Technology seminar empowers athletes
The setting on the Embarcadero on Tuesday morning didn’t look particularly revolutionary. Coffee with almond milk, berry and yogurt parfait, nice jeans and expensive backpacks. All for a daylong seminar with movers and shakers from the sports world and Silicon Valley.
This is part of a revolution in this “shut up and dribble” era of sports. The Bloomberg Players Technology Summit is one of the stealth partners in the movement that is empowering athletes, creating a newfound activism and changing sports.
“It fits right in the middle of it,” the Warriors’ Andre Iguodala said. “We’re owning more of ourselves. We’re not letting someone speak for us or dictate our moves. We’re coming together as athletes, supporting one another.
“This is a new age for athletes. We understand our platforms. That we have a voice, that our influence carries. The data is there to show it.”
His teammate Kevin Durant is also an active investor.
“It feels like things are starting to bubble up for us as players,” Durant said. “To help push
it to my peers, that’s cool.”
Iguodala, Golden State’s swingman, is one of the forces behind the second annual Players Technology Summit. He and his business partner, Rudy Cline-Thomas, have long been involved in technology investing: It’s one of the reasons Iguodala found the Warriors so appealing back in 2013. The two men put together a seminar through the NBA two years ago. Last year, they they took it out of the confines of the league and partnered with Bloomberg. The goal is “a fruitful exchange of knowledge.”
The panels included tech platforms for sports content, the future of sports betting and a discussion of e-sports, including the lack of gender diversity in that field. Olympian Kerri Walsh Jennings talked about her venture to help grow volleyball. Former Warriors guard Baron Davis was on a panel discussing the modern athlete’s voice.
In addition to the athletes on panels, many were in the audience, including basketball pros like Elton Brand, Festus Ezeli and Kelly Olynyk, along with former NFL players Patrick Willis and Donte Whitner.
Iguodala started the morning in a conversation with Boston forward Jaylen Brown, 21. Aside from being a potential preview of the 2019 NBA Finals, the men represented different NBA generations joined by a shared interest in technology. Brown worked for a VC firm when he played at Cal, and was intrigued seeing young people close to his age making so much money in an entirely different world.
Perched on a stool in the back of the conference room, the greatest quarterback ever pecked at his phone as he listened to the panels. Joe Montana, far from being a dinosaur from another era, has been involved in venture capital for a while.
Montana has long been good at leveraging his worth, but he sees a big difference for today’s athletes because of social media.
“Social media has made athletes more aware,” he said. “They can see their power.”
Montana’s eldest son, Nate, 28, is working with him at Liquid 2 Ventures. Though Montana has been in the investment world since retirement, he’s enjoying working with his “energizer bunny” son and other Millennials. When they started, Montana introduced people to his son. Now, contacts call Nate — who previously worked for a startup and then for Twitter — directly.
Montana believes the media used to anoint who was important; quarterbacks typically were given platforms. But today’s environment means that athletes of all types can leverage their names.
Iguodala, 34, agrees that times have changed.
“When I was starting out, there was a formula, and the formula was to not go outside the lines, to not be disruptive,” Iguodala said. “Everyone who was on the top stayed on the top. Their interests first and then our interests. Now you see the landscape changing with athletes becoming more business savvy.”
Durant was part of the day’s closing panel, along with his business partner, Rich Kleiman. According to a recent report, Durant is part of a new venture-capital fund with the Silicon Valley firm Andreessen Horowitz. It’s aimed at helping to diversify the technology world and will include actor Will Smith as a partner. That type of enterprise is growing: Carmelo Anthony, Kobe Bryant and Jay-Z all have started funds.
Durant said that he had some regrets about simply trying to emulate his predecessors, looking for deals with sports drink and fast-food companies.
“That was our lane as basketball players,” he said, “but now we can do whatever we want.”
Is venture capital too much risk for an athlete?
“It’s the long play,” said Iguodala, who interviewed Jeff Jordan, general partner of Andreessen Horowitz, on another panel. “Athletes are used to risk.”
Iguodala said professional athletes — like venture capitalists — know they are trying to make it in an arena where odds are stacked against them. He sees other similarities between his two passions: basketball and investing.
“Being a venture capitalist is similar to being a GM,” he said. “You vet out the talent, you build teams, the players have to complement one another. You have to put all the pieces of the puzzle together.
“And the end goal is always the same: to be the best.”