Ari Borod joins Polymarket after legal fight with Fanatics over noncompete
Aron Borod, also known as Ari, is now officially at Polymarket, and the once-sealed court fight over his departure from Fanatics is coming into sharper focus.
On Thursday (February 19), Polymarket confirmed it had brought Borod on board as president of its sports business development division, locking in a hire that had already sparked a legal showdown. In a statement on LinkedIn, Borod stated: “As Polymarket continues to expand its global footprint, the mandate is clear: build partnerships that help bring prediction markets to the center of how fans experience the game. Scaling this category the right way is just as important as scaling it quickly.
“Excited to partner with Shayne Coplan and the team to help drive the next phase of growth.”
Fanatics had rushed to court earlier this year, trying to stop the move. The company argued that Borod’s employment contract prevented him from taking a role with what it considered a rival.
Borod first joined Fanatics in July 2021, stepping in as chief commercial officer for its online betting division, FBG Enterprises Opco LLC. Over time, he rose to chief business officer. In that position, he handled business development while also overseeing legal, regulatory and government affairs as Fanatics pushed deeper into sports wagering and adjacent markets.
By December 2025, Borod told Fanatics he intended to leave for a senior role at Polymarket. In court papers, he said he offered to help ease the transition and promised to comply with the restrictive covenants in his contract. Fanatics answered with a lawsuit in Florida state court, asking a judge for both temporary and preliminary injunctions to keep him from starting the new job.
In his opposition filing, Borod described the lawsuit as “this meritless action” brought “to punish Defendant Aron Borod … for doing what he had every right to do: leave his employment … for a senior role at non-party Blockratize, Inc. d/b/a Polymarket.” He also claimed the company warned that, if he refused to change course, “the entire weight of Fanatics would be brought against him.”
How the dispute between Borod and Fanatics unfolded in court over his move to Polymarket
Fanatics maintained that Borod had been exposed to confidential information connected to its prediction-markets effort, known as FMX. Letting him walk into a new role at Polymarket, the company argued, created real competitive danger. Borod pushed back, insisting that the contract he signed “simply has no such provision” establishing the sweeping post-employment non-compete Fanatics was asserting.
The case accelerated quickly, following an evidentiary hearing in late January, the judge instructed both sides to draft proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law. Before any ruling arrived, however, the standoff ended in a negotiated resolution.
On February 1, 2026, the two sides “executed a binding term sheet (‘Binding Term Sheet’) resolving their dispute,” according to a joint filing submitted the following day and seen by ReadWrite. The same filing explained that they would work toward a formal settlement agreement and that, once finalized, Fanatics would move to dismiss the case with prejudice.
Some of the filings had initially been placed under seal. Now that the matter has been settled and Borod is firmly in place at Polymarket, those documents are being unsealed. They lay out, in detail, how each side framed the battle over non-compete language, trade secrets and the boundaries of Fanatics’ developing prediction-markets ambitions.
Featured image: Ari Borod via LinkedIn / Fanatics / Polymarket
The post Ari Borod joins Polymarket after legal fight with Fanatics over noncompete appeared first on ReadWrite.