Fanatics Launches Entertainment Studio With Tom Brady and ESPN

Tom Brady with the New England Patriots, October 6, 2019. Photo
by Alexander Jonesi, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Fanatics has spent a decade building the world's largest sports
merchandise business. On January 13, 2026, at the Intuit Dome in Los
Angeles, CEO Michael Rubin made clear that merchandise is no longer the
whole story. Fanatics Studios launched officially that night — a full
entertainment production operation, with Tom Brady as a founding
partner, ESPN as a production ally, and the LA28 Olympic Games already
on its slate.

The sports business just got a new studio. And it arrived with one of
the most recognizable names in the history of the NFL standing at the
podium.

Tom Brady as Founding Partner

Brady's involvement goes well beyond a celebrity endorsement. He is a
founding partner of Fanatics Studios with an active role in the
company's content development strategy, according to KSL. His first
project with the studio is a multipart documentary series covering his
career and legacy — a project that, given the audience size Brady
commands across sports, entertainment, and business media, represents
one of the most commercially anticipated sports documentaries in
development anywhere in the industry.

Brady retired from professional football in February 2023 after 23
seasons, seven Super Bowl championships, and a career that redefined the
ceiling for NFL quarterbacks. His post-playing trajectory — Fox Sports
broadcaster, minority owner of the Las Vegas Raiders, and now
entertainment producer — reflects a deliberate effort to remain at the
center of American sports culture on his own terms.

The ESPN Partnership

ESPN president Burke Magnus appeared at the Intuit Dome launch event to
formalize Fanatics Studios' production partnership with ESPN — a
relationship that gives Fanatics' content immediate access to one of
the most powerful sports distribution platforms in the world, per KSL.
The partnership positions Fanatics Studios not as a competitor to ESPN
but as a content supplier feeding into ESPN's expanding
direct-to-consumer platform.

The timing is notable: ESPN closed its acquisition of NFL Network just
18 days later, on January 31. Fanatics Studios launching as an ESPN
production partner in the same month that ESPN absorbed NFL Network
suggests a deliberate alignment of the sports media landscape around a
smaller number of tightly connected entities — each feeding content to
the others.

The LA28 Olympics Film

Perhaps the most significant single project announced at the Intuit Dome
launch was Fanatics Studios' role as the official film production
partner for the 2026 LA28 Olympic Games. LA28 chairman Casey Wasserman
confirmed the partnership at the event, according to KSL — giving
Fanatics Studios the rights to produce the official documentary record
of what will be one of the most watched sporting events in American
history when the Summer Games arrive in Los Angeles in 2028.

The LA28 deal positions Fanatics Studios as more than a sports content
producer. It places the company at the center of a global cultural
moment with an audience measured in the billions — a scope that very
few entertainment studios, regardless of their Hollywood pedigree, can
claim for their upcoming slate.

The 2026 ESPY Awards

Fanatics Studios also confirmed it will produce the 2026 ESPY Awards —
ESPN's annual celebration of athletic achievement — as part of its
ESPN partnership, per KSL. The ESPYs represent a proven, high-profile
live entertainment property that gives Fanatics Studios an immediate
presence in the awards show space alongside its documentary and
long-form content ambitions.

What This Means for Sports Entertainment

Fanatics' expansion into entertainment production reflects a broader
convergence that has been building for years: the most powerful brands
in sports are no longer content to license their stories to Hollywood.
They want to own the production, control the narrative, and capture the
revenue that comes with it. Brady, Rubin, and ESPN have built a
structure designed to do exactly that — and the LA28 Olympics gives
them a global stage to prove it works.

In 2026, the line between sports business and entertainment business has
effectively disappeared. Fanatics Studios is the latest — and one of
the most formidable — expressions of that reality.

References: Fanatics Debuts Fanatics Studios With Olympics Tom Brady And Espn At Intuit Dome | Media Notes