, but there was another onethat he answered that he said
(24:47):
that which I thought was superinteresting because when they uh
when fanatics first started,65% of their purchasing of what
they sell used to be, or no, I'mI'm sorry, I'm I I'm actually I
got those stats mixed up.
85% of what fanatics used tosell, it was all NFL.
And since they've introducedmore countries and more sports
(25:09):
and gotten more deals, it's nowdropped to 65%.
Uh, but still, that's anincredible amount of purchasing
behavior or purchasing powerthat the NFL has when it comes
to fanatics.
65% of all of their purchasesare NFL related, and it's down
from 85%, but that's it's onlydown because it's relative to
(25:29):
the 180 plus countries thatthey're now shipping to.
And you got to think about, youknow, obviously soccer and
cricket, some of the biggestsports in the world.
I think those are like 1A and1B, as far as most popular
sports in the world is cricketand football, the or soccer.
I'm gonna call it soccer.
And then the NFL is right afterthat.
So real football in my Americanmindset is um probably around
(25:52):
three, but it is 65% of what thefanatics sells still to this
day.
So um, yeah, the NFL is uh is apowerhouse as far as purchasing
is concerned.
So um they they made a greatemphasis on operational
efficiency and creating thosespecial, you know, sort of fan
(26:12):
moments.
And I just loved thisdiscussion.
So shout out to Florida SupplyChain Summit uh for making that
discussion happen in the firstplace.
And also I thought it wasreally smart from a summit
perspective to put them as theclosing keynote because you've
all we've all been atconferences where you know it's
the last day, it's the rightbefore, you know, the last
couple of panels.
It's you know, it's not uh it'snot too popping in there for
(26:36):
the conference goers.
And uh so for this one to putthat keynote at the end kept a
lot of people there, kept a lotof people interested.
And so shout out to Skip formaking it worth our while in
order to stick around to the endof a conference, which I think
you should do anyways for a lotof conferences, obviously travel
and your business permitting.
Um, but there's a lot of workthat goes involved, and it's
(26:57):
always a little depressing, um,at least for me, when I'm at a
conference for a couple of days,and then it comes down, you
know, kind of down to the wire.
And it's like you're so used tojust running around everywhere.
And then when it comes to aclose, it's like, oh wow, I
don't think I was ready for itto come to a close.
And that was my feeling afterthis speech.
And so uh shout out to FloridaSupply Chain Summit again for um
(27:20):
having a fantastic event andthen also to Skip for giving a
fantastic fanatics presentationwhere we got to learn a lot more
about the sports logisticsprocess.
Um, like I said earlier in theshow, I will link to those other
episodes that I've done in thepast because it what one aspect
that I think is reallyinteresting, especially when it
comes to sports logistics, is alot of these overseas games that
(27:42):
take place.
You know, there it's not justLondon, but it's Germany, I
think Mexico City, also Brazil.
They're all of these differentlocations that are now hosting
regularly um NFL games.
And when you think about thestadiums that these NFL games
are being uh held in, they'renot necessarily built for the
NFL.
And so the shipping process ofwhat these teams have to do
(28:06):
whenever they find out thatthey're going to be playing in a
different country is that theyhave to load essentially a
shipping container months andmonths in advance with all of
the equipment, the pants, theshirts, shoelaces, cleats,
helmets, uh repairs to each ofthese different types of
equipment.
And not just that, but some ofthese countries that they're
(28:26):
going to, London, uh, don'tnecessarily have you know good
spices or um good flavor, yeah,you know, good uh probably not
good flavor, good spices,because it is, I think, getting
a little bit better.
Not necessarily liketraditional UK food.
Sorry to all the UK people outthere, but if you've seen some
of those videos where like thechildren from the UK try like
(28:49):
American barbecue for the firsttime and their minds are blown,
that's that's the kind of foodI'm referring to when I'm I'm
joking about this.
But NFL teams have to preparefor those dietary conditions
months and months in advance.
And so they're they're gettingthe condiments, they're getting
the spices, they're gettingdietary restrictions that they
(29:10):
have for each of their players,and they have to also make sure
that all of those things are inthe container as well.
And obviously, I don't have totell you that you know,
containers uh take a littlelonger to ship versus you know
private airlines and things likethat.
So there's a lot of logisticsprocess that goes into the
overseas games as well.
So I'll link to it in the shownotes in case you want to check
(29:31):
out those previous episodes.
I think they're rather short,under you know, 10 episodes.
But then I also want to give ashout out to the NFL because
they have a series called NFLExplained, and they just dropped
a video about playing anoverseas game in Germany.
I have it saved to my watchlater list inside of YouTube,
but just go to YouTube and lookit up in case you want to check
(29:52):
it out.
Uh, I'm sure there's gonna be aton of useful and interesting
information in there.
But that about does it for thisepisode.
Hopefully you enjoyed my littledeep dive into fanatics.
Obviously, I am um I'm wearinga Jaguars shirt.
I'm a big Jaguars fan.
If you've been living under arock and never listened to this
episode before, um, but uh usedto work in sports broadcasting
(30:15):
here locally in Jacksonville atthe same time that I was working
at a 3PL as an executiveassistant.
So I love doing sportslogistics stories like this
because it kind of feels like afull circle um career moment for
me.
So um thank you for listeningto this episode.
That about does it.
If you want to check out any ofmy work, head up everything
islogistics.com.
That's where all of our socialsand past episodes are can are
(30:38):
all hosted.
If you want to find thepodcast, it's available wherever
you get your podcast at, andthen also find the video
versions over on YouTube.
But until next time, go jacks.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Everything Is
Logistics where we talk allthings supply chain for the
(30:59):
thinkers in freight.
If you like this episode,there's plenty more where that
came from.
Be sure to follow or subscribeon your favorite podcast app so
you never miss a conversation.
The show is also available invideo format over on YouTube
just by searching Everything isLogistics.
And if you're working infreight logistics or supply
chain marketing, check out mycompany Digital Dispatch.
(31:19):
We help you build smarterwebsites and marketing systems
that actually drive results, notjust vanity metrics.
Additionally, if you're tryingto find the right freight tech
tools or partners withoutgetting buried in buzzwords,
head on over to CargoRex.iowhere we're building the largest
database of logistics servicesand solutions.
All the links you need are inthe show notes.
(31:40):
I'll catch you in the nextepisode and go Jags.
All right, today's topic, the speed
of sports logistics withfanatics.
Hello again, I am BlytheMilligan.
We are Everything is Logistics.
We're probably presented by SPILogistics, the best freight
agent program in the country for40 years and counting.
And I recently attended theFlorida Supply Chain Summit
where this great event heldright here in my hometown of
(00:28):
Jacksonville, Florida.
And also in my hometown ofJacksonville, Florida was a
company that got started up, alittle company you might know of
as Fanatics, which is nowpretty much a global empire when
it comes to not just sportsmerchandise, but they've gotten
into collectibles with theiracquisition of tops.
They've gotten into uh bettingand uh that whole ecosystem as
(00:53):
far as sports is concerned, andand many other acquisitions that
they've made throughout theyears, but you probably know
them best by all of their sportsmerchandise and their sports
partnerships with all of themajor sports leagues all over.
So it was really cool to havethe keynote or the closing
keynote at the Florida SupplyChain Summit to be held by the
Fanatics team.
(01:14):
And during that talk, it wascalled Inventing a Supply Chain
at the Speed of Sports.
And it was given by Fanaticssenior VP of Operations, Wayne
Skip Lee.
And you could really tell bywatching this talk that he knew
his stuff.
First of all, he was alast-minute replacement.
There was supposed to be the uhCOO of Fanatics, uh, had some
(01:36):
kind of a conflict, could notcome to the summit.
And so subbing in for thatspeaker was Skip.
And Skip uh gave a more than30-minute long presentation, and
he didn't have to look at hisnotes, he didn't have to look at
any index cards once.
And so you could really tellthat he knew his stuff.
And I recorded the entireconversation.
(01:57):
I can't exactly share thatpanel discussion with you, but
because I recorded it, I wasable to take a lot of notes
during the panel discussion, ornot panel discussion, but during
the speech.
And now I'm going to bring themto you today, as far as this
topic is concerned, becausepreviously I have covered sort
of the logistics around NFL gameday, the logistics of
(02:20):
championship merchandise andloser merchandise.
A lot of that logistics processhas been updated through the
years since I have rec since Ishared those stories, which I
will link to in the show notesin case you want to check those
out.
Uh, but it's remarkable.
And I think probably sports andmedical is the most intensive
(02:43):
when it comes to the logisticsprocess and the speed that is
required in order to fulfillthat obligation.
Obviously, medical shipmentsare a little bit more important
than sports, depending on whoyou ask and the timing that you
ask.
Uh, but this is theconversation that I wanted to
have today because there were abunch of takeaways that I wanted
(03:03):
to share with you about thatwhole entire sports logistics
process.
So let's go ahead and get intoit with the number one takeaway,
and that is the speed is theproduct and a heart hot market
playbook.
And that's how Skip describedthis during his presentation.
He said that historically withFanatics, that US delivery went
(03:24):
from about five days to aroundthree days, but the target for
sports merchandise delivery isaround one and a half days.
Now, if you compare this to anyother sort of global shipper or
any, you know, even just takeit to US base, how many other
retailers can get you yourproduct outside of Amazon within
a couple of days?
(03:45):
Uh Walmart, Target, those areyou know strong contenders as
well.
Uh, but I don't know of anyother sort of e-commerce
environment where they can aimto get you your merchandise in
three days or under with theirgoal of being a day and a half.
Now, obviously, this depends onwhere you're located, where
your the distribution process,where the distribution centers
(04:07):
are located, which we'll getinto in in just a second.
But um, the speed of the sportsmerchandise delivery is the at
most, utmost important becausewhen you think about it, when
people are ordering sportsmerchandise, they're likely
ordering it with the idea thatthey have a game that's coming
up very soon that they need somekind of gear in order to wear
(04:27):
for that game.
So it's time-based shipmentsthat have to get to your door
within a certain period of time,or otherwise, the you you don't
really need that merchandise.
Uh, if you're gonna wear it forone game, you know, one one-off
kind of purchase.
Um, but uh it depends,obviously, with a lot of
different sports merchandise andthe reasons that you're you're
(04:49):
buying that merch, but speed isthe utmost importance.
In fact, after a championship,fanatics runs what's called a
sunrise delivery campaign whereorders land the next morning in
the winning city.
Now, obviously, this isreferring to whenever a
championship takes place.
Uh, you know, we recently justin in baseball, for example,
(05:10):
recently had the AL in the inthe NL finals, not finals, uh,
the the Jesus, I'm blanking onthe name of it, but um, the
championship series, Jesus.
Um, so we had each of thoseseries running.
And so, whenever you know youhad a game seven in AL, and so
when you have a game sevenenvironment, obviously both of
those fan bases are very, veryuh enthusiastic.
(05:31):
And fanatics has found that ifyou can get them the winning
team, that championshipmerchandise, that is key to
purchases because they printedthe first 72 hours and the first
seven days drive the most salesduring a championship sort of
uh environment.
And this goes across all sportsleagues, not just baseball.
(05:53):
I'm just bringing up baseballbecause that's the most recent
in my brain.
Um, but then there is anotherexample for this year's Super
Bowl where Fanatics printed amillion shirts in 24 hours,
where some were delivered byemployees and even players,
which is just an incredible, youknow, logistic, logistical
operation where you're not justin involving your carriers, but
(06:16):
you're involving your employee,uh, dedicated employees and
players in order to distributeyour championship merchandise.
So the way that Fanatics doesthis is that they pre-print all
of the championship shirts.
And when I say championshipshirts, I'm referring to, you
know, when you ever see like alocker room celebrations,
(06:36):
immediately after a game isover, they have a particular
kind of hat on, they have aparticular kind of t-shirt on.
All of them are the same.
And so they take that print,and then that's the one that
they're that they have ready togo for obviously for team and
photo purposes.
But then for all of the fansthat are making purchases, they
want to make sure that they haveall of that same exact
(06:57):
merchandise ready to go becausewithin those first 72 hours,
that's when the overwhelmingmajority of that merchandise is
going to be printed.
Now, the goal is around atwo-day average without torching
margins.
So that means a smart carriermix and local partners is key
when trying to get theseshipments out as quickly as
possible.
(07:17):
Another strategy that they useis they pre-print at the venue,
they ramp hats out of Texas andtease out of Ohio.
So they have those distributionhotspots all over the country.
And that brings me into my nexttakeaway, which is where
real-time demand shocks.
So the this real-time demandthat that games can flip a
(07:40):
purchase order in minutes.
Players getting traded can fliporders in a minute.
If it if a player moves, thenthat uh it creates a level of
excitement that the fanaticsteam has to be ready for in
order to create.
If a major player gets tradedto a new team, they have to have
that new team, that new player,they have to have that design
(08:02):
ready to go immediately in orderto uh capitalize on that
movement and of that, you know,that buying cycle, that buying
mode immediately when ithappens.
And so um they there's also anote in here that the team makes
live call, the fanatics teamcan also make live calls at
halftime and right after thefinal whistle in order to make
(08:25):
those decisions on what's goingto get printed and why it's
gonna get printed and where it'sgoing as soon as it is printed.
So I thought that that wasinteresting that they they can
make these live calls during thegame and then print near the
stadiums in order to make surethat they can capitalize on that
local distribution network.
(08:46):
And that brings me to pointtakeaway number three, where
it's the network design thatshrinks time.
So they have a combination of anear shore plus US
manufacturing capability wherefanatics used to manufacture
primarily in East Asia, andthey've shifted that production
over to Central America.
And so they have that kind ofMexico plus one philosophy that
(09:08):
we've seen a lot of retailersand a lot of manufacturers take
on, especially in the last fewyears, where you're trying to
get that shorter shipping timeas short as possible because
people want things faster, butyou have the, you know, there's
certain parameters that you gotto put on that as far as like
how fast you can go and how youknow there's a lot of factors
(09:30):
that play in that decision.
I don't have to tell any ofy'all that, but that just
keeping that all in mind that ifit might be a couple bucks
cheaper to print a t-shirt overin East Asia, but if you don't
have that speed, that speed tolead, especially when it comes
to sports, it's really, reallyimpactful and it can impact the
business if those people can'tget their championship gear or
(09:52):
their player traded gear withinthat 72-hour window.
So I think that that's reallyfascinating that Fanatics was
ahead of the curve in thatregard, especially getting ahead
of some of the complicationsthat we've seen, you know, with
US-China relationships and thenalso with, you know, tariffs,
uh, especially when it comes toclothing in particular, where it
(10:12):
might not make the most sensefor you know US-based
manufacturers to be having, youknow, stitching together
clothing and things like that,especially when it comes to fast
fashion, but it's completelyflipped when it comes to sports.
And so I think that that is theinteresting takeaway there.
Uh, another note that they thatthey had is that they've had to
move some launches from a yearout to one to two weeks.
(10:36):
A recent rivalry jersey sold 10times the forecast.
The network absorbed it byretooling their capacity on the
fly.
And so they also balanceoverlapping seasons, where it's
the MLB, the NHL, the obviouslythe NFL, um, NBA, they all have
fanatics, meaning they all haveteams that are monitoring the
(10:59):
performance of those teams andthose star players in order to
make sure that they can hitdemand whenever it arises and
hit it immediately.
And this brings me to my nextpoint because AI is obviously
very helpful when it comes tomaking these inventory
predictions and these buyingpredictions because they have a
(11:19):
layer of AI that sits on top ofthe on-demand and the on-demand
personalization when it comes totheir merchandise.
So uh they said during thetalk, or Skip said during the
talk, that AI decides where toplace inventory and how many of
each size to make, which isanother big indicator because
you you never really know howmany of you know a size small
(11:42):
versus an XXL, like how many ofthose shirts do you need to get
printed?
If it's an XXL, obviously it'sgonna cost a little bit more as
far as a printing is concernedbecause it's more fabric that
you're using.
And so when you think about itfrom that lens, as a as a
business, fanatics doesn't wantto overprint a certain size
shirt or underprint a certainsize shirt and lose out money or
(12:05):
you know, have a bunch of extrainventory that is sitting
everywhere that either has to betrash, it has to be burned, or
it has to be donated, or evenheavily discounted.
And so they use AI to decidewhere to place that inventory,
how many of each size.
And when a size sells outonline, there are systems that
auto-trigger domestic reprintsand near shore backfills, where
(12:28):
on-demand jerseys run through acomputer vision to catch
misspellings and block slang andprofanity before it's even
pressed onto the shirt itself,which I imagine could be really
helpful from a customerexperience standpoint, where
customers make mistakes, theyinput, you know, customizations
wrong, especially when you'redealing with names and slogans
(12:50):
and things like that.
Obviously, fanatics as acompany doesn't want to print
anything highly offensive.
Like you can't get, you know,like a Hitler shirt on a
baseball jersey.
Like they're not gonna printthings like that.
Uh, but on the flip side, whereyou have families that are
wanting to get personalizedjerseys, uh, maybe a couple or
maybe a family is taking a tripto Disney and they all want
(13:11):
matching t-shirts for theirfavorite sports team, uh, you
know, all of that.
Uh, they want to try to catchmisspellings before that t-shirt
reaches the customer doorstep.
Because what happens whenever acustomer, even if it's the
customer's fault, what happensis they open up their package.
They're so excited to open uptheir package and get their new
gear, and then they open it upand they see the mistake.
(13:33):
And it it just probably puts ahuge damper on the day, on the
event of where they wanted towear this shirt, and it creates
a level of frustration thatfanatics likely wants to avoid.
And so having that additionalAI layer over the customization
aspect of their sportsmerchandise goes a long way to
(13:54):
prevent problems before theybecome a problem.
And and they want you know thebest experience possible, and
they want people to be able touh, you know, order things at
ease and get them quickly, andthen so they become repeat
buyers and they trust theprocess and they trust the
shipping process, probably moreimportantly than anything.
Now moving on to the nexttakeaway is scale equals
(14:17):
options, and it's the backboneof the fanatics uh shipping
process because their value, andit's proven because their
valuation has grown from 700 to800 million dollars, as was
estimated in 2015, to roughly$31 billion today.
They have 100 million fans intheir database, they have 900
(14:37):
partner facilities, and they'reshipping to 180 plus countries.
They have 2,000 retail doorsvia Lids, and that means you
know, retail locations.
Lids is the hat manufacturer,the hat company that's been
around for a while, but uh thatwas another one of the Fanatics
acquisitions, uh, along with uhthe you know, obviously their
e-commerce division, the topscollectibles we had mentioned
(14:59):
earlier, betting gaming, andthen also stadium retail.
So the Fanatics also has aretail footprint inside of
stadiums all over the country.
And then in addition to that,they have those individual
locations with lids that theycan sell their merchandise at.
So the scale equals the option,it's the backbone of the
(15:19):
company and probably a hugereason why they went from you
know around uh $800 millionvaluation in 2015 to over $31
billion.
That is absolutely insane.
Uh, but that takes us to ournext takeaway, and that's called
governance, risk, and post-peakflow.
So each league, the NFL, theMLB, and the NCAA, have
(15:43):
different approval rules for allof their merchandise.
Forecasting and AI helps keepapproved SKUs moving into
production.
Now, for folks who may notknow, a SKU is typically a you
know, a t-shirt and a certaindesign.
Um, and then they have varioussizes, all of those various
sizes for that one design, thatone material, that one t-shirt
counts as a skew.
(16:03):
And so when you think about howmany SKUs that they likely have
for every team across everyleague, across 180 plus
countries, that's a hell of alot of SKUs to be managing.
And so they have to have somekind of AI on top of all of
their different data sets inorder to be able to forecast
appropriately because theirtarget is to sell 90 to 95% of
(16:28):
their sell-through rate and thenreorder that merchandise that
performed well.
I've experienced thispersonally with Erin Andrews.
She has a great female sportsline.
Uh, it's called Where by EA.
And she's partnered withFanatics with a lot of different
sports leagues.
And so with some of her Jaguarsmerchandise, they only have
(16:49):
maybe like a handful of theseitems available, a handful of
these SKUs available.
So I have to around the Augusttime frame, whenever Erin
Andrews and her company decidesto release all of the new
designs for the new footballseason, I have to make sure that
I'm on it in order to make surethat I get the gear that I want
to get.
Because I'll never forget, twoyears ago, I tried to get this
(17:10):
Jaguars windbreaker and it's Iwaited a little bit too long, go
back to buy it.
It's sold out, it's never beenrestocked, and it haunts me in
my brain.
And so I wanted that jacket sobad.
And now I see a couple of girlshere and there, very sporadic
because they didn't make thatmany uh at Jaguar games, and I
just kind of want to just stealthe jacket off of them.
(17:33):
But I know that's not right, soI'm not gonna do that.
Um, but I am, you know, madrespect to them for being on top
of it.
And that was a lesson learnedfrom me that I need to be able
to get this gear quickly becausefor smaller market teams like
the Jaguars, Aaron Andrews isnot gonna be printing the same
amount of merchandise as say theGiants or the Steelers or you
(17:53):
know, God forbid the Steelers,Jesus.
Um, uh another story.
Uh but from a Jaguars fanperspective, I know that I have
to kind of be on top of it.
So that is the philosophy,though.
And I get it from a businessstandpoint that you don't want
to overprint because then you'regoing to be sitting on top of a
ton of merchandise.
And if it sells out, if it hitsthat 90 to 95% sell-through
(18:17):
rate, then you have anopportunity to analyze on if you
want to reprint those items.
Are they in high enough demandso that you are there enough
people that are on the wait listto justify another reprint of
those items?
And so all of that comes intoplay, and that's all that
they're able to make thesedecisions, not necessarily on
the fly, but make more educateddecisions on where they should
(18:39):
choose to you know put theirefforts as far as printing and
merchandising and distributionand all that good stuff, because
all of the leftovers, and we'vetalked about it in the other
episodes, all of thoseleftovers, uh the merchandise
that doesn't get sold, it has toend up somewhere.
And so, for a lot of uh thethis merch, you know,
historically what has happened,especially during championship
(19:00):
games, is that there's two setsthat are printed.
One team is obviously going towin and the other team is going
to lose.
And so, what happens to thatloser merchandise is
historically it's been donatedto an emerging country somewhere
around the world.
Um, I do remember this greatstory that we covered in uh the
championship uh merchandiseepisode.
(19:23):
And you remember the perfectseason or the almost perfect
season with the Patriots versusthe Giants, and Elaine Manning
had that incredible throw and aneven incredible, you know, the
helmet catch.
Uh, you know, the Patriots hador the fanatics had these shirts
that were printed for that gamefor the Patriots for their
(19:43):
perfect season.
And because of that, it neverhappened.
All of that limited runmerchandise that was eventually
donated to, I believe, a soccerteam in Haiti.
It was a girls' soccer team,young girls' soccer team.
I think it was like, you know,the 13 to 10-year-olds that were
playing.
Well, that team ended up, andthis is a great story, but that
(20:04):
team ended up wearing thoseperfect season Patriots shirts
for as their jerseys for theentire season.
And that girls' soccer teamwent on to win their
championship wearing that uhgear that was meant to be for
the Patriots.
So I think it's just kind of acool story that, you know, in
(20:24):
situations, rare situations likethat, where you have a ton of
merchandise where some companieslook into Burberry who will
burn their merchandise justbecause they don't want excess
inventory to, you know, reachthe little guy, they don't want
it to reach the poors oranything like that, um, or
anybody, you know, below theirkind of ideal shopping
(20:45):
demographic, Burberry will justburn that merchandise.
Whereas you have situationslike this with sports
merchandise where it's donatedinstead of burned, and then you
have a great story that comesout of it where you have this
girl soccer team that was ableto win a championship, unlike
the team that the shirts wereoriginally printed for.
So I thought that was a greatstory, and uh it kind of brings
(21:09):
us into that modern day becausewe're probably going to see less
and less outside of thoseparticular situations where you
have to print it both teams nomatter what, because you have no
idea who's going to win.
And in fact, in that Patriotsand Giants game, they had
brought out the Patriotschampionship merchandise, it was
(21:30):
on the sidelines, and they hadto bring it back out and bring
out the Giants merchandisebecause of what had happened in
that game.
Everybody thought that thePatriots were going to win until
that incredible catch.
And so there was a lot oflogistics process that was going
on.
So you'll always have to have,I think from a sports lens,
you'll have to have that thoseinstances where you know you
(21:53):
have to print both of them.
You can't print on demandimmediately after the game is
over because immediately afterthe game is over, they got the
boxes on the sidelines andthey're handing everyone hats
and their t-shirts.
A lot of times they're puttingthose t-shirts over their pad.
So they haven't even takentheir equipment off yet.
Um, but they're just alreadylike ready to celebrate.
And so you're gonna have thosemoments where the team is is
(22:15):
there, there's gonna be a losingteam and there's no way to
avoid that losing merchandise.
But in sort of the the modelthat Fanatics seems to be moving
in, you're gonna have a lotless of that loser merchandise
being printed because of theircapabilities of printing near
shoring in the US, localizedprint shops, print shops inside
(22:36):
of the stadium so that they canprint them out, you know, as
fast as possible.
And so I think that that's areally interesting evolution of
what's happening to different umsports merchandise and whether
to print it, not to print it,and how and why, and you know,
all of those good, you know, andall of those interesting
decisions that go into play.
Now, there's also a kind of alast few takeaways here, but uh,
(23:00):
fanatics is also reallyobsessed with the fan first
moments that travel.
So thinking like weddingrushes, funeral rushes, um,
same-day heroics, these all ofthese making sure that you can
get, you know, great customerservice and you can get these
items in the hands of fanaticsfor lack of a better phrase, uh,
(23:20):
for those sports fans outthere.
And if you can make thosemoments happen, then it's more
likely that, especially duringyou know, a funeral or during a
wedding, these sometimesespecially a wedding is a
celebratory, you know, occasion.
Sometimes funerals arecelebratory occasions as well,
but you can make those emotionalmoments, especially when it
(23:42):
involves a sports team, it'sit's much more easily to be
shared to social media.
And so that generates a ton ofbrand awareness and a ton of
brand sentiment um around theteam and the company fanatics
that made it happen.
So these stories set the barservice bar internally and
create word of mouth externally,is what Skip described in his
(24:03):
presentation.
So just to kind of recap a lotof the different points that uh
or a lot of the differenttakeaways that we've made during
this episode.
And is for fanatics, it's fromfive days to a day and a half.
That's the real product.
Championships don't give you aweek, they give you hours.
Near shore plus domestic isn'tabout cost alone, it's about
(24:25):
clock speed.
AI watches the size curve soyou don't break it.
And scale isn't vanity, it'soptionality.
And so Skip closed out thisspeech with answering some QA.
And I was able to ask my sportsmerchandise uh QA.
So that was one of the itemsthat I listed as far as a
takeaway in here.
Um, but there was another onethat he answered that he said
(24:47):
that which I thought was superinteresting because when they uh
when fanatics first started,65% of their purchasing of what
they sell used to be, or no, I'mI'm sorry, I'm I I'm actually I
got those stats mixed up.
85% of what fanatics used tosell, it was all NFL.
And since they've introducedmore countries and more sports
(25:09):
and gotten more deals, it's nowdropped to 65%.
Uh, but still, that's anincredible amount of purchasing
behavior or purchasing powerthat the NFL has when it comes
to fanatics.
65% of all of their purchasesare NFL related, and it's down
from 85%, but that's it's onlydown because it's relative to
(25:29):
the 180 plus countries thatthey're now shipping to.
And you got to think about, youknow, obviously soccer and
cricket, some of the biggestsports in the world.
I think those are like 1A and1B, as far as most popular
sports in the world is cricketand football, the or soccer.
I'm gonna call it soccer.
And then the NFL is right afterthat.
So real football in my Americanmindset is um probably around
(25:52):
three, but it is 65% of what thefanatics sells still to this
day.
So um, yeah, the NFL is uh is apowerhouse as far as purchasing
is concerned.
So um they they made a greatemphasis on operational
efficiency and creating thosespecial, you know, sort of fan
(26:12):
moments.
And I just loved thisdiscussion.
So shout out to Florida SupplyChain Summit uh for making that
discussion happen in the firstplace.
And also I thought it wasreally smart from a summit
perspective to put them as theclosing keynote because you've
all we've all been atconferences where you know it's
the last day, it's the rightbefore, you know, the last
couple of panels.
It's you know, it's not uh it'snot too popping in there for
(26:36):
the conference goers.
And uh so for this one to putthat keynote at the end kept a
lot of people there, kept a lotof people interested.
And so shout out to Skip formaking it worth our while in
order to stick around to the endof a conference, which I think
you should do anyways for a lotof conferences, obviously travel
and your business permitting.
Um, but there's a lot of workthat goes involved, and it's
(26:57):
always a little depressing, um,at least for me, when I'm at a
conference for a couple of days,and then it comes down, you
know, kind of down to the wire.
And it's like you're so used tojust running around everywhere.
And then when it comes to aclose, it's like, oh wow, I
don't think I was ready for itto come to a close.
And that was my feeling afterthis speech.
And so uh shout out to FloridaSupply Chain Summit again for um
(27:20):
having a fantastic event andthen also to Skip for giving a
fantastic fanatics presentationwhere we got to learn a lot more
about the sports logisticsprocess.
Um, like I said earlier in theshow, I will link to those other
episodes that I've done in thepast because it what one aspect
that I think is reallyinteresting, especially when it
comes to sports logistics, is alot of these overseas games that
(27:42):
take place.
You know, there it's not justLondon, but it's Germany, I
think Mexico City, also Brazil.
They're all of these differentlocations that are now hosting
regularly um NFL games.
And when you think about thestadiums that these NFL games
are being uh held in, they'renot necessarily built for the
NFL.
And so the shipping process ofwhat these teams have to do
(28:06):
whenever they find out thatthey're going to be playing in a
different country is that theyhave to load essentially a
shipping container months andmonths in advance with all of
the equipment, the pants, theshirts, shoelaces, cleats,
helmets, uh repairs to each ofthese different types of
equipment.
And not just that, but some ofthese countries that they're
(28:26):
going to, London, uh, don'tnecessarily have you know good
spices or um good flavor, yeah,you know, good uh probably not
good flavor, good spices,because it is, I think, getting
a little bit better.
Not necessarily liketraditional UK food.
Sorry to all the UK people outthere, but if you've seen some
of those videos where like thechildren from the UK try like
(28:49):
American barbecue for the firsttime and their minds are blown,
that's that's the kind of foodI'm referring to when I'm I'm
joking about this.
But NFL teams have to preparefor those dietary conditions
months and months in advance.
And so they're they're gettingthe condiments, they're getting
the spices, they're gettingdietary restrictions that they
(29:10):
have for each of their players,and they have to also make sure
that all of those things are inthe container as well.
And obviously, I don't have totell you that you know,
containers uh take a littlelonger to ship versus you know
private airlines and things likethat.
So there's a lot of logisticsprocess that goes into the
overseas games as well.
So I'll link to it in the shownotes in case you want to check
(29:31):
out those previous episodes.
I think they're rather short,under you know, 10 episodes.
But then I also want to give ashout out to the NFL because
they have a series called NFLExplained, and they just dropped
a video about playing anoverseas game in Germany.
I have it saved to my watchlater list inside of YouTube,
but just go to YouTube and lookit up in case you want to check
(29:52):
it out.
Uh, I'm sure there's gonna be aton of useful and interesting
information in there.
But that about does it for thisepisode.
Hopefully you enjoyed my littledeep dive into fanatics.
Obviously, I am um I'm wearinga Jaguars shirt.
I'm a big Jaguars fan.
If you've been living under arock and never listened to this
episode before, um, but uh usedto work in sports broadcasting
(30:15):
here locally in Jacksonville atthe same time that I was working
at a 3PL as an executiveassistant.
So I love doing sportslogistics stories like this
because it kind of feels like afull circle um career moment for
me.
So um thank you for listeningto this episode.
That about does it.
If you want to check out any ofmy work, head up everything
islogistics.com.
That's where all of our socialsand past episodes are can are
(30:38):
all hosted.
If you want to find thepodcast, it's available wherever
you get your podcast at, andthen also find the video
versions over on YouTube.
But until next time, go jacks.
Thanks for tuning in to anotherepisode of Everything Is
Logistics where we talk allthings supply chain for the
(30:59):
thinkers in freight.
If you like this episode,there's plenty more where that
came from.
Be sure to follow or subscribeon your favorite podcast app so
you never miss a conversation.
The show is also available invideo format over on YouTube
just by searching Everything isLogistics.
And if you're working infreight logistics or supply
chain marketing, check out mycompany Digital Dispatch.
(31:19):
We help you build smarterwebsites and marketing systems
that actually drive results, notjust vanity metrics.
Additionally, if you're tryingto find the right freight tech
tools or partners withoutgetting buried in buzzwords,
head on over to CargoRex.iowhere we're building the largest
database of logistics servicesand solutions.
All the links you need are inthe show notes.
(31:40):
I'll catch you in the nextepisode and go Jags.
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