Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (September 11-17)

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.

Sourc