MOST valuable NFL FRANCHISES
Which team is worth the most? Plus: Highest-earning players and Russell Wilson’s new app.
THE SEATTLE SEAHAWKS drafted Russell Wilson in 2012 in the third round as the sixth quarterback selected. Scouts doubted Wilson, who stood 5 foot 11 in a sea of giants. They doubt him no more. Wilson racked up more wins (64) in his first five seasons than any QB in NFL history. His career pass-
er rate is the second highest of all time.
His performance on Sundays has attracted immense off-the-field interest— Wilson, 28, has one of the largest socialmedia followings among NFL players, with nearly 10 million fans across Facebook, Instagram and Twitter getting an inside look at his life as an athlete, father and husband to singer Ciara.
But why stop there? Wilson’s new startup, Traceme, launched a mobile app last month that aims to turn celebs into media moguls. Its game plan: Let celebrities create and post content on Traceme profiles rather than rely on traditional media to burnish their images. So far Wilson is the only famous face on Traceme, but he’ll soon be joined by other celebs; his wife and her 40 million-strong social following would be a natural fit. Wilson has debuted videos with his trainer, cook and mental coach, as well as sit-downs with sports greats like NFL icon Jim Brown and basketball’s Bill Russell in a series called Legends. “Traceme breaks down the boundaries between celebrities and the fans. They can take a front-row seat into our everyday lives,” says Wilson, who has brought on a former Hulu executive, Jason Leekeenan, as its CEO.
Wilson got a glimpse at the publishing playbook in 2014, when he became an inaugural “senior editor” for former Yankee Derek Jeter’s digital publication, the Players’ Tribune, which also offers unfiltered takes from the famous. (NBA superstar Lebron James has something similar, too: Uninterrupted, a maker of Web videos and podcasts, which has raised nearly $16 million.) Wilson remains a contributor to and shareholder of the Players’ Tribune, which has accumulated $58 million in funding.
Traceme goes directly to where fans live—i.e., their phones—and scored a $9 million Series A round this spring from investors such as Jeff Bezos, Youtube cofounder Chad Hurley and Alibaba cofounder Joseph Tsai. It’s free to download and will later presumably layer on ads à la Instagram and Twitter. Even more than Jeter’s or James’ media outfit, though, Traceme is looking for an audience that’s as eager to get as up close and personal as a blitzing linebacker. “Superfans,” Wilson calls them. “I want to give my superfans a detailed, visual, VIP experience.”