7 Athlete Billionaires, HS NIL x NFT's, Former NFL Players Starting A Company

Audio Timeline:

0:50 - Feel Good Sports Stories: Mac Jones, Paige Bueckers, etc

1:56 - Business of Athletes: 7 Billionaires, Usain Bolt, etc

3:51 - NFL players start a company, Patrick Mahomes, Bills $850m stadium

6:12 - NIL (Callaway Golf, HBCU’s, HS legislation, Daymond John)

11:00 - Women’s Basketball and NCAA’s Mark Emmert

12:10 - Sports Tech: NFT’s + AR/VR + Gambling

Interesting Stat

In 2021, private equity firms doled out $51 billion on sports deals worldwide, with $3 billion buying minority stakes in teams, according to Pitchbook.

Short Passage of The Week

Duke head basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski left a copy of this poem in each of his player's lockers when he was coaching at Army West Point.

"If" by Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you   Are losing theirs and blaming it on you;If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,   But make allowance for their doubting too;If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,   Or, being lied about, don’t deal in lies,Or, being hated, don’t give way to hating,   And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise;If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;If you can meet with triumph and disaster   And treat those two impostors just the same;If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken   Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,Or watch the things you gave your life to broken,   And stoop and build ’em up with worn out tools;If you can make one heap of all your winnings   And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,And lose, and start again at your beginnings   And never breathe a word about your loss;If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew   To serve your turn long after they are gone,And so hold on when there is nothing in you   Except the Will which says to them: “Hold on”;If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   Or walk with kings—nor lose the common touch;If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;   If all men count with you, but none too much;If you can fill the unforgiving minuteWith sixty seconds’ worth of distance run—   Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!

Recommended Media

Interesting article about paying college athletes.

Read the full white paper here:

https://www.arnoldventures.org/stories/the-tectonic-shift-below-the-march-madness-spectacle

Victoria Jackson (a sports historian at Arizona State) crushed this one!

Also, I try to focus on good news but this is wild….

Tweet(s)

NY Mets are the first MLB team to introduce facial recognition tickets. Not sure how I feel about this👇

Came across this one as well — great tips by Josh that applies to coaching, leading, and relationship building:

Did you know that there are two sides of FICA?

When a traditional employee looks at their payroll taxes, they will see a line item as FICA for an employee: 6.2% social security and 1.45% Medicare. Their company will pay the employer side of 7.65%.

However when you are an entrepreneur, you must pay both sides! So first thing you need to account for is 15.3% FICA taxes on the first checks you make. 

What To Keep An Eye On This Week

* Post tomorrow right here about valuing how much college athletes are worth that you won’t want to miss

* MLB opening day on Thursday

* The Masters (golf) starts on Thursday

Isn’t kind of funny how when one sport ends (college basketball) we get two more immediately.

Quote

“Things change. You just have to always, consistently, try to figure out what’s driving you. And not because other people are watching or your family’s gonna judge you. You just have to be as