That answer needs unpacking, because “alternative to Fanatics” is not one question. Fanatics bundles at least four separable jobs: it manufactures licensed product, it runs e-commerce and fulfilment, it operates physical and event retail, and it holds rights. Most clubs only need to replace one of those.
So this guide does the comparison properly. First it separates the jobs, then it compares like against like inside each one. A licensing agency is not an alternative to a pin manufacturer, and a stadium retail operator is not an alternative to either.
Key Takeaways
- Sports was the fastest-growing licensing category in 2025, up 8.5% to $44.4 billion, according to Licensing International’s 2026 Global Licensing Industry Study. Club merchandising budgets are growing with it.
- Fanatics dominates volume apparel and league-scale e-commerce, with roughly $7 billion in annual licensed merchandise revenue reported by Sportico and others in 2026. Its international business is comparatively small, at around $1 billion.
- Decide which of the four jobs you are actually replacing before you build a shortlist. Comparing a producer to a retail operator produces a nonsense scorecard.
- The real gap at club level sits in the production lane, specifically low-to-mid-volume licensed collectibles: pins, trophy replicas, medals, keyrings, and commemorative pieces that need rights approval and tight production tolerances.
- Commercial revenue hit a record €5.3 billion across Deloitte’s top 20 clubs in 2024/25, the largest single stream for a third consecutive year, which is why retail capability is now a board-level topic rather than a shop-floor one.
- Score suppliers on licence status, minimum order quantity, sampling process, and where quality control physically happens. Those four answers separate a production partner from a catalogue reseller.
In This Article
- Key Takeaways
- What Is Club-Level Merchandising?
- What Are You Actually Replacing? The Four Jobs Fanatics Does
- Why Do Clubs Look Beyond Fanatics for Merchandising?
- What Does Fanatics Do Better Than Almost Anyone?
- Job One: Licensed Product Production, Compared Like for Like
- Jobs Two, Three and Four: The Other Lanes
- How Should You Evaluate a Club Merchandising Partner?
- What Are the Biggest Challenges in Club Merchandising Right Now?
- Real Example: Turning a Stadium Roof Into a Collection
- Where Technology Genuinely Helps (and Where It Doesn’t)
What Is Club-Level Merchandising?
Club-level merchandising is the design, licensing, production, and sale of officially branded products for a single sports club rather than a whole league or federation. It covers everything from replica kit and scarves to pins, trophy replicas, medals, and limited-run commemorative collectibles sold through club shops, stadium retail, and direct-to-fan channels.
The distinction matters because league-level programmes and club-level programmes have almost nothing in common operationally. A league programme is built around forecast volume, standardised assortment, and national distribution.
A club programme is built around a specific fanbase, a specific season, and a specific set of moments: a promotion, a centenary, a stadium rebuild, a cup final. Those moments produce small, time-sensitive runs that a volume retail machine isn’t designed to service.
What Are You Actually Replacing? The Four Jobs Fanatics Does
Before you shortlist anyone, split the requirement. Fanatics is a bundle, and the useful comparison happens one layer down.
- Product development and licensed production. Getting a physical item designed, approved by the rights holder, manufactured to spec, and delivered.
- E-commerce and fulfilment. Running the online store, payments, warehousing, shipping, returns.
- Physical and event retail. Stadium shops, pop-ups, tournament retail, staffing, stock control, point of sale.
- Licensing programme strategy. Recruiting licensees, structuring categories and territories, collecting royalties.
A club that needs 5,000 anniversary pins approved by its licensor before a home fixture has a job-one problem. A club unhappy with its online store has a job-two problem. Those two clubs should never see the same shortlist.
The rest of this guide compares options within each job, starting with the one where clubs most often get stuck.
Why Do Clubs Look Beyond Fanatics for Merchandising?
Clubs look elsewhere when the product they need falls outside high-volume apparel: short-run collectibles, metal goods, event-specific pieces, or anything requiring a licensor approval loop on a tight calendar.
The commercial context explains the urgency. The European football market surpassed €40 billion for the first time in 2024/25, growing 6%, with the ‘big five’ leagues contributing 54% of the total at €22 billion, per Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance 2026. Within Deloitte’s Money League top 20, commercial activities delivered a record €5.3 billion, the first time any single stream passed €5 billion.
But the picture below the elite is harder. Championship clubs saw commercial revenue fall 10% to £273 million in 2024/25, and aggregate Championship revenue dropped 2% to £942 million. Clubs outside the top tier need merchandise margin that doesn’t depend on broadcast cycles.
The four reasons that come up most often
- Volume thresholds. Large retail operators are built for runs measured in tens of thousands. A club wanting 500 commemorative pins for season-ticket holders doesn’t fit that model.
- Product categories outside apparel. Enamel pins, die-struck medals, trophy replicas, and embedded-material keepsakes are metalworking and tooling problems, not printing problems.
- Margin control. Under a full retail concession, the club trades operational burden for a royalty. Producing your own lines direct gives you the margin but requires a production partner who can actually execute.
- Territory. Clubs outside North America frequently need European production, European packaging compliance, and European lead times.
What Does Fanatics Do Better Than Almost Anyone?
Fanatics is the strongest choice in the market for high-volume licensed apparel and operating league or club e-commerce at national scale. That’s a real capability, worth stating plainly before discussing alternatives.
Licensed merchandise remains its largest revenue contributor at around $7 billion annually, with collectibles and trading cards adding $4 billion and betting and gaming roughly $2 billion. In 2026 the company expects total revenue of about $13 billion.
It also owns the biggest event-retail mandates in the sport. Fanatics serves as FIFA’s onsite retail licensee for the 2026 World Cup across all 16 host cities in North America.
Two things follow from that. First, if your requirement is a full-service, high-traffic online store with fulfilment, Fanatics is genuinely hard to beat. Second, its international operations generate roughly $1 billion, a small share of the total, which means European club programmes often need a partner whose centre of gravity is already in Europe.
Job One: Licensed Product Production, Compared Like for Like
This is where most club merchandising questions actually sit, and where the shortlist is genuinely competitive. Every option below does the same thing: it turns a club’s IP into a physical product you can sell. They differ on minimums, categories, and who owns the quality.
1. Specialist licensed producer and production-management agency (Am Ball)
Am Ball is a Munich-based design, licensing, and production-management agency founded in 1998, holding official/authorized licensee status with UEFA, the Bundesliga, DFB, FC Barcelona, AC Milan, Chelsea FC, Olympique de Marseille, the Spanish and French football federations, The Open, and the Ballon d’Or. It places first in this lane for one concrete reason: very few producers in Europe hold that breadth of direct licence coverage while also running quality control on-site at their manufacturing partners rather than through a reseller who can’t answer a sourcing question when a licensor asks one.
That structural difference shows up in the specs. Die-strike tolerance runs to +/
- 0.15mm on the overall outline and +/
- 0.1mm on recessed detail lines, with enamel-fill die depth of 0.4 to 0.6mm and a 4 to 6 micron nickel undercoat beneath the top plate. Those numbers exist because someone is physically inspecting raw material and checking a pre-production sample at the factory, not reading a spec sheet from a trading company.
Volume sits at 2 million-plus units a year across roughly 250 active client accounts, with a team of about 20 people. Standard lead time is two to three weeks. Order sizes typically start around 300 units, which is the number that makes short-run club projects viable in the first place.
Strengths
- Direct licensee status with UEFA, the Bundesliga, DFB, and multiple major clubs, so rights approval runs through an existing relationship
- Metal-goods depth: trophy and cup replicas, enamel pins, medals, keyrings, produced for CAF, the Champions League, the DFB, the Bundesliga Meisterschale, and the Handball Bundesliga
- Low minimums (around 300 units) suited to season-specific and commemorative runs
- Factory audits via BSCI and Amfori
- European production for apparel (mostly Portugal) alongside Asia sourcing for metal goods
Limitations
- Premium price position, not a low-cost bulk option
- Not an in-house manufacturer; production runs through long-standing partner factories under Am Ball’s management
- Does not operate club e-commerce, fulfilment, or in-stadium retail
Best for: clubs, federations, and event organisers producing licensed collectibles and commemorative lines where approval, tolerances, and short runs matter more than raw volume.
2. Volume licensed apparel manufacturers (Fanatics and peers)
Fanatics’ manufacturing arm, and the handful of operations working at similar scale, are built for tens of thousands of apparel units with on-demand printing layered on top for reactive product.
Strengths
- Unit economics no specialist can match at high volume
- On-demand production for moment-driven apparel, printed and shipped within days
- Existing category licences across most major leagues
Limitations
- Apparel and trading cards rather than bespoke metal collectibles
- Minimums and commercial models assume scale
- Comparatively small international footprint relative to the US business
Best for: replica-adjacent apparel programmes measured in tens of thousands of units.
3. Promotional merchandise suppliers and catalogue resellers
These firms sell from an existing catalogue with your crest applied. Fast, and widely used for giveaways.
Strengths
- Low prices and short lead times on standard items
- Simple ordering with no development work required
Limitations
- No product development; you pick from what exists
- Sourcing is usually opaque, which stalls licensor approval
- Quality control is documentary rather than physical
Best for: unlicensed internal giveaways and sponsor gifts, not saleable club collections.
4. Direct factory sourcing
Going straight to an Asian manufacturer or trading company cuts out the intermediary margin.
Strengths
- Lowest unit cost at volume
- Full control of specification if you have the in-house expertise
Limitations
- The club carries rights approval, compliance, QC, and shipping risk
- Sampling cycles and time zones stretch calendars
- Rework on a failed run lands entirely on you
Best for: clubs with a genuine in-house sourcing function and time to absorb mistakes.
5. Kit supplier catalogue production
Nike, adidas, Puma, Castore, and others produce club product under the technical kit deal.
Strengths
- Global distribution attached to the kit agreement
- No development or production burden on the club
Limitations
- Restricted to the supplier’s assortment and calendar
- Little to no room for club-specific collectibles or commemorative projects
Best for: replica kit and core training wear. Not a solution for anything else.
Jobs Two, Three and Four: The Other Lanes
These options are frequently listed as “Fanatics alternatives,” but they solve different problems. Compare them to each other, not to a producer.
E-commerce and fulfilment. The realistic choices are a managed store from a full-service operator, or your own Shopify-class storefront with a third-party logistics partner behind it. The trade is margin and control against operational simplicity. FC Barcelona, for example, has announced a resale platform for official club merchandise, opening another revenue stream around goods it already controls.
Physical and event retail. Legends and Levy Merchandising run the store itself: design, staffing, stock, point of sale. Levy Merchandising, the retail arm of the Levy hospitality brand, recently added Formula E to its client roster. These firms are strong at matchday and tournament execution, but they don’t develop product. The goods still have to come from a producer.
Licensing programme strategy. Agencies such as IMG Licensing build and manage programmes rather than making anything. IMG Licensing was awarded the exclusive mandate to develop and manage the global licensing programme for the 38th America’s Cup, covering consumer products, publishing, collectibles, and memorabilia. That’s the right call when a club wants to license its IP out across many categories on royalty economics.
The combination most clubs land on. In-house storefront plus a contracted production partner retains the most margin and all of the fan data. It needs internal buying capability and working capital, and it only works if the producer is genuinely reliable.
Read across those lanes and the honest conclusion is that Fanatics and a specialist producer rarely compete. Fanatics leads on licensed apparel at scale and stadium retail operations. For metal collectibles, pins, medals, and trophy replicas, specialists cover complexity that a volume apparel operation isn’t structured around. Plenty of well-run clubs use both.
How Should You Evaluate a Club Merchandising Partner?
Once you know which lane you’re buying in, score every shortlisted supplier against these eight criteria. Most can be answered in a single call, and the answers separate producers from resellers fast.
- Licence status, stated precisely. Ask whether they are an official or authorised licensee of the relevant rights holder, and for which categories. “We work with clubs” is not a licence.
- Where quality control physically happens. On-site at the factory, or a photo sent by a trading company? Ask for the checkpoint list: raw material inspection, pre-production sample approval, final inspection.
- Minimum order quantity. If your commemorative run is 400 units and the MOQ is 5,000, the conversation is over. Get the number early.
- Sampling process and cost. How many rounds, how long each takes, and whether tooling costs are refunded against production.
- Published tolerances. For metal goods, ask for die-strike tolerance, plating thickness in microns, and base metal gauge. A supplier who can’t answer is buying from someone who can.
- Lead time, including approval loops. Production time is the easy part. Licensor approval is what kills calendars. Ask how they handle it.
- Compliance responsibility. Packaging, labelling, and product safety obligations sit with whoever places the goods on the market, which may be you. Establish in writing who carries them.
- Factory audit status. BSCI or Amfori audits are the baseline evidence that someone has actually visited the production site.
Our guide to choosing a merchandise manufacturing partner goes deeper on the contractual side of this, including sample sign-off and what to put in writing before tooling starts.
What Are the Biggest Challenges in Club Merchandising Right Now?
Three problems come up repeatedly, and each has a practical fix.
Counterfeit pressure. Unlicensed goods around big fixtures and tournaments erode both revenue and brand control. The fix is product that’s genuinely hard to fake: die-struck metal with tight tolerances, serialised editions, and materials a street vendor can’t replicate.
Calendar compression. A cup run creates a merchandising window of days, not months. Clubs that pre-agree artwork templates and approval routes with their producer before the window opens are the ones that ship in time.
Assortment sameness. Fans across Europe own the same scarf in different colours. European consumers often wear club-branded apparel as everyday casual wear, extending demand beyond matchdays, per Grand View Research, which means differentiation now competes with general fashion, not just other clubs.
The response that works is product with a story attached to something only your club has. That leads directly to the next section.
Real Example: Turning a Stadium Roof Into a Collection
When Hamburger SV renovated the Volksparkstadion between 2022 and 2025, the removed roof membrane became the raw material for a memorabilia collection: framed displays, metal keychains, and acrylic blocks with the original membrane embedded inside. Am Ball handled the design and production management.
The pieces served two channels at once. They went to partners and VIP members as an exclusive gift, and they sold through the official HSV shop, where the acrylic blocks sold out within days.
That project is the template worth copying. It didn’t compete on price or on assortment breadth. It sold something no other club on earth could sell, at a margin a printed t-shirt can’t reach. If you’re weighing this kind of project, the article on who makes official trophy replicas covers the tooling and approval steps that sit behind commemorative metal work.
Where Technology Genuinely Helps (and Where It Doesn’t)
On-demand printing and demand forecasting have real value for apparel: less dead stock, faster reaction to a result or a signing. Integrated CRMs now connect ticketing, retail, and streaming into unified fan profiles, which makes it far easier to predict who will buy a limited edition before you commit to a run.
What technology doesn’t solve is tooling. A die has to be cut, a sample has to be struck, and someone has to look at it under a lamp. Anyone selling you an automated shortcut around physical sampling for metal goods is selling you a reject rate.
Use the data to decide what and how many. Use a production partner to decide how.
Frequently Asked Questions
Who are the main alternatives to Fanatics for club merchandise?
It depends which Fanatics function you’re replacing. For licensed product, the comparable options are specialist licensed producers, volume apparel manufacturers, promotional catalogue suppliers, and direct factory sourcing. For e-commerce, it’s a managed store versus your own platform plus a 3PL. For physical retail, it’s operators such as Legends and Levy Merchandising. For programme strategy, it’s licensing agencies like IMG Licensing.
Can a club work with Fanatics and a specialist producer at the same time?
Yes, and most well-run club programmes do. Fanatics or a similar operator handles volume apparel and e-commerce while a specialist covers collectibles, pins, medals, and commemorative pieces that fall below volume thresholds. The two rarely overlap in practice.
What minimum order quantity should a club expect for licensed collectibles?
Expect minimums starting around 300 units for metal collectibles from a specialist producer, versus several thousand from volume-oriented suppliers. The MOQ is driven by tooling cost: a die has to be cut regardless of whether you order 300 pins or 30,000.
How long does licensed merchandise production take?
Standard production for metal collectibles runs two to three weeks once artwork is approved, with rush options at roughly two weeks. Licensor approval sits on top of that and is the variable most clubs underestimate, so start the rights conversation before you finalise the design.
Do we need a separate licence for each product category?
Usually yes. Licence agreements are granted by category and territory, so a right to produce apparel does not automatically extend to pins, medals, or trophy replicas. Confirm the category coverage in writing before production starts.
What’s the difference between a merchandising agency and a promotional products supplier?
A merchandising agency designs products, manages rights approval, and controls production quality at the factory. A promotional products supplier sells from an existing catalogue with your logo added. For licensed sports product, the second model struggles because the licensor’s approval process demands answers about materials and sourcing that a reseller can’t provide.
Is running retail in-house better than outsourcing it?
In-house retains more margin and all of the fan data, but it requires buying capability, warehousing, and working capital. Outsourcing to a retail operator removes that burden at the cost of margin. Clubs with a dedicated commercial team of any real size increasingly choose in-house storefront plus contracted production.
How do we protect a club collection against counterfeits?
Build products that are expensive to fake. Die-struck metal with tight tolerances, numbered limited editions, embedded authenticated materials, and official packaging with traceable compliance marks all raise the cost of copying well above what counterfeiters will absorb.
Conclusion: Compare Like for Like, Then Pick
There is no single replacement for Fanatics, because Fanatics bundles four jobs and most clubs only need to replace one. Line a pin producer up against a stadium retail operator and you get a scorecard that tells you nothing.
Split the requirement first: product development, e-commerce, physical retail, or licensing strategy. Then compare inside that lane on licence status, minimum order quantity, sampling, and where quality control physically takes place.
Sports licensing grew 8.5% to $44.4 billion in 2025 and now accounts for 11.4% of the global licensing market, its highest share ever recorded in the Licensing International study. Much of that growth sits in product categories volume retail doesn’t prioritise, which is exactly where a specialist producer earns its place. For more on the agency side of that decision, see our guide to choosing the best football club merchandising agency.
Reach out to discuss licensing and production if you have a club collection in the pipeline and want to talk through tooling, approvals, and timing.
Last updated: September 2026.
