New b-ball league for 16-18 year-olds that will pay $100k plus.
Interesting and potentially very disruptive new league created by Overtime, which will debut this September. Backed by some serious money and basketball personalities. If successful, it would allow top talent to bypass high school and college and develop their brands while preparing for the NBA.
- Sports media company Overtime will start a basketball league that will pay youths at least $100,000 a year and provide them a stake in the company.
- It will kick off next September with 30 players in an undisclosed location.
- The company has investors including Brooklyn Nets star Kevin Durant, Portland Trail Blazers forward Carmelo Anthony and Silicon Valley venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.
Link:
"Hmm, that's interesting." -Emoni Bates and EJ Bates
"Seems like we should have thought of this instead of forming a fake school"
Are you questioning the sincerity of their commitment to developing young men and women* in body and mind?
*Coming soon
At least in the case of UNC and their fake classes, and fake grades, and fake transcripts, the answer is yes.
But Dakish says that players scholarships should be way more than enough for them.
Call me once the league for 13-15 year olds starts up since that is obviously around the corner so I can start my own league for 10-12 year olds to start their own branding experience trying to successfully make a free throw, got to always be one step ahead!
Make a free throw? Can they dribble?
Seriously though, this sort of thing is the future and it will attract a lot of high school athletes, many of whom will never see the Association. And since they are paid their eligibility as "amateurs" will be removed and they can not play in college. This is just one more step in the process of ending college basketball and football as we have known it. As the farm system for the NBA and NFL. It will be more like college baseball and hockey where players have alternatives and many (most?) of the prospects elect to follow other paths to the pros.
Football is far too expensive with far too established programs for this to happen.
But definitely basketball.
Agreed. People with big pockets and money cannons haven’t been able to make a football league work even with lucrative TV deals.
I sadly think this will dirty AAU EVEN MORE...not the other way around.
Agree. I’m sure Overtime will be there for them when they flame out, have made poor decisions with their money, and have no education to fall back on though.
I also can’t imagine there will be a viewing market for this either, but arena football still exists so what the hell do I know.
Probably not, but I would love to know the comparison between healthcare benefits between college and this... seems risky for high schoolers to do this and forfeit the opportunity for college athletics.
I’m old school and still believe in playing the percentages, meaning having an education is going to be a better bet than trying to go pro. I suppose I could argue that if people want to skip college and they are 18, then it’s their choice. Encouraging 16-18 yo without even a high school degree seems idiotic. This is unbelievable exploitation, I really can’t even believe it’s gonna happen.
If successful, it would allow top talent to bypass high school and college and develop their brands while preparing for the NBA.
Are there really enough good 16-18 year old basketball players to create a league and is there a market that would warrant paying them $100k? Where does the money come from? Would it be on TV?
I imagine they'll try and get a TV contract. I would say there is definitely enough good 16-18 year old players. This day and age, almost every 5-star in each class has their own following on social media and YouTube.
As for the money question, I would say that having people like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony as investors probably answers that question for the short-term.
For all we know, those guys put in $1. But they presumably wouldn't have done it without real capital backing the project.
Yeah it looks like there's some real companies backing it and Overtime itself has had success in recent years.
As for the money question, I would say that having people like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony as investors probably answers that question for the short-term.
For their own sake I hope they're not committing too much.
I'd like to know how much corporate support this will actually get.
The TV contract will be the main issue, although it sounds like they may go the streaming route, and then will anyone watch. I love college ball, but I don't watch pro ball. I'm not particularly interested when Michigan recruits HS games are on. I find it hard to watch. That's me personally. This will be interesting to see if it gets it's legs and takes off. I think these guys (pro athletes) are gonna hurt the pro game, more than help it. Kids stream a ton of stuff, when it's free.
I love college ball, but I don't watch pro ball. I'm not particularly interested when Michigan recruits HS games are on. I find it hard to watch. That's me personally.
I am skeptical the product would be good enough to warrant a national audience. The majority of HS fan interest is based in large part of the friends, family, and local communities. When you take that away and offer it to national media I'm not sure the interest is there to support a league. I'm with you. Maybe I'll be surprised, but I can't envision myself being interested in watching it.
Will not have a TV contract, it will be streamed on the Overtime YouTube channel probably. That’s how Overtime’s followers/fan base consume their content.
I predict a giant flop. The only reason anyone but the most maniacal basketball fans want to invest time and money into watching 18 year olds play basketball is because the name of their beloved college is on the uniform.
Considering that Andreessen Horowitz is involved....there's basically an unlimited amount of money that COULD(not will) be put into this league if they see some success. I think I read recently that they have over $16 Billion in AUM.
Also considering that Andreessen Horowitz is involved, this thing had better make a fat pantload of money, or be sold to a big deep-pocketed customer, or AH will drop it like a hot potato. These venture capital funds don't make all that money by funding personal playtoys indefinitely without a big return.
I don't think 'personal playtoys' is what the people formulating this are after. It's a different kind of player control of the development, outcomes, lives of the people who produce the buckets.
A great deal of ferment right now in professional sport, and at the nexus between a decaying amateur model and entry to pro sports. These people would probably be the first to tell you that they don't know what medium- or long-term results will look like, but they are giving it an experimental nudge. Might need to look at this in some detail before there will me much to say.
Yes....it's a way for people like KD and Melo to try and break young star basketball players away from what they see as an exploitative college model. (If only I were so lucky as to have been so exploited.) But from the VC standpoint, that still makes it a toy. It's a personal crusade that they think will make money. The VCs think it'll make money, too, or they wouldn't invest....but if they come to decide it's a loser, which it probably is, the VCs will drop out before the other investors can blink.
Given that this is for ages 16-18, I think the issues of exploitation go beyond just the year of college. There's a whole world of amateur league basketball that leverages shoe company interest in athletes and gets its claws into promising players from early on. Frankly, the colleges could be removed and that world would still exist. Guys who have been through that world and have a good idea what young men need and what they would have wanted to have are a good choice to provide direction for a comprehensive program that develops men who are good at playing basketball, both in the sports side and in the life side.
This day and age, almost every 5-star in each class has their own following on social media and YouTube.
But that might be, what, 10 players at most per year, that have a real, national, marketable following? I think that might even be generous. It's probably more like five and maybe more like two. Being big on the shoe circuit and having 10,000 Instagram followers doesn't mean you can get a national audience. The rest might have a presence, as in, they post stuff to social media, but that's not the same as being marketable. So those five-stars have to either drag this whole league around on their own, or else be convinced that playing and practicing against the same few guys for three years is better for their future than one year at college. (And soon, probably being able to skip college altogether.)
And a very large part of the following that these 5-star kids have is from the fans of the school they're headed to (or the schools they're considering). When a 5-star kid commits to a big name school early - watch his followers shoot up as fans of that school decide to start following him. Similarly, when a 5 star kid commits late, watch his followers drop as the fans of the other schools he was considering all unfollow.
Not only that, but a lot of the attention that basketball recruits garner is from people who are simply huge CBB fans. When you have a league of kids with no intention of playing CBB, a HUGE chunk of their fanbase would immediately disappear. This seems extremely niche and I don't see it working.
This doesn't even touch on the concept of kids giving up on education at a super early age and the detrimental effects that will have.
Andreesen Horowitz trumps KD & Mello in terms of finance. He was behind the Netscape IPO that ushered in the dot com era.
This day and age, almost every 5-star in each class has their own following on social media and YouTube.
That's probably true, but that's only the top 25 kids in the nation. That's not enough to make a league.
As for the money question, I would say that having people like Kevin Durant and Carmelo Anthony as investors probably answers that question for the short-term.
I'd be skeptical Durant & Anthony are interested in giving their money away without a return on their investment, which means they still need a way to generate income.
Doesn't matter if the general public thinks these kids are good or not. It's the people paying their salaries. That way they can buy lots of playstations and beanie babies.
i read that as "buy lots of 'plantations,'" which in this case isn't all that ridiculous. might as well get a kid under an unbreakable contract when they're 16, hopefully before they get real lawyers involved.
Doesn't matter if the general public thinks these kids are good or not. It's the people paying their salaries.
You say this as though these are two different groups of people.
sure
I would assume there is some provision where they get a cut of future NBA contracts to continue to fund the league. Figure if they have a hit rate of 10% and each guy kicks back a few million, should be self sustaining.
That would be a terrible deal for the players. Why would I want to participate if I'm going to be paying it back for years?
Just wait a couple years and you can the enter the league without a financial albatross around your neck.
If you can make 300K over a high school career and only have to pay back if you make the NBA, seems like a good deal. Not saying it is a deal that everyone would make but if you add potential shoe deals and other revenue, could be very lucrative without the need to play school. More time allowed in the gym, pay personal trainers, fewer other rules.
Think about it. You only get picked for this thing if you're one of the top 30 players, so you don't need their "development" - you're already considered elite. You'd be an idiot to sign up for this deal and have to pay back everything they gave you, and then some (a few millions?). This would just be a more sophisticated version of Ed Martin's cash cakes.
But it won't really work out this way. It'll just go bankrupt.
This model exists in MLB. Google Fernando Tatis' new contract - he's obligated to pay off some investors/backers...
I know plenty of golfers that sell shares to raise money when they start out also. I bought shares of a HS buddy that was trying to make in on the PGA tour. He won a couple tournaments on the Hooters tour or Buy.com tour or whatever is was called back then. He would pay out dividends each year that you could take or re-invest into him.
That's my thought when stuff like this comes up - G League too. Ok, you're paying kids a ton of money but where's that money coming from? If no one is watching, there's no real TV and advertising revenue so you're just burning through investor money. I wonder how long the G League can keep it up. You ever met a G League fan in your life? Whenever I see them on TV, there's maaybe a few hundred people there. Just doesn't seem sustainable to pay that kind of money
I'm all for anyone using their talent to make $. It's hard for me to imagine there is market for this though but I'm a michigan basketball fan...not so much a diehard basketball fan so I'm detached from the understanding the demand to watch 16-18 year olds in their own league play.
I don't know if a league for teenagers is viable, but at $100,000 salaries I'm definitely doubtful. The fact that no minor league athletes in any sport (including the G League) are currently making that kind of money should raise some questions about this.
What's the target audience for this? ESPN broadcasts the odd high school game here and there but they don't draw much in the way of ratings. The McDonald's All-America game might get halfway decent ratings, but it benefits from the novelty of seeing the top 25 players together for one game. If you had them play a whole season it would probably get boring.
It seems like the business pitch for this is basically "Other stuff that we broadcast gets lots of viewers, so why not this?" and "With NBA players investing, what could go wrong?"
This seems like perfect analysis. Or at least it's analysis that I agree with completely.
For me the McDonald's game only has any appeal if a Michigan committed kid is in the game. Maybe if this league runs out of phase with the NBA season they can get some serious NBA fans to tune in, my guess is the ratings will be horrible.
That's also a good point. Fans of the interested schools surely make up a big chunk of the viewership for the McDonald's game. I don't think I've ever watched it when a Michigan player hasn't been involved.
There are youtubers who post videos of them playing pickup basketball games with over 2 million subscribers. That isn't their only content but it is a majority of it, so yea, I think they will definitely find people that will watch this stuff. If there are really only 30 players, I don't think that $100k will be that hard. You start marketing the players with social media where people can get to know them on a more personal basis, you will absolutely gain a following from younger people.
Forget a tv platform, you get 1-2 million subscribed on youtube, and it will pay for itself with ad revenue. I wouldn't even go to the tv markets, they will want a piece of the pie.
A good fan following for youtube on one thing doesn't always translate to another. Hoonigan has 4.24m subscribers and its videos regularly rack up millions of views, but many of these videos feature vehicles that actually participate in real events that draw only a small fraction of those views.
I had to look up what hoonigan is as I am not a car guy, but check out this video. The actual filming work is terrible compared to what would be offered for this league and the talent is much lower as well. Over 1 million views. Maybe I am wrong, but I absolutely believe that this would work.