Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (September 18-24)

Shaq back in the investing game, 18k of social media scrolling a day, and a BUNCH of athletes putting money in a distillery.

No podcast this week, as quite frankly it was a relatively uneventful week.

Here were the top headlines:

Feel good story:

• Reno high school QB Hayden Parga raised $9,000 for childhood cancer patients

Business of Athletes/Sports:

• Ole Smoky Distillery received a strategic investment from Patricof Co, a private investment platform for elite professional athletes. Participating athlete investors included Trea Turner, Randall Cobb, Kemba Walker, Anders Lee, Harrison Bader, Sam Hubbard, and Will Compton.

• HBO announced they will be making a documentary about Jeremy Lin’s epic 2012 season with the New York Knicks.

• Buster Posey, the seven-time All-Star catcher has become a member of the San Francisco Giants ownership group, marking the first time a former player has joined the organization as a principal partner and member of the Board of Directors.

• Limbo, a health and wellness service, has raised $6M in a funding round led by Hoxton Ventures and with participation from former basketball player Shaquille O'Neal.

• Former private equity professional David Abrams and ex-Sportradar CEO Arne Rees have started Velocity Capital Management and will invest $50M into sports, media, and entertainment companies.

• A group of commercial real estate entrepreneurs have set their sights on Florida for deploying more than $180 million to build at least 15 indoor private pickleball clubs. "We plan on being the market leader during this all-important land-grab phase of the industry, given the tremendous demand for indoor court space."

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Interesting Stat

This blows my mind every time I read it…

Katelyn Bourgoin ⚡️ @KateBour

A crazy stat: The average person's thumb travels the equivalent of 2 marathons a year scrolling social media That’s roughly 18,480 feet of scrolling per day Getting people to *stop scrolling* and *pay attention* is mission-critical for your business So how do you do that?

When I was trying to play hoops in college my dad always used to say “if you shot basketball as much as you played video games you’d be pretty good” — that always got my butt off the couch and onto the court.

Imagine if you put in as much work on your goals as you did scrolling social media…

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Short Passage of The Week:

Three essentials for leading a successful team: 

• Alignment ― The team has a shared understanding of its mission.

• Execution ― The team is able to communicate, collaborate, and progress toward its goals.

• Renewal ― The team is able to take time for personal recovery and respond to change.

Source: McKinsey & Company

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Tweet

Put out a thread on the first college athlete investor — received feedback that there may have been some others before (more on that next week).

Mark Shapiro, MD @ETSshow

Great thread from @AndrewPetcash here. Love that college athletes can finally begin to lean into their fair market value

Andrew Petcash @AndrewPetcash

At only 20 years old, Caleb Williams can't even have a sip of alcohol. Yet he's changing college sports FOREVER. Here's the fascinating story 🧵 https://t.co/B6hRcr8kU7

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Business Jargon

One of the biggest concerns for startups is their…Burn Rate.

This refers to the rate at which your company spends money, typically expressed as dollars per month.

There are two types of “burn rate” :

1. Gross Burn - how much you spend each month

   • (original cash balance - remaining cash balance) / time period.

2. Net Burn - the difference between cash inflow and cash outflow

   • cash balance - gross burn rate.

This is an essential KPI to keep an eye on to ensure that your startup doesn’t run out of capital.

You can reduce your burn rate by cutting unnecessary expenses.

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Quote

“When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.” - Elon Musk

Thanks for tuning in today! We’ll talk again on Wednesday.

Peace,

-AP