Jacksonville, Fla.-based Fanatics said this week that

Greg Abovsky

started as chief financial officer for the collectibles business earlier this month. Mr. Abovsky most recently served as CFO at StubHub Holdings, the ticket seller owned by Viagogo Entertainment Inc., for less than two years, and prior to that was chief operating officer and finance chief at Yandex NV, a Russian search-engine operator. His appointment at Fanatics comes after the company in October named Andrea Ellis as finance chief of its nascent betting and gambling unit. 

As CFO, Mr. Abovsky plans to build out the division’s finance team and its trading card business as it looks to expand.

The Wall Street Journal reported in January that Fanatics acquired Topps’ trading-card and memorabilia business for about $500 million. And, earlier this month, it raised about $700 million from a group of investors including private-equity firm Clearlake Capital Group LP and investment and merchant-banking firm LionTree LLC, according to the Journal. The company previously collected $1.5 billion in fundraising at a $27 billion valuation in March. 

Fanatics’ trading-card portfolio is set to branch out beyond baseball in the coming years after the company last summer secured the rights to print cards for the National Football League and the National Basketball Association, alongside other leagues. 

While Fanatics won’t start distributing NBA and NFL cards for the next couple of years, it provides the company’s collectibles business with “built-in growth” which will come over time, Mr. Abovsky said. The company’s rights for collegiate sports collectibles will start to kick in next year. 

The global market for sports trading cards is expected to reach $98.7 billion by 2027 from about $44 billion in 2022, according to Verified Market Research. The global sports collectibles market, which also includes memorabilia, generated about $84 billion in revenue this year, with $50 billion coming from the U.S. alone, the research and consulting firm said. 

Fanatics plans to expand its portfolio into culture and entertainment cards, said Mike Mahan, chief executive officer of the collectibles business. “If you look at the fandoms and the passion for entertainers, particularly in the music business, we think there is a tremendous opportunity not only domestically but on a global basis,” Mr. Mahan said. But sports will continue to be the primary focus of the business, he said. 

Similar to the holding company, the collectibles business with about 500 employees generates positive earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization as well as positive cash flows, Mr. Abovsky said. He declined to provide specific numbers.

Fanatics expects its collectibles business will fare well in the coming years, despite the threat of a potential downturn. “A collectibles business, much like the art market, isn’t immune to broader secular trends,” Mr. Mahan said. “That said, sports tends to be a very resilient passion, even in a recession.” 

Over time, Fanatics could broaden its portfolio to include more digital assets, Mr. Mahan said. “We think that digital will be an important strategic part of what we do going forward,” he said, pointing to the rights for nonfungible tokens and other digital assets that the company acquired as part of its deals for future rights.

Mr. Abovsky said among his priorities will be to work on integrating the Topps business further, including by merging the enterprise resource planning systems and other technology platforms. 

ERP systems tie together a range of business processes in a common data, or network, structure. 

At Fanatics, the collectibles business is part of a bigger plan to create a sports universe ranging from merchandise, memorabilia, betting and ultimately sports media rights, said Richard Greenfield, a partner and analyst at LightShed Partners, a technology, media and telecommunications research firm. 

“Fanatics is trying to be the

Amazon

of sports. Moving from merchandise into collectibles is a very natural shift,” Mr. Greenfield said.

Both Mr. Abovsky and Mr. Mahan declined to comment on if and when Fanatics could list on the public markets. The company plans to wait until the new-issue market reopens and some of its newer business lines are more established, The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month.

Write to Nina Trentmann at nina.trentmann@wsj.com