Audio Timeline:
1:30 - Feel good stories
Steph Curry donates 25 million meals and MJ’s financial literacy course
3:30 - Business of Athletes
Former NBA star Pau Gasol has invested in Colvin, a flower marketplace based in Spain.
Arena Club, a new sports card collecting platform co-founded by Derek Jeter, has officially launched.
Perch, a weightlifting camera and data startup, has raised a $4M funding round that includes an investment from Miami Dolphins cornerback Byron Jones.
Jrue Holiday, Al Horford, Kyle Rudolph, Ndamukong Suh, Rob Dyrdek, and Luke Kuechly have all invested in the $6.5M Series A round of sports nutrition company, Momentous.
Chris Paul has invested in Umaro Foods, a Berkeley-based startup pioneering the use of red seaweed protein in plant-based meats.
8:50 - Name, Image, and Likeness
One of the top collegiate golfers, David Puig, has forgone his senior season to join LIV golf.
Scott Frost’s $16M buyout at Nebraska raises questions.
Texas spent $600,000+ on football recruits (in just two weekends).
13:00 - Future of Sports
Bridgestone Golf is partnering with LinksDAO to venture into the world of Web3.
New York Times is bringing advertisements to The Athletic on top of its subscription model.
Concussions among NFL players mandated to wear Guardian Cap equipment dropped by more than 50% this summer compared to the previous three-year average, according to data released Wednesday
A LendingTree survey shows that 41% of us will spend money on sports this fall, at an average of $664 on average.
Ares Management Corporation, a leading global alternative investment manager, announced that it has raised $3.7B of dedicated capital focused exclusively on investing in sports properties.
Cerebro Sports, a basketball data analytics company, has received backing from Mark Cuban who led their pre-seed funding.
Interesting Stat
Last week, I featured where college football players come from — so let’s take a look at where college basketball players come from.
Of the 5,510 Division I men's college basketball players, 85% of them come from the United States.
California, Texas, and Georgia have produced the most D1 hoopers — and big cities like Houston, Chicago, LA, Baltimore, and New York City have the highest concentration.
Heading to the international scene…
Canada is the foreign country with the most players (146), ahead of Australia (66) and Nigeria (42).
All in all, basketball is a worldwide sport with the average D1 team having 2.3 players on their roster from a country other than the United States.
It makes me laugh when parents think their kid is going D1 just cause he scored 20 points in a high school game — you’re competing against the world for a spot, not just your local area.
Short Passage of The Week:
We often think we need a “perfect map of the future” to get started. What we actually need is “a general direction.”
Big career decisions don’t come with a map, but all you need is a compass.
The right next move is the one that brings you a step closer to living your core values.
In an unpredictable world, you can’t make a master plan. You can only gauge whether you’re on a meaningful path.
Source: Adam Grant, Think Again
Tweets
This thread flopped, but it’s still one hell of a story.
Love to see athletes use their platform to give back (especially when it’s spur-of-the-moment with no hidden agendas).
Business Jargon
Received good reception on this new section last week, so going to be adding it from here on out (never bad to expand your horizons and learn a little bit).
Let’s take a look at SaaS vs. PaaS vs. IaaS.
Software-as-a-Service (SaaS)
The most common business model — software is hosted on a cloud infrastructure and licensed to businesses/individuals on a subscription basis.
Examples: Dropbox, Slack, Salesforce (all applications you’re familiar with as even Gmail is a SaaS).
Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
A pay-as-you-go service where a third party provides you with infrastructure services, like storage and virtualization, as you need them, via a cloud, through the internet.
Examples: AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud (applications you’ll become familiar with if you decide to start a business as it can get expensive)
Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
It is where a provider hosts the hardware and software on its own infrastructure and delivers this platform to the user as an integrated solution, solution stack, or service through an internet connection.
Examples: AWS Elastic Beanstalk, Heroku, and Red Hat OpenShift (all applications you might not be familiar with)
Quote
“Every success story is a tale of constant adaption, revision, and change” - Richard Branson
Thanks for tuning in today!
Peace,
-AP
Extra Credit
Basketball journalist Jonathan Tjarks passed away this week at only 35 years old.
He wrote a touching piece on his cancer diagnosis, life, and fatherhood.
You can read that here 👇 (I highly recommend it)
https://www.theringer.com/2022/3/3/22956353/fatherhood-cancer-jonathan-tjarks
Count your blessings today.
Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (September 11-17)