Weekly Roundup: Business of Athletes, Sports, & NIL (August 1-6)

Audio Timeline:

1:15 - Feel good stories

* $25,000 investment on behalf of LPGA

2:10 - Business of Athletes & Sports

* Caleb Williams (USC QB) becomes the first college athlete to ever publicly invest in a company, Futuremood, a sunglass company

* Tiger Woods was apparently offered $700-800M from LIV Golf and he turned it down

* NWSL’s main sponsor Voyager Digital, went bankrupt possibly impacting the ability of the women soccer players to get paid down the line

* Professional cyclist Tom Pidcock’s Link My Ride, a community biking app, has received funding from the Dutch Sport Tech Fund

* Former NFL player Vernon Davis joins the ownership group of the Brisbane Bullets in the Australian National Basketball League (NBL).

* other athletes who are part owners in the NBL include Khris Middleton, Thaddeus Young, Kevin Martin, and Marvin Williams

* SportsBox AI, a 3D performance golf app, has closed a $5.5M seed round led by Elysian Park that included investments from LPGA golfer Michelle Wie and 76ers co-owner David Blitzer

* DICK'S Sporting Goods has launched School of Sport, an interactive experience on the Roblox platform (a metaverse play)

* The PGA Tour announced increased cash prizes next year of $15-25M

* OneOf’s, an NFT marketplace, raised $8M with plans to expand into sports. They currently have deals with Wayne Gretsky and Duke Men’s Basketball.

* The Professional Kickboxing Association has received a $1M investment from former Sacramento Kings and Pittsburgh Pirates minority owner Jimmy Anderson

* Huupe, an interactive basketball backboard, has closed its seed round led by Paradigm Sports with athlete investments from Trevor Booker and Thaddeus Young

13:25 - Name, Image, and Likeness

* The Pac-12 athlete monetization move that could change sports forever

* Agency charging college athletes 0% commission

* US Senators getting involved with NIL

Interesting Stat

This is wild:

The sports technology market has been picking up steam over the last few years and doesn’t appear to be slowing down any time soon.

Keep in mind….

This research graph is just for the United States, there is a ton of sports innovations stemming from all over the world.

A market to keep an eye on — India.

Short Passage of The Week

* Confidence without competence = Telling yourself that you are highly skilled, but you haven’t paid the price to be—this is common. 

* Competence without confidence = You are highly skilled, but you still doubt yourself— this is normal. 

Build competence, and let confidence follow. 

Passage by Justin Su'a, Head of Mental Performance, Tampa Bay Rays

Recommended Media

Athletes today have a sense of entitlement due to all the social media popularity they achieve before so-called “making it”.

Damian Lillard hits the nail on the head👇

By the way, things are only going to escalate as high school/college athletes will now not only have huge social media followings but also bank accounts.

We need more role models like Dame.

It’s much better to be a pro athlete in a state like Texas where there is no state income tax, than in one like California which has a high state income tax.

But taxation isn’t always that straightforward.

For athletes in individual sports (e.g. golf and tennis), performance-based income is typically sourced from the state where the even