EP14 - Peter Robert Casey, Co-CEO of JDS Sports a sports & entertainment private equity firm.

In this episode of Beyond The Athlete, we sit down with Peter Robert Casey, the visionary CEO of JDS SPORT. Join us as we delve into Peter's incredible journey from his early days in the sports industry to leading one of the most innovative companies in sports media and technology.

Peter shares his insights on the evolving landscape of sports investments within media, technology and community from their portfolio which consists of SLAM, Front Office Sports and The GIST to name a few. We explore the challenges and opportunities in the industry and Peter's vision for the future.

Whether you're a sports enthusiast, aspiring entrepreneur, or just curious about the intersection of sports and technology, this episode is packed with valuable insights and inspiring stories. Tune in to hear Peter's expert advice and learn how JDS SPORT is shaping the future of sports.

Peter Robert Casey - https://www.instagram.com/peterrobertcasey/
JDS Sports - https://www.instagram.com/jds.sports/

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

And if you really want to see the beauty of basketball, um the the team game is is even more beautiful than just being able to dream and play one-on-one or just work by yourself in the yard. And so it it's truly a team game and everyone plays a specific role. And I just I just always enjoyed that as a kid, right?

SPEAKER_00 0:23

Welcome everyone again to another episode of Beyond the Athlete Podcast, um presented by Boss Relation. My name is Coach David, as you all know, and today we have another special guest. And like I always say, all our guests are very special to us because they're gonna bring a lot of insights, a lot of information, a lot of fun, a lot of entertainment to our conversation. Um and the way we speak to our guests is pretty much flowing, conversational, um, so you don't get bored. Um, but we would love for you to, however, watch through this whole episode, subscribe, like, comment, and in your comments, also give us feedback how we can improve. Who would you like to see on this podcast as well? But not to take too much of your time, our very special guest today. He told me to call him PRC, but I actually want to say his full name, um, which is Peter Robert Casey, investor at JDS Sports. He does a lot of other things as well, and I could list them out, but I actually want him to speak about that um himself. So, Peter, great to have you on the podcast today. Really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Thank you for having me. It's a pleasure to be with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

Good. Thank you, thank you. I know we were meant to meet a few weeks back, um, but I know you had a few things to sort out. Um, by the way, I'm loving your background as well. Um, it's giving me a lot of inspiration for my own background next time. Um looks really pretty cool. Um, so yeah, I just wanted to start off just really obviously I've just given like sort of like a basic from my end, from my perspective of who you are and what you do. But it would be great to kind of hear from you who you are, what you do as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:07

Yeah, I could give you the quick version. Peter Robert Cases, as you said, most people do call me PRC for simplicity. And uh, as you mentioned, I'm an investor at JDS Sports. Uh JDS are the initials are of our chairman, Joe Sandberg. And uh what we do is we invest mostly in early stage startup companies. Um, we do that for a mixture of private equity and venture capital. And so uh six years ago, we acquired SLAM, the the great legacy football magazine, and um it was a great asset, just never really had the capital to reinvent itself. So we bought SLAM in in August of 2017 and really repositioned the business and the brand as a modern media and lifestyle brand. And subsequent to that, we launched JDS Sports, which is investing in startups that are complementary to SLAM that plug into SLAM's growth plans. And on the inverse, we give those startups a compelling use case with a trusted brand in SLAM. So our portfolio right now sits at about just above 30 companies, 30 investments, all around sports tech, sports media, a couple of CPGs and the like.

SPEAKER_00 3:14

Amazing. That sounds amazing. Um, and you mentioned Slam, everyone knows Slam. Um and I've been I I read their magazines, I've been reading them for years. Um funny enough, I actually um I actually sometimes speak to Dennis Page on Instagram as well. Um, especially the NBA season last year, we were going back and forth around what was going on in the in the league. So it was quite interesting to get to actually know a bit of him as well, which is great. Um but yes, he's the creator, yes, big time, big time creator. Um, so how did you get into um this world of business and investing? What was your um it'd be good to kind of take it a bit back, your your childhood, growing up, family, and then maybe going into education. If you did go into education and sure kind of see that whole process really.

SPEAKER_01 4:06

Yeah, I grew up in uh Brooklyn, New York, on the on the southeast end of Brooklyn, a very much a working-class neighborhood. Uh I come from three generations of civil servants, all the way until my family immigrated here from Ireland, at least on my father's side. And um, you know, unfortunately in childhood, I actually lost my sister uh at nine when I was nine years old. She was about to be 10. It was just an abrupt, sudden loss. She died of myocarditis, uh basically a viral infection of the heart. And so um, through God's grace, he gave me the gift of basketball, which became sort of like a coping mechanism and an outlet for me to channel some of that pain as a kid. Uh, and I fell in love with it. Baseball was probably my first love. It was a team sport, but I was very fortunate in Brooklyn to have a very small patch of asphalt in our yard uh and just fell in love with basketball, you know, mainly like I mentioned as an escape initially. Um started going to basketball camps uh, you know, through my adolescence, played three years of varsity basketball in high school, uh, was recruited mostly by Division III schools, which uh someone should have told me at that point I should just hang it up and focus on the business side of the game. But I was a stubborn, you know, Irish American kid. So uh played one year of Division III basketball in college, then I quit basketball, kind of went away from the game. Um, and when I graduated college, my first job was in higher education on the student affairs side. And um, my job there was essentially at Columbia University to build community in the very brick and mortar sense with graduate students who were full-time teachers who were coming to school at night and also uh principals of middle and high schools. And so I did that for five years, and along the way, I felt this tug back to my you know, my love for hoops, and I didn't really know what to do. This was during the financial crisis, by the way. Everyone in America and mostly around the world was losing their jobs, and and I had I was fortunate enough to have a safe, cushy job there, and I started experimenting with these new and shiny tools called social media. This is 2007, 8 now. Uh, and I was interested in working in the business of basketball, but I didn't have the experience that that lend itself to that, and so I took some risks. I I launched a Twitter account in 2008, I launched a blog talking about the intersection of social media, how you can use these tools uh on the business side of sports, specifically the business of basketball. So I was taking these principles of community building that I was doing at Columbia University in the real world and seeing if they would apply to digital, you know, to where people can gather around a specific interest or topic. And so it was probably a function of being in the right place at the right time, but I ended up getting a press pass to cover St. John's men's basketball program, uh, a big East College basketball program that I grew up a huge fan of on my Twitter account. And this is at a time in 2009 when sports journalists were not using Twitter, and and Twitter didn't even have native video and photo functionality. You had to use TwitPick and TwitVid to kind of bring in dynamic media to to the platform. This is before, obviously, well before it was called X, but that opportunity allowed me to uh I was right place by time. It became a national news story in the New York Times and ESPN and Sports Illustrated. Uh and one of those folks who read the story in the New York Times happened to be the president of the New York Knicks, and he invited me to speak on a panel before a Knicks game, and that ultimately led to me getting a full-time job offer to be the first in-house social media specialist for the New York City New York Knicks. So that's that's kind of been my my journey from childhood to into the business, if you will.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

That's that's it, that's so interesting. Um, it makes me it it really encourages me. And the reason why I say that is because that journey that you just described is literally the journey that I'm going through right now. Um yeah, so obviously starting basketball. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um I started playing basketball quite young, um, not quite young, I think I'll say about 12, 13 years old. Um and I say this to all my guests. So I started playing in Nigeria with my cousin. My cousin introduced me to the sport basketball. Um, and our first experience of basketball was actually creating our own hoop and actual ball, um, making our ball using rubber bands, making our basketball hoop on our grandma's balcony with like an iron rod um bent and nailed onto a wooden backboard, those type of things. Um, and then came over to the UK, played um junior on the 18s, and then went to university, played as well. Um, and then the love kind of went away um because, like you said, someone should have told me to really focus on the business side, but um I didn't know any better. So I went into fashion um because I come from a fashion background. My mom and dad were both designers um back in Nigeria. My mom designs here. So, and then last year, June, met a 17-year-old kid. Um, he challenged me to play against him and his guys. I bought my guys that ended up becoming what was meant to be 10 people, ended up becoming 25 people there. We paid for it, paid for the indoor course, started the sessions, and then from there it's just taken off since then. And we just said, oh, we can do this every week, and we just kept it going, and then it became something else, and then became something else, and it just kept growing. So even things like when you said you got a press pass to um to um St. John's game, I I do the same thing as well. As much as we're passing with community, I don't limit it just to just the community. Um, so if there's a for example the Big Free Championship that happened the end of the summer, I went and got a press pass and got a photographer and a videographer within the community to come with me and we go out there. I had a camera as well, and we went out there and took content and um did videos and pictures and actually posted it. They even have one of our photo, one of our roles on their page as well. So like you can never limit yourself when it comes to those type of things. So which is quite interesting that you that you did say that as well. So um that was quite encouraging for me, and I'm sure it'll be encouraging to a lot of people in that journey as well.

SPEAKER_01 10:24

Absolutely. If you don't mind taking a quick pause, I want to shut off my text message commerce. Uh I thought I thought I failed to do that. Hold on. No worries. Apologies. No worries. By the way, do you so you're still doing these weekly runs?

SPEAKER_00 10:46

Uh um, so we actually stopped them for a while. Um, they were coming quite costly. Um, however, what we've done now is that we've partnered with with um two different borrowers, so Hammersmith and Fulham and Ealin. So we're now working with them to actually offer those runs to the community in those areas. Incredible. So I think they help us with terms of costings in terms of the gyms, maybe discount on gyms and stuff like that. So it's less costly on us, but also more value to the community as well. Um, but we're doing other things as well, like grants, etc., trying to build that economy within our space first to actually give back out to the young guys and girls who love the game of basketball.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

I love it. By the way, one thing I forgot to mention on my journey late in high school through college, streetball.co.uk was one of these daily must visits for me growing up.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

So yeah, yeah. So funny enough, my our first episode is with a gentleman called Gary Maitland. He was one of the players for Streetball Doctor Tricky at the time as well. Um he's about maybe just slightly taller than me. I'm 5'9, he's about 5'10, 5'11, but dude can jump, can dunk, can stay in the air for so long, up and under, everything. So and he's a trainer now, a professional trainer. So um there you go. So yeah, so we've touched on we've touched on um what you do, and we've also touched on your um your background and the journey that you've had so far. Um so carrying on from when you started in social media at the Knicks, what was that um what was that experience like and what propelled you to your next phase or your next career in life from there?

SPEAKER_01 12:31

Yeah, so the job opportunity with the Knicks was an exciting one. My my role, as I mentioned, was social media specialist. That was the title, but the role itself was really I was an embedded reporter with the team coming through the marketing function. And so I went to every single Knicks practice, every home game. I went to all the regional games that year. So Toronto, Boston, Philly, DC, covered all those games from an in-house marketing and you know, journalistic perspective, if you will. But the main job really was to build community around the team. You know, we grew the first million Facebook fans on for the New York Knicks back in 2010. I was there the day that Carmelo Anthony was traded over from Denver to New York, met him and the family, for example, at Teterborough Airport when they first arrived. First person to interview Carmelo Anthony. So think about it. We built community around the team, an engagement with fans. And you know, from a business perspective, it was really around three things. How do you drive more ticket sales, drive tuned into television, and also to activate their their many brand sponsors and partners using social media? It was just an awesome use case and learning experience for me professionally and also just personally, growing up a huge basketball fan player, to have that sort of purview and up-close, you know, uh view every day of how the Knicks practice and how the games come to life. It was it was just an awesome time. Uh, then after that, I was recruited away to do similar work on the agency side for Nike basketball. So there at the ground floor and launching Nike basketball on Instagram in 2012. And I remember that whole lead up of like, what's our first 10 posts going to look like? Um and the and the job and the role there was very similar. It was about storytelling around all the different major shoe drops. So Kobe Bryant, God rest the soul, LeBron James, Kevin Durant at that time were the big signature Nike basketball athletes. And so we would do all of the storytelling on social around each of the colorways for their sneakers that would drop because all of those colorways are derived from insights about their personal lives, their childhood, their adolescence, their journey. Um and so obviously the business function there is like building community around the Nike basketball brand to drive more sell-through of their of their products. But it was an it was an awesome, awesome experience. Also kind of dovetail with the 2012 London Olympics. So uh I got to experience that on social and celebrating Team USA basketball, which is a big Nike basketball property. Uh and then after leaving the agency, it sort of connected to what I what I currently do. Um I I was launching a startup app at the time and also just out there freelancing. I continued working with Nike basketball, and then that's when I met Joe, who who I mentioned are the initials for JDS Sports. And so started working with Joe part-time. He he owned the company Five Star Basketball Camp, uh, a camp we both went to. Uh, and then ultimately the the slam acquisition happened in 2017 together. Um when you were at Nike, did you ever work closely with John Olingar?

SPEAKER_00 15:49

Yes, Johnny.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

Oh, he he was a he was a hooper himself.

SPEAKER_00 15:52

Uh yeah in Coventry. He actually was actually my coach at Coventry University as well. That's a really small world.

SPEAKER_01 15:58

He's one of the first people I met. So John was on the customer service team initially. That was his like first job at Nike. So I I got to meet him when I flew out to to Beaverton. Great, great man.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

Yeah, I speak to him now. He um when it comes to anything to do with marketing, especially with what we do, I literally try and book him onto a Zoom call and literally just have a list of questions that just bash. I mean, it's always so helpful, so helpful. Like even when I when I was in Coventry, um, he used to he was still living there. Um, because we used to attend the same church as well. Um, so he was very um almost like a mentor, like a father figure in that space to me at the time. So he was really, really helpful in terms of a lot of things growing up, especially in Coventry. So yeah, I'm so I'm super, super grateful to him as well.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

And he played profile over there, is that right?

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, he was killing it though. He was killing it, he was unstoppable. He was unstoppable. Um, yeah, he was super, super unstoppable. And he played it for another young guy, um, Steven Danso, who's a British, who's British basketball player as well. Um, and both of them together, unstoppable, they were just yeah. He actually helped me improve my game quite a lot as well. Um, those those 7-AM workouts.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

I was I was already well washed up by the time I met John, so uh I didn't even try, I didn't even try. I already knew.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

Um, so my my next question I would I would go to is um what first of all, I know you've mentioned it, but I wanted to kind of elaborate a bit more. Um, where did your full love of basketball come from? Because the fact that you still work in that space now shows that there's such a huge love for it. Um and then also, why do you love the sport as well?

SPEAKER_01 17:51

So that that love, yeah, goes back to that that childhood in my in my yard in Brooklyn. And just basketball allows you, you could one, you could play the sport by yourself, right? All you need is a ball, and to your point, it could be a homemade hoop. It could be a homemade ball and a homemade hoop. You don't need much. There's a very there's a beauty and simplicity, I always feel like basketball offers that simplicity. So that that's at its very core. And so when you can sit there in your yard and put up hundreds of shots, but dream, right? And dream and thinking about, yeah, you know, this is during the 90s when I when I was coming of age. And so I just remember too, like I was watching uh laying on my stomach in my cousin's basement when Christian Leitner hit that iconic shot, Duke, you know, against Kentucky, uh, watching UNLV, Larry Johnson, and you know, Greg Anthony and that team dominate in the 1990 season. So we would be watching this. And this is also the coming of age of all the iconic NBA VHS tapes. Michael Jordan come fly with me, you know, Magic Johnson VH VHS tapes. I would go watch those tapes and then go back out in the yard and try to like mimic everything that I just saw. So that that that is where the love, like I think, was really born there. And then obviously it was like addressing a pain to my own loss of my sister at that time in my life. So I think it was accomplishing those two things, allowing me to dream, but also to like just kind of minimize some of the pain and trauma that I was going through in my life at that time. Then I started playing basketball as a team sport. And if you really want to see the beauty of basketball, um the the team game is even more beautiful than just being able to dream and play one-on-one or just one by yourself in the yard. And so it it's truly a team game, and everyone plays a specific role. And I just I just always enjoyed that as a kid, right? Like I was a two steps too slow point guard, but I always enjoyed setting up the play and getting the assist from a young kid. I never needed to be a scorer, never really wanted to be a scorer. I just love to set up the play, set the table, if you will. So um, that's really where the where the love was born. And it stuck with me. And I think to your point, maybe I got I I think I specialized in basketball too soon in life, and I ended up sort of burning myself out by the time I got to my last year of high school and first year of college. The love didn't fade away. Just the the idea of like getting up at 5 30 and just getting after it. I don't know, that that that just went away for me for a while because I think I was obsessive. Like when passion falls into an obsession, it becomes unhealthy and it becomes unsustainable. And um, it also robs you of the joy of why you fell in love with the game in the first place. So stepping away from it, I thought was super healthy. And and again, it wasn't even intentional, it was more I was just burnt out, I didn't care. Um, but it made me miss it. Like when years had passed again, it made me miss it. And I I went back to why the question you're asking too is like why? And so when you have a more healthy relationship with with a game, you can enjoy it for what it is, and so that's kind of what it is now, and so it's been a through line in my whole life. Um, first, as like a thing I enjoyed as a child, played competitively high school, one year college, and now it's sort of tied to what I do in my profession.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Amazing. What would you say to a young athlete that um has that obsession? Um and you don't want them to actually go through that whole process of mixing the passion with obsession and then burning out. So, what would you say to a young athlete that has an obsession and how to keep it sustainable now that you know what that what that looks like now? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 21:39

The most genuine answer I could give too, and this is not uh it's been a part of my journey. I came back to the church in 2015, but faith is my counterbalance to everything where nothing becomes an obsession because there's only number only one number one, right? One center, which is which is our Lord, and that gives me a a real natural. perspective and balance. But as a as you're talking to a young athlete, it's really finding what is that counterbalance, like putting putting basketball or whatever that obsession is into its its right proper perspective of of life, right? Like it's a great game and it could do a lot of good and it's done a lot of good for so many people, myself included, but at the end of the day, it's a means to an end for things. It's not an end itself. So I think you you just have to place it in its proper and rightful perspective.

SPEAKER_02 22:32

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

Sounds that's a good that's a great answer. And I can if you don't mind me I can share mine as well. So I would love to hear it.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

My mine mine is um always gonna it's always been around about people, um how I can help people, how I can um how can I put it how can how I can enable or create something for people to become the best their best selves basically. So with the platform that we have um as much as we can do the weekly runs like I mentioned but then we can do a podcast but when we have a YouTube channel now that it may not have crazy um subscribers right now, but as a platform for any young creative to really decide oh I want to do a show I want to I want to create this type of um um film or whatever we've got the cameras here we provide the resources for them to actually make that happen rather than them having to wait till maybe they have enough money to buy a camera or or they have to pay someone to do it. You can put your money to the side let's help you start off first of all um helping could also be in that you're in university and we and you need help with assignments and your degree and stuff like that. Okay we're connected with uh we're part of a larger community um and we have people that work in law people that work in finance people who are software engineers let's and partner you with those guys um to really give you that mentorship through your journey because they've been there. So these are the type of things that we're doing um because I feel like once you can invest in the people um and you almost kind of make almost kind of provide a solution to the everyday struggle of having to do things by yourself and not having the support um or thinking that you're not good enough but then you have that community behind you that can really give you that support and really push you to the limits to be your best then you'll there's no doubt that you're actually going to be at the top of anything that you do. So our aim is to really build leaders that will be um leaders of their whether industry or it's basketball whether it's um entertainment whether it's music but they'll be at the top so that's how we kind of look at people and that's that's that's that's that's why we do what we do with basketball.

SPEAKER_01 24:51

That's beautiful man I mean that's powerful and that and that's what that's what the game unlocks and empowers basketball we always look at this when you go to a community basketball court it's always been a sort of unifier and a bridge in a community it brings people from different sides of the community different generations like we always talk about this when you know you're a teenager you go to the park when you pick up basketball was a real big thing it's the first time you're playing against grown men adults and competing against them or people that look different than you at that part. And so that's and you're playing on the same team and that's that's what's beautiful about basketball and it goes all the way back to its inception right like James Naismith when he applied for his his master's degree at you know the YMC International YMC training school which became Springfield College his application said the purpose why why are you applying for this program he said to win men for the master of the gym this was like muscular Christianity at the time and then he invented basketball because he was solving a problem in in New England at that time you know in the winter fall was football season and and spring was baseball season and and he had these uh athletes that wanted to do something indoors that was fun and competitive and he founded basketball but even in that and and how he created those rules it was to bring virtue into the gym. So it's beautiful to see you're doing that in a in a modern way and what you're doing with the podcast and the community you've built.

SPEAKER_00 26:20

No that's powerful thank you for that that's amazing. My next question is going to go around what something that we just both mentioned but we didn't mention what is um is mentorship. With yourself um and the reason why I'm structuring like this because we're starting from the beginning and just we're just yes going along the way um how important is mentorship to you and would you encourage um especially young athletes and people to really take up mentorship um and what's what's that is that impacted you if you've had any as well?

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Absolutely uh throughout my entire life whether it was coaches or adult figures in my life that I've looked up to that I can always glean insights from who've already lived it right who have that life experience who went ahead and and kind of lived it and they can share both uh things to avoid right pitfalls or landmines to not step on but also uh things that they've done right and that they would recommend to a young person like myself and so interestingly at the very when I was working at Columbia University and I was trying to make that sort of shift into the business of basketball I reached out to uh a man who became a he wasn't a mentor then but he became a mentor later his name is Tom Kinchalski he's a he's a legendary he was a legendary high school basketball scout sort of a he called himself his his words dinosaur of a man he he was a technophobe he never owned a computer he never owned a a cell phone and he did all of his scouting reports on a trusty old typewriter like a from the 70s and he just never never really evolved but it didn't matter all the the biggest college basketball coaches subscribed to his you know 16 times a year newsletter called HSBI report for some reason probably it was providential um I reached out to Tom in in 2003 and I actually couldn't get a hold of him because again he didn't have a he didn't have a cell phone he didn't even have a he didn't even have an answering machine at his home so just a really hard to get a hold of person but I felt prompted to to reach out and so I wrote a handwritten letter to Tom and a month later he ended up calling me from his landline to my cell phone and he gave me advice then that like just struck me. It was so simple and easy which was like I was telling Tom I was looking to break into basketball and I didn't again I didn't know like what that meant. So at the time I think I was contemplating even coaching basketball. And so Tom was like there's no substitute for experience if you want to coach basketball why don't you call your old high school coach or your old AAU coach and just volunteer your time while you're job searching and so that was the spark I I was I was working nights and I was coaching you know after school during the day with my old AAU coach who was also a high school coach and that was what relit that flame again I had like been away from basketball for now three or four years. And it was to your point the people side of it it wasn't the coaching it was it was the mentoring so Tom was Tom was essentially mentoring me without me even asking him I was asking him for advice but he was mentoring me then I had the opportunity to mentor these young men who are high school you know it was a varsity team and so Tom ultimately when I ended up getting into the business he became just a personal and professional mentor to me for many years until his passing a couple of years ago of cancer.

SPEAKER_00 29:52

Oh man so I highly recommend it having a mentor yeah yeah it's it's it's been it's very very important and it's um it helps it helps um I don't like using the word shortcuts but it helps to cut down certain things along that journey along that process as well um especially for myself certain things that I've been through um because I only realized what my purpose was last year. So so and there's 17 year olds that maybe they don't know what it what they want to do but hopefully maybe by the age of like 2021 they know way before I did pretty much so that's what that's that's amazing that what you just said in terms of like how you're meant how he um how Todd mentored you and without him knowing but um rest in peace to him as well definitely um so yeah so going back to people um especially the younger generation because I know I know pretty much what you do with in sports um and I I will go into that um but how important is and I ask this to all my guests how important is grassroots because for me I always feel I always believe that the younger generation are the future of the sports so really we should be investing in them.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Is this something that you're commonly doing within your space at the moment um or a part of something that really invests into grassroots and the younger generation within sports so the grassroots are are are so important because that is where the foundation is usually formed right with these habits and these views of of sport in the world if you will and so um it's extremely important. Unfortunately in our country and I'm sure it's probably similar it's become really big business right and so when that happens a a a lot of the good unfortunately gets so they're just pros and cons, right? And the pros with when big business comes into grassroots sports there's infrastructure right there's facilities for practices and gameplay and competition uh because there's money now right so that that that that's a good thing there's scheduling there's organization so these are all good things on the flip side of that usually is where some of the vices come in with greed and agendas right adult agendas bleeding into grassroots sports of like parents and coaches living vicariously their through their children because of something that you know didn't happen in their lives. And so you're you're sort of I think this could be a really big con because you don't want to specialize and get too serious at too young of an age because again you could just it leads to sort of burnout it leads to you know um kids just kind of knee-jerk reaction against going you know doing it because it just it becomes unhealthy if you will so I think that's the one counterbalance you have to be you have to be careful out there of like that that balance but you know grassroots is where it all happens so having good coaches good fathers good mothers volunteering participating teaching sharing on the learnings of the game I think that's all really important and so um you know we don't we don't invest in grassroots sports directly we're mostly in tech where and we're mostly in like off the field versus you know on court is where we specialize from our investment thesis perspective but we do like I mentioned we do own and operate five star basketball camp which is a grassroots basketball camp organization and uh one thing five star I went even when I went I didn't like it at the time it was such a uh it was so focused on the fundamentals and when you're you know when you're in 15 16 17 years old you just you just want to play you want to compete at five star as an adult now looking back the reason why I appreciate it so much is is because it was about the right thing which was teaching the game the right way and so yeah there were two sets of stations uh teaching stations every single day and you'd have to rotate through these stations and it was kind of like boot camp which is which which has made it hard um but as an adult that's what the game is missing that's what youth sports are missing and needs to be focused on having fun always above everything but also just learning the fundamentals of that sport right that that's what the grassroots are are about. And usually those are volunteers those aren't paid figures and so these are like these are heroes these are people stepping up who are you know full-time dads moms they have a full-time day job who are lending their time because it's it's that important.

SPEAKER_00 34:36

Yeah um you mentioned five star again um quite a lot of us here always wanted to attend five star basketball camps um but a lot of us couldn't afford it unfortunately but it was it was it was super super popular everyone wanted to be there I think a few guys did get to go um during my time of playing um when I was younger um so yeah it was it's it's it's a huge thing I've I still believe it's it's still huge now um I don't see as much obviously on socials and stuff like that but uh I do hear about people like athletes still going to five star basketball camps so it's not something that's actually it's still something that's still booming at the moment which is great um and I'm sure it's inspired so many other camps that have come come out through the years also as well um which is fantastic.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

I wanted to go into the investing side of yourself um the world that you're in now um so my first question around that is uh in terms of the companies that you've invested in um through JDS sports um what makes a a company viable uh for investment first of all the first thing we look for and we typically invest just for to zoom out for a second we invest in early stage companies usually at their seed round between seed and their series A which is more of a growth round and so you're looking you're looking at a few things one is the team right because we know if this business is going to reach its full potential one day it's probably going to look a lot differently than it does when you know than it does today being pitched at the seed stage. And so we're really looking at the team at that point is this the right founder or co-founders who can take this business um and adapt it because the market's going to speak when they launch that business and they're gonna have to be adaptive to what what the market says about the businesses. So we're always looking at the right team at these good people first and foremost are they the right complimentary skill sets to complement one another to help them on the journey you know one might be more product focused one might be more finance focused uh then we look at can they achieve product market fit with their business like when the market speaks is there enough people to buy this product or service and is it repeatable and scalable in that in that standpoint so we're really looking at uh at those four things at its earliest stage to see its viability to your question.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

And in in terms of your portfolio at the moment um which business would you say um has been quite successful over the years for yourselves um in terms of um I'll say productivity in terms of even maybe their range of make maybe the range of business that they do as well um which company would you say well couple jump out if you don't mind i it's hard to pick just one our very first our very first investment was a company called transmit live it's a it's an ad tech platform and we we met these guys in the summer of 2018 at its very nascent stages and so uh successfully we partnered with them first we we used their technology when we sold the slam summer classic to Facebook watch we were able to generate a live audience by using their technology and syndicating out a live loop of the game to ESPN and to Bleach Report to build this live audience. So anywhere there was a native video ad unit for like a lookalike audience in sports specifically basketball in the month of August we were uh we had a lot of success with that they've grown that business uh is wildly successful today um working with a ton of great partners across the ecosystem in sports so they're one from the very day that we've seen since 2018 just really blossom and grow. The second one that's more consumer facing is Status Pro. Two former NFL you know NFL football players former college football player Andrew Hawkins and Troy Jones who use their experience you know playing football one's a quarterback one's a wide receiver and they built the first mixed reality NFL title called NFL Pro Era and the name of the company is Status Pro. It's a publishing arm that's using virtual reality to bring to life fun engaging video games so um what they what they've done in just short order is is is is so inspiring because they initially wanted to build a training product when you put on the headset and you put yourself in the quarterback's kind of uh POV yeah but then they start they started thinking bigger like how do we how do we make this a much bigger opportunity and so they they thought about okay we have a training product but we can also build a a viable game so they and they've done it.

SPEAKER_00 39:28

It's been fun to watch that's that's that's quite interesting. I keep saying that everything that you speak about always kind of triggers a lot of things with us as well. So within obviously Boswell Nation um we do have a team um however those teams also have their own platforms that they've created as well um which is something that we really push. So the the the team that deals with our camera um social media etc they have their own tech startup um which they do everything from cybersecurity to networking to web design to app design that called Recon tech. But then you also have a design arm as well called We A Design Nation. So they do a lot of our product stuff so right now we're actually designing our own first um UK sneaker basketball sneakers with us on that because no one else has done it so we just said you know what why why don't we just play around and just create something and just do it and just show a lot of the young guys that listen if I can do you can do the same thing as well. So we are design nations so they do deal with a lot of that um part of things but then they help us with a lot of our um design work on Photoshop, Canva, et cetera um and then we also work with um when I spoke about the mentoring of connecting with professionals, um Cloroma Academy which is a um recruitment company but they have contacts within banks like Barclays et cetera um so we those guys are part of this team but then they also have their own spaces which then I also can put myself into those bus those platforms and actually support them in that way as well. So it's made pretty much like a conglomerate of um uh platforms to serve the community should I say um platform platforms yes exactly exactly um so yeah so I just wanted to plug them in there a little bit just to let you know that that what you're doing is amazing and um um hearing everything that you said is quite encouraging um because sometimes when you start something you may think oh where's this gonna go you may you may have a vision but then the journeys always looks different from the vision um but when you hear a gentleman like yourself saying that you actually went through something similar you're like oh okay I'm going down the right I'm on the right track basically so it's quite powerful to hear. Next question is going to be um I really want to touch into a side that you've really um that you focused on in the in the past and I don't know if you do that now. Actually two things before I actually ask that question um I I noticed that you're quite involved with um a lot of community work as well um correct me if I'm wrong in the the development of um a basketball and um how did you get into that what does what's what what's what what does that look like at the moment?

SPEAKER_01 42:24

Yeah and this is a big credit to our chairman Joe who just has a a big heart for giving back and so that was always just wired into everything we do with SLAM and the in the greater portfolio but we wanted to formalize that and and make it tangible if you will and sort of so we launched a fund called play with purpose which is a nice double entendre and it's it's a fund that where we take our returns on the investing side and we put them to work on the nonprofit side to give back. And so so play with purpose is a fund that helps um nonprofits using sports for social impact. So over the last just couple of years really um you know we've donated over over $2 million to 20 nonprofit organizations. And so one of those partnerships is with a nonprofit called Project Backboard which as you mentioned focused specifically on renovating public basketball courts for all the great reasons we discussed earlier because like basketball is a unifier it brings communities together can strengthen communities and especially if it's a place where many kids were playing and the court fell into disrepair from overuse over the years. So um when we when we thought about that the inspiration for us was at five star in its heydays but these days five star it's all indoors right like gyms and air conditioner in the summer but in its heydays you know five star was founded in the mid sixties so you know when Moses Malone came to the camp in the 70s and Michael Jordan came in 1980 and Patrick Ewing came uh that's Summer, Chris Mullen, Kevin Durant, LeBron James, Stephen Curry, when they came to the camp, it was all outdoors. And so you did those stations on the blacktop, you played games on the black top. And we said, what's the most authentic way we can give back? Let's renovate outdoor blacktops. And so that's kind of the anchor project initiative within our play with purpose fund. That's called five-star gives. And that's our give back. So it's really a credit to your answer your question directly is really a credit to our chairman. He's he has a huge heart. He's a big believer in connecting profits with purpose.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

And that's why we have play with purpose. That's sound, that's amazing. Because you don't really get to see a lot of that happening in the US. Obviously, I don't live there, so I'm sure that there is quite a lot of that happening across the country. But it's great to actually see someone doing that for the community, which is quite powerful.

SPEAKER_01 45:02

By the way, this brings me to another point you made of how you're set up at Basketball Nation. When we set out to do the court refurbishment project in 2021, our goal was to renovate 10 courts in 10 years. Fast forward since 2021, we've already refurbished 20 courts. Like we've in just in just three years now. And so that's a function of all like-minded people out there, other companies, other nonprofits that wanted to sort of come together and sort of sort of co-finance these projects with us. And so we we have partners on all these projects, not just the artist that gets commissioned to create the beautiful work, but there's other co-financiers who step up and it gets more mileage out of our dollars and our donations. So to your point, when you when you make things public out there, like this is what we're setting out to do, you realize that there's a lot more folks just like you are thinking, like you literally, literally, and and that's the power and beauty of community. And so yeah, that's something we've witnessed over the last three years that still blows me away.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

Wow, that's amazing. That's really amazing. Um, and if I'm just adding on to what you just said, my next question is actually around um online presence as well, the digital side of everything that we do. Um, how important is that um online presence? Um, especially not just, I wouldn't say just for athletes, um, but even um people within the business of sports like yourself, um, and the impact of it in terms of um what that looks like in future years to come, like how can that impact basically what we do? For example, business, whether it's sports, whether it's entertainment, whether it's culture, whether it's community, how big and important is that? And the reason I asked that because I know you went, you you did some some time in social media as well, um which is a big thing in everything the world right now. Um so yeah, we're going to get get that answer from you.

SPEAKER_01 47:10

Yeah, and it's funny because it dovetails to our our fund and our firm. Our initial thesis when we bought SLAM, we we put a thesis like a flag in the ground, and now it's kind of very common, but then it was it wasn't that common. It was the idea of content plus community is what drives commerce. It was an equation, but it was also a thesis for us. And so we look at this equation of content plus community is what drives commerce, transactions in reverse almost. You you don't have transactions without trust. And how do you build trust in a 2023 going into 2024 world? You do that by building community, and you do that by being authentic, and you do that by being consistent, and you do that by showing up every day, and so it kind of answers the question of like your online presence. Well, what fuels that it's the content, and so it's this it's this equation that we run back and you know with through SLAM as a business, but it also became a lens on how we invest as well. So we look at founders and we look at teams and companies and brands that take the power of community and harness it in their very specific niche, whatever that niche may be. And so, to your point, uh how present that becomes online is yeah, a function of showing up on the right channels that make sense for that business and just being authentic, being consistent, and producing good content that people want to watch.

unknown 48:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

At the end of the day, putting up content for content's sake is not a great strategy. The content has to be useful and be a means to something, whether it's entertainment, whether it's education, it has to have a purpose and an intent, and it has to hit on that purpose and that intent for it to be good and for it to sort of turn into fans and followers within the community. And then it can't just be a one-sided equation either, right? I feel like brands have to give back, uh, companies have to give back. Community is not. We always there was a gentleman, I think his name was Chris Brogan, a famous blogger. There's a big difference between audience and community, and it's which direction the chairs are facing. If you're talking about an audience, they're all facing one way. Community is a circle, yeah. Just like the basketball nation, community, your team is doing a lot of different things, a lot of different roles, but they're all needed for basketball nation to be what basketball nation is.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

So um so it's very important. Amazing. Thank you for that. That was that was quite insightful. Um, my next three questions are almost like um questions that aren't related to our conversation, but still related to to everything that we do basically, um, and basketball. Um, so my next question is do you have a question for me? I do.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Three three years from now, if basketball nation is gonna be successful like you believe it's going to be, what is it going to look like? What's going to be different about it three years from now than today?

SPEAKER_00 50:16

So three years from now, um, we would have actually um established our league. Um, because we we actually wanted to create an alternative pro league within the UK. Um, so that's something that we wanted to create. So we're actually looking to start even testing that out from next year. Um, so that's our plan. Um and the pro league that we're looking at is not your typical pro league, but something that involves maybe industries um and other communities as well. Um maybe we can go to the fashion world and decide and say, hey, um Lou Vitton, um Alien Mundo, Nike, do you guys want to create a team and bring it to the league? And let's just um create like a brag and rights in that space. Um, because there's a lot of basketball players in the UK and others internationally as well. So it'd be great to kind of bring all of them into that one space. But I've always thought about creating an alternative to everything that's currently out there, whether it's FIBA, whether it's the NBA or even the British Basketball League. So I think that the first that one of the things that would that basement would look like in the next three years is our own pro league. Um the second the second thing would be um we we've always we've been working on creating our own video game as well. Um it's still based around that video game is also still based around community as well. So it's something that we want to have established in year three, three years' time also. Um we also want to be able to have um invested into at least 20 athletes, um, whether it's them going to play pro in the US, in Americas, um, or Europe, or even in the UK as well. So being able to manage those art um athletes and also not just managing them just because they need an agent or anything like that, but really investing into them, um, investing into their families, um if they have families at the time, um, and really kind of pushing them outside of just beyond the sport as well. So taking those 20 ladies and guys and saying, okay, this is a great thing for you, this is how much money you can make from here. But however, okay, let's also put some investment into this place. Um, have you thought of doing this skill? Maybe you're a good writer. Have you thought of even maybe um starting to write? We can actually help you with that. So having the right resources to really support um the athletes on the 360 level. Um, so that's another thing. And also we we want to create our own merch, our own sports brand. Um, like I said, I mentioned the sneakers as well. So this is something that we actually want to bring out next year. So the first our first sneaker will actually come out in 2024. Um, whether it's great or not, we're gonna do it and see what the public says. Um and then, but really and truly, as much as I've mentioned all those things, um, in the next three years, we want to be in a space where um Basel Mul Nation is able to support the community of basketball in the UK um in any way, shape, or form, whether it's the development of courts um or doing the league. But then everything comes down to also money as well. Um, so we're also everything that we've said is also our way of bringing in more building the economy of basketball within the UK so that we can actually create this things as well. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:45

That's a big vision, but it's a it's a worthwhile vision. And like you said, you gotta pick pick one priority at a time to focus on and what's gonna move, yeah, what's gonna move the needle uh the most.

SPEAKER_00 53:56

Yeah. And I think we're in the process of those things right now, um, which is why I'm able to mention them. There's so much more beyond that, um, but those are like sort of 10 years, 20 years, if so. Um, but in the short term, those are things that I know that can definitely be done.

SPEAKER_01 54:14

Um we got a few big catalysts. One is I know I'm a huge Euroleague fan, and I still don't have a team, but I'm hoping that you know uh you'll you'll get a team. I know, I know that's a huge thing on their agenda. They want to have a team in London uh in in the Euro League. And I think that would be a huge moment and opportunity. And obviously the NBA continues to come over to the UK every every year to do to do games. So sport is the sport is growing.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

Um yeah. It is, it is um all right. So my next question is um start to bench or trades, starts, bench, and trade, sorry. Umj, lebron, kobe.

SPEAKER_01 54:55

We're we're investors in uh a few companies tied to to LeBron. So we're starting LeBron. Uh close against my whole childhood, but I'm I'm benching benching benching MJ. I'm benching Kobe. Rest in peace and trade trade and MJ.

SPEAKER_00 55:17

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_01 55:20

There's no that's that's a tough one.

SPEAKER_00 55:24

I would like to let you know that you're the first person on this podcast that's traded MJ. Well, I'll say the second person because I would have traded MJ as well, because I'm a LeBron fan, so there you go.

SPEAKER_01 55:38

He what he's doing right now is is so special at his age and the amount of mileage he has on his body, right? I mean, it's it's it's unbelievable that the that he's putting out these kind of numbers this late into his career and it's winning.

SPEAKER_00 55:53

Big time. Yeah, big time. I would love to I would love to have a conversation with him like this as well. I have so many questions for him.

SPEAKER_01 56:00

And that's the year three goals. I love it.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

Yeah, definitely. Um, and then my last question is um who would you who would you like to see or recommend to come on this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 56:16

Oh from a global perspective, have you have you chatted with Kevin Coolio, the the basketball videographer, photographer? Has he been on? He's based in Paris.

SPEAKER_00 56:27

That's crazy. You're the second person that's mentioned that. Um so I I spoke to um Jean-Baptiste from Hennessy. Yes. So I emailed him um and he recommended um Kevin as all.

SPEAKER_01 56:40

So I can link you guys up.

SPEAKER_00 56:43

Yeah, yeah, so I'm gonna link you guys up.

SPEAKER_01 56:46

He's been to about 75 or more countries to to capture the game through his, you know, through the lens of his his camera, but he's done documentaries here in the US. Uh one with one of my dear friends, Barbito Garcia, called Doing It in the Park, all about New York City Playground Basketball. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would love to see him on the pod.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

Okay, that would be amazing. And Bobito. Bobito, Bobbito has. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I would love to have him on here. I would definitely love to have him on here. So those are two. Wow, amazing. Thank you. Thank you so much. Um, Peter, this is the end of the podcast, but not the our final conversation. Um, but thank you for taking your time out because I know you're super, super busy. Um, but thank you for taking your time out to actually come and have a conversation with us and speak to us. Um, I've learned a lot, and I'm sure everyone that would watch this um episode would gonna learn so much. Um but we appreciate you and um thank you very much over and over and over again for your time, definitely. Thank you for the honor. Thank you. Um, and thank you everyone for watching. Um, like I said at the start, please make sure you like, comment, and subscribe. Your feedback is very, very vital for us. We want to keep growing um for you guys. We want to keep making sure that we're bringing you great conversations and great interviews. Um, so yeah, we're looking forward to seeing you guys soon. Um, and enjoy this episode um and watch it more than once as well. Don't just watch it once and watch it multiple times because there could be will be a lot of things that you would miss um just from watching it once. But yeah, speak to you all soon, co jvit out. Peace.