October 17, 2024 • 48 mins
In this episode of The Deal, Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly talk with Jay Williams, the co-founder and CEO of Improbable Media, about how athletes can build their brands using media. Williams tells the hosts how he made a major career pivot after an accident ended his professional basketball dreams, the lessons he's learned from his personal board of advisors (which includes Duke's legendary Coach Mike Krzyzewski), and how athletes today are taking advantage of NIL deals.
Become a Bloomberg.com subscriber using our special intro offer at bloomberg.com/podcastoffer. You’ll unlock deep reporting, data and analysis from reporters around the world, plus access to a suite of subscriber-only newsletters.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, I'm Jason Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm Alex Rodriguez and on this episode of The Deal,
Jay Williams, So, Alex, Jay is a multi hyphenate.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is a guy who was a superstar college athlete,
has a massive accident that sort of takes him out
of the NBA and completely reinvents himself to the point
where we know him from ESPN, we also know him
really as one of the leading athletes turned entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
He's a very good guy and you know what, he
has an incredible appetite, very inquisitive in is building a
big business. And I think he's a fascinating guy. And
I think you'll find his interview very very good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And very intimate and very revealing. There's a vulnerability that
you showed and that he showed that was pretty amazing
to win.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So, without further.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Ado, Jay Williams, all right, we like to start every show. Jay,
Oh my gosh, I just introduced you myself. You introduce
yourself and tell us who you are.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
How do I do that?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
However, you take your time.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Jay Williams on air personality own a media company. I
invest I followed him for a very long time, kind
of geeking out to be here with you guys, and
just excited for an opportunity to jut And where'd you
go to college? Duke University?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Play for Chicago Bulls And we have a great common friend.
Obviously much closer to you than to me. But I'm
a big admirer of coach K. Coach K, which we'll
talk about later. Yeah, we're definitely we're going to get
into all of this.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
I feel like we're doing TV. I should have done
a better job of introducing that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You want to take two? Yeah, No, that's good. That's good.
People like a little rough. I do want to ask.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I mean, we're going to talk about a ton of
different things. But one of the reasons I know Alex
and I were so fascinated to talk to you is,
given everything you just said about what you're doing, what
you have done, it does feel to me like something
new and different is happening in sports and media and
culture right now. Do you agree and why do you
(02:24):
think it is?
Speaker 5 (02:24):
So I'll give you guys some context to how I
kind of Guys like Alex I think have really helped
me expand my mind and how I think about this.
I started holding company when I first got into TV,
just called Cleindestine Ventures, right, and my mom, who just
passed away a year ago. God wrestler soul always like
you know, why such a negative connotation word, And it
was always because at ESPN, I couldn't let ESPN know
(02:47):
about investing. I couldn't let ESPN I invested in a
procurement company for sponsorships because it always got used against
me like I wasn't you know, I wasn't focused on
my craft. And I just think now we have people
that are unapologetically themselves in this conversion between sports finance media.
(03:08):
You know, you could talk about your portfolio on air,
you can talk about my relationship with Adam Silver and
obviously our Duke connection and how it gives me different
insight into team ownership in the CBA. I think now
it's way more appreciated because there's a the bandwidth has extended, right,
and now it's just not about polarizing conversation or about
the game itself. It's about how you're providing color to
(03:30):
the commentary.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Do you feel that way too, because I feel like
I mean, as Jay said, like you were on the
front end of this in terms of, you know, you
tell the story about you know, going into owners offices
and your cleats and seeking advice, but like that wasn't
the norm, and so does it feel different to you
as well?
Speaker 5 (03:47):
No, I agree with Jay.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
To me, it was like a taboo to do anything
else besides your court business.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And it's a little bit you had to do it
in the shadows.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
And I started my real estate portfolio in my early twenties,
but it was like a dark secret.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
And it's funny. The most grief I ever.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Got in my entire career, far more than the PD
suspension and all of that, which we'll get into later,
is my contract two fifty two, the year two thousand
and one, and the contrast between that announcement and Otani.
Otani was a hero, he was celebrated. I was villain,
you know, one on one. It was like Darth Vader.
So it's interesting how far things have gone. A lot
(04:23):
of it, I think is social media. Now the power
has gone to the athletes because now they have a
platform where they can fight back and back.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
You know, twenty five years ago, you know owners right
and everything.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
You know, I was, I was going to ask you,
because I feel like there's this missing gap Alex that's happened, right,
and you've been able to close that gap. But I
see a lot of other athletes that are trying to
focus on that and celebrities from going to becoming your asset.
But how do you become the principal? How do you
navigate doing TV while also now being a position to
be an owner, right, which is how people they may
(04:52):
take that as commentary. How do you kind of play
neutral in that way? That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I mean it helps that I commented in baseball and
own in basketball. That's a big help. I think for me,
it's really thinking about it long term. I think the
biggest mistake I see young players is they become very
transactional and they want it now, because that's how it
is in basketball, right, you go to duke for one
or two years and boom, you got a huge contract.
In business, I felt about it, how do I build
(05:18):
a business in the next fifty or sixty years. So
it's allowed me to discipline what I call a ten
touch role. So I won't ask you to be my
partner or Jason until we have at least ten touches. Now,
touches can be a nice change of emails. It could
be coffee, it could be this, it could be going
to a game together. But after ten touches, that's enough
time where we've built a relationship and now we can
(05:39):
maybe start thinking about doing something together. And it keeps
you away from the one and done, like, hey, I
met you, can you invest in my problem into my business?
Speaker 5 (05:46):
It kind of gives you time to breathe. So it's
more transformative than transactional, for sure, because I find it
it's a lot of that in my industry. Like even
in looking at some of the deals that other athletes
have taken and like, okay, well what's your long term plan?
It seems more like instinct cask grabs instead of actually
having a brand strategy.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
And so how did you start to think about being
a business person? And when is that something that like
you're talking to coach k about are you talking to
your parents?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Like how does that start?
Speaker 5 (06:13):
So I got lucky My dad worked at American Express
for over twenty years and my mom was a guidance counselor.
So I used to watch her go back to school
and receive multiple master degrees while I was in school,
so you can imagine being in daycare playing different sports,
and my mom's you know, going off to night school.
But my dad would bring me into the city because
I'm from New Jersey all the time, so I would
(06:34):
take the train with him and I would see him
do his wins or not over and over again. Because
you you prepare for the job you want, not for
the job you have. Right, And Ken Channault was the
first black CEO that I've ever seen, yeah, as a
little boy. So like I'm you know, even watching like
Kamala Harris now run for president, Like my two daughters
(06:55):
see somebody that looks like them running for president, Like
that's a monumental thing for what that could do for
your psyche. So just knowing that my dad worked for
a black CEO, I kind of became enamored. Back to AMEX.
Then when I came to Duke, which is great, Coach
had me think that way. We started sending letters to
(07:16):
Fortune five hundred executives that had graduated from Duke, and
we started inviting them down in North Carolina, similar to
how you did it with the Yankees, right. I mean,
there's a lot of commonality here because Duke was always
called like the Yankees of college basketball, right, So within
all that entails, so all these guys will come down
and we just kind of picked their brain around what
(07:38):
businesses they were in, how they scaled those businesses, how
I should be looking at utilizing like my name, image
and likeness, what businesses should I be thinking about investing in,
and how I should handle my approach to the NBA.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It was life altern So with that in mind, I
love the comparisons in Duke and Yankees because everyone that
watches us you have an opinion. It's not like you're
in different Yeah, either lover us or hater us, which
is kind of cool. But my question to you is,
at what point did you start crystallizing what a holding
company would look like? What was your education behind it?
So probably going into my sophomore year, we lost in
(08:14):
the Sweet sixteen to Florida and I kind of got
punked on the court and it was one of those
moments for me where I had a choice. I could
have gone back home, spent some time with my friends
back in New Jersey, but I'm kind of a competitive
prick Alex in a lot of different ways in life,
and instead of going back home. I was like, you know,
I just want to stay here. So I went to
summer school. I started overloading in all my summer courses,
(08:36):
and I just worked out every day. Got a chance
to play USA basketball, made the team, and I had
this one game against Jason Kidd and Gary Payton where
I not only held my own but I did really well,
And all these conversations just started with Okay, like, Jay,
you could be a first round draft pick. Like I
went from not being on the draft boards all of
a sudden that summer being a first round draft pick.
(08:58):
And then I just started averaging twenty three twenty four
points a game, and people were saying you could be
the top pick in the draft. So I think during
that time, we had never really prepped for all that
stuff around finance.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
We thought this was I was gonna be a four
year guy. But then I just started receiving calls from
like agents, financial advisors, accounting services, and then my father
and my mother and I, which is always tricky. I
was gonna ask you how you started dealing with that,
Like when your parents are kind of at the forefront
of those conversations and it's like, all right, well, we're
going to start like, what's the limited liability corporation? You know,
(09:32):
what does this actually mean? What do we want to
name the LLC? You know, who are the members of
the LLC? Are we going to have an agent that's
going to be you know, handling your accounting services as well,
like you know, And we just started having those real
conversations and frankly, that onboarding process. While it was in
my season, it felt overwhelming, but I think the more
(09:53):
I did it, it became part of my routine, you know,
and I didn't feel as disturbed thinking about, Okay, this
is my business. Basketball is my business, but this is
also my business. I shouldn't let that take away. I
don't know, if you dealt with this that people say, well,
the more you focus on that, it takes away from
your focus on the field, like that used to always
happen to me. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
And I saw it just as a compliment to my work, right,
And I made it to a point where I said,
you know, for every one hundred thousand dollars that I
make or every two hundred, I can buy a million
dollars worth of real estate because you got eight hundred
of debt two hundred of equity, So you kind of
make it simple, right and you kind of building one
block at a time. And then any role models that
you had, who are some of those people that you've
(10:35):
looked up to, say, you know what, I like what
they're doing. I can take a piece from him, piece
from her, and now I have what I have for me.
That person's Magic Johnson, that was a big mentor to me,
started said, sat down with me almost thirty years ago
and kind of created the foundation of my company today.
Do we share magic as somebody that you look for
it as well?
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Because he's obviously the go I wore thirty two all
the time. I couldn't wear in college because Christian Lady
had it, so literally I took twenty two, which is
just tenas off and I got that. But definitely Magic
for what he's been able to do real estate wise.
Real estate is actually still a part of my portfolio
I haven't really tapped into yet. And also kind of
Michael's entry point, Jordan just I grew close to David Falk.
(11:17):
I didn't go with David Falk, I went with Bill Duffy.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
David fought very well known agent.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Yes for Michael Jordan Helpen obviously with the Jordan brand everything.
So just watching the way Michael, but also kind of
hearing that story. I think for me there was always
this challenge because my father was so involved in business
and my mother was participating in my business. See like,
you know, can I be vulnerable with you guys? Of course,
(11:41):
So you started finding about all these things I got,
and it's weird. It probably crystallized different from me if
I played fifteen years in the league, but when I
got drafted. You want to get back to your family, right,
So when you start learning that, hey, you're going to
get gift taxed anything you give over a certain threshold,
like okay, just let me put my parents, my family
on the payroll. So my dad was a CFO, my
(12:04):
mom was a CMO. You give people random titles, not
that they're actually responsible for those titles, right, But we
were trying to figure it out, and I think we
start going through that process where you're paying your family.
I had a lot of conversations with Magic early around
how do I take more ownership and knowing that this
is my business, how do I delegate some of those
(12:25):
responsibilities to my mom and my dad, which when I
got drafted. That changed for me. They were my business
partners while also being my mom and dad, which was
a really weird That's a lot of red tape involved
in that, right, because you know a lot of people
that are coming to you from different angles, and I
don't know how to properly vet deals. I don't know
(12:46):
how to properly vet people. I never had a lot
of practical experience in that. So I think leaning upon
Grant Hill was another one because he played at Duke
what he's been able to do with his businesses a
par owner of the Atlanta Hawks. I tried to those guys,
but also my career was cut short, so you know,
my life took a different turn very abruptly after one year,
(13:08):
so I didn't get a chance to really lean into
those relationships as much as I wish I would have
at the earlier stage. I did that later.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, Jason, I don't know about you. It's interesting. We
have a great threesome here of people where you have.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
African American, White and Dominican.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I grew up with a single mom. Dad left at ten,
and this changed my life. Jay, she had two jobs
secretary in the morning, she served tables at night. And
we go into public's one day and it's like a
seventy five dollar bill and she pulls out fifty five
bucks and then we're short about twenty plus bucks or whatever,
and she goes into this other little zipper and she
grabs like twenty five but it's not green, it's like red.
(13:46):
And I'm like, mom, what's the funny money? And it
was government money, food stamps. And I said, oh my god,
I have to like be the alpha.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I have to be the leader of my family.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
But going back to your mom and dad, I can
give my mother a Dominican mom, any.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Title, she's still going to be. Yeah, that's a little bit.
You take those three letters and you know where you
can stick on you. But that's the thing about inheriting money, right,
it's and I always see a lot of my other friends,
a lot of the financial conversations that they had with
their parents, you know, who were more successful and their
(14:21):
their competency was way higher than me. So now I
was being thrusted into this lifestyle where I was with
the rich and the famous, but I didn't really learn
about the underground, underlying business of how to actually sustain that.
So were everybody was being onboarded to wealth and a
crass course. And I think as my parents and my
(14:44):
career started to build a lot of that stuff. You know,
they often say when you make money, it reveals more
of the challenges and difficulties. You know, more money, more problems,
and a lot of those family dynamics kind of started
to play into the business as well.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
So that raises a really interesting thing about some of
the work you're doing right now, name iminjin. Likeness has
changed everything in the college sports world. You see it
right down the street from you at University of Miami.
I feel like RI at large. You're doing a lot of
work around this, got a new show coming out, You're
working with the University of Alabama quarterback. Now, all these
(15:20):
conversations that you're talking about that really only happened in
a fairly limited way for a small number of people,
they're happening across all of these sports, across college football,
even at the high school level. So what's the advice
that you give, having known what you know, but also
seeing what you're seeing now around nil.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I think firstco's to the point that we're just making
mention of right when you start like, let's say crazy competitive,
I want to work out for eight hours a day
and I sleep for eight hours, there's still eight hours
left in your day. Like how do you start building
your competency in finance at an earlier age, Like you
should know what LLC is and all for these kids
(16:03):
now they're having a chance to make money, like Jalen
Moro is making over a million dollars a year and
nil right now as a nineteen twenty year old young person.
That's a lot for you and your family to handle.
While you're handling a new coach coming in replacing Nick Saban,
while you're now learning how to work with the collective,
(16:23):
which essentially is like acting like you know, the front
office for the school and negotiating rates. You know, how
do you keep the main thing the main thing when
the main thing is actually the money in the revenue
that's being driven off of all this conference realignment, TV
media deal rights and it's all the wild West, you know.
So for me, I often start the conversation with, let's
(16:46):
create a flatline. Let's understand what your business is. Like
your main thing is the main thing, but this is
also part of your main thing, right, so let's give.
The main thing in this totality the time and the
attention it takes. Because if you want to be a billionaire, right,
if you want to go from asset, the principle you
need to put into work. And by the way, reading
two to three hours a day is putting in the
(17:07):
work asking questions. It's putting in the work having curiosity.
So I think that's the start. Number One. You also
have to own your ip, so I think that's really
big right now for him. So him and his teammate
Terry on Arnold last year they started this whole thing
around link let a Nay say or no, which I
thought was really smart, right, and it turned into the
(17:27):
school's rally and cry. So they filed for trademark the name.
And I've never seen this happen before where players have
filed for trademark for a name that the school then
kind of backed. Because Nick Saban was talking about let
all they sayers know and had this virality moment last
year with Pat McAfee on game day where it just
(17:47):
went everywhere. So they did a merchandising deal with the school, right,
so that sets precedent, so now you know they're sharing
it at rev with the school, and now we kind
of create a digital diary series around that because I
want him to be able to talk firsthand person around
how do you navigate owning a name like that, dealing
(18:07):
with the school, but also trying to win a national title,
competing for the CFP having the greatest coach of all
time that is no longer there, right, So how do
you not that you can control anything, Jay, but like
how do you think about, like what is your narrative
and how you're seeing this and how do you stay
in alignment with what the school is doing? But how
do we make the world see who you are a
(18:29):
little bit as well from a leadership perspective? And we
own that And we're working with the brand now Beast,
which is actually going to be a sponsor of the show,
so we're able to tie his endorsement deal into the content,
which is smart and I just like that medium and
it's a prooful concept for us to see. How do
you work with the collective, how do you work with
(18:49):
the school, and also at the same time, how do
you build his own individual brand?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And like how do you personally engage him? I mean,
are you talking to him most days? Like what's the
how do you build that rapport where you become a
trusted advisor to him?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
I think I'd be curious to see how you talk
to Anthony Edwards, right, And because I known that for
a while too, I think it's more of a big
brother approach here as it like, Okay, hey, look, if
we're going to do content, I don't think the answer
puts you in the best position with the media. Probably
wouldn't say it like that. Maybe how about this, or
(19:26):
when he gets frustrated about something, I don't understand why
this deal works out? Okay, Like, let me explain the
nuances of this to you to a degree, I think
it's more of that relationship and helping him navigate. I'm
not his agent, yeah, I'm not his financial advisor. We're
working with him on the media side and working with
him on your partner. Yes, I'm a partner with him.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So, Jay, if we zoom out and you say the
wild world West, I think that's exactly what it is.
The nil genie is out of the bottle. They'll probably
never come back in. But a few questions, how do
you feel about that kind of pros and cons? And
is this something that is ultimately better for college sports.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I do think it's better for college sports. I still
get frustrated at it because you know, whenever people I
hear them talk about nil, the natural proclivity is to say, well,
you know, okay, now athletes are going to pay. Well, actually,
can we talk about rev share? That's different, right, So
now we're starting to engage in that conversation. Whenever you
talk about revshare, Hey, Rod, you know I think you
start talking about okay, how about workers comp.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
So just to be clear, what you're differentiating between is NIL,
where it's like they're getting paid by a brand or
a collective or a company, versus revshare, where they are
actually a real partner and employee ultimately of the school
or the team.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Do I have that right?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
I already see Dartmouth basketball trying to do that right.
And also, you know, like so USC UCLA they go
to the Big Ten. Now you tell me how that
fits the geographical footprint, Yeah, the Big Ten. If it's
the financial footprint of the Big Ten, right, which I understand,
But it's no longer about academics. Like that travel schedule
(21:14):
alone from going you know, from SOCAW to Columbus, Ohio
and then back like you're going to miss multiple days.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then back to Maryland and then back to New
Jersey and Yemma.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Yeah. Right, So I understand that, but with that comes
a lot of responsibility. So you know, when you start
having these types of conversations, then I go, Okay, Well,
the university has representation, the leagues have representation. The players
are allowed to have representation when it comes to branding
and endorsement deals. But who is sitting at the table
(21:47):
for the players? You need a union. If you're going
to become unionized, that means you're going to be an employee,
so you have different employee rights benefits. And I think
that's the next step in the natural evolution is supposed
to look at basketball and football, they generate the most revenue.
And you know, look at what happened to the PAC twelve.
There's no longer the PAC twelve. It's to sintegrator right
(22:10):
in front of your eyes.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Improbable.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We didn't talk a lot about it, but that has
been a really interesting I feel like new version of
what media can be and is going to be.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
What's your vision for that?
Speaker 5 (22:25):
I think it's one that's constantly morphing. I think I
you know, it's like anything. I think when you go
into it, you think it's going to be one way,
and then you have to pivot a thousand times and
it starts to take on a new shape and form.
I think originally at first it was okay, as we
look at Yannis, who I think is one of the
biggest athletes in the world, touches three continents between Africa,
(22:50):
the United States, and Europe, how do we capture the
value in the production and creative aspects along a lot
of his endorsements because you're saying allow those or just
outsourced to third parties, right, And I think once you
kind of become integrated in the storytelling aspect of it,
it allows you to build longer sustainability with the actual client.
(23:12):
It's not a cash grab like I think a lot
of players look at endorsements as okay, Like I have
a five year deal worth twenty million dollars. That's great,
and then when you get into you know, four years
and eight months, it's like, well, how do we start
renegotiating that deal? So for me, I'm like, no, Like
we're going to sit at the creative table, We're going
to keep all the metrics in the data, we're going
(23:34):
to show you how we're adding value to your brand.
And then I want to get I want to pierce
the conversation because I really think it bleeds into the
portfolio from an investment opportunity. Once again, it goes to
deploying capital. Then could we deploy capital and co invest
alongside that athlete, take a stake in what that entity
is principle principal, right, and then help scale it as well.
(23:54):
I mean, similar to how Ryan Reynolds has built Maximum Effort.
You've seen them do that with Aviation Gen. You've seen
them there with Mobile, You're seeing to do that with Wrexham.
So I think having the pipes right to amplify to brand,
but then also having the capital to deploy. I think
having a seat at the table with the right board
of athletes, and then I think inevitably getting athletes to
(24:14):
buy into this thing of shared economics, like I'm watching
Steph do it and he's doing it successfully and very
well on Lebron Stephan Curry. Once again, first thing basis,
I'm sorry Steph probably, but like you know, how many
things can you scale by yourself? Right? So you know,
as an athlete, I think I'm built to say, hey,
(24:37):
I can't win a national championship without Mike dunleyby or
without Carlos Boozer, or without a rod. So then you know,
how where is there a world for lack of better terminology,
Like you know, like a multi family office in which
five or six guys are coming together and they're saying, Okay,
how do we add value? Maybe we have a pool
(24:57):
of capital here that's not ours, but we can deploy
capital from we can then co invest with that, But
then how do we add value collectively? With having the
brand strategy and coming to the table with a vision
is just saying hey, I'm at the table with capital.
I think to me, that's where you receive compound interests
over time and you're creating enterprise value.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So I want to take, as we all say in
our collective business, a hard pivot here and go back
to something you mentioned earlier, which is, I dare say
the pivotal moment in your life when you're in a
terrible accident right as you come into the league and
it changes the entire direction for you. Tell us what
(25:43):
that moment meant for your life but also for your
business career because it changes what your job is going
to be. I would love to know how it changed
you as a burgeoning business person. Is who as how
you defined your Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Well, first off, I think it gave me no pun
intended a real crash course in how hard and cold
business could be. I've been a part of a lot
of deals since. Sometimes when you have money in the deal,
you just you're forced to look at things way more objectively, right,
because your money is the asset in the deal. When
(26:23):
you're the asset yourself, it's hard not to become emotionally
tied to that. So I remember watching the Bulls draft
Kirk Comrich, who I just played the year prior at
Kansas and did work against him to replace me, essentially
in my hospital bed, right, So, having conversations with Jerry Reinsdorf,
(26:44):
understanding and hearing firsthand what their business strategy was was
a hard appeal for me to swallow. That was crazy,
like thinking about it like, it's one hell of a
business strategy. I mean, it's the right plan, right, It's
the right plan that all of us would do. But
when you're hearing that is to ask on the other
end in the hospital bed. That led me into a
deep state of depression. I mean, I had two attempts
(27:05):
at suicide that I've talked openly about. But I think
that forced me all of a sudden to start over again.
After I went through a couple of years of depression.
I really wanted to understand basketball and the CBA and
how it worked. And it actually it led me down
the path with risk mitigation as well, because when you
(27:26):
start receiving all these bills, you're like, well, hold on
a second, how am I going to pay for these
thirteen plus surgeries? Right? So the bulls chet me on
their insurance. I had some challenges later with disability that
I had to work through, but it opened my eyes
to risk mitigation in a completely different aspect, which kind
of led me down the path when I made my
first really big investment in an insurance brokerage firm, because
(27:50):
I started to understand about wholesale I want to kind
of sit in between the middle. It really opened my
eyes up to the under the table business is associated
with basketball more importantly, and I really started studying the
cbauder a guy named Charlie Grantham, I tried to become
an agent. I thought that was like my first step
into the world because I wasn't going to play anymore.
(28:12):
And then, you know it, just things became difficult because
you realize when you're actually working for an agency, you
spread a lot of money out to five oh one
C threes, which are essentially AAU programs, and that was
still deemed illegal at that time. And a news reporter
broke the story on Yahoo Sports that even though I
(28:33):
wasn't the main agent they associated with the agency, that
we have paid Kevin Love's AU team, And it was
just one of those things where I was like, Okay,
how am I going to do this? Like I you know,
I've I've lost the ability to connect with players because
if it becomes public, that's my mantra to a degree,
(28:53):
And how do I kind of change that narrative about me?
So I got involved in and that's what I really
I was like, okay, like now I see how media works.
I see how this one article came out, how it
affected me. I frankly started the process of writing my book.
Then I was like, Okay, I'm going to change this narrative.
(29:14):
I'm no longer going to be the victim to my
motorcycle accident. I'm going to start thinking about how I
use my accident to build off of and kind of
lean into what I want to become business wise. And
I think I was the first step, like in it's
PR it's like crisis management and kind of starting that step.
And media working for ESPN making thirty five thousand dollars
(29:35):
a year, which is another humble kick to the gut. Yeah,
And I started understanding media, working in media, and I
started the process of writing my book because this is
something else we have in common. And I was telling Jay.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
At fourteen, I served the year's suspension for PDUs, and
my whole world kind of fell apart. And I mean,
I think it's very public now that I've done over
twelve years of therapy. I continue to be in this
huge part of my life. But I had built this
incredib doble career and I was almost forty. It was
so scary to have to think about, oh my god,
(30:05):
am I gonna have to scratch everything and start all
over again. That I was below like ground zero, below
ground zero for different reasons obviously than yours, But nevertheless
we had to build it back up from ground zero.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I mean, you and I have talked about this a lot.
I mean one of the first in depth things that
we did was essentially me asking Alex a question of
why did you even decide to re engage, you know,
because there's a version of this certainly for you.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
We're just like, all right, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
I'm gonna go live on an island or do whatever
I'm gonna I'm gonna remove myself from public, I'm not
gonna play, or I'm not gonna certainly get out there.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
What was your thought process?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Like, J very much depressed because you've worked so hard
to this point, right, and you feel like you're now
set up.
Speaker 6 (31:09):
To win or reap the benefit of your great work.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
In thousands and thousands of hours of commitment and dedication.
But ultimately, why I think Jay and I probably didn't
go to an island is because we're both competitors, and
I like that competitoring prick coming to field. I mean,
I'm a nasty competitor, almost too competitive, and I felt
like I had something else, I had another chapter in me,
(31:35):
and I was too young to just give up.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
I mean, it's not on earth the na to give up.
I don't know if I had.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Suicidal but whatever, the stop before that is, I was
probably there because it's such a scary thing to be
in a place where you've builded and now you're at
ground zero, literally at ground zero, below ground zero. Like
I felt like if I got up to the lobby,
that was a win and hm so. And I also
felt like there was millions of kids out there that
(32:05):
don't have, you know, parents that are great mentors, or
single parents like my mother who don't have that. And
I felt like I had a lot to offer for
those kids to at least learn from my mistakes. And
that was really the thesis of wanting to come back
is to make an impact. It was too far away
from you know, I want to go back and play baseball,
(32:25):
or I want to go back and go to the
Hall of Fame, or I want to go back and
build an empire. It was really about like, I know,
I have another chapter. I don't know what that looks like,
but I'm going to give it a go.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
How'd you learn how to tell yourself a different story?
Because I know that was you're playing at Duke similarly
playing the Yankees, like you're we're on TV all the time, right, So,
like before, when I would walk in rooms, whether that
was business or personal. It would be like, like that's
that's Jay. It's like number two pick in the draft
place for Chicago Bulls. He's on I nineties on the billboard.
He is Michael Jordan's locker. So as that looked me
(32:54):
like are you okay? Like it was it was completely
It was a different entry point. I were even sit
down to business meetings and like some of these higher
level executives start the conversation for there, and I feel
like I have to drag myself out of the basement
to get to the lobby level. How do you deal
with that? From a storytelling perspective.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I just started leading with the worst. I started leading
with them, righting them to it, them to it, beat
them to the spot right. And it's kind of what
you started to do with your book or your story.
And I felt like, if you start with the worst,
then we can get better from there. And if you
want to throw me out of the meeting, let's just
do it in the first ten minutes. That way, I
don't waste your time, you don't waste my time. But
I feel like when you own things and then you
(33:34):
talk about the lessons learned, at least you set the
foundation to show that you have self awareness. And I
see this from a lot of young kids that or
just people in general, that they make mistakes, but their
self awareness still hasn't gotten to where it needs to be.
And what I sense is that when you win a championship,
we sign a big contractor you're that number two pick
from the Bulls or the Yankees or whatever. Self awareness decreases,
(33:59):
an ego increase. And I wake up every morning with
two prayers. I want to enhance my self awareness and
decrease my ego, and I think that's my happy spot.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Yeah, that's one way that I did it. Yeah, I
think I learned that throughout that process. I've always kind
of been a namor with sea level executives, as I've
always wanted to be one me too. And it's amazing
how many people I talk to that have gone through
challenges within their businesses where filling for bankruptcy or losing
money for investors. I think I recognized while I was
(34:30):
riding my book and having all these conversations, Oh, like
everybody's had a motorcycle accident in some form or fashion.
Everybody's had some kind of crash like ours may be
more extreme than others, are more public than others. But
maybe that's a place to actually build the bridge between
myself and people, to actually not come to the room
(34:51):
with more of my ego, but to be more self
aware and then to actually form more of a community.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
And so how do you start building from there?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I mean, so with all of that in mind, you're
doing work on yourself, but you also have to.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Do the work.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
You know, you have to figure out like who you're
going to be and what you're going to do and
candidly what you're going to contribute, you know, I mean
we talk about this all the time in terms of
like what your what your mission is going to be.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
So how do you hone that over time?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
And who do you go to?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
I mean, is this something where you go to Coach K?
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And I know Alex has sort of almost like a
board of advisors that.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
He Yeah, Coach K scratched three copies of my book
and told me bring this back when it's better. So, yes,
Coach K is on the respective.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And so so how do you go about building that?
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Well? I did form a personal board for some people
that I had admired that I reached out to in
college and I get beat up, Like it's like a
real it's like a real board meeting, Like you know, really,
all right, Q one, where are we Like? What are
we doing? Like what the portfolio look like? And we
go through that, but then we go into like me personally,
what's the marriage look like with the kids? Like how
(36:02):
we balancing it? Like it's like I really get pushed
and tested, which I very much appreciate, but just to
go back before, like I really leaned into media instead
of just trying to go off and invest in all
these different things, and like, all right, what is my platform?
Like basketball was my platform before? What is my platform?
(36:23):
And I think learning media and studying it and then
studying how to be effective at it but also how
to be different than what I saw on TV.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
One of the things I think you do well, which
I think is a huge gap between kind of the
sports community entertaining community versus the business community. I love
the way you reach out and you're not afraid get
that from And you should be doing a lot more
of that because you on TV and you reaching out
to be with great people whoever you think those are
is the best way to grow your business.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
I think I just have an insatiable appatite, you know,
like and it's like even when I reach out to
I want to be an owner one day of a team. Right,
So understanding you know what teams are coming on the marketplace,
Like what's happening in Las Vegas for the NBA, is
there a team in Mexico City, what's going to happen
in Europe? The explosion of n W s L and
their new media rights, the w n b A, which
(37:17):
is an interesting entry point from an investor perspective, you know,
Professional bull Riding PBR, that League Sale GP. Like understanding
where all these leagues are coming from and how to
actually bet those opportunities, that's number one, Right, I think
you are on point, and that goes just a closed
loop on the story. I think when I was learning TV,
(37:38):
I think I saw that gap and I did this
show called The Best Shop and it was with Lebron
and Maverick and it was when they were launching spring Hill.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Maverick Carterron James's business press.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Sorry, should be a little bit more right the script. Yes,
you know, I saw them building this media empire, but
then also I saw how they were utilizing the media
Empire for a lot of their investments right, And I
also saw from my perspective, all of a sudden on
the show, now I'm an executive producer and I'm talent, like,
oh okay, I can eat on both ends. It was
(38:11):
very fascinating. So then understanding that dynamic and how they worked,
then I started working with Rich Climbing and Kevin Durant
when we launched the Boreroom. Now that was tricky because
I had to sell the Boarroom to the company I
was working for, Right, So that allowed me to have
a lot of different conversations with Jimmy peterarro Connor show
in ESPNS thirty for thirty with Rich and Kevin. But
(38:33):
it was once again it just served proof of concept
that I was with Serena hearing Williams about her venture firm.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Serena is one that you could just say, Serena, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Some people you know, you gotta be first name bans
you can't. But then I started sitting down with Steve
Baumer and Josh Cronky and hearing about all the teams
they own and start learning about tax abatements and how
to think about that when you're actually building a stadium
in the Inglewood, right, some of the challenges that come
along with that. And then I would listen to high
level athletes who actually were pretty competent in business, but
(39:10):
still didn't sound as competent, or still were somewhat a
little bit afraid to sit at the actual table. Alex,
do you still get that, like with certain athletes like
who were? They want to be in the room, and
they could be in the room and it can listen,
but they don't know how to take it to that
next step as a business person.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is because they're
never alone in a room. Yes, I would tell athletes,
get yourself in the room and go alone. That's the
greatest advice I can give you because if not inevitably
they're going to talk to your agent or your manager
or whatever. Now it's okay to bring one person or whatever,
but get in the room, get uncomfortable and feel comfortable,
and the uncomfortable, especially sitting in that table. And I
(39:52):
love the fact that you have quite honestly the we
say the Cojones.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Maybe mock see.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Yeah, that's a Georgetown Georgetown duke.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
I feel very much imposture right now, I have like
Dominican University here, but Jay with you. I love that
you can verbalize as part of it, and to say
it first of us hard to do it in your mind.
To say it in your mind, you're saying it publicly.
I want to be an owner one day. That's awesome,
But how does the J. Williams Holding Company look in
five years if.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
You had a year way? I think having capital to
deploy is very important to have a seat at the table.
So I think what you might see is I'll always
keep my foot within media from an ownership perspective. I
understand that business, and I understand where that business is going.
But I think the sports marketplace is really fascinating for me.
(40:49):
Alex right like being able to have capital behind entity
with a media, marketing, branding arm where I can look
at certain investments and I can look at at their
operating teams and effectively take shots at those type of
assets and scale that slowly. And I don't want to
(41:10):
use the term private equity because that's just like you know,
everybody I ever want to be involved in private equity,
or every athlete once have a family office, but a
team of brand strategists and a chief investment officer in
which we could look at different assets and then marry
ip to certain athletes that I think actually want to
(41:30):
work and actually want to have a seat at the table.
Because I do see that correlation, I am able to
have conversations with certain individuals where I'm like, I'll bet
on you because I know that you will like to work,
and also we have access to so much stuff. Right
So it's like somebody saying, hey, Jay, you know, in
five years, if this explosion continues to happen within the
(41:52):
collegiate market, you know what's one of your port codes?
I would say, you love to own a significant piece
of Duke basketball? Mm mmm, right, would love to own
a significant piece of Ohio State football. I think that's
going to be a marketplace that's being tinkered around right now.
But then also thinking about all these traditional athletic companies,
(42:17):
athletic you know, departments are still very archaic, and now
I think you're seeing the same way private equities entering
the NFL conversations around areas and other PE firms right
entering that market. I think that's going to happen on
the collegiate market. And you know, how could you help
Duke generate more revenue and be more profitable right by
(42:40):
having experts associated with Duke basketball, from a branding perspective,
from a content perspective, from a media rights perspective. So
I think in five years, I think that's the direction
I'm going. And I think similar to you, I think
I I always love commentary, but I want to be
insightful with my commentary. And I also think, similar to
(43:00):
what we're doing with Jalen, I like telling things more
from the player businessman perspective instead of just the player perspective.
I think I'm starting to learn that that could be
my sweet spot that doesn't allow me to ultimately hurt
my relationships but still be true to myself and what
I see.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I mean, you talk about magic all the time, basically
saying you can get in the room.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
You know, like you guys can do the.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Thing that is certainly hard for a journalist, but like
hard for an everyday person just to get into the
room because everybody wants to know exactly what you're talking about.
What's it like, what's it like shooting that free throw,
what's it like taking that through, what's it like being
at that home plate? And then you're in and then
you prove yourself and the relationship begins.
Speaker 5 (43:47):
Yeah, I agree with that, Jason and Jay.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
The thing is that I've studied so many of the Titans, right,
But what they are expecting is they're expecting for you
to come in the room, be a nice guy, and
take a picture and sign autographs and then we say
my bye here now we put you on your way.
They're not expecting you to have a real team, and
they're definitely not expecting you to follow up.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
And I think that's where most athletes.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
You know, twenty percent of the athletes ask for the meeting,
probably one percent of those twenty follow up in a
real way. And you got to follow up right, and
you got to be long term thinking because if most
athletes come in with high expectations, one meeting, big deal,
it doesn't really happen like that unless you're you know,
Tiger or maybe Tom Brady or something that is just
one and done and you're good. But it's just who's
(44:33):
going to be persistent to hang around, hang around, keep
coming back, and stay focused on what you really need
and want.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
You know, all right, let's dot a rapid fire. Now
I think you're going to be really good at this.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I think you're gonna be really good at all Right,
I'll start in the view, and what are the rules
that you keep it tight? Keep it just keep it tight.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
Do I get a chance to ask any back to
you guys?
Speaker 3 (44:58):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
At the end, what's one word to describe your deal
making style?
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Patient? What's more important to you? Your instincts or data?
I really value data, but I think it's coming down
to instincts and gut who people are.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Who is your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 5 (45:18):
I mean it's David Rubuste.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
I think you say, Jason, what's the best piece of
advice you've received on deal making your business?
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Never run? Always walk with pace? Same question? Was the
worst advice you've ever been given? Worst advice came from
an athlete? This is bad? Actually, successful athlete, Jay, The
more deals the better. Oh, actually, so that's the best
answer we've ever gotten.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
That is what's your hype song before you go into
a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 5 (45:51):
This is this is weird Like I've been listening to
a lot more classical orchestra. I'd like to try to
be calm, pick the emotion out of any specific I'll
go to old school, like a little Patti LaBelle.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
A fun fact about yourself that your colleagues will be
surprised to.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
Hear about loyalty and transparency is very important to me
because I don't I didn't have that a lot of
my life. I had a lot of times where a
lot of deals or a lot of people try to
pull the wool over my eyes, and I think I
always try to operate from that space.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
All right, Well, this has been a huge treat for us.
Thank you so much, Shay Williams.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Thank you. I appreciate that good stuff. Guys, thanks a lot,
Thanks Jay, Thanks man.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
Our producers are Anamazarakis, Stacey Wong, Lizzie Phillip, and Victory Veez.
Original music and engineering by Blake Maples. Our managing editor
is David E. Ravella. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,
(47:04):
Brendan Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Kyle Kramer, Andrew Barden.
Kelly Laferrier and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head
of podcasts, Additional support from Rachel Scaramzino and Elena So
Los Angeles. Joshua Devau is our director of photography. Rubob
(47:25):
Shakir is our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler.
Casting by Julia Manns. Our associate producer is Natasha Abelard.
Camera operation by Ryan Cavtero, Jesse Ridner, and Suma Hussain.
Our gaffer is Alex Brown, and our grip is Max Garstak.
Our production assistant is Gabriella Dematase. Katia Vanoy is our
(47:49):
video editor. Listen to the Deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also tune
into the Video Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.
Thanks for listening.
Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio News.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, I'm Jason Kelly.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
I'm Alex Rodriguez and on this episode of The Deal,
Jay Williams, So, Alex, Jay is a multi hyphenate.
Speaker 2 (00:22):
In a lot of ways.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
This is a guy who was a superstar college athlete,
has a massive accident that sort of takes him out
of the NBA and completely reinvents himself to the point
where we know him from ESPN, we also know him
really as one of the leading athletes turned entrepreneurs.
Speaker 4 (00:41):
He's a very good guy and you know what, he
has an incredible appetite, very inquisitive in is building a
big business. And I think he's a fascinating guy. And
I think you'll find his interview very very good.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
And very intimate and very revealing. There's a vulnerability that
you showed and that he showed that was pretty amazing
to win.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
So, without further.
Speaker 3 (01:01):
Ado, Jay Williams, all right, we like to start every show. Jay,
Oh my gosh, I just introduced you myself. You introduce
yourself and tell us who you are.
Speaker 5 (01:22):
How do I do that?
Speaker 2 (01:24):
However, you take your time.
Speaker 5 (01:26):
Jay Williams on air personality own a media company. I
invest I followed him for a very long time, kind
of geeking out to be here with you guys, and
just excited for an opportunity to jut And where'd you
go to college? Duke University?
Speaker 4 (01:42):
Play for Chicago Bulls And we have a great common friend.
Obviously much closer to you than to me. But I'm
a big admirer of coach K. Coach K, which we'll
talk about later. Yeah, we're definitely we're going to get
into all of this.
Speaker 5 (01:52):
I feel like we're doing TV. I should have done
a better job of introducing that.
Speaker 2 (01:55):
You want to take two? Yeah, No, that's good. That's good.
People like a little rough. I do want to ask.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I mean, we're going to talk about a ton of
different things. But one of the reasons I know Alex
and I were so fascinated to talk to you is,
given everything you just said about what you're doing, what
you have done, it does feel to me like something
new and different is happening in sports and media and
culture right now. Do you agree and why do you
(02:24):
think it is?
Speaker 5 (02:24):
So I'll give you guys some context to how I
kind of Guys like Alex I think have really helped
me expand my mind and how I think about this.
I started holding company when I first got into TV,
just called Cleindestine Ventures, right, and my mom, who just
passed away a year ago. God wrestler soul always like
you know, why such a negative connotation word, And it
was always because at ESPN, I couldn't let ESPN know
(02:47):
about investing. I couldn't let ESPN I invested in a
procurement company for sponsorships because it always got used against
me like I wasn't you know, I wasn't focused on
my craft. And I just think now we have people
that are unapologetically themselves in this conversion between sports finance media.
(03:08):
You know, you could talk about your portfolio on air,
you can talk about my relationship with Adam Silver and
obviously our Duke connection and how it gives me different
insight into team ownership in the CBA. I think now
it's way more appreciated because there's a the bandwidth has extended, right,
and now it's just not about polarizing conversation or about
the game itself. It's about how you're providing color to
(03:30):
the commentary.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
Do you feel that way too, because I feel like
I mean, as Jay said, like you were on the
front end of this in terms of, you know, you
tell the story about you know, going into owners offices
and your cleats and seeking advice, but like that wasn't
the norm, and so does it feel different to you
as well?
Speaker 5 (03:47):
No, I agree with Jay.
Speaker 4 (03:48):
To me, it was like a taboo to do anything
else besides your court business.
Speaker 5 (03:52):
And it's a little bit you had to do it
in the shadows.
Speaker 4 (03:54):
And I started my real estate portfolio in my early twenties,
but it was like a dark secret.
Speaker 6 (04:00):
And it's funny. The most grief I ever.
Speaker 4 (04:02):
Got in my entire career, far more than the PD
suspension and all of that, which we'll get into later,
is my contract two fifty two, the year two thousand
and one, and the contrast between that announcement and Otani.
Otani was a hero, he was celebrated. I was villain,
you know, one on one. It was like Darth Vader.
So it's interesting how far things have gone. A lot
(04:23):
of it, I think is social media. Now the power
has gone to the athletes because now they have a
platform where they can fight back and back.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
You know, twenty five years ago, you know owners right
and everything.
Speaker 5 (04:31):
You know, I was, I was going to ask you,
because I feel like there's this missing gap Alex that's happened, right,
and you've been able to close that gap. But I
see a lot of other athletes that are trying to
focus on that and celebrities from going to becoming your asset.
But how do you become the principal? How do you
navigate doing TV while also now being a position to
be an owner, right, which is how people they may
(04:52):
take that as commentary. How do you kind of play
neutral in that way? That's a great question.
Speaker 4 (04:58):
I mean it helps that I commented in baseball and
own in basketball. That's a big help. I think for me,
it's really thinking about it long term. I think the
biggest mistake I see young players is they become very
transactional and they want it now, because that's how it
is in basketball, right, you go to duke for one
or two years and boom, you got a huge contract.
In business, I felt about it, how do I build
(05:18):
a business in the next fifty or sixty years. So
it's allowed me to discipline what I call a ten
touch role. So I won't ask you to be my
partner or Jason until we have at least ten touches. Now,
touches can be a nice change of emails. It could
be coffee, it could be this, it could be going
to a game together. But after ten touches, that's enough
time where we've built a relationship and now we can
(05:39):
maybe start thinking about doing something together. And it keeps
you away from the one and done, like, hey, I
met you, can you invest in my problem into my business?
Speaker 5 (05:46):
It kind of gives you time to breathe. So it's
more transformative than transactional, for sure, because I find it
it's a lot of that in my industry. Like even
in looking at some of the deals that other athletes
have taken and like, okay, well what's your long term plan?
It seems more like instinct cask grabs instead of actually
having a brand strategy.
Speaker 3 (06:03):
And so how did you start to think about being
a business person? And when is that something that like
you're talking to coach k about are you talking to
your parents?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Like how does that start?
Speaker 5 (06:13):
So I got lucky My dad worked at American Express
for over twenty years and my mom was a guidance counselor.
So I used to watch her go back to school
and receive multiple master degrees while I was in school,
so you can imagine being in daycare playing different sports,
and my mom's you know, going off to night school.
But my dad would bring me into the city because
I'm from New Jersey all the time, so I would
(06:34):
take the train with him and I would see him
do his wins or not over and over again. Because
you you prepare for the job you want, not for
the job you have. Right, And Ken Channault was the
first black CEO that I've ever seen, yeah, as a
little boy. So like I'm you know, even watching like
Kamala Harris now run for president, Like my two daughters
(06:55):
see somebody that looks like them running for president, Like
that's a monumental thing for what that could do for
your psyche. So just knowing that my dad worked for
a black CEO, I kind of became enamored. Back to AMEX.
Then when I came to Duke, which is great, Coach
had me think that way. We started sending letters to
(07:16):
Fortune five hundred executives that had graduated from Duke, and
we started inviting them down in North Carolina, similar to
how you did it with the Yankees, right. I mean,
there's a lot of commonality here because Duke was always
called like the Yankees of college basketball, right, So within
all that entails, so all these guys will come down
and we just kind of picked their brain around what
(07:38):
businesses they were in, how they scaled those businesses, how
I should be looking at utilizing like my name, image
and likeness, what businesses should I be thinking about investing in,
and how I should handle my approach to the NBA.
Speaker 4 (07:51):
It was life altern So with that in mind, I
love the comparisons in Duke and Yankees because everyone that
watches us you have an opinion. It's not like you're
in different Yeah, either lover us or hater us, which
is kind of cool. But my question to you is,
at what point did you start crystallizing what a holding
company would look like? What was your education behind it?
So probably going into my sophomore year, we lost in
(08:14):
the Sweet sixteen to Florida and I kind of got
punked on the court and it was one of those
moments for me where I had a choice. I could
have gone back home, spent some time with my friends
back in New Jersey, but I'm kind of a competitive
prick Alex in a lot of different ways in life,
and instead of going back home. I was like, you know,
I just want to stay here. So I went to
summer school. I started overloading in all my summer courses,
(08:36):
and I just worked out every day. Got a chance
to play USA basketball, made the team, and I had
this one game against Jason Kidd and Gary Payton where
I not only held my own but I did really well,
And all these conversations just started with Okay, like, Jay,
you could be a first round draft pick. Like I
went from not being on the draft boards all of
a sudden that summer being a first round draft pick.
(08:58):
And then I just started averaging twenty three twenty four
points a game, and people were saying you could be
the top pick in the draft. So I think during
that time, we had never really prepped for all that
stuff around finance.
Speaker 5 (09:09):
We thought this was I was gonna be a four
year guy. But then I just started receiving calls from
like agents, financial advisors, accounting services, and then my father
and my mother and I, which is always tricky. I
was gonna ask you how you started dealing with that,
Like when your parents are kind of at the forefront
of those conversations and it's like, all right, well, we're
going to start like, what's the limited liability corporation? You know,
(09:32):
what does this actually mean? What do we want to
name the LLC? You know, who are the members of
the LLC? Are we going to have an agent that's
going to be you know, handling your accounting services as well,
like you know, And we just started having those real
conversations and frankly, that onboarding process. While it was in
my season, it felt overwhelming, but I think the more
(09:53):
I did it, it became part of my routine, you know,
and I didn't feel as disturbed thinking about, Okay, this
is my business. Basketball is my business, but this is
also my business. I shouldn't let that take away. I
don't know, if you dealt with this that people say, well,
the more you focus on that, it takes away from
your focus on the field, like that used to always
happen to me. Yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure.
Speaker 4 (10:15):
And I saw it just as a compliment to my work, right,
And I made it to a point where I said,
you know, for every one hundred thousand dollars that I
make or every two hundred, I can buy a million
dollars worth of real estate because you got eight hundred
of debt two hundred of equity, So you kind of
make it simple, right and you kind of building one
block at a time. And then any role models that
you had, who are some of those people that you've
(10:35):
looked up to, say, you know what, I like what
they're doing. I can take a piece from him, piece
from her, and now I have what I have for me.
That person's Magic Johnson, that was a big mentor to me,
started said, sat down with me almost thirty years ago
and kind of created the foundation of my company today.
Do we share magic as somebody that you look for
it as well?
Speaker 5 (10:53):
Because he's obviously the go I wore thirty two all
the time. I couldn't wear in college because Christian Lady
had it, so literally I took twenty two, which is
just tenas off and I got that. But definitely Magic
for what he's been able to do real estate wise.
Real estate is actually still a part of my portfolio
I haven't really tapped into yet. And also kind of
Michael's entry point, Jordan just I grew close to David Falk.
(11:17):
I didn't go with David Falk, I went with Bill Duffy.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
David fought very well known agent.
Speaker 5 (11:21):
Yes for Michael Jordan Helpen obviously with the Jordan brand everything.
So just watching the way Michael, but also kind of
hearing that story. I think for me there was always
this challenge because my father was so involved in business
and my mother was participating in my business. See like,
you know, can I be vulnerable with you guys? Of course,
(11:41):
So you started finding about all these things I got,
and it's weird. It probably crystallized different from me if
I played fifteen years in the league, but when I
got drafted. You want to get back to your family, right,
So when you start learning that, hey, you're going to
get gift taxed anything you give over a certain threshold,
like okay, just let me put my parents, my family
on the payroll. So my dad was a CFO, my
(12:04):
mom was a CMO. You give people random titles, not
that they're actually responsible for those titles, right, But we
were trying to figure it out, and I think we
start going through that process where you're paying your family.
I had a lot of conversations with Magic early around
how do I take more ownership and knowing that this
is my business, how do I delegate some of those
(12:25):
responsibilities to my mom and my dad, which when I
got drafted. That changed for me. They were my business
partners while also being my mom and dad, which was
a really weird That's a lot of red tape involved
in that, right, because you know a lot of people
that are coming to you from different angles, and I
don't know how to properly vet deals. I don't know
(12:46):
how to properly vet people. I never had a lot
of practical experience in that. So I think leaning upon
Grant Hill was another one because he played at Duke
what he's been able to do with his businesses a
par owner of the Atlanta Hawks. I tried to those guys,
but also my career was cut short, so you know,
my life took a different turn very abruptly after one year,
(13:08):
so I didn't get a chance to really lean into
those relationships as much as I wish I would have
at the earlier stage. I did that later.
Speaker 4 (13:15):
Yeah, Jason, I don't know about you. It's interesting. We
have a great threesome here of people where you have.
Speaker 6 (13:20):
African American, White and Dominican.
Speaker 5 (13:22):
Right.
Speaker 4 (13:23):
I grew up with a single mom. Dad left at ten,
and this changed my life. Jay, she had two jobs
secretary in the morning, she served tables at night. And
we go into public's one day and it's like a
seventy five dollar bill and she pulls out fifty five
bucks and then we're short about twenty plus bucks or whatever,
and she goes into this other little zipper and she
grabs like twenty five but it's not green, it's like red.
(13:46):
And I'm like, mom, what's the funny money? And it
was government money, food stamps. And I said, oh my god,
I have to like be the alpha.
Speaker 5 (13:55):
I have to be the leader of my family.
Speaker 4 (13:57):
But going back to your mom and dad, I can
give my mother a Dominican mom, any.
Speaker 5 (14:01):
Title, she's still going to be. Yeah, that's a little bit.
You take those three letters and you know where you
can stick on you. But that's the thing about inheriting money, right,
it's and I always see a lot of my other friends,
a lot of the financial conversations that they had with
their parents, you know, who were more successful and their
(14:21):
their competency was way higher than me. So now I
was being thrusted into this lifestyle where I was with
the rich and the famous, but I didn't really learn
about the underground, underlying business of how to actually sustain that.
So were everybody was being onboarded to wealth and a
crass course. And I think as my parents and my
(14:44):
career started to build a lot of that stuff. You know,
they often say when you make money, it reveals more
of the challenges and difficulties. You know, more money, more problems,
and a lot of those family dynamics kind of started
to play into the business as well.
Speaker 3 (14:59):
So that raises a really interesting thing about some of
the work you're doing right now, name iminjin. Likeness has
changed everything in the college sports world. You see it
right down the street from you at University of Miami.
I feel like RI at large. You're doing a lot of
work around this, got a new show coming out, You're
working with the University of Alabama quarterback. Now, all these
(15:20):
conversations that you're talking about that really only happened in
a fairly limited way for a small number of people,
they're happening across all of these sports, across college football,
even at the high school level. So what's the advice
that you give, having known what you know, but also
seeing what you're seeing now around nil.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
I think firstco's to the point that we're just making
mention of right when you start like, let's say crazy competitive,
I want to work out for eight hours a day
and I sleep for eight hours, there's still eight hours
left in your day. Like how do you start building
your competency in finance at an earlier age, Like you
should know what LLC is and all for these kids
(16:03):
now they're having a chance to make money, like Jalen
Moro is making over a million dollars a year and
nil right now as a nineteen twenty year old young person.
That's a lot for you and your family to handle.
While you're handling a new coach coming in replacing Nick Saban,
while you're now learning how to work with the collective,
(16:23):
which essentially is like acting like you know, the front
office for the school and negotiating rates. You know, how
do you keep the main thing the main thing when
the main thing is actually the money in the revenue
that's being driven off of all this conference realignment, TV
media deal rights and it's all the wild West, you know.
So for me, I often start the conversation with, let's
(16:46):
create a flatline. Let's understand what your business is. Like
your main thing is the main thing, but this is
also part of your main thing, right, so let's give.
The main thing in this totality the time and the
attention it takes. Because if you want to be a billionaire, right,
if you want to go from asset, the principle you
need to put into work. And by the way, reading
two to three hours a day is putting in the
(17:07):
work asking questions. It's putting in the work having curiosity.
So I think that's the start. Number One. You also
have to own your ip, so I think that's really
big right now for him. So him and his teammate
Terry on Arnold last year they started this whole thing
around link let a Nay say or no, which I
thought was really smart, right, and it turned into the
(17:27):
school's rally and cry. So they filed for trademark the name.
And I've never seen this happen before where players have
filed for trademark for a name that the school then
kind of backed. Because Nick Saban was talking about let
all they sayers know and had this virality moment last
year with Pat McAfee on game day where it just
(17:47):
went everywhere. So they did a merchandising deal with the school, right,
so that sets precedent, so now you know they're sharing
it at rev with the school, and now we kind
of create a digital diary series around that because I
want him to be able to talk firsthand person around
how do you navigate owning a name like that, dealing
(18:07):
with the school, but also trying to win a national title,
competing for the CFP having the greatest coach of all
time that is no longer there, right, So how do
you not that you can control anything, Jay, but like
how do you think about, like what is your narrative
and how you're seeing this and how do you stay
in alignment with what the school is doing? But how
do we make the world see who you are a
(18:29):
little bit as well from a leadership perspective? And we
own that And we're working with the brand now Beast,
which is actually going to be a sponsor of the show,
so we're able to tie his endorsement deal into the content,
which is smart and I just like that medium and
it's a prooful concept for us to see. How do
you work with the collective, how do you work with
(18:49):
the school, and also at the same time, how do
you build his own individual brand?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
And like how do you personally engage him? I mean,
are you talking to him most days? Like what's the
how do you build that rapport where you become a
trusted advisor to him?
Speaker 5 (19:04):
I think I'd be curious to see how you talk
to Anthony Edwards, right, And because I known that for
a while too, I think it's more of a big
brother approach here as it like, Okay, hey, look, if
we're going to do content, I don't think the answer
puts you in the best position with the media. Probably
wouldn't say it like that. Maybe how about this, or
(19:26):
when he gets frustrated about something, I don't understand why
this deal works out? Okay, Like, let me explain the
nuances of this to you to a degree, I think
it's more of that relationship and helping him navigate. I'm
not his agent, yeah, I'm not his financial advisor. We're
working with him on the media side and working with
him on your partner. Yes, I'm a partner with him.
Speaker 4 (19:58):
So, Jay, if we zoom out and you say the
wild world West, I think that's exactly what it is.
The nil genie is out of the bottle. They'll probably
never come back in. But a few questions, how do
you feel about that kind of pros and cons? And
is this something that is ultimately better for college sports.
Speaker 5 (20:15):
I do think it's better for college sports. I still
get frustrated at it because you know, whenever people I
hear them talk about nil, the natural proclivity is to say, well,
you know, okay, now athletes are going to pay. Well, actually,
can we talk about rev share? That's different, right, So
now we're starting to engage in that conversation. Whenever you
talk about revshare, Hey, Rod, you know I think you
start talking about okay, how about workers comp.
Speaker 3 (20:36):
So just to be clear, what you're differentiating between is NIL,
where it's like they're getting paid by a brand or
a collective or a company, versus revshare, where they are
actually a real partner and employee ultimately of the school
or the team.
Speaker 2 (20:53):
Do I have that right?
Speaker 5 (20:54):
I already see Dartmouth basketball trying to do that right.
And also, you know, like so USC UCLA they go
to the Big Ten. Now you tell me how that
fits the geographical footprint, Yeah, the Big Ten. If it's
the financial footprint of the Big Ten, right, which I understand,
But it's no longer about academics. Like that travel schedule
(21:14):
alone from going you know, from SOCAW to Columbus, Ohio
and then back like you're going to miss multiple days.
Speaker 3 (21:22):
And then back to Maryland and then back to New
Jersey and Yemma.
Speaker 5 (21:25):
Yeah. Right, So I understand that, but with that comes
a lot of responsibility. So you know, when you start
having these types of conversations, then I go, Okay, Well,
the university has representation, the leagues have representation. The players
are allowed to have representation when it comes to branding
and endorsement deals. But who is sitting at the table
(21:47):
for the players? You need a union. If you're going
to become unionized, that means you're going to be an employee,
so you have different employee rights benefits. And I think
that's the next step in the natural evolution is supposed
to look at basketball and football, they generate the most revenue.
And you know, look at what happened to the PAC twelve.
There's no longer the PAC twelve. It's to sintegrator right
(22:10):
in front of your eyes.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
Improbable.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
We didn't talk a lot about it, but that has
been a really interesting I feel like new version of
what media can be and is going to be.
Speaker 2 (22:23):
What's your vision for that?
Speaker 5 (22:25):
I think it's one that's constantly morphing. I think I
you know, it's like anything. I think when you go
into it, you think it's going to be one way,
and then you have to pivot a thousand times and
it starts to take on a new shape and form.
I think originally at first it was okay, as we
look at Yannis, who I think is one of the
biggest athletes in the world, touches three continents between Africa,
(22:50):
the United States, and Europe, how do we capture the
value in the production and creative aspects along a lot
of his endorsements because you're saying allow those or just
outsourced to third parties, right, And I think once you
kind of become integrated in the storytelling aspect of it,
it allows you to build longer sustainability with the actual client.
(23:12):
It's not a cash grab like I think a lot
of players look at endorsements as okay, Like I have
a five year deal worth twenty million dollars. That's great,
and then when you get into you know, four years
and eight months, it's like, well, how do we start
renegotiating that deal? So for me, I'm like, no, Like
we're going to sit at the creative table, We're going
to keep all the metrics in the data, we're going
(23:34):
to show you how we're adding value to your brand.
And then I want to get I want to pierce
the conversation because I really think it bleeds into the
portfolio from an investment opportunity. Once again, it goes to
deploying capital. Then could we deploy capital and co invest
alongside that athlete, take a stake in what that entity
is principle principal, right, and then help scale it as well.
(23:54):
I mean, similar to how Ryan Reynolds has built Maximum Effort.
You've seen them do that with Aviation Gen. You've seen
them there with Mobile, You're seeing to do that with Wrexham.
So I think having the pipes right to amplify to brand,
but then also having the capital to deploy. I think
having a seat at the table with the right board
of athletes, and then I think inevitably getting athletes to
(24:14):
buy into this thing of shared economics, like I'm watching
Steph do it and he's doing it successfully and very
well on Lebron Stephan Curry. Once again, first thing basis,
I'm sorry Steph probably, but like you know, how many
things can you scale by yourself? Right? So you know,
as an athlete, I think I'm built to say, hey,
(24:37):
I can't win a national championship without Mike dunleyby or
without Carlos Boozer, or without a rod. So then you know,
how where is there a world for lack of better terminology,
Like you know, like a multi family office in which
five or six guys are coming together and they're saying, Okay,
how do we add value? Maybe we have a pool
(24:57):
of capital here that's not ours, but we can deploy
capital from we can then co invest with that, But
then how do we add value collectively? With having the
brand strategy and coming to the table with a vision
is just saying hey, I'm at the table with capital.
I think to me, that's where you receive compound interests
over time and you're creating enterprise value.
Speaker 3 (25:19):
So I want to take, as we all say in
our collective business, a hard pivot here and go back
to something you mentioned earlier, which is, I dare say
the pivotal moment in your life when you're in a
terrible accident right as you come into the league and
it changes the entire direction for you. Tell us what
(25:43):
that moment meant for your life but also for your
business career because it changes what your job is going
to be. I would love to know how it changed
you as a burgeoning business person. Is who as how
you defined your Yeah?
Speaker 5 (26:00):
Well, first off, I think it gave me no pun
intended a real crash course in how hard and cold
business could be. I've been a part of a lot
of deals since. Sometimes when you have money in the deal,
you just you're forced to look at things way more objectively, right,
because your money is the asset in the deal. When
(26:23):
you're the asset yourself, it's hard not to become emotionally
tied to that. So I remember watching the Bulls draft
Kirk Comrich, who I just played the year prior at
Kansas and did work against him to replace me, essentially
in my hospital bed, right, So, having conversations with Jerry Reinsdorf,
(26:44):
understanding and hearing firsthand what their business strategy was was
a hard appeal for me to swallow. That was crazy,
like thinking about it like, it's one hell of a
business strategy. I mean, it's the right plan, right, It's
the right plan that all of us would do. But
when you're hearing that is to ask on the other
end in the hospital bed. That led me into a
deep state of depression. I mean, I had two attempts
(27:05):
at suicide that I've talked openly about. But I think
that forced me all of a sudden to start over again.
After I went through a couple of years of depression.
I really wanted to understand basketball and the CBA and
how it worked. And it actually it led me down
the path with risk mitigation as well, because when you
(27:26):
start receiving all these bills, you're like, well, hold on
a second, how am I going to pay for these
thirteen plus surgeries? Right? So the bulls chet me on
their insurance. I had some challenges later with disability that
I had to work through, but it opened my eyes
to risk mitigation in a completely different aspect, which kind
of led me down the path when I made my
first really big investment in an insurance brokerage firm, because
(27:50):
I started to understand about wholesale I want to kind
of sit in between the middle. It really opened my
eyes up to the under the table business is associated
with basketball more importantly, and I really started studying the
cbauder a guy named Charlie Grantham, I tried to become
an agent. I thought that was like my first step
into the world because I wasn't going to play anymore.
(28:12):
And then, you know it, just things became difficult because
you realize when you're actually working for an agency, you
spread a lot of money out to five oh one
C threes, which are essentially AAU programs, and that was
still deemed illegal at that time. And a news reporter
broke the story on Yahoo Sports that even though I
(28:33):
wasn't the main agent they associated with the agency, that
we have paid Kevin Love's AU team, And it was
just one of those things where I was like, Okay,
how am I going to do this? Like I you know,
I've I've lost the ability to connect with players because
if it becomes public, that's my mantra to a degree,
(28:53):
And how do I kind of change that narrative about me?
So I got involved in and that's what I really
I was like, okay, like now I see how media works.
I see how this one article came out, how it
affected me. I frankly started the process of writing my book.
Then I was like, Okay, I'm going to change this narrative.
(29:14):
I'm no longer going to be the victim to my
motorcycle accident. I'm going to start thinking about how I
use my accident to build off of and kind of
lean into what I want to become business wise. And
I think I was the first step, like in it's
PR it's like crisis management and kind of starting that step.
And media working for ESPN making thirty five thousand dollars
(29:35):
a year, which is another humble kick to the gut. Yeah,
And I started understanding media, working in media, and I
started the process of writing my book because this is
something else we have in common. And I was telling Jay.
Speaker 4 (29:45):
At fourteen, I served the year's suspension for PDUs, and
my whole world kind of fell apart. And I mean,
I think it's very public now that I've done over
twelve years of therapy. I continue to be in this
huge part of my life. But I had built this
incredib doble career and I was almost forty. It was
so scary to have to think about, oh my god,
(30:05):
am I gonna have to scratch everything and start all
over again. That I was below like ground zero, below
ground zero for different reasons obviously than yours, But nevertheless
we had to build it back up from ground zero.
Speaker 3 (30:28):
I mean, you and I have talked about this a lot.
I mean one of the first in depth things that
we did was essentially me asking Alex a question of
why did you even decide to re engage, you know,
because there's a version of this certainly for you.
Speaker 2 (30:45):
We're just like, all right, I'm good.
Speaker 3 (30:47):
I'm gonna go live on an island or do whatever
I'm gonna I'm gonna remove myself from public, I'm not
gonna play, or I'm not gonna certainly get out there.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
What was your thought process?
Speaker 4 (31:00):
Like, J very much depressed because you've worked so hard
to this point, right, and you feel like you're now
set up.
Speaker 6 (31:09):
To win or reap the benefit of your great work.
Speaker 4 (31:14):
In thousands and thousands of hours of commitment and dedication.
But ultimately, why I think Jay and I probably didn't
go to an island is because we're both competitors, and
I like that competitoring prick coming to field. I mean,
I'm a nasty competitor, almost too competitive, and I felt
like I had something else, I had another chapter in me,
(31:35):
and I was too young to just give up.
Speaker 5 (31:37):
I mean, it's not on earth the na to give up.
I don't know if I had.
Speaker 4 (31:42):
Suicidal but whatever, the stop before that is, I was
probably there because it's such a scary thing to be
in a place where you've builded and now you're at
ground zero, literally at ground zero, below ground zero. Like
I felt like if I got up to the lobby,
that was a win and hm so. And I also
felt like there was millions of kids out there that
(32:05):
don't have, you know, parents that are great mentors, or
single parents like my mother who don't have that. And
I felt like I had a lot to offer for
those kids to at least learn from my mistakes. And
that was really the thesis of wanting to come back
is to make an impact. It was too far away
from you know, I want to go back and play baseball,
(32:25):
or I want to go back and go to the
Hall of Fame, or I want to go back and
build an empire. It was really about like, I know,
I have another chapter. I don't know what that looks like,
but I'm going to give it a go.
Speaker 5 (32:34):
How'd you learn how to tell yourself a different story?
Because I know that was you're playing at Duke similarly
playing the Yankees, like you're we're on TV all the time, right, So,
like before, when I would walk in rooms, whether that
was business or personal. It would be like, like that's
that's Jay. It's like number two pick in the draft
place for Chicago Bulls. He's on I nineties on the billboard.
He is Michael Jordan's locker. So as that looked me
(32:54):
like are you okay? Like it was it was completely
It was a different entry point. I were even sit
down to business meetings and like some of these higher
level executives start the conversation for there, and I feel
like I have to drag myself out of the basement
to get to the lobby level. How do you deal
with that? From a storytelling perspective.
Speaker 4 (33:13):
I just started leading with the worst. I started leading
with them, righting them to it, them to it, beat
them to the spot right. And it's kind of what
you started to do with your book or your story.
And I felt like, if you start with the worst,
then we can get better from there. And if you
want to throw me out of the meeting, let's just
do it in the first ten minutes. That way, I
don't waste your time, you don't waste my time. But
I feel like when you own things and then you
(33:34):
talk about the lessons learned, at least you set the
foundation to show that you have self awareness. And I
see this from a lot of young kids that or
just people in general, that they make mistakes, but their
self awareness still hasn't gotten to where it needs to be.
And what I sense is that when you win a championship,
we sign a big contractor you're that number two pick
from the Bulls or the Yankees or whatever. Self awareness decreases,
(33:59):
an ego increase. And I wake up every morning with
two prayers. I want to enhance my self awareness and
decrease my ego, and I think that's my happy spot.
Speaker 5 (34:08):
Yeah, that's one way that I did it. Yeah, I
think I learned that throughout that process. I've always kind
of been a namor with sea level executives, as I've
always wanted to be one me too. And it's amazing
how many people I talk to that have gone through
challenges within their businesses where filling for bankruptcy or losing
money for investors. I think I recognized while I was
(34:30):
riding my book and having all these conversations, Oh, like
everybody's had a motorcycle accident in some form or fashion.
Everybody's had some kind of crash like ours may be
more extreme than others, are more public than others. But
maybe that's a place to actually build the bridge between
myself and people, to actually not come to the room
(34:51):
with more of my ego, but to be more self
aware and then to actually form more of a community.
Speaker 2 (34:57):
And so how do you start building from there?
Speaker 5 (35:00):
You know?
Speaker 3 (35:00):
I mean, so with all of that in mind, you're
doing work on yourself, but you also have to.
Speaker 2 (35:07):
Do the work.
Speaker 3 (35:08):
You know, you have to figure out like who you're
going to be and what you're going to do and
candidly what you're going to contribute, you know, I mean
we talk about this all the time in terms of
like what your what your mission is going to be.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
So how do you hone that over time?
Speaker 3 (35:23):
And who do you go to?
Speaker 2 (35:24):
I mean, is this something where you go to Coach K?
Speaker 3 (35:26):
And I know Alex has sort of almost like a
board of advisors that.
Speaker 5 (35:30):
He Yeah, Coach K scratched three copies of my book
and told me bring this back when it's better. So, yes,
Coach K is on the respective.
Speaker 2 (35:38):
And so so how do you go about building that?
Speaker 5 (35:41):
Well? I did form a personal board for some people
that I had admired that I reached out to in
college and I get beat up, Like it's like a
real it's like a real board meeting, Like you know, really,
all right, Q one, where are we Like? What are
we doing? Like what the portfolio look like? And we
go through that, but then we go into like me personally,
what's the marriage look like with the kids? Like how
(36:02):
we balancing it? Like it's like I really get pushed
and tested, which I very much appreciate, but just to
go back before, like I really leaned into media instead
of just trying to go off and invest in all
these different things, and like, all right, what is my platform?
Like basketball was my platform before? What is my platform?
(36:23):
And I think learning media and studying it and then
studying how to be effective at it but also how
to be different than what I saw on TV.
Speaker 4 (36:34):
One of the things I think you do well, which
I think is a huge gap between kind of the
sports community entertaining community versus the business community. I love
the way you reach out and you're not afraid get
that from And you should be doing a lot more
of that because you on TV and you reaching out
to be with great people whoever you think those are
is the best way to grow your business.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
I think I just have an insatiable appatite, you know,
like and it's like even when I reach out to
I want to be an owner one day of a team. Right,
So understanding you know what teams are coming on the marketplace,
Like what's happening in Las Vegas for the NBA, is
there a team in Mexico City, what's going to happen
in Europe? The explosion of n W s L and
their new media rights, the w n b A, which
(37:17):
is an interesting entry point from an investor perspective, you know,
Professional bull Riding PBR, that League Sale GP. Like understanding
where all these leagues are coming from and how to
actually bet those opportunities, that's number one, Right, I think
you are on point, and that goes just a closed
loop on the story. I think when I was learning TV,
(37:38):
I think I saw that gap and I did this
show called The Best Shop and it was with Lebron
and Maverick and it was when they were launching spring Hill.
Speaker 2 (37:47):
Maverick Carterron James's business press.
Speaker 5 (37:50):
Sorry, should be a little bit more right the script. Yes,
you know, I saw them building this media empire, but
then also I saw how they were utilizing the media
Empire for a lot of their investments right, And I
also saw from my perspective, all of a sudden on
the show, now I'm an executive producer and I'm talent, like,
oh okay, I can eat on both ends. It was
(38:11):
very fascinating. So then understanding that dynamic and how they worked,
then I started working with Rich Climbing and Kevin Durant
when we launched the Boreroom. Now that was tricky because
I had to sell the Boarroom to the company I
was working for, Right, So that allowed me to have
a lot of different conversations with Jimmy peterarro Connor show
in ESPNS thirty for thirty with Rich and Kevin. But
(38:33):
it was once again it just served proof of concept
that I was with Serena hearing Williams about her venture firm.
Speaker 2 (38:42):
Serena is one that you could just say, Serena, I
don't know.
Speaker 5 (38:46):
Some people you know, you gotta be first name bans
you can't. But then I started sitting down with Steve
Baumer and Josh Cronky and hearing about all the teams
they own and start learning about tax abatements and how
to think about that when you're actually building a stadium
in the Inglewood, right, some of the challenges that come
along with that. And then I would listen to high
level athletes who actually were pretty competent in business, but
(39:10):
still didn't sound as competent, or still were somewhat a
little bit afraid to sit at the actual table. Alex,
do you still get that, like with certain athletes like
who were? They want to be in the room, and
they could be in the room and it can listen,
but they don't know how to take it to that
next step as a business person.
Speaker 4 (39:30):
Yeah, I think a lot of it is because they're
never alone in a room. Yes, I would tell athletes,
get yourself in the room and go alone. That's the
greatest advice I can give you because if not inevitably
they're going to talk to your agent or your manager
or whatever. Now it's okay to bring one person or whatever,
but get in the room, get uncomfortable and feel comfortable,
and the uncomfortable, especially sitting in that table. And I
(39:52):
love the fact that you have quite honestly the we
say the Cojones.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Maybe mock see.
Speaker 5 (40:00):
Yeah, that's a Georgetown Georgetown duke.
Speaker 4 (40:04):
I feel very much imposture right now, I have like
Dominican University here, but Jay with you. I love that
you can verbalize as part of it, and to say
it first of us hard to do it in your mind.
To say it in your mind, you're saying it publicly.
I want to be an owner one day. That's awesome,
But how does the J. Williams Holding Company look in
five years if.
Speaker 5 (40:25):
You had a year way? I think having capital to
deploy is very important to have a seat at the table.
So I think what you might see is I'll always
keep my foot within media from an ownership perspective. I
understand that business, and I understand where that business is going.
But I think the sports marketplace is really fascinating for me.
(40:49):
Alex right like being able to have capital behind entity
with a media, marketing, branding arm where I can look
at certain investments and I can look at at their
operating teams and effectively take shots at those type of
assets and scale that slowly. And I don't want to
(41:10):
use the term private equity because that's just like you know,
everybody I ever want to be involved in private equity,
or every athlete once have a family office, but a
team of brand strategists and a chief investment officer in
which we could look at different assets and then marry
ip to certain athletes that I think actually want to
(41:30):
work and actually want to have a seat at the table.
Because I do see that correlation, I am able to
have conversations with certain individuals where I'm like, I'll bet
on you because I know that you will like to work,
and also we have access to so much stuff. Right
So it's like somebody saying, hey, Jay, you know, in
five years, if this explosion continues to happen within the
(41:52):
collegiate market, you know what's one of your port codes?
I would say, you love to own a significant piece
of Duke basketball? Mm mmm, right, would love to own
a significant piece of Ohio State football. I think that's
going to be a marketplace that's being tinkered around right now.
But then also thinking about all these traditional athletic companies,
(42:17):
athletic you know, departments are still very archaic, and now
I think you're seeing the same way private equities entering
the NFL conversations around areas and other PE firms right
entering that market. I think that's going to happen on
the collegiate market. And you know, how could you help
Duke generate more revenue and be more profitable right by
(42:40):
having experts associated with Duke basketball, from a branding perspective,
from a content perspective, from a media rights perspective. So
I think in five years, I think that's the direction
I'm going. And I think similar to you, I think
I I always love commentary, but I want to be
insightful with my commentary. And I also think, similar to
(43:00):
what we're doing with Jalen, I like telling things more
from the player businessman perspective instead of just the player perspective.
I think I'm starting to learn that that could be
my sweet spot that doesn't allow me to ultimately hurt
my relationships but still be true to myself and what
I see.
Speaker 3 (43:20):
I mean, you talk about magic all the time, basically
saying you can get in the room.
Speaker 2 (43:26):
You know, like you guys can do the.
Speaker 3 (43:28):
Thing that is certainly hard for a journalist, but like
hard for an everyday person just to get into the
room because everybody wants to know exactly what you're talking about.
What's it like, what's it like shooting that free throw,
what's it like taking that through, what's it like being
at that home plate? And then you're in and then
you prove yourself and the relationship begins.
Speaker 5 (43:47):
Yeah, I agree with that, Jason and Jay.
Speaker 4 (43:48):
The thing is that I've studied so many of the Titans, right,
But what they are expecting is they're expecting for you
to come in the room, be a nice guy, and
take a picture and sign autographs and then we say
my bye here now we put you on your way.
They're not expecting you to have a real team, and
they're definitely not expecting you to follow up.
Speaker 6 (44:10):
And I think that's where most athletes.
Speaker 4 (44:12):
You know, twenty percent of the athletes ask for the meeting,
probably one percent of those twenty follow up in a
real way. And you got to follow up right, and
you got to be long term thinking because if most
athletes come in with high expectations, one meeting, big deal,
it doesn't really happen like that unless you're you know,
Tiger or maybe Tom Brady or something that is just
one and done and you're good. But it's just who's
(44:33):
going to be persistent to hang around, hang around, keep
coming back, and stay focused on what you really need
and want.
Speaker 3 (44:38):
You know, all right, let's dot a rapid fire. Now
I think you're going to be really good at this.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
I think you're gonna be really good at all Right,
I'll start in the view, and what are the rules
that you keep it tight? Keep it just keep it tight.
Speaker 5 (44:56):
Do I get a chance to ask any back to
you guys?
Speaker 3 (44:58):
No?
Speaker 2 (44:58):
Yeah, we'll see how it goes. Yeah, all right.
Speaker 3 (45:01):
At the end, what's one word to describe your deal
making style?
Speaker 5 (45:06):
Patient? What's more important to you? Your instincts or data?
I really value data, but I think it's coming down
to instincts and gut who people are.
Speaker 3 (45:15):
Who is your dream deal making partner?
Speaker 5 (45:18):
I mean it's David Rubuste.
Speaker 3 (45:21):
I think you say, Jason, what's the best piece of
advice you've received on deal making your business?
Speaker 5 (45:28):
Never run? Always walk with pace? Same question? Was the
worst advice you've ever been given? Worst advice came from
an athlete? This is bad? Actually, successful athlete, Jay, The
more deals the better. Oh, actually, so that's the best
answer we've ever gotten.
Speaker 3 (45:46):
That is what's your hype song before you go into
a big meeting or negotiation?
Speaker 5 (45:51):
This is this is weird Like I've been listening to
a lot more classical orchestra. I'd like to try to
be calm, pick the emotion out of any specific I'll
go to old school, like a little Patti LaBelle.
Speaker 4 (46:06):
A fun fact about yourself that your colleagues will be
surprised to.
Speaker 5 (46:10):
Hear about loyalty and transparency is very important to me
because I don't I didn't have that a lot of
my life. I had a lot of times where a
lot of deals or a lot of people try to
pull the wool over my eyes, and I think I
always try to operate from that space.
Speaker 3 (46:27):
All right, Well, this has been a huge treat for us.
Thank you so much, Shay Williams.
Speaker 5 (46:31):
Thank you. I appreciate that good stuff. Guys, thanks a lot,
Thanks Jay, Thanks man.
Speaker 1 (46:42):
The Deal is a production from Bloomberg Podcasts and Bloomberg Originals.
The Deal is hosted by Alex Rodriguez and Jason Kelly.
Our producers are Anamazarakis, Stacey Wong, Lizzie Phillip, and Victory Veez.
Original music and engineering by Blake Maples. Our managing editor
is David E. Ravella. Our executive producers are Jason Kelly,
(47:04):
Brendan Francis Newnham, Jordan Opplinger, Trey Shallowhorn, Kyle Kramer, Andrew Barden.
Kelly Laferrier and Ashley Hoenig. Sage Bauman is our head
of podcasts, Additional support from Rachel Scaramzino and Elena So
Los Angeles. Joshua Devau is our director of photography. Rubob
(47:25):
Shakir is our creative director. Art direction is from Jacqueline Kessler.
Casting by Julia Manns. Our associate producer is Natasha Abelard.
Camera operation by Ryan Cavtero, Jesse Ridner, and Suma Hussain.
Our gaffer is Alex Brown, and our grip is Max Garstak.
Our production assistant is Gabriella Dematase. Katia Vanoy is our
(47:49):
video editor. Listen to the Deal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,
or wherever you get your podcasts. You can also tune
into the Video Companion on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.
Thanks for listening.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.