Your merch provider knows which of your fans buys a jersey every August. They know who orders two sizes, one for them, one as a gift. They know which zip codes over-index on premium items and which fans browse but never buy.
You get a purchase order and a check.
That's the merch data asymmetry, and it's costing you more than you think.
The $8 Billion Intelligence Machine You're Funding
Fanatics processed over 40 million e-commerce transactions last year across its sports commerce business. Revenue topped $8.1 billion in 2024 and is projected to hit $11 billion by 2026.
But the really interesting number isn't revenue. It's what they built with the data underneath it.
In 2024, Fanatics launched FanGraph, a first-party unified data layer that stitches together purchase behavior, browsing patterns, and fan preferences across 100 million-plus customers. They expanded it through a partnership with Audience Acuity on Snowflake, creating what they describe as "a unified view of the customer across touchpoints."
They know which fans buy across multiple teams. Which ones upgrade from a t-shirt to an authentic jersey. Which ones buy in bursts around playoff runs and which ones buy steadily year-round.
Your fans are in that dataset. You're just not.
What They See vs. What You See
Here's what Fanatics' FanGraph can tell them about the person who bought your team's jersey last Tuesday:
- Purchase frequency: First-time buyer or loyal repeat customer
- Cross-team behavior: Do they also buy gear for another team? (Useful for understanding shared markets)
- Category preferences: Apparel-first, collectibles-first, or accessories-first
- Price sensitivity: Full-price buyer or sale-only shopper
- Gift behavior: Shipping to multiple addresses suggests gifting, a different intent than self-purchase
- Timing patterns: Pre-season shopper, game-day impulse buyer, or holiday gifter
Now here's what most teams see about that same transaction:
- Units sold. Maybe an email address, if they didn't check out as a guest.
That gap isn't small. It's a canyon.
This Isn't Just Fanatics
Nike shifted aggressively to direct-to-consumer specifically to own the customer relationship and the data that comes with it. Their apps collect workout habits, location data, style preferences, and purchase history. Every Nike member interaction feeds a profile that gets more valuable over time.
The same principle applies across the merch supply chain. Whether your provider is Fanatics, Nike, Adidas, a regional supplier, or a local screen printer, someone downstream knows more about your fans' buying behavior than you do. The difference is that the big platforms are now monetizing that intelligence gap.
Fanatics' Audience Network, the advertising business built on FanGraph, lets brands target fans based on purchase behavior and fandom signals. In other words: they're selling access to your fans' data to other companies.
Why This Matters for Sponsorships
Deloitte's 2025 Sports Industry Outlook put it bluntly: fan data "may be the primary thing brands want" from sports partnerships. Not signage. Not logo placement. Data.
But if your merch provider has the richest dataset about your fans' purchasing behavior and you don't, you're walking into sponsor conversations empty-handed on the one thing sponsors actually want.
The NFL recognized this early. They built fan profiles with more than 250 attributes per person, connecting merch data to ticket data to broadcast data. FC Bayern Munich created the "Golden Fan Record," pulling data from 50-plus systems into unified fan files.
Most teams? Merch lives in Shopify. Fan data lives in a spreadsheet. The two never meet.
The Five Questions to Ask Your Provider
This isn't about firing your merch partner. It's about renegotiating what you get from the relationship.
1. What customer data do you collect from purchases of our merchandise?
If the answer is "we handle fulfillment, you handle marketing," that's a red flag. Your fans are generating data every time they buy. Someone is collecting it.
2. Can we access purchase-level data (anonymized or otherwise) for fans who buy our branded products?
Some providers will share aggregate reports. Few share individual-level data. Know what you're getting.
3. Do you use our fan purchase data to inform your advertising or recommendations to other brands?
If your provider runs an ad network or marketplace, your fans' behavior is likely part of the signal.
4. What happens to the customer relationship after the transaction?
Does the fan get follow-up emails from you or from your provider? Who owns the post-purchase communication?
5. What would it take to get a data-sharing agreement into our next contract?
Morgan Lewis noted in a 2025 analysis that data-sharing clauses are increasingly being negotiated to offset sponsorship costs. The same principle applies to merch contracts. If your provider is monetizing fan data, you should be getting some of it back.
The Bigger Picture
The teams that will command premium sponsorship deals over the next decade are the ones that can answer a simple question: Who are your fans?
Not "how many showed up Saturday." Not "we sold 40,000 jerseys." But who are they, individually? What do they care about? How do they engage? And can you prove it to a sponsor?
Right now, for most teams, the best answers to those questions sit in someone else's database.
That's worth fixing.
Bill Riesner is the CEO of Vonga, a fan intelligence platform for sports teams and universities.