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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports podcast. We explore

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Speaker 1: some of the big money issues in the world of sports.

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Speaker 1: Michael barn I'm Scarlett fel Time Damien sass Hour. Today's

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Speaker 1: guest is part of a growing number of former athletes

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Speaker 1: who are now carving out a career in business. In fact,

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Speaker 1: we just spoke with New York Yankees president Randy Levine

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Speaker 1: about how he's seeing a lot of former players move

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Speaker 1: on from playing to investing and having a lot of success.

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Speaker 1: A lot of these guys have made a lot of

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Speaker 1: money and the good businessmen, and they have companies and

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Speaker 1: you know, they partner some of them with great private

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Speaker 1: equity or other groups and they make you know, sound investment.

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Speaker 1: That was New York Yankees president Randy Levine on the

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Speaker 1: Business of Sports not too long ago, about how athletes

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Speaker 1: are finding success after their playing career is over in business.

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Speaker 1: A big, high profile example recently is Serena Williams. She

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Speaker 1: was on BTV and talked about bringing her winning attitude

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Speaker 1: from the court to venture capital. You know, it's really

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Speaker 1: about having a winning attitude and really just about understanding

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Speaker 1: that you have to put a lot of time into this.

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Speaker 1: You know, and you have to put a lot of

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Speaker 1: effort into learning, but at the same time understand that

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Speaker 1: the hard work and the dedication and then also that

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Speaker 1: champions mentality of like I like winning, So if you do,

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Speaker 1: what does it take to win? And it's really just

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Speaker 1: figuring that out and applying it into this this part

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Speaker 1: of our of my life at Serena Williams speaking to

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Television. But our next guest story goes way deeper.

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Speaker 1: His family struggled with poverty growing up, and he's spoken

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Speaker 1: about having a father who was at times abusive. Isaiah

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Speaker 1: Kasavinski was able to overcome that going to Harvard and

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Speaker 1: being drafted into the NFL. He had the lace career

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Speaker 1: in the pros and now is diving into venture capital. Yeah, Michael,

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Speaker 1: he is the founder and managing partner of a VC

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Speaker 1: firm focused on sports technology by the name of will Ventures,

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Speaker 1: and he's here now to talk with us about all

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Speaker 1: of it. Isaiah Kazaminski, Welcome to the Bloomberg Business of Sports.

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Speaker 1: Michael Scarlett Damian appreciate you guys have me on, great

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Speaker 1: to connect. Tell us about Will Ventures. Yeah, so, so,

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Speaker 1: will Ventcher's is actually our our second fund that we

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Speaker 1: just closed. It's a hundred and fifty million dollar fund,

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Speaker 1: and it's a unique thesis that really looks at this

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Speaker 1: perceived niche market of sports as a way to really

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Speaker 1: really as a land to blow open into massive adjacent

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Speaker 1: mark markets across primarily consumer health and media. Where a

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Speaker 1: seed stage focus fund, right super early stage UM you know,

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Speaker 1: after friends and family money that would come in like

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Speaker 1: typically a preceed but before kind of an a round,

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Speaker 1: so leading co leading at that seed stage, tight portfolio

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Speaker 1: investing with conviction, really typically ownership when our first check

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Speaker 1: ins typically around ten to maybe even more, and really

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Speaker 1: really uh really following a strategy around modern portfolio construction,

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Speaker 1: not a Sprain Prey model, but really a true really

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Speaker 1: feed the winners approach on those companies that are performing

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Speaker 1: the best in the portfolio, continuing to invest from seed

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Speaker 1: to a to be uh and again, like I said,

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Speaker 1: true feed the winners approach around that, so hunderfill fund.

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Speaker 1: We've got an amazing LP base. We're institutionally backed UM

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Speaker 1: which I can kind of dive into more, but University

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Speaker 1: and Dowmonds Foundations those are primary investors, and we've got

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Speaker 1: several strategic investors seventeen professional team owners across four major sports. Uh,

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Speaker 1: dozens of elite athletes. Uh, you know, former entrepreneurs have

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Speaker 1: been successful and then kind of founders managing partners at

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Speaker 1: private equity funds, hedge funds, venture capital funds as well.

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Speaker 1: How the strategic is on that front. So that's kind

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Speaker 1: of the overall uh you know, kind of approach that

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Speaker 1: we've taken out world ventures. Happy to dive into anything

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Speaker 1: else on that too. Thank you for giving us an overview.

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Speaker 1: And VC, of course is a form of private equity,

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Speaker 1: except that, as you mentioned, you guys invest in startups.

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Speaker 1: So I want to get to the sports part of it,

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Speaker 1: because sports has become kind of its own asset class,

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Speaker 1: whether it's the media rights, the adjacent technology, health and

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Speaker 1: wellness aspect. Is this something you hear investors identifying as

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Speaker 1: specifically wanting exposure to sports as an asset class. I

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Speaker 1: love that. It's an awesome question, And yeah, you can

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Speaker 1: look through the lens that question. We always try to

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Speaker 1: look through the lens of an institutional investor. Um, you know,

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Speaker 1: kind of you know, large capital capital allocators. How do

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Speaker 1: they look at the world in the end they want

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Speaker 1: to invest in, not into you know, specialized niche markets.

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Speaker 1: They're investing to drive top tier return right in two

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Speaker 1: different asset classes, as you mentioned, So looking at it

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Speaker 1: through that lens, and that is exactly the approach that

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Speaker 1: we took to building will ventures from fund one to

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Speaker 1: Fund two and the idea around you know, looking at

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Speaker 1: that lens via institutional capital, how do we look at

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Speaker 1: and it's all it's how we looked at the markets

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Speaker 1: as well, which kind of mapped up, mapped out nicely

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Speaker 1: of sports is truly a perceived niche market, right, and

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Speaker 1: it's typically been narrowly defined you know, sports media entertainment

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Speaker 1: in a really really small verb for for a long time.

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Speaker 1: Our thesis is really around how do you use sports

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Speaker 1: as that lends to touch those massive adjacent markets and

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Speaker 1: really have a unique value add early in the company's

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Speaker 1: life cycle as you mentioned on being able to do that.

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Speaker 1: So what feels like niche or highly inflexible, and that

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Speaker 1: is actually a lot of flexibility in a way to

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Speaker 1: diversify our portfolio. Touch large you know, typically generalist markets

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Speaker 1: where generalist dollars are flowing, right, the largest funds in

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Speaker 1: the world, the largest company in the world. Those are

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Speaker 1: the types of companies that we want to invest into.

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Speaker 1: So there's this natural diversification of a portfolio which really

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Speaker 1: kind of helps, you know, as we identify add value

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Speaker 1: in really on the road to how do you drive

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Speaker 1: top to your returns in a concentrated strategy. So hopefully

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Speaker 1: I answered your question. But that's exactly the lens that

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Speaker 1: we had to look at for UM. You know, when

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Speaker 1: we first started raising fun one, it was oh sports.

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Speaker 1: You know, you walk in a room and you're like,

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Speaker 1: oh sports, that's cute. When we were trying to raise

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Speaker 1: capital for the for the fun we're really telling this

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Speaker 1: story that we can touch massive. Jesus's was core to

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Speaker 1: that and I love that question. So Isaiah, you know,

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Speaker 1: talk to us about that that LP base. You know,

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Speaker 1: how involved are they with your portfolio holdings. You know,

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Speaker 1: I've seen some of the companies here, just Women's Sports

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Speaker 1: light Box, I've seen Activate Activates a workspace for athletic

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Speaker 1: departments at universities. You have a lot of endowments, you know,

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Speaker 1: as LPs and the fund. Talk to us about how

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Speaker 1: involved they are in you know, helping some of these

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Speaker 1: companies grow. Yeah, that's another great question you know for

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Speaker 1: us as we built you know, an LP base from

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Speaker 1: fun one to now growing into fund to fund one

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Speaker 1: million dollar fund, so almost three times of size from

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Speaker 1: fund one to fund to a hundred fifty million dollar fund.

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Speaker 1: Really being strategic on the LP base that we brought

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Speaker 1: together fund one was unbelievably you know heavy lift, right,

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Speaker 1: being able to really really educate around our investors around uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, how we are really looking at the market,

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Speaker 1: how we are attacking the market for that. But from

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Speaker 1: fund one to fund too, how strategic of an LP

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Speaker 1: base our investor base could we have is really really

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Speaker 1: important for us. So we we have a highly active

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Speaker 1: and involved LP base, UM, whether it be from deals

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Speaker 1: we're seeing in the market, right, deal flow from our

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Speaker 1: LP base, UM. Think about you know, as you look

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Speaker 1: at universities, UM and team owners and athletes and you know, challenges, etcetera,

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Speaker 1: a lot of them are seeing you know, deal flow

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Speaker 1: across the board. Our job day to day is identifying

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Speaker 1: those markets, researching in those markets, and being able to

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Speaker 1: kind of sift through that quickly. So you know, in

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Speaker 1: the end, we're in the business of we want to

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Speaker 1: work with the most amazing entrepreneurs in the world, building

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Speaker 1: the most businesses and we don't want to miss that, right,

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Speaker 1: we want to miss those opportunities connect with them as well.

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Speaker 1: So having great kind of dealful in that involvement super

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Speaker 1: important around that. And I think another thing you mentioned

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Speaker 1: which I think is really important value add for our LPs.

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Speaker 1: How how can they add value across the board, whether

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Speaker 1: it be kind of universities, team owners, athletes. We've got

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Speaker 1: great corporate relationships as well, connecting the dots right In

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Speaker 1: the end, you venture capital is very different than private equity.

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Speaker 1: Private equity sometimes you go in and you actually run

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Speaker 1: the business. Sometimes venture capital Having been entrepreneurs ourselves, me

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Speaker 1: and my co founder Brian Riley, understand it's not necessary

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Speaker 1: about running the business, about how do you drive efficiency

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Speaker 1: and connecting those dots LPs. That really our LPs, our

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Speaker 1: investors have really really helped us connect those dots in

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Speaker 1: a major way along with us as well, so amazingly

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Speaker 1: helpful p base both on the deal flow side the

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Speaker 1: value add side. The last piece on that bucket, I

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Speaker 1: would say, on the research side, what are you seeing

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Speaker 1: in the market right, what are you seeing in the

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Speaker 1: front lines that we can add to our buckets of

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Speaker 1: research that we have as well in two different markets,

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Speaker 1: different areas of expertise, so we can we can stay

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Speaker 1: on top of that as well. Sports and technology is

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Speaker 1: what you guys are really dealing with, and what that

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Speaker 1: also brings in is that that helps bring in the

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Speaker 1: younger players, the younger athletes, the younger fans for that matter.

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Speaker 1: Can you take us through that about what it means

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Speaker 1: to have the sports and technology marriage and what it

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Speaker 1: means to bring the younger people into the sports absolutely. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know, like Bothender and I Brian been working on

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Speaker 1: this for for several years, and you know, it's you're

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Speaker 1: starting to see this intersection more and more of sports

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Speaker 1: and a dinner graphic, a younger demographic as well as

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Speaker 1: all the adjacentcyes that we look at and the ability

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Speaker 1: of sports as an entity, but also the athletes that

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Speaker 1: are really really influences, influences and make a way not

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Speaker 1: only on the field, on the core, on the ice,

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Speaker 1: wherever there may be, but also outside of that. And

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Speaker 1: you're really opening up that mindset is something that is

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Speaker 1: personal to me as you know, a former player, as

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Speaker 1: you mentioned, played eight years, I was a lone wolf

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Speaker 1: really being involved with businesses early on from you know

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Speaker 1: when I was drafting two thousand to really getting involved

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Speaker 1: in two thousand free into businesses and betting in the

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Speaker 1: off season, learning how things are done. That is very

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Speaker 1: much the norm now right with a younger set of

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Speaker 1: athletes continue to be able to do that, and they

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Speaker 1: are front of mine is really how do you connect

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Speaker 1: with your base? How do you engage in a way

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Speaker 1: that really, you know, technologically hadn't wasn't around when when

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Speaker 1: I when I was play right, So the world shifted. Um,

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Speaker 1: there's kind of the digital native athletes now that are

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Speaker 1: in the NFL or into our other sports, right that

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Speaker 1: can then now connect in a very authentic way with

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Speaker 1: a engage with a with a fan base that you

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Speaker 1: never have been able to do that in and of itself.

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Speaker 1: As you think about influence and all the areas that

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Speaker 1: we touch consumer health, media, the ability to really really

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Speaker 1: intersect that and ride value early into a company and

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Speaker 1: help tilp the playing field for a company with influence

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Speaker 1: like that super super important. That's just kind of one example,

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Speaker 1: but you know, that way to resonate in a demographic

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Speaker 1: that needs to be engaged long term. As we see

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Speaker 1: kind of skewing towards sports and engagement on some of

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Speaker 1: the sports being you know, in the fifties plus right range,

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Speaker 1: being able to truly engage in a different way is

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Speaker 1: gonna be super important. I feel like we can't talk

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Speaker 1: about the business of sports without talking about live sports rights.

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Speaker 1: And Bloomberg had a story or ler this week that

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Speaker 1: showed the highest the annual cost of rights was before

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Speaker 1: two thousand was about three point four billion dollars, and

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Speaker 1: in broadcasters and streaming services will pay fifteen point four

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Speaker 1: billion dollars. That is five times what it was before

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Speaker 1: two thou my question to you is that we've seen

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Speaker 1: these live sports rights skyrocket and value. Does that lift

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Speaker 1: evaluation of all the other sports adjacent assets like sports technology,

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Speaker 1: like sports health and wellness? And does it were you

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Speaker 1: that we're in a sports rights bubble? I love this question. Uh,

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Speaker 1: this is something that is core to our thesis. We

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Speaker 1: have the entire half of our thesis, which is really

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Speaker 1: based around humor, performance and the elite athlete willing to

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Speaker 1: kind of do what it takes to you know, take

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Speaker 1: the guess work, how they can feel their best, how

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Speaker 1: they can recover from injury. That's one half the of it.

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Speaker 1: The other side is the personalization of digital media and

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Speaker 1: core that is sports live sports being the last captive audience, right.

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Speaker 1: I know you've heard it be for but it's core

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Speaker 1: to how we look at the entire side of our thesis,

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Speaker 1: which is sports is the last thing in our lives

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Speaker 1: that refused to time shift. You don't watch Monday night

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Speaker 1: football on Tuesday, you just don't write the value of that.

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Speaker 1: We move from linear cable to O D T and

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Speaker 1: streaming kind of almost ubiquitous across the board, which are

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Speaker 1: where where it will be uh, The ability uh to

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Speaker 1: engage in the value of sports is only going to

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Speaker 1: increase as you look through the next decade and beyond.

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Speaker 1: So I absolutely don't believe that's in a bubble. The

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Speaker 1: value of that and live square events and the snippets

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Speaker 1: and all of the engagement around that highly highly valuable,

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Speaker 1: and it's kind of the secular shift that's really really

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Speaker 1: gonna play into that. Now. I can't on the exact

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Speaker 1: pricing for those rights, I'm not gonna be able to say,

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Speaker 1: but I know the value of that is going to

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Speaker 1: continue to increase, right, you know, the exact kind of

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Speaker 1: quantum going from three to fifteen, UH, can be debatable

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Speaker 1: around that but the a you will continue to increase

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Speaker 1: and there and there's no doubt around that anyway. Isaiah.

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Speaker 1: Let me take you back to the late nineties, early

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Speaker 1: two thousands. You graduated from Harvard University. Come loud pre

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Speaker 1: med with UM. Your roommate Chris Newinski, who has been

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Speaker 1: in the papers on the news for the better part

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Speaker 1: of the last three weeks, certainly following that injury to

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Speaker 1: to a talk to us about your involvement with UM

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Speaker 1: with a Concussion Legacy Foundation with CTE. I know this

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Speaker 1: is something that's near and dear to your heart. Yeah, yeah,

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Speaker 1: it is. Uh yeah. Chris has been uh front and

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Speaker 1: center UM in the two of discussions I've as I've

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Speaker 1: watched like everybody else on on on Twitter and kind

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Speaker 1: of beyond UM and you know us being roommates. Uh.

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Speaker 1: You know, Harvard was a different world for me when

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Speaker 1: I first first landed that I grew up in poverty,

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Speaker 1: was homeless for parts of my childhood, So it was

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Speaker 1: like an out of body experience for me to just

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Speaker 1: be there. Chris is someone who uh that we hit

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Speaker 1: it off early on freshman year and obviously became roommates.

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Speaker 1: He's unbelievably passionate and intelligent and smart about what he

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Speaker 1: want to do. He could have got gone into any work.

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Speaker 1: His transition from us being roommates, me going to the NFL,

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Speaker 1: him wrestling in the w W, which is what it

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Speaker 1: was kind of uh you know named at the time. Uh.

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Speaker 1: And then yes, Chris, Yeah, Chris Harvard. He played yeah,

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Speaker 1: the the snobby uh you know, Vince Wigmah essentially created

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Speaker 1: a heel right, a bad guy that was, you know, snooty,

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Speaker 1: kind of rich kid personality that looked down on anyone

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Speaker 1: that didn't understand fancy words and fancy understandings about everything else.

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Speaker 1: So he created that played it well, Uh, it made sense,

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Speaker 1: you know. Chris was you know, our nose tackle was

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Speaker 1: you know, three enter ten pounds. But he was also

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Speaker 1: the lead and west Side Story in high school. A

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Speaker 1: lot of people didn't know that. Wait, wait, what did

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Speaker 1: he would roll? Did he play in west Side Story?

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Speaker 1: I have actually never seen west Side Story side? Would

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Speaker 1: I've seen the video of it? So I could? I

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Speaker 1: wish I knew the name of of the person that

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Speaker 1: he played. But whoever the lead is in west Side Story?

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Speaker 1: H it was that and I guess Long Story story

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Speaker 1: he was destined for the w B, his career got

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Speaker 1: cut cut short three years in Uh had several concussions

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Speaker 1: in repetition, ended up going on to to write a

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Speaker 1: book about concussion the research he had found, and then

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Speaker 1: started the you know, Concussion Legacy Institute, a concussion like

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Speaker 1: sorry concussion Legacy foundation that now has really really looked

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Speaker 1: at lad A awareness as well as research looking at

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Speaker 1: brain's posts mortum, looking for CTE around that. So having

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Speaker 1: a living brain brain doing a registry as well as

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Speaker 1: looking at brains when people passed away super Uh. I

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Speaker 1: ended up being the one of the first actually was

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Speaker 1: the first person I donate my brain while living, um,

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Speaker 1: you know, after I passed away to science and to that,

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Speaker 1: to that, So it's super important for me. My son plays.

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Speaker 1: I've got, you know, a son that's eighteen years old,

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Speaker 1: be playing football in college next year, And it's always

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Speaker 1: front of mine where I want to. I love the

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Speaker 1: game of football. It's offered me a lot, especially from

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Speaker 1: where I came from. How do you make the game

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Speaker 1: as safe as possible? And really that is front of

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Speaker 1: mine for me. Continue that and I know that's in

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Speaker 1: a lot of people's mind as well as you kind

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Speaker 1: of look forward to that. Sorry to go on and

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Speaker 1: on about that, but I wanted to get good. No,

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Speaker 1: if you are a brave man because you said, as

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Speaker 1: you are here now, you said listen when I pass on,

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Speaker 1: which hopefully will be another fifty years from now that

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Speaker 1: I'm going to, you know, donate my brain. I have

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Speaker 1: to admit I'm a scarity cat. I don't know if

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Speaker 1: I could, because I've always said when they put me

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Speaker 1: in the ground, I'm coming back as a cockroach because

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Speaker 1: kill me, you can't do it. And and it's like

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Speaker 1: I really admire that. I mean, it's you, you know,

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Speaker 1: for something that's as critical as CTE. Uh, you are

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Speaker 1: taking care of business in congratulations for being out in

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Speaker 1: front on that. We really do appreciate that. No, thank you,

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Speaker 1: I appreciate it. Um, you know, it's obviously something that yeah,

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Speaker 1: I've had a front row c for not only my

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Speaker 1: own career but with Chris as well, and um, you know,

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Speaker 1: for for me, it's a lot more complicated than just

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Speaker 1: the sport not being thrown away is an amazing sport

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Speaker 1: and um it's an amazing teacher and really really finding

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Speaker 1: that middle ground of how do you make the sport

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Speaker 1: as safe as possible and still continue to really have

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Speaker 1: all of us enjoy football and now itself. Former NFL

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Speaker 1: player Isaiah Kazvinski, who is a found partner now of

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Speaker 1: the VC firm Will Ventures. Isaiah, thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for talking with us on the Bloomberg Business Sports. Thank you, Michael,

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Speaker 1: Scarlett and Damni appreciate it. This has been the Bloomberg

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Speaker 1: Business of Sports podcast. We explore some of the big

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Speaker 1: money issues in the world of sports on Michael Barr.

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Speaker 1: You can follow me on Twitter at Big Bar Sports

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Speaker 1: and I'm on Twitter at Scarlett Foul and I'm on

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Speaker 1: Twitter at the Hour and Hey. You can catch our

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Speaker 1: podcast every Monday, Wednesday and Thursday and of course wherever

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Speaker 1: you download your podcast