Overtime Sports launches a high school for elite basketball recruits that will pay players $100,000/year
Overtime Sports is a sports media company that recently raised $80 million from Jeff Bezos, Drake, and dozens of NBA players. Its future plans include the launch of lauching of its own basketball league/high school for elite juniors and seniors that pays players $100,000 a year:
"The company in September plans to introduce its basketball league featuring top male high-school players, called Overtime Elite. The league will also function as a high school for roughly 30 rising juniors and seniors, who will all live in one location and earn a minimum annual salary of $100,000 as they play and take classes toward a high school diploma, according to the company. They will also be able to earn money from their likenesses in marketing deals."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/overtime-raises-80-million-from-jeff-bezos…
Interesting, will see how this plays out.
No doubt. That's almost Louisville level of pay, need to do better than that.
haha ....True, The Deer. But still kind of low for Kentucky standards
April 26th, 2021 at 10:24 PM ^
Close to Kentucky money, the difference is in accommodations & adoration:
https://larrybrownsports.com/college-basketball/kentuckys-housing-chef-flat-screens/153247
I know I am not the most clued in guy in the world, but who is going to be paying to watch this?
You'll get a new surcharge on your Amazon Prime subscription.
There are already high school broadcasts happening on ESPN. It is not hard to believe that a sports broadcast network would pay $10 million/year or so that would probably pay for this league.
I find it hard to believe that they could land much of a TV contract. HS games are a novelty for TV, not a staple. Last I heard ESPN paid schools $1000 to televise a game.
Also, how do 30 players living together turn into a league? That's two or three teams with no identity.
Maybe if the NBA does away with their age requirement more people would be interested. But as the rules stand, these would be HS players on their way to play overseas or in the G-League. That's not going to interest many CBB and NBA fans.
Speaking for myself, I'd be more inclined to tune into practices and scrimmages of top CBB teams if those were available.
April 27th, 2021 at 12:19 AM ^
They could probably do a reality show out of it.
They'll get the money from a booster in a brown paper bag at a McDonald's parking lot for old time's sake.
Matt D will and then he’ll come here and tell us about it.
MTV will make a reality show out of it.
Or at least they should for the intriguing sociology experiment this is going to create
Will be an interesting concept. It's gotta be a lot more messy though when the employees are going to be minors. Whole different set of laws and such there. I imagine they may vary quite a bit by state too.
Also, like, would the basketball be good enough to justify this? Are there that many elite HS players to get enough eyes to justify a full sustainable professional league.
In a rolling 2 year period there may be! If they can get the top 15 players from each junior + senior class to show up it would be some really high level basketball.
That said, this would likely mean no college ball for any of the guys in this league since they're already getting paid. That would also mean that you wouldn't be getting college basketball fans watching these games to see players that will be on their team next year. So are all the fans watching NBA fans trying to see who's next? I'm a fairly big NBA fan and I definitely wouldn't watch.
Did you watch the IMG vs. Monte Verde game a couple months ago? That game was pretty much unwatchable and featured some really highly rated guys.
What reason is there to expect this not to be arranged so that it's kosher with the forthcoming legal framework for college athletes having NIL rights?
April 27th, 2021 at 10:41 AM ^
I wonder what percentage of these guys will fail to ever make it in the nba and end up getting spit out the bottom of the g-league with no money and no education?
in 5 years ESPN will be doing stories on what happened to all the guys that failed in this system.
April 27th, 2021 at 10:56 AM ^
Is there any reason to think any of the players who fit that bill wouldn't have been in the same position without this high school league? At least this way they have the potential to have made some money in the meantime. I don't think it matters if a kid is attending public high school, private school, or a high school where they pay them to play basketball. If they are a high level athlete with aspirations and the talent to possibly play in the NBA one day they will be afforded every opportunity to put in as little effort to actually attending class as they want. I'm not saying this is a great idea, just probably not any worse than where we are at currently.
I imagine it would be like watching an NBA All-Star game without NBA All-Stars. And having no rooting interest because they aren’t playing for your school, or city or some other affiliation that might peak an average fan’s interest. But at least it’s an avenue for those kids that really have no interest in school. And if they commit to it as juniors in HS, it will save college coaches from wasting time recruiting guys they know don’t want to go to college.
I remember the days of trying to figure out where Mouth of Wilson, VA was and why they always had such a good high school basketball team. Man, it’s come a long way since then.
I am fully understanding of the evolution of collegiate sports, and I hate slippery slope arguments. But, we are in the midst of a slippery slope as the ages to cash in keep getting younger and younger. Nothing about this league should be prohibited, but I do worry about the consequences for the guys who go this route and don't pan out. It just seems the sport is evolving to a point where "strike while the iron is hot" is the only mentality. Guys are going all in at younger and younger ages without even sniffing alternate or post-bball life paths.
There are already thousands of kids who go through junior programs for big pro soccer teams around the world. This is only new in US.
Hockey also though I'm not sure there's any pay involved.
Junior hockey, too, although it overlaps with college.
April 26th, 2021 at 10:38 PM ^
Aren't CHL players allowed a certain number of years after aging out of junior hockey to use some kind of league-allocated funds to put themselves through college if a pro career does work out? I don't think it's quite as straight forward as "you go to college while playing junior hockey."
April 26th, 2021 at 10:53 PM ^
I actually meant overlap in terms of age between high school and college; from my understanding players are usually in the 16-20 age range, so you have kids that would otherwise be in high school or university.
But yes, what I've read for the WHL is one year of tuition paid per year played in the WHL. I will admit that I don't follow it terribly closely, although I've met parents with kids who played on one team or another.
Kids playing soccer aren’t limited professionally by their height. There’s no real way to identify a skilled 10 year old basketball player who has NBA potential unless he’s extremely tall for his age. The system just doesn’t work well for basketball. Sure we could possibly get a few more Luka Doncics if we did it like Europe but more than likely we’d just be throwing away a lot of young black kids who were unlucky enough to not keep growing.
I kind of agree, but honestly, playing sports have never been a 'career' unless you die early. It's one of those things where you have to maximize earnings as soon as you can because the body is fragile and wears out. So if the peak of your athletic career is a 17 year old senior in high school, why shouldn't you be able to make money then? I don't think not letting someone make money off their skills should be prohibited in order to make someone plan for their life when they won't be able to play that sport when they have no idea when that may be. At the same time, like I really don't think we should be doing this with middle schoolers, but it's not like I have any hard evidence to say why not. More of a feeling thing I guess.
You 100% should be able to cash in whenever your peak is. My only point is mainstreaming this career trajectory will undoubtedly lead to a few big hits and TONS of failures. What high school kid who is good at basketball wouldn't want to go this route? The answer is none. How many of them should go this route? Probably not very many.
Ultimately, making $200k when you are 16 and 17 years old isn't going to get you very far in life, but try telling that to an athletically gifted 16 or 17 year old.
They're not finished with life if it doesn't pan out. They can still go to college or trade school and find a career. They just won't be able to do it on a basketball scholarship.
They can still go to college, but not on a scholarship, right? I would think this is exactly the type of thing that would disqualify their amateur status.
They can still go to college, but not on a scholarship, right? I would think this is exactly the type of thing that would disqualify their amateur status.
17 and 18 year old's aren't even close to their peak athletic ability, but If someone wants to pay them I don't have a problem
World Soccer has systems of identifying talent young and compensating them for it, so it can work. As long as these kids are still getting a basic education, I'm ok with it..... My biggest question right now would be who do they play?
I love it and hate it at the same time. I hate what this could ultimately do to college sports but I kind of love that NCAA is getting what they deserve. Kind of like legalizing drugs and the drug "bagmen" go away, this is legalizing talented athletes getting paid and this may put the college bagmen out of business. All because the OG's at the top of the NCAA couldn't let go of their gravy train, may all come crashing down.
30 players? So they're gonna form like 3 separate teams, presumably? Who will they play? I can't imagine most "regular" high school teams will be interested in taking on NBA Junior.
I expect they’ll barnstorm a bit and play exhibitions with high schools and maybe some NAIA schools. There’s also plenty of European junior teams to take on as opponents. Having multiple US teams means you can probably get a few Euro teams over to the states for a couple of weeks for some 6-8 team events. I wouldn’t be at all surprised for a well-funded operation like IMG Academy to join up with them as well.
Are the 30 kids going to represent 2 teams?
One question...do they need a physical education teacher???
It might be awkward making half of what your students are getting paid (before NIL cash).
It might be awkward making half of what your students are getting paid (before NIL cash).
Is it awkward that Bruce Arians makes half of what Tom Brady does? It's the nature of the beast. They are more valuable. Although $50k wouldn't be enough to pry me from my cushy HS PE job that also allows me to be an adjunct exercise science professor & strength coach, but I could probably be swayed for the right amount :)
"as they play and take classes toward a high school diploma"
LOL. Why bother with this academic charade? If high school kids are actually getting $100K a year, why on earth would they be considering going to college and taking a massive pay cut?
Unless the NBA or foreign leagues have a requirement to have a HS diploma, there's zero reason for kids at Overtime High School to give two shits about getting that sheepskin.
I assume it is due to education laws requiring minor of various ages to be enrolled full-time in schooling. Education is clearly a façade in this enterprise.
No more a facade than most one and done guys.
This is fine with me. Young guys get paid to pursue their NBA dream and takes a bunch of one and dones out of the college scene. Win win from my perspective
Agreed. I had a job at 16. Wish it had paid $100k.
Excuse my ignorance but is this kind of like what Euros do with their futbol academies?
Who are they going to play against?
This is super smart imo; on the investment side there's a lot of value in creating the relationships, contracts, and control with super talented players from a young age. For players it's a guaranteed 100-200k—which is not chump change—plus enhanced exposure and access to a professional basketball architecture in the same way youth football works in Europe. Hopefully this also puts pressure on the NCAA when it comes money-making and likeness, because if this catches on more, a path from "Overtime Elite" to the G-League to the NBA opens a path to the removal of top flight basketball from colleges and universities.