Fanatics Betting and Gaming delivers up-to-the-minute fan experiences with Airtable

Fanatics is the go-to destination for sports fans worldwide. They know Fanatics for the jerseys on their backs and the memorabilia on their shelves. Now, the company is extending that connection into the legal online sports betting and casino industry with the Fanatics Sportsbook and Fanatics Casino apps.

Behind that expansion is the Fanatics Betting and Gaming division, which launched its legal sports betting business in 2023. The team uses Airtable to power real-time content updates, streamline cross-functional workflows, and deliver AI-driven news alerts to keep the consumer app experience accurate, engaging, and consistent. Whether it’s updating customers when a player is injured or celebrating FanCash Fridays, Airtable helps Fanatics keep pace with the fast-moving world of live sports while meeting strict state-by-state gaming regulations — all the while delivering a delightful experience for every fan.

The challenge: High-speed sports meets high-stakes operations

Launched in 2021, Fanatics Betting and Gaming is the online and retail sports betting subsidiary of Fanatics, a global digital sports platform. The Fanatics Sportsbook, now the fastest growing sportsbook in America, is available to 95% of the addressable online sports bettor market and operates twenty-three retail sports betting locations in the U.S. Fanatics Betting and Gaming continues to expand its with the recently launched Fanatics Casino app and the Fanatics app. The business had to scale quickly, expanding into new states while building out teams, processes, and tools in real time.

Marketing alone grew from just five people to more than 85 and counting today. Since then, Fanatics Betting and Gaming has launched the Fanatics Casino app and the Fanatics app forcing the need for stakeholders across the business to submit creative briefs, compliance reviews, and campaign requests through Slack threads, email, and even screenshots in DMs. Critical details — including institutional knowledge — were often lost along the way, leading to duplicated work and missed deadlines.

“It was easy to get lost in so many communication channels,” says Denise Phua, Vice President of Brand and Marketing Operations, Fanatics Betting and Gaming. “We needed to create transparency and a single source of truth. My biggest goal was to make sure teams only do things once, without duplicating work or reporting in multiple places.”

Adding to the challenges, every campaign requires legal review, state-specific disclaimers, and meticulous record-keeping to satisfy regulators. Content teams also have to update campaigns multiple times a day to reflect live sports, from last-minute player injuries to unexpected game outcomes that could reshape odds.

“Our rapid growth allowed us the opportunity to innovate and transform the legal gaming market,” says Phua. “But first, we had to transform how our teams worked.”

The solution: An AI-connected system for creative, content, and compliance

To bring order to the complexity, Fanatics turned to Airtable as the backbone to support its Betting & Gaming operations. What started with a few teams has grown into 11+ interconnected workspaces, unifying commercial, trading content, promo operations, creative, compliance VIP, Social content, legal, CRM, digital marketing and budget management, even external agency partners in one go-to-market hub.

Phua now has a single macro view of the entire marketing calendar, with every campaign, tactic, and creative resourcing in one place. Likewise, teams responsible for social, mobile, and email have their own dedicated spaces where they can work in ways that make sense for them, without losing alignment across the organization.

“Airtable is the only tool that gives us the flexibility we need, with one view for leadership and custom spaces for every team,” says Phua.

On the creative side, requests for ads, landing pages, digital assets, and promotions now flow into Airtable via dynamic forms that automatically pull in state-specific disclaimers. Campaigns often involve over 100 briefs at a time and sometimes more than 1,000 assets, all of which move through intake, approvals, and trafficking in one system, saving hundreds of hours.

“Instead of chasing down details across five tools or Slack threads and risk overlooking information, we see everything in one place,” says Zach Granowitz, Creative Operations Lead, Fanatics Betting and Gaming.

For Sportsbook content, speed and timing are key factors. An 11-person team spread across four time zones uses Airtable to plan app content hourly, linking games, players, and promotions to pre-built templates that ensure compliance and reduce manual work.

At the same time, AI-powered news alerts feed into Airtable, allowing the team to instantly adjust odds, promotions, and app content whenever a player’s status changes. This real-time adaptability also powers performance marketing assets, ensuring accurate, timely updates across every channel so fans get a trustworthy experience.

“We’re able to go from idea to in-app experience with speed, because everything’s pre-structured,” says Trent Berg, Senior Manager of Sportsbook Content, Fanatics Betting and Gaming.

AI agents turn Airtable into an active decision-maker

To reduce reliance on manual updates, the Fanatics Betting and Gaming Content team has developed always-on Airtable agents that act as operational copilots within Sportsbook. For example, agents can tap into live player injury data directly from official league sources on the web. By continuously scanning updated injury reports and extracting key details from published reports, Airtable’s AI dynamically flags when a player becomes inactive. For example, if a player is ruled out before a game, Airtable prompts content teams to instantly replace that player in marquee sportsbook slots and adjust related promotions.

This capability turns Airtable into more than a system of record; it becomes a system of action, where data from the web, operations, and marketing come together to drive instant, compliant updates, all with the fan at the center of their strategy. Teams no longer chase information manually or refresh dashboards. Insights and actions are live, embedded, and accessible whenever they’re needed.

Airtable also connects Betting and Gaming operations with the broader Fanatics ecosystem. Since every asset is automatically logged with its copy, disclaimers, and approval record, Airtable doubles as a compliance archive. This reduces audit preparation from days to minutes, while keeping Fanatics ready to deliver accurate, up-to-the-minute fan experiences.

Making work easier for teams, and moments better for fans

With a goal to move faster while making every campaign smarter, every audit easier, and every fan experience more enjoyable, Fanatics Betting and Gaming is exploring how AI and Airtable agents can further enhance operations. The team is introducing AI-driven search to automatically surface similar creative from previous campaigns, AI-generated images to accelerate design workflows, and AI-assisted automation to simplify common builds.

"If Fanatics exists to serve the fans, Airtable exists to serve our teams, ensuring transparency and alignment at every step,” says Phua.