Sean Avery rips into $10.6B-worth Fanatics owner Michael Rubin after NHL shop's customer service experience

By Srihari Anand

Modified Sep 25, 2024 18:10 GMT

Fanatics took over from Adidas as the official NHL uniform manufacturers and sellers after the end of the 2023-24 season. The company makes licensed merchandise from all major North American sports leagues including the NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL, MLS and even Formula One, and the Australian Football League.

Ex-NHLer and Rangers defenseman Sean Avery posted an Instagram story Tuesday of his experience of buying authentic Rangers jerseys from the NHL website, which is handled by Fanatics. In the story, Avery was seemingly struggling while communicating with a Fanatics customer support executive, who he later reveals was from Mumbai, India.

In the following Instagram story, the ex-NHLer vented about his Fanatics customer service experience, and ripped into founder and CEO Michael Rubin, who is worth $10.6 billion as per Forbes, while tagging the latter's Instagram account in the story. Avery said:

"Your store f**king sucks, (so does) your customer service. How dare you? I spent 24 minutes on the phone with a lovely woman from Mumbai. She doesn't know anything about anything. It's not her fault, it's your fault."

The NHL shop is currently holding a clearance sale for all the jerseys and merchandise manufactured by adidas. Avery was trying to purchase a men's New York Rangers Adidas Royal Home Authentic Blank jersey, which is currently selling for a reduced price of $125.99.

He said he was buying the jerseys for some children as gifts, but his experience with the customer service proved to be too difficult to finalize the purchase.

Avery accussed Rubin of 'cutting corners:'

"Trying to cut corners, f*** the little people? I'm trying to buy jerseys for kids, I played for the fucking team (Rangers) bro. Out of control! I want a apology."

In another Instagram story, Sean Avery shared a screenshot of him rating the customer service a 0 out of 10.

Sean Avery rates Fanatics customer service

Fanatics rep squashes rumors of CEO Michael Rubin selling $1B in company stock

In a July 20 report published on the Air Mail website by William D. Cohan, Fanatics CEO and founder Michael Rubin was rumored to be interested in selling $1B worth of company stock owing to dip in sales revenue.

According to New York Post's Ariel Zilber, a Fanatics representative addressed the rumors and said:

“Revenues are up 17% year to date and are expected to be $8 billion this year. Michael is not looking to sell any shares in the company. It’s completely wrong.”

Fanatics' history of receiving online backlash over NHL merchandise

Fanatics recently released its entire NHL uniform lineup with $120 practice jerseys, $135/175 Breakaway jerseys, $180/230 Premium jerseys & $425 Authentic Pro jerseys. Hockey fans on X were irate at the pricing of the uniforms.

Before even Fanatics became the official NHL outfitters for on-ice uniforms, hockey fans had unpleasant experiences with the company.

There have been multiple incidents of jerseys having misspelled players names, incorrect jersey numbers, and much more. Such instances included Auston Matthews' name being printed upside down and Canucks captain Quinn Hughes' name being botched on the jersey, among others.