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Joe Pompliano writes and tweets about the best stories around the business of sports. In this episode, we talk with Joe about some of the best basketball stories he’s covered.
Joe’s daily newsletter is called Huddle Up, which breaks down the business and money behind sports, and he creates amazing Twitter threads for his more than 80,000 followers.
In our conversation, we talk with Joe about his first viral story about an NBA player turning a $350k salary into $600M, the rise of the athlete investor, Steph Curry getting his own brand, Big Baller Brand, the NBA bubble, the story of the new Pacers head coach, the NCAA March Madness bubble idea, and more.
Check out this episode by listening to the podcast, watching the video on our YouTube channel (or below), or reading the full transcript of the interview below.
Also, if you missed last week’s episode with the CEO of Overtime, Dan Porter, you can check it out here.
Full Transcript of Joe Pompliano Interview on the Business of Basketball & Sports
Brendan 00:00
Joe Pompliano! Welcome to the Youth Hoops Pod. Appreciate you being on man.
Joe Pompliano 00:05
Thanks. I appreciate you having me. I’m excited to do this.
Brendan 00:09
Yeah. So, Joe, I guess start off by telling the listeners a little bit more about you, where you’re from kind of the cliff notes version of…. Yeah, just your background, everything from where you grew up to where you went to college and, you know, jobs you had after college and what you’re up to now?
Joe Pompliano 00:27
Yeah, yeah, of course. Yes, I’m originally from North Carolina, right outside of Raleigh, North Carolina, Cary, North Carolina. I grew up there. I went to school in college at High Point University. So, kind of nearby and then after graduation, I started working at…. I moved up to New York. So, I’ve been working in finance. last few years there, I worked at JPMorgan, most recently, but prior to that, I did a period of time at Octagon Sports Agency in Washington DC. So, that’s really where like, you know, I have four brothers. So, the five of us, we grew up, we watch sports, we played sports, etc. I just kind of grew up with, you know, kind of an interest, a passionate love for it. And then as I was moving along in my career at JPMorgan, I just kind of wasn’t certain if that was something, I wanted to do long term. So, probably about six to eight months ago. Now, I launched newsletter called Huddle Up. And the premise behind it is just to discuss simply the money and business behind sports. So, there’s no real angle on it as in like, a certain sport or a certain league or anything that I cover. It’s really just cool, interesting things that, you know, I felt were, you know, interesting and my friends always wanted to hear more about or stuff like that. So, the response has been great, it’s, it’s gone really well. And now I’ve transitioned to doing this full time. So, it just allows me to kind of make the newsletter a little more research-intensive stuff like that, and then kind of progress this stuff. I’m trying to start a podcast and all that kind of stuff. So, I won’t bore you with too much of the details, but that’s most of the backstory
Brendan 02:04
No, that’s perfect man. And I was telling you I heard about you through Twitter. I mean, I just came across you I follow your brother who’s big into bitcoin which I’m also big into and I believe he retweeted or one of your posts. I think it was the Jr. Bridgman one, that caught my attention right away because my father played for the Milwaukee Bucks and like, right during that time, and Jr. Bridgman was his teammate, and he always talked about growing up. So, I’m very familiar with that name, but he always like kind of casually mentioned like, “Yeah, Juniors done well for himself. He’s got Wendy’s franchises and stuff”, but then I read your thing. And I was like, Man…..
Joe Pompliano 02:43
Oh, shit! this guy got $600 million.
Brendan 02:45
Yes, $600 million. So, I think that’s actually a good place to start. Can you talk a little bit about I want to run through some of the basketball-specific stories that you have talked about and I actually have a list button and there’s a lot of basketball stories you probably won’t get to them all but you know, again, kind of a cliff notes version of like, What is the junior Bridgman store and what did you write about there? It seems like a really caught fire on Twitter as well, I think. [crosstalk] that is your best performing one as well.
Joe Pompliano 03:16
Yes, so, just a background for some of the listeners. What I do is, most of my stories are interesting articles, stuff like that. What I’ll do is I’ll just be a four to five times a week, I’ll put them in a thread and tweet them out. And you have the Junior Bridgeman, I think, yeah, I think it’s probably the best performing one. I got like 40,000 likes. So, it really, you know, people like that. I think one of the main reasons why people liked it so much is just kind of, he showed an immense amount of humility and work ethic and all that kind of stuff. But yeah, the backstory is just Jr. Bridgman was a….. he was a first-round pick in the NBA got selected by the Lakers. I think this is like, oh, So
Brendan 03:54
Oh! so, was he part of the Kareem trade? Because my dad was too.
Joe Pompliano 03:58
Yeah, he was! Yeah.
Brendan 04:00
Okay. So, my dad was one of those five guys and he played for the Lakers for a year and then was part of that trade and went to the Bucs. Yeah, I guess [crosstalk 04:06]
Joe Pompliano 04:09
I don’t… Yeah, exactly. But I don’t even think Jr. If I remember correctly. I don’t think Jr. actually played I think it was like it happened right after the draft. So, your dad was probably your prior and then Jr. got that. Selected that year, and they all got sent over in the cream trade. But yeah, so he lands in Milwaukee. Jr. for those who don’t know, he was a good player. He was a pretty solid good player. I think he most of the games If not, you know 50% a large majority he came off the bench for but he had I want to say like 10,000 career points, something like that. So, a solid player, but obviously as you know, the money was different in the NBA than it was today. A lot of the basketball games weren’t even been televised the playoffs right like they’re they came out super late at night, etc. So, the money was just different, here and good money at the time, but the most I think he ever earned in a season was 350,000. So, the story goes… Throughout his career, he was looking forward and he’s like, Alright, this is really good money.
You know, if you do the right thing with it, it could be life-changing. But just on the face of the money itself I’ll have to do something else also, just in case his career ended an injury or something like that. So, while Junior was playing, he, in Milwaukee, he actually during the offseason was working at a Wendy’s drive-thru, which like…. That in alone, I think people were shocked about because I don’t think he could really imagine, you know, an NBA player today doing that. But yeah, so he worked at the Wendy’s drive thru during the offseason. And really what he was doing was he just wanted to learn the business. So, while he was working there, he learned the business, he ended up thinking that the fast-food business was good, and he could make some money doing it. So, by the time he retired, call it maybe 5, 6, 7 years later, he owned three Wendy’s franchises, actually.
So, he was kind of, you know, working there for part of the time during the offseason. And then he was investing in figuring out where he could open franchises and so on. So, he owned three of retirement, and then once he retired and focus fully on it, he really just like ramped it up. And he owned, like a few hundred, I want to say like 150, Wendy’s, he owns some Chili’s, he owned a few different other kinds of what we’ll call fast casual food establishments, over the course of like, 20 to 25 years. So, he did extremely, extremely well for himself, in that facet. And then I want to say like four to five years ago, he actually sold the majority of them to become the owner portion of Coca Cola distribution and bottling, not only in the Midwest, but also in in Canada. So, he’s kind of transitioned a couple times business wise, it’s a family business. I think his kids are involved in it now. But yeah, I mean, I think the title of the tweet was… this guy turned $350,000 salary into 600 million or 800 million, whatever it ended up being and obviously, you get some of the people who just don’t want to give…. maybe the credit that should be due and they’ll say, you know, 350,000, inflation adjusted at this, he had a head start, etc. But there’s a reason why you don’t hear stories like that, because it doesn’t happen often. And you know, it’s incredibly impressive.
Brendan 07:17
Yeah, and it definitely, it doesn’t seem like it happened much back then where it was like, and this is a lot of what you write about is kind of the athlete, investor, athlete entrepreneur sort of thing. But yeah, definitely didn’t happen a lot back then that nowadays, it’s a little bit more common to see KD staff, LeBron, whoever be investing into certain things, but back then maybe not so much.
Joe Pompliano 07:41
Yeah, I think you’re right on it. I think like, I remember hearing a podcast the other day, I forget, it might have been like all the smoker, one of those guys. And they were basically just, like, it was just so different back then, like, even, you know, 70s is different, but even like, 2000s, like, you would hear about all these guys. And I feel like all the major news outlets used to do it, whether it was football guys like Jamarcus Russell or other guys, right? Like, you always heard about all these, you know, horror stories of all these guys losing a bunch of money and all this stuff. And it’s just completely changed just one ad like these guys now, you know, you’re an outlier, if you’re losing money, right, like, not only that, but a lot of these guys are multiplying their money, whether it’s, you know, venture capital investments, strategic ownership, whether they’re only companies themselves, stuff like that. Like there’s just a million different examples you can throw out now of athletes of this generation that are just so much prepared, whether that’s like the league doing a better job of preparing them themselves through programs and stuff like that, or just getting better advisors’ people to trust. But yeah, I mean, it’s probably a combination of the two. And, you know, athletes are just much more prepared to take care of their wealth and make sure it’s there for the long run.
Brendan 08:50
Yeah, yeah, no, that’s interesting. And we’ve had a little bit of exposure, or we’ve gotten some experience with that over the last year. We formed a partnership, as I told you with Stephen Curry, who we run his team Curry AAU teams now and we play on the Under Armour circuit. So between Under Armour and Stephens Company, which is called SC 30 and they do a ton of investments and things like that. And then obviously, Under Armour, which you wrote about, has been going through some ups and downs, mostly downs recently, we’ve had a good amount of exposure to it over the last year or so, which is cool. It’s been a great learning experience. But I guess speaking of Under Armour, you wrote about I think the title was rebuilt rebuilding a $20 million brand. Can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Pompliano 09:40
Yeah, of course. So, yeah, I mean, I don’t want to get into too much of the details necessarily about Under Armour, but I think everyone’s aware that they’ve had some struggles. I think what we saw over the past, you know, call it decade was Under Armour was almost a little early to the trend of digital. So, they invested heavily in a bunch of different apps, whether it be, you know, My Fitness Pal or whatever, they spent a few hundred million dollars on. Really what they were buying, which is data in the infrastructure.
Brendan 10:09
That one was like map my run, right, I think, yeah, I still use that one. They spent a boatload on that.
Joe Pompliano 10:15
Yeah. I think I want to say they spent like, it was maybe 600 million or so like, they spent a lot of money on this stuff. And really what it was? It was just a little early. So why everyone else was…when I say everyone else, maybe Nike, Lulu lemon. Adidas companies like these, this that partnered with, you know, either celebrities or just took advantage of kind of that leisure trend. Under Armour missed out on that. And their whole thing was just that they wanted to stick to what they knew, which was performance apparel, so when Under Armour started their whole thing, right, they made really good apparel that was like the sweat wicking stuff, all this stuff and they were able to make inroads because they gave it to athletes, athletes, like it athletes board, and then kind of it was like free marketing for them. And obviously, I’ve done a different bunch, a bunch of different stuff then. But they kind of stuck to that too much almost. And they were a little early on the digital trend. They missed that leisure stuff. They had an inventory issue, they got into a bunch of bad contracts with schools like UCLA, calyx etcetera. So, now they’re rebuilding that. So, I actually think, and part of the article I wrote about was like, I think they’re on a really good plan now. And I think that they have a lot of upside, especially given how much the company has been beaten and bruised and, and talked about recently. But yeah, I think it’s just kind of getting back to kind of what they do best and now filling in the gaps with the digital stuff. And then I think the rest will take care of itself. I think they’re going to be alright.
Brendan 11:44
Yeah, well, you know, it’d be interesting. I’m sure you know, this, but they are launching Steph’s own brand, essentially, the Jordan Brand version for them, called Curry brand. And it’s a new logo, it’s going to be a new shoe. It was supposed to come out a few months back at I believe they were going to launch it during the Olympics, I believe and obviously, that got canceled. So now, I know, it’s coming out in December. And we’re tied in a little bit with that just because of what I mentioned before, but that will be interesting to see how that all goes. But it also goes back to… I mean, an athlete getting their own brand, you know, it’s not it’s under Under Armour, but it’s not under…. it’s going to be Curry Brand, just like you’re separate from Nike.
Joe Pompliano 12:31
Yeah, I think it’s awesome, too. And it’s something that like, Under Armour can differentiate themselves by offering that and kind of building out to a player like Steph, who’s obviously a premier player in the league and stuff and I write about the Jordan deal all the time. Like, “For as good as that was for Jordan. It was 10 times better for Nike”. Like Jordan’s become a billionaire off of it, obviously. But, you know, Nike benefited tremendously. So yeah, I think it kind of works all around.
Brendan 12:57
Yeah. And then that was actually a story you wrote to you wrote about it. MJ, I think the richest athlete in sports history which was a great read, and I’m sure a lot of people are familiar with that one but there’s some other ones that I think people are a little bit less familiar with. So, your first…. Correct me if I’m wrong, your first email came out July 8. Is that right?
Joe Pompliano 13:17
That sounds about right. Yeah. July. Yeah,
Brendan 13:23
I think your second story was about Ray Allen’s obsessive routine is, I believe…
Joe Pompliano 13:28
Yeah.
Brendan 13:29
Like, I think your first email was like an announcement email. And then the second email was was the Ray Allen one. So maybe, maybe you might be your first story. But can you talk a little bit about that? Because that’s actually something I think, you know, a lot of parents’ players and coaches actually could learn from.
Joe Pompliano 13:47
Yeah, so I don’t know if I remember the exact details. But I’m sure if you just Google Ray Allen’s routine, like a good script will come up. But basically, what I was writing about was like, he was meticulous, and that was… from A to Z, he did the exact same thing, every game. And not only were like, was that known around the NBA, but teams were bringing him in. And like he was just setting like a great example for younger players. And they realized that younger players were doing the same stuff. So, what it was? He was essentially showing up, they had like, one, two and three buses, we’ll call it ABC buses. In the game, he was taking Uber to the game before those buses, right? So, like, four or five hours before the game, he was running stadium stairs, he was getting hundreds of shots before the game. And like people were always like, dude, aren’t you like exhausted or whatever. It’s like kind of like Kobe-esque, right? Like, yeah, one of these stories where you’re here and you’re just like, this guy is working so hard, he would shave his head before every game. And he would the craziest part was he ate the same thing every day. And he I want to say he took a nap at the same exact time every day.
So, like, just like super detailed and stuck to it. Like completely he would shave his head the same time every day. You know? Just like had a routine is stuck to it. Good game, bad game, etc. And he just called it part of the process, right? Like he just did the same thing he knew if he kept doing this over and over and over again that he would see improvement and obviously it worked out for him. But I think the end of the story which was incredible was a people remember. Obviously, his shot against the Spurs when he was with the heat and he backpedaled for the three-point line and he made it and I think it forced the game seven or whatever, but the trophy was on the floor, the Spurs were ready to celebrate. And Chris Bosh got the rebound threw out to me makes a shot.
So, people call it a legacy saving shot for LeBron almost because it stopped him from going maybe like one in three or one and four in the finals and it was a big deal. But when Erik Spoelstra talks about the coach, now, he’s like, I wasn’t surprised at all. And they’re like, what do you mean? And he’s like, Ray was practicing that. And he was like, I would come into practice and Ray would be on the ground laying down, he jumps up, backpedal to three-point line and shoot it. So, like when you watch the clip, it looks incredible. But the craziest part is he doesn’t even look down at the floor when he does it so right, he back pedals and he know where he is. Because Erik Spoelstra says, “he’s done it hundreds of times before.” and I don’t know, you’ve seen much more of this than I have, like, maybe you know, but it doesn’t seem pretty common that you’ll walk into a gym and you’ll see some guy on the floor, getting up running around catching the ball and shooting. That seems pretty absurd to me. No, that’s,
Brendan 16:17
I mean that it’s an amazing story and something we try to remind our players constantly about, it’s like, being great requires you to do the boring stuff over and over and over and over again. And eventually you can get to the point where it’s like, you can do some funky stuff, like sounds like he was doing because you’ve done so much of the boring stuff. But I just appreciated that story thought it was really, really well. [crosstalk] Probably.
Joe Pompliano 16:45
Yeah, and I was going to say when you think about it, that’s probably the only time he ever used that shot really, right. Like not often you’re doing that. So, it just it just speaks to kind of the same content, right? Maybe it’s not as boring, but he’s just doing things over and over and over again. So when the moment comes, he’s ready.
Brendan 16:59
Yeah. And that’s actually I mean, it’s interesting, because last week we had or today we released a podcast with Drew Hanlon, who’s one of the top NBA trainers and has a huge social following and all that. And that’s like a big thing for him is and he actually talk about in our podcast, he talks about working with Jason Tatum from like, when he was 13 years old, and the whole first week, they didn’t shoot, they just did jab steps the whole time. It’s just boring, boring, boring stuff, and just layer after layer. But that’s actually…… You may have thought about this before. But uh, that could be an idea for a future. A future email is kind of the rise of MBA skilled trainers. And you got these guys that are like social media superstars now like Chris Brickley, and Drew Hanlen, and Jordan Lawley, and I mean, they got hundreds of thousands, like, millions of followers and are doing some really cool stuff, I think. But it’s almost they become influencers in their own right. [crosstalk]
Joe Pompliano 18:02
…. Stuff and it’s great. It’s like, I see Brickley’s posting he is in the video game 2k and stuff. I’m like, this is wild. This is all…
Brendan 18:08
Yeah, it really is wild. It’s crazy. So, it’s cool talk with Drew. And I believe we’ll have Jordan on the podcast and some of those other guys in a bit. But actually, related to that topic, something you’ve written about that is applicable to tonight with the NBA draft and lamella ball as you wrote about big baller brand and when athlete entrepreneurship goes wrong, so maybe talk briefly about that.
Joe Pompliano 18:33
Yeah, I mean, I think everyone has their own opinion about kind of not only LaVar Ball, the ball family, but kind of what they did with the big baller brand. Me personally, like I write about it all the time. I love the concept of not only athlete entrepreneur, but like… So, what we’ve transitioned from is like athletes…. just athletes back in the day used to just do marketing deals or endorsements, and they would get paid for using their time or their audience. Now then it transitioned to kind of everyone investing, right? So, they’ll give money, and then they’ll get equity in a company and now we’ve seen more of like, athlete entrepreneurship, what we’ll call it, right, which is them actually owning equity in the brand, starting it up providing initial capital, and partnering with really good entrepreneurs and building brands. And what that enables them to do is really just get like a larger piece of the upside, right? So instead of getting a couple percentage points for some of their capital, depending on when they get invested, they get the opportunity for you know, 50, 60% ownership of the brand and if it succeeds, they can do really well.
So, some like non-celebrity guys, right? They’ve been in the news, that’s why we use them but the George Clooney who sold his tequila brand for a billion dollars or whatever, right? Like they obviously have money, but they also have an audience which is extremely helpful. And they’re a celebrity so they have a good authoritative voice and we’re seeing athlete’s kind of doing the same stuff like LeBron launched his… He invests and Tequila [not clear 20:20] that wants today. So, it’s becoming increasingly more popular and that was the general thesis behind big baller brand, I think, which was just to use their name, their audience, their distribution, to build a company and in theory, it’s a great idea. But you have to have execution.
Brendan 20:17
Yeah, the idea was good. The execution was little bit poor, maybe.
Joe Pompliano 20:22
Yeah, and I want to say, I saw, like, I saw podcasts, I forget whose it was, but Jay Z’s on there talking and he’s like, “I support them.” He’s like, “how are we going to kind of trash all these people? And then when they go do something, everyone trashes them.” You know what I mean? Like, people should support them, they should, you know, obviously, do what they can and when not he’s like, “I bought five pairs, but I didn’t get any of them.” Because he’s saying, he’s like, the execution just wasn’t there. Right. People weren’t getting shoes, things weren’t shipping out on time, sizes were wrong. I think I even read a story of like, one shoe came in a box. And it was really poorly put together. I think the money manager took some money from Lonzo. Lonzo ended up leaving the brand now he’s looking for a new shoe deal. So, like, you know, Lamelo is now signing with Puma. So, I think they’re going to continue trying to do it through like an apparel kind of avenue but the shoe business and especially like, through his sons’ seems kind of dead but yeah, I mean, I don’t think that’s the end of the trend. I think it’s just more like, you can’t do it poorly. You need to partner with the right people. You need to do it well. Because your audience, and that only gets you so far.
Interviewer 21:31
Yeah. I totally agree with you there. I’m all for them doing it themselves. And just a lot of haters out there. But got to execute if you do it. But….What about… You wrote a lot about the NBA bubble? What is your kind of your main…? you know, like, I think the most recent one was about the $4 billion shortfall, which sounds bad, but actually is a positive in the whole scheme of things when you consider the amount they would have lost, had they not done anything. So, what’s your main takeaway from just the MBA bubble and their execution of it?
Joe Pompliano 22:06
Yeah, my main takeaway is that Adam Silver is the best Commissioner in sports. Yeah, I mean, not only is he great, like, the way I wanted to phrase it was…. You know, his career as commissioner has really been bookended by two just extremely public. And also, he handled to, like really tough situations extremely well. And what I’m talking about is the first one was the Donald Sterling kind of saga, right? Where he made some racist comments and people forget, but that Adam Silver was only on the job for a few months, when that happened, I want to say like two or three months [cross talk] into the job. Yes. So, like, that happened immediately and that was his first major test. All the players looked at him to kind of see what he was going to do. And it seems obvious now right to ban an owner for that. But at the time, it wasn’t at all that had never been done before in history. He wasn’t extremely he wasn’t an extremely hands on owner. Right? And there were millions of people on the other side of it, just as many people who wanted him gone. We’re saying that, you know, it’s something that can be worked out or whatever. And to Silver’s credit, he came into Mr. Silver’s credit, he came in and he banned him right away, he immediately got the backing of all the players, you know, everyone knew where he stood on issues like that and it really set the tone for the kind of Commissioner he was going to be. And in the year since he’s lived up to that and more, right, so he’s had the players back and anything they need. He’s done really well for the owners, which is who he works for ultimately, right.
So, as long as ownership trends keep going the right way, with media deals and all this stuff. I think his owners will have his back regardless and then when it comes to the second event, which is the one book ended on the near term here was the bubble. He did another fantastic job while everyone else was kind of trying to figure out what to do. The NFL had months and still didn’t have a plan put together really, right. So, he stepped up to the plate, he figured it out with Disney, I want to say cost them 100 and 80 million to do and they saved 1.5 billion. So, when you think about it in those terms, like it’s a no brainer. But at the time when he set this all up, it really wasn’t and I don’t think they had maybe after the first week or whatever, once everyone got in there. I don’t think they had a single positive COVID-19 test. So granted, he’s kind of just doing some of the stuff here. But his leadership obviously plays a huge role in that and yeah, I just think he did an extremely good job and I don’t know if they would have gotten it done without him to be honest.
Brendan 24:30
Yeah. He’s great. He’s great. So, I want to ask you about two more stories. I’m saving the last one that is potentially… Maybe, the most applicable to where we at in terms of timeframe. But this one, maybe if you flew under the radar, but it’s actually, I think a great, great story for the coaches who listen to our podcast to learn from, but you wrote about, I don’t even know how you says his last name Nate Bjorkgren the road less traveled story. He’s the new pacers coach, right? I should know that. My dad’s a scout for the Pacers. But I just paid attention to the story. And maybe I guess I forgot some of the details. But can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Pompliano 25:16
Your guess on the pronunciation is just as good as mine. We’ll go with that. Yeah, so I think his story was really cool. I actually didn’t know about it before he got hired. I read into it afterwards but it speaks to two things. I think one way to just like to make it up through the ranks of coaching, especially all the way to the NBA. Like it just takes an absurd amount of dedication, like you really have to love basketball.
Brendan 25:43
And I love that.
Joe Pompliano 25:44
Yeah, exactly. And he… So, for those who aren’t as familiar with his story, I would suggest you guys go and read it because it really is incredible. And I don’t want to do it. Not do it [not clear]. They’re just a couple minutes, but the, the CliffsNotes version of it is… He played. I want to say, “It was like D2 or D3 basketball on college.” One of his coaches at the time was Nick Nurse. So that was kind of their first meeting at college. They went on their separate ways. Nick Nurse went to go coach overseas. Nate finished his career in basketball and then after basketball, ended in college, Nate wanted to continue coaching because he didn’t really know what else he wanted to do, but he knew he loved basketball. So, what Nate did was the only job offer he got was from a high school in Iowa, small school. And not only was it he was going to be an assistant coach for varsity, I think but head coach for JV but on top of that, he had to teach history class. He had to teach a weightlifting class he had to teach that he had to teach JV basketball, varsity basketball, baseball and football and get this he had to drive the school bus. So, think about this, right? This guy’s driving the school bus and now he’s going to be an NBA coach but in between there he made stops at a couple other schools. He went and coached at high school and I think Scottsdale Arizona, then he went G league, then he went player development for the Suns, then he went Toronto Raptors assistant and it was just like a you know, a few decades long experience….
Brendan 27:09
…It was a road. Not an easy road, the G league. I think people out there hear the G league and they’re like, Oh, cool. You know, it’s like, “No, that’s hard.” Like the G league as a player or as a coach is like you do not get paid a lot. You are in the back country somewhere most of the time. It’s a difficult deal.
Joe Pompliano 27:27
So, that brings up a good point. The pay which was when he got his first G league job. He was a he was a high school coach at the time. And Nick nurse got a I forget what team it was. But he got a G league job and invited him to come be an assistant. But the catch was he couldn’t pay.
Brendan 27:41
Yes, he was a volunteer.
Joe Pompliano 27:43
Yes, it was a volunteer job. So, he actually was making less money he was making I think he made year one, he made no money at all. Year two, he made like $500 or $2,000. Nurse gave him a stipend, basically. And then year three, he got bumped up to 25,000 which, obviously with a fan like yeah, I think he was married at the time. I don’t know if he had a kid. But like, it’s tough and he was working a part time job on the weekends. Plus, he said, “you’re working 1012 hours a day as a coach.” So, it was just a grind, from high school to high school to G league not getting paid, etc. and he kept at it and rightfully so now he’s made it and it’s exciting for him. Because it’s not easy to do that. Not only it is easy, but it just speaks to like, I don’t know, you probably know more about this than me. But it seems the infrastructure for coaching in the G league needs to be, you know, overhauled a little bit if you’re going to try to get people promoted and educate them and try to get them to the NBA.
Brendan 28:43
Yeah, when I graduate from Davidson, I got drafted in the G League, but I didn’t, I was like, “No, I’m going to Europe, man. I can’t settle for this type of what it is.” But it’s gotten a little bit better, I think since then. But I was like, No….
Joe Pompliano 28:58
I read this story today on Ben Cohen from the Wall Street Journal had a good story on Fred VanVleet. And he was talking about how VanVleet told once he didn’t get dropped in the first round, a couple teams call them the second and we’re like, we’re going to select you. But you’re going to basically be you’re going to be on the G league team, and you’ve got to try to work your way up and he was like, “No, don’t select me. I want I want to pick my team, pick my situation, like figure it out.” Which isn’t the right thing for everyone, obviously, but it just speaks to like, maybe how little faith some players have in the G league system and get into the NBA.
Brendan 29:31
Yeah. Well, the last story I want to ask you about is the March Madness bubble that they just came out with. I think the story you wrote was March Madness. 100-million-dollar bubble. So, you know, can you talk a little bit about that?
Joe Pompliano 29:48
Yeah. So, March Madness. I think what people some people don’t realize about the NCAA is that… Over 80% of their money comes from March Madness. So, the NCAA really has no authority over, like football schedules or schools or games like that. Not only that, but they don’t make any money on that. So, what’s really important them is March Madness because the NCAA makes a little bit over, we’ll call it a billion dollars a year. For simplicity sakes, we’ll say a billion and they make around say 800 million of that off of March Madness alone. So, it’s a huge part of their annual budget and their annual revenue. So, with them canceling it last year, it was really never an option for them to cancel it again. So up until last week, they were still planning on doing 13 different sites across the country, the normal schedule 68 teams with the four playing games, and then they were planning on going to Indianapolis for the Final Four. So last week, they switch that and now, they’re going to try to do the entire tournament Indianapolis. So, they’re still working out the logistics, but the point was just to show that it was really never going to get canceled because if you’re missing 80% of your revenue two years in a row plus whatever else they’re missing from, you know, sponsorships, etc. They were in serious financial trouble and looking at bankruptcy. So, there was always going to be an avenue to figure it out. Like selfishly, I think fans were happy about. But it also speaks to kind of my thoughts and my feelings around athletes need to being compensated for it and [crosstalk] yeah, because, like, I think for some, it’s a touchy subject, and don’t get me wrong, like I understand there’s a value in scholarships and everything like that. But for this instance, right there, they’re making sure there’s a way to get $800 million in revenue, so they don’t go bankrupt but the flip side of that, which no one is talking about is you’re asking players to play in the middle of a pandemic, which…. Don’t get me wrong, whether your feelings about it or not. Most of them are probably wanting and willing to do and they can opt out if they don’t want to. But it just speaks to the point of like, how are you going to ask someone to do that and then not allow them to do this? Right. So, I think there’s like some give and take there. And it looks like we’re making strides towards you know, in the long haul towards the likeness. But
Brendan 32:06
yeah, don’t even get me started on and say that hypocrisy is crazy man and we deal with it every year with on kind of the AAU side and yeah, there’s the current high school kids, the 11th and 12th graders are really hurting from some of the decisions the NCAA has made combined with COVID, which they had nothing to do with but it’s a pretty…
Joe Pompliano 32:33
…Just for my knowledge, what did they said about? Like, what’s the deal with different high schools? Is every state different? Are they playing games? Are they…?
Brendan 32:39
Yeah, that is just based on state and city rules. NCA has no….. Say in that what they do have say and is like the viewing periods for college coaches to come watch and for instance, this summer. Division Three in Division Two coaches could come watch, but they were not allowed to have workouts and things like that. Division one NCAA said no, you’re not allowed to come watch, but you’re allowed to have workouts and stuff. So, it’s so inconsistent, they’ve also canceled a bunch of the live periods, the viewing periods over the last number of years, which has really hurt the recruitment of current 11th, 12th graders then COVID came. Now they gave eligibility back to the college players. So now, 11th and 12th graders in college and in high school are having to deal with like that log jam right there and on top of the lack of evaluation time that they got over the last like two years because of some of the NCAA stuff but…..
Joe Pompliano 33:37
I was going to say I have no tangible evidence or knowledge or data points or anything on this but… And you definitely know more of the process but I feel like, I don’t deal with any of this recruiting or anything like that on a normal basis. Like I read about the business behind sports, but I’ve been getting like an obscene amount of DMS and everything from like high school kids with their highlight tapes and I’m like, “Is there something going like what is going on? Is there is recruiting like[crosstalk] us out from this?” Yeah, I’m getting an absurd amount. It’s all their huddle tapes and it’s not only basketball or football, etc. But I have nothing to do. I’m just like, what is this etc. but like, it’s just interesting because I wasn’t really getting any of that stuff before. So, I don’t know if kids are just having a harder time or coaches aren’t reaching out as much or whatnot. But it’s interesting.
Brendan 34:28
That is very interesting. If you’re listening to this do not send Joe any highlights, not help you. You can send it to pro skills basketball, but don’t send it to Joe. But that is interesting. I mean, I’m super interested. I think you tweeted out an article the other day about USC or maybe even wrote about it, that USC creating their own agency, which we don’t have time to talk about today. Like USC creating an agency for their athletes to get ahead of whenever the NCAA like image and likeness, stuff comes down the pipeline which we’ve had Jay Bilas on our podcast before. And we’re friendly with him and obviously he talks so much about it but maybe, it has something to do with that. Kids are starting to think more about business. Once they get to college, maybe so…
Joe Pompliano 35:15
Yeah, with the name image and likeness coming. I think it’s definitely a point of conversation.
Brendan 35:20
Yeah, I’m super interested in what that’s going to do. Even just for what we do, and how it’s going to change up the recruiting landscape, and just everything. So anyway, Joe, I appreciate it. We’re, I know you’re a busy guy. Keep doing what you’re doing. Where can everyone find you? and find your stuff? Because I really want everyone to go follow you on Twitter. I want them to subscribe to your stuff. So just give them that info really quick.
Joe Pompliano 35:49
Yeah, so I there are two places really, mostly I tweet out during the day, you’ll find me at Joe Pompliano on Twitter and then secondly is the website for Huddle Up. It’s just if you just go to readhuddleup.com, you’ll find the articles you can subscribe. For those of you who don’t know, it’s just a daily email that gets sent out every morning, I pick one topic, it could be a range of anything but sports business related, kind of break down, you know the details behind different deals, salary, contracts, lead revenue, etc. and then yeah…… if you just go to my Twitter, you’ll see the link in there and then you can kind of follow me and see some of the stories.
Brendan 36:25
Yeah, I have a whole list in front of me of stuff. I wanted to talk to you about stories but also like big picture ideas like sports gambling, athletes as investors. E-Sports is a big one that like, is kind of on that youth side that we’re involved with digital the rise of digital sports media, like I think not next week, the week after we will release our podcast with Dan Porter from overtime, which is obviously a digital sports media guy. They’re coming after ESPN through overtime. So, a lot of changes currently happening and coming down the pike I think and…. So, I’m looking forward to continuing to follow you on Twitter. Continue to read your emails, man hopefully sometime we can have you back on if you’re willing to talk about some more of these stories and stuff but good luck with all you do. I love it. We’ll put everything you mentioned in the show notes so some people can please click those links and easily find your stuff. But… yeah, man, until we talk again. I appreciate it. Hope you stay safe and thanks for thanks for all the information you’re putting out there. really enjoy it.
Joe Pompliano 37:37
Yeah, thanks, Brandon. Thanks for having me on. I’m happy to come back and do it again sometime.
Brendan 37:42
Awesome, Joe, if you need any help with the pod You hit me up man. Alright, see you man. Yeah.
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