🌐The Business of Athletes 2.0
Plus two FinTech startups building with athletes.
The athlete's economy is on the rise. Join to learn about the athletes, startups and investors shaping what’s next.
🥇Your Play of the Week
The votes are in ⤵️
Kyrie the Investor and Chief Community Officer was your favorite play from last week.
Check out the full newsletter here ICYMI.
Place your vote for your favorite play of the week at the end 🗳.
🎤 Pro Bowl Weekend Panel
I’m excited to join the NIL Exchange powered by Players Health x Opendorse during Pro Bowl Weekend!
I’ll be hosting a discussion about athletes as content creators with an amazing group of panelists.
If you’ll be at Pro Bowl Week join us on Friday: here.
🌐 The Business of Athletes 2.0
Angel Reese, Flau'jae Johnson, Olivia Dunne and Jayden Daniels will be the focus of the upcoming Prime docuseries — The Money Game.
Through a deep dive into the 2023 - 2024 season of LSU athletics, The Money Game will showcase how NIL has transformed the business of athletes.
There’s no better group of players to showcase the evolution that’s occurring:
Olivia Dunne is the world’s most followed college athlete (via Forbes)
Angel Reese is the first college athlete with personal brand apparel at a major retailer (via Boardroom)
Flau’Jae Johnson is racking up lucrative NIL deals as a basketball player and rapper (via Forbes)
Jayden Daniels, the Heisman Trophy winner, has skyrocketed to an NIL Valuation of $2.2 million (via On3)
The documentary will be produced by Shaq’s Jersey Legends along with Axios Entertainment and Campfire Studios.
🥇 The Play
“Business of athletes” content today is heavily male dominated.
The release of The Money Game will shift the tides with 3 out of the 4 profiled athletes coming from women’s sports.
It’s a storytelling decision (backed by the data of their off-court success) that positions women at the forefront of a new narrative: college athletes becoming modern day business moguls.
🌐 Athlete Stock Market Debuts with NFL Player
Vestible, an athlete-investment platform that allows fans to buy stock in their favorite athletes, has launched with NFL Player Baron Browning.
The platform is founded by two former Oklahoma State University football players, Yves Batoba and Parker Graham, who share a mutual passion for helping athletes maximize their value.
They’re taking a fan-engagement approach through building a platform that:
Allows fans to invest in what they believe is the market value of athletes
Allows athletes to sell stock in themselves backed by future earnings
In the pipeline following Browning’s launch (NFL) are NCAA football & basketball players (via Vestible).
🥇 The Play
Startups have been building around the insight that fans want to get closer to athletes (via patronage) through various mediums: subscription platforms, NFTs, social tokens, athlete stock markets and more.
But how will NIL tailwinds shape what fans want to invest in the most? Will it be rooted in performance or personal brand?
In an interview with Sportico, Vestible’s Co-Founders shared that they have their eyes on how their platform can evolve through these dynamics.
🌐 Olivia Miles Partners with Fintech Startup
Notre Dame Women's Basketball star Olivia Miles has announced a partnership with fintech startup Stackwell.
Stackwell is a digital investment platform designed to help the black community build wealth. In 2022 the company raised a $3.5M seed funding round, including participation from Michael Gordon, President of Fenway Sports Group.
Olivia and Stackwell will be teaming up to provide financial education and investment accounts to Notre Dame student-athletes.
Stackwell will also be leveraging this partnership to expand their content efforts — launching an NIL newsletter featuring Miles.
🥇 The Play
This partnership positions Olivia Miles brand at the intersection of sports, business and finance — and leans into the narrative of the growing women's sports investor.
🌐 TGL Expands its Athlete Investor Base
In October 2023 Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Andre Iguodala joined Marc Lasry’s Avenue Capital Group to invest in TGL’s San Francisco franchise.
Fast forward, the team is bringing on more athlete-investors through APEX — an investment platform that works with more than 70 athletes across 15 different sports (via Sport Cal).
APEX’s approach is to channel the expertise of athletes to guide its investments across the sports, media and entertainment landscape.
Post investment, the firm taps into the diverse range of their athletes to drive brand awareness for their portfolio companies.
Through this latest investment into TGL, APEX is bringing 4 athletes spanning racing, soccer and olympic surfing.
🥇 The Play
We’ve seen how NFL, NBA and WNBA investors can catalyze the growth of an emerging league: check out my Major League Pickleball Case Study.
Now, as more startup leagues engage athlete-investors I’m interested to see how strategies and results vary by the categories of sport involved.
Will athletes with mass appeal or niche (but hyper engaged audiences) fare better in bringing interest to a new sports property?
Let’s keep an eye on it!
🫂 That’s a Wrap
Join us on LinkedIn to continue the conversation.