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Speaker 1: Well, I'll do a special edition of the Bloomberg Business

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Speaker 1: of Sports podcast today instead of our usual hosts. Is

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Speaker 1: the producer's podcast. My name is Justin Millner and one

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Speaker 1: of the producers on the show, along with Ario Lagami,

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Speaker 1: who is lead producer. Recently, we got a chance to

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Speaker 1: sit down with metas Sanderford, our Test. He's a former

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Speaker 1: NBA pro spending time on the Indiana Pacers, our hometown

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Speaker 1: New York Niggs, as well as winning a title with

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Speaker 1: the Los Angeles Lakers in two thousand and nine. We

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Speaker 1: spoke with our test about the state of the league,

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Speaker 1: including his thoughts on the new nd season tournament, as

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Speaker 1: well as some of his new business ventures. Let's take

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Speaker 1: a listen to some of that conversation right now.

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Speaker 2: Great to be with you, Medick Ray as always a

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Speaker 2: pleasure to hear from you and to check in with you.

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Speaker 2: You joined our hosts Scarlett Damien and Michael back in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty two to discuss what's going on in your

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Speaker 2: world of business. You're running our Test Management Group, an

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Speaker 2: incubator and accelerator company for young companies with an eye

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Speaker 2: towards growth. Can you give us an update as in

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Speaker 2: terms of some of the projects you're working on right

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Speaker 2: now with your company and the type of investment flow

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Speaker 2: you're seeing.

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Speaker 3: I like data driven businesses to help scale my members.

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Speaker 3: We have about fifty plus members entities not only in

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Speaker 3: America but China and working on taking the commercial holdings

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Speaker 3: company public, So that's kind of one of our goals.

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Speaker 2: Are there any particular areas of the market that you

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Speaker 2: like to focus on. You had mentioned healthcare previously and

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Speaker 2: real estate. Are those still kind of your main areas

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Speaker 2: or you're sort of willing to look at any sector

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Speaker 2: if it makes sense for you.

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Speaker 3: It just depends on where we evolve. We don't want

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Speaker 3: to kind of skip. But when you look at when

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Speaker 3: you see like healthcare, you know that's like a place

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Speaker 3: where athletes typically have some type of expertise and.

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Speaker 4: Maybe not.

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Speaker 3: Uh maybe not in the books from the perspective of

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Speaker 3: not studying, of studying, you know, maybe you didn't study it,

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Speaker 3: but in terms of you're taking care of your body, healthcare.

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Speaker 4: Is a great area.

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Speaker 3: Anything that's enterprise tech where athletes can affect outcomes success,

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Speaker 3: that's super interesting.

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Speaker 4: And the sectors do range.

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Speaker 3: But as we evolve as a firm, it's going to

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Speaker 3: move away from justperate athletes affect the outcome success as

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Speaker 3: a thesis, the thesis are probably I'm sure to change,

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Speaker 3: which is really exciting because we've already seen other opportunities

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Speaker 3: that it relates to our firm and what we're versus.

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Speaker 3: When I launched it, I had to launch with a thesis,

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Speaker 3: and I just chose sports kind of focused thesis. But

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Speaker 3: that's going to change probably the next couple of years.

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Speaker 1: So you know, we're gonna talk some basketball with you soon.

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Speaker 1: But one thing that jumps out about you to me

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Speaker 1: is that in all areas of your life, including in business,

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Speaker 1: you position yourself as a mental health care advocate and

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Speaker 1: someone who is outspoken about your own your own struggles

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Speaker 1: and your own battles, and you serve as inspiration to

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Speaker 1: other people, particularly young people of color. Can you talk

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Speaker 1: to me a little bit about how much being a

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Speaker 1: mental health care advocate, how important that is to you,

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Speaker 1: and how it might play into some of your choices

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Speaker 1: when it comes to business, when it comes to what

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Speaker 1: you're doing in your career post basketball.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's more wellness because mental health, I think the

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Speaker 3: definition is not even fully developed when you think about it. Then,

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Speaker 3: even when I launched that message, and I want to

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Speaker 3: think my psychologists on national television people didn't even underst

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Speaker 3: staying what that meant, right.

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Speaker 4: So that's why I.

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Speaker 3: Like wellness using using the term wellness because that just

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Speaker 3: covers everything, and it covers someone trying to get better

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Speaker 3: or improve themselves physically, mentally, spiritually. Mental health is real

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Speaker 3: shock and some people are afraid to talk about it,

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Speaker 3: so you gotta just mask it differently than nowadays.

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Speaker 4: So that's kind of my next initiative that I'll be leaning.

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Speaker 2: Towards and meta As somebody who deals with a lot

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Speaker 2: of a lot of a lot of youths. I know

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Speaker 2: you're involved in youth sports and you were at least

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Speaker 2: last year out in California dealing with it's kind of

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Speaker 2: up and coming players and getting them ready for the

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Speaker 2: spotlight and dealing with these hectic schedules, especially these days

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Speaker 2: with young athletes that they have to have to be

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Speaker 2: so highly trained and locked in to what they're doing

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Speaker 2: to get to that next level. But we've also seen

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Speaker 2: over the last decade plus the explosion of social media,

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Speaker 2: all these different platforms, all these different really ways to

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Speaker 2: you can educate yourself, but you can also be distracted

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Speaker 2: as well. Have you seen a change it's so much

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Speaker 2: different than from when you were playing. It's grown so much.

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Speaker 2: Have you seen a change from the way that young

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Speaker 2: players and young people more broadly are developing because of

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Speaker 2: social media? And have you seen that have an impact

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Speaker 2: on the mental health of younger people?

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Speaker 4: But you know, I think the human interaction is kind

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Speaker 4: of takeing a hit.

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Speaker 3: Things like tag, freeze tag when you're young, those things

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Speaker 3: are becoming less existent, non existent. On the flip side

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Speaker 3: is people will be able to create their own businesses.

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Speaker 4: You don't really need.

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Speaker 3: You know, back in the day we had seven basic channels,

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Speaker 3: maybe some news outlets, you know, and who knows what

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Speaker 3: you needed to do to make it. Now you can

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Speaker 3: just do it on your own. That's really solid. So

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Speaker 3: it was like some positive and negatives that's coming with

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Speaker 3: social media.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Metta, I actually so. One of my side gigs

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Speaker 1: Hereah Bloomberg is doing the Black Business Beat, where I

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Speaker 1: cover a lot of things anything impacting the black community

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Speaker 1: in terms of commerce and culture. And I recently spoke

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Speaker 1: to someone from Bank of America who kind of said

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Speaker 1: what you just said. I was asking her about the

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Speaker 1: impact of social media in terms of people getting educated.

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Speaker 1: Social media is having a negative effect on people in

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Speaker 1: terms of them getting financial advice that might be bad.

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Speaker 1: Like people follow influencers, maybe the financial advice they're getting

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Speaker 1: isn't good. And she kind of pushed back on that,

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Speaker 1: she said, you know what, that's possible. But for the

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Speaker 1: first time in history, a lot of young people at

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Speaker 1: a young age, and young black people and people of

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Speaker 1: color are starting the conversation of starting a business and

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Speaker 1: how to be an entrepreneur and starting a conversation about

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Speaker 1: how to manage their money, when in years past there

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Speaker 1: were no conversations about that. So could you speak a

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Speaker 1: little bit about that, about how maybe having these conversations

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Speaker 1: speaking specifically about business, but also about as you say,

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Speaker 1: mental wellness, which I like the pivot to talking about

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Speaker 1: mental health in terms of wellness as a whole. Talk

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Speaker 1: about how some of these conversations are being had now

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Speaker 1: when maybe they weren't. That those same conversations weren't happening

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Speaker 1: for young people even going back ten fifteen years ago.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, it's true, you know, we grew up. I mean,

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Speaker 4: when you look at a lot.

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Speaker 3: Of the issues happening with television superstars, we grew up

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Speaker 3: influenced by television also your surroundings. But if you don't

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Speaker 3: have like an upbringing parent or to your parent household,

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Speaker 3: you know, then you get influence and you now you

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Speaker 3: got a kid that's influenced by TV or things that

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Speaker 3: on that is that's more negative and positive when they

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Speaker 3: make it.

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Speaker 4: The money just highlights that.

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Speaker 3: So then you get people developing bad habits based off,

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Speaker 3: you know, a system that they learned here in their

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Speaker 3: own country, and you can get penalized for it also,

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Speaker 3: so you developed these bad habits and now you know

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Speaker 3: you're getting penalized because you picked up somebody bad habits.

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Speaker 3: From that perspective, you know, you're not focusing on things

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Speaker 3: like generational wealth planning or family building, you know. And

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Speaker 3: that's the type of program I've been trying to push forward.

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Speaker 3: But I've been getting pushed back myself from you know,

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Speaker 3: different programming, and you know it's the same people that

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Speaker 3: was pushing the programming from day one. You know, mandates

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Speaker 3: is changing, all times are changing, but you know some

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Speaker 3: of the people are still the same, so they I

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Speaker 3: think the education is needed, and I think social media

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Speaker 3: is a start, but I also think traditional traditional media,

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Speaker 3: traditional television needs to also catch up because you look

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Speaker 3: at what's happening in America. Our kids don't know real estate.

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Speaker 3: What they're accepting. If you have a multifamily, multi generational

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Speaker 3: family office, like you're going to keep your money in

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Speaker 3: real estate, but our children don't know real estate, and

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Speaker 3: a lot of the foreign investments is killing the chances

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Speaker 3: of born American born citizens to even get involved in

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Speaker 3: real estate. You probably have to be like a real

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Speaker 3: estate broker to just do transactions, but you probably are

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Speaker 3: going to have a difficult time finding a property next

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Speaker 3: to a big city, you know, unless we do what

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Speaker 3: they're doing in Saudi and just build, you know, some

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Speaker 3: new cities, maybe somewhere in Middle America.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: So from that perspective, like I like social media because

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Speaker 3: people are learning even TikTok, even though it's not company,

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Speaker 3: people are learning different things on TikTok. Companies dying out

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Speaker 3: of China owns that company. But and that goes to

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Speaker 3: our point again, in America sometimes be so busy fighting

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Speaker 3: against each other, you know, and we're just letting people

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Speaker 3: swoop in and take advantage of all all the benefits

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Speaker 3: we have here, you know. So from that perspective. You know,

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Speaker 3: the discussions need to be had, and we need to

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Speaker 3: start empowering especially our you know, call it second generation Americans,

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Speaker 3: including our Native Americans. Also, like we need to start

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Speaker 3: empowering everybody here on this land, giving them more tools

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Speaker 3: so then they can reap the benefits where we're not here,

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Speaker 3: because right.

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Speaker 4: Now it's not looking like that.

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Speaker 3: It is looking like everybody else is going to reap

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Speaker 3: the benefits except you know, born Americans.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: So there's things like that that I really believe in.

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Speaker 3: That's important, not only when my business has a mission

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Speaker 3: not only just you know, making not only just generating capital,

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Speaker 3: but it definitely has a mission that I hope to

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Speaker 3: live on, you know, from generations to come.

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Speaker 1: So to that point, the first thing I thought about

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Speaker 1: when you're talking about about this is nil in college,

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Speaker 1: you have young people that are making a lot of

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Speaker 1: money way quicker, and a lot of money way quicker

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Speaker 1: than maybe in history. And a lot of these people

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Speaker 1: and I like to say, you know, if you come

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Speaker 1: from an underserved community, you can only dream what you

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Speaker 1: can see. And you have people that are now seventeen

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Speaker 1: eighteen making boatloads of money that really because of their background,

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Speaker 1: have no point of view or knowledge of what they

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Speaker 1: can do to handle wealth. What do you think about

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Speaker 1: about the influx of nil in college sports getting young

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Speaker 1: young people a lot of money.

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Speaker 4: What would you do to create.

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Speaker 1: A structure and create education for young people that are

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Speaker 1: coming into a lot of money then maybe come from

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Speaker 1: a background where there really isn't any money.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's crazy as college kids is making two, three, four,

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Speaker 3: five million dollars.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's incredible.

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Speaker 3: And then some people are saying it's too young, these

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Speaker 3: kids is too young? You know, which is okay? Is

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Speaker 3: a good business model. We in America, we love capitalism.

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Speaker 3: But you know when you're talking about why would we

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Speaker 3: pay a young kid, well, all right, if we don't

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Speaker 3: want to pay him, pay the family.

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Speaker 4: If you want to divide it up amongst the family,

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Speaker 4: then divide it up.

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Speaker 3: But you don't want to just give somebody else's money

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Speaker 3: that they earned through their likeness skill set and give

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Speaker 3: us as somebody else like, yeah, we have the structure,

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Speaker 3: the foundation, the platform could be a company or institutional

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Speaker 3: or basketball league of sports league. But as a partnership,

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Speaker 3: you know, the actual person performing is the most important piece.

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Speaker 4: And then the.

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Speaker 3: People before us who created the platform is also important.

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Speaker 3: But you got to have some type of structure to

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Speaker 3: keep things going right for the people behind us. So yeah,

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Speaker 3: great structures out there, but I think NIL is great.

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Speaker 3: You know, give people a chance to make some money,

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Speaker 3: and then we should be to teaching them.

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Speaker 4: They should be buying real estate.

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Speaker 3: It should mandate mandate real estate right away, like they

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Speaker 3: have to buy.

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Speaker 4: Aisles or something like that. You know. I see a

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Speaker 4: lot of jewelry being bought sometimes just like we did.

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Speaker 3: But that's just you know, money from your that you earn,

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Speaker 3: just giving it back, you know, to other own companies

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Speaker 3: and other institutions and other structures versus saving it for your.

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Speaker 4: Family, you know.

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Speaker 3: And and these are things that we should be talking

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Speaker 3: about to the kids and met.

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Speaker 2: Obviously NIL wasn't around when when your playing days. But

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Speaker 2: as you've moved on from the from the from the league,

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Speaker 2: you've you've branched out in your investments, including a recent

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Speaker 2: one this past year with with with an organization called sparkt,

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Speaker 2: a B two B sports betting UH startup that it

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Speaker 2: was launched in conjunction with Red Rock Sports red Rock Resorts,

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Speaker 2: I should say, publicly traded on the nasdac UH ticker

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Speaker 2: r R R, And I'd love to get your get

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Speaker 2: your thoughts on on what's going on with that business

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Speaker 2: and sort of on sports gambling more broadly, because over

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Speaker 2: the last few years also sort of a change from

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Speaker 2: from your playing days, it has become so front and center.

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Speaker 2: We know that people obviously have bet on sports for

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Speaker 2: a long long time, but now it's really just part

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Speaker 2: of the entire sports production for on a day to

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Speaker 2: day basis, and the viewer, the consumer is inundated with

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Speaker 2: these advertisements for for for betting and things of that nature.

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Speaker 2: So I want to get your thoughts on that. But

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Speaker 2: tell me a little bit about the about the the

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Speaker 2: Sparket partnership and and and that business model.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, my firm were, like I said, a

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Speaker 3: commercial holdings company. We have some companies we have control

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Speaker 3: and shares, some we don't as part of the portfolio.

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Speaker 3: And we have services, growth services, fiduciaries and financial services,

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Speaker 3: financial acceleration and marketing consertation. So it's like a lot

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Speaker 3: of things if we bring to it together to the

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Speaker 3: table as a firm. I'm the chairman of the firm.

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Speaker 3: So we were working with spark It to just help

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Speaker 3: accelerate their brand, their company, you know. And that's pretty

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Speaker 3: much what I do these days. I don't necessarily use

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Speaker 3: my likeness. I don't lend my likeness to anything but

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Speaker 3: my firm. I have, you know, kind of a business.

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Speaker 3: And sometimes it's hard for people to think about that

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Speaker 3: concept when they come to me and say, hey, you.

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Speaker 4: Know, matter, we want you to, uh want a.

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Speaker 3: Party with you, maybe give you equity and use your likeness,

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Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't. I don't really do that

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Speaker 3: these days, respectfully, I have a real firm that have

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Speaker 3: has services, you know, so NBCEE companies like spark all

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Speaker 3: in the bedding space and we like it, right, it's

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Speaker 3: an appetite for it. The technology behind betting is really cool.

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Speaker 3: The data capturing behind betting is really cool. And and

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Speaker 3: uh it is only I think it might only be

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Speaker 3: nine licenses in America right now. Maybe it's ten now.

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Speaker 3: But it's room for growth when you look at the

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Speaker 3: amount of casinos we have, the amount of people that

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Speaker 3: have have disposable income to bet, you know. So your

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Speaker 3: company like Sparket, you know, I don't think they're late,

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Speaker 3: you know, it's fairly early.

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Speaker 4: I mean, companies like the other the other betting other

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Speaker 4: license betting, licensed companies. They were very early.

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Speaker 3: Obviously they're winning now, but I think it's their room

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Speaker 3: for other entrepreneurs to get involved, like Sparket.

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Speaker 2: And what do you think, metam about from a broader

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Speaker 2: perspective about the kind of inundation of the sports broadcast,

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Speaker 2: the typical sports broadcast, whether it be NFL, college sports,

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Speaker 2: NBA with just the the the push to bet more,

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Speaker 2: the push for the fan to bet more. And we've

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Speaker 2: seen some some issues in the NFL where guys have

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Speaker 2: gotten actually ensnared in in gambling situations and receive suspensions.

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Speaker 2: Is that is that fair? Should there be more of?

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Speaker 2: Is there enough guidance for both players and fans uh

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Speaker 2: to kind of avoid the potential pitfalls that come with

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Speaker 2: excessive gambling? I mean, is that a is that a

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Speaker 2: fear at all? From from a from a consumer perspective

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Speaker 2: and perspective? And do you think the leagues are doing

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Speaker 2: enough to mitigate damage there?

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Speaker 3: Yeah, you definitely want to. I think maybe even put

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Speaker 3: it law in law. You know, you can only bet

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Speaker 3: so much because you don't want you know, yeah, maybe

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Speaker 3: you're not able to bet you know, one hundred million

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Speaker 3: if you're worth twenty billion dollars. But you know what

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Speaker 3: we're saving, you know, another American or somebody else from

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Speaker 3: from themselves, then why not especially on the platform I

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Speaker 3: see some platforms have a limit, and I think that

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Speaker 3: really important because it is addicting, right, So if you

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Speaker 3: have any issues as a child or whatever, any addictive habits,

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Speaker 3: then that's going to be a you know, you potentially

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Speaker 3: be addicted and taking out on spending looks like everybody else,

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Speaker 3: you know, and so that that goes into teaching, you know,

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Speaker 3: our call the citizens, you know, just helping them help themselves.

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Speaker 3: And I think that's really important because we have seen

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Speaker 3: people lose their shirt gambling. Even though I like the

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Speaker 3: gambling space, my firm is pursuing different things in gambling also.

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Speaker 3: But at the same time, you want to make sure

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Speaker 3: you're protecting that, you know, the future, a future family homeowner,

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Speaker 3: you know, because like I said, there's so many, so

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Speaker 3: much bad habits that we develop, and spending could just highlight,

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Speaker 3: you know, those bad habits.

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Speaker 2: And Matam, what about Las Vegas uh having emerged as

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Speaker 2: a really the premier sports destination over the last few years,

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Speaker 2: we're basically seeing a situation where the only thing missing

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Speaker 2: now is an NBA team, And we've heard Lebron James

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Speaker 2: discuss how he wants to be part of the ownership

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Speaker 2: group for when a franchise eventually lands in Vegas. Seems

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Speaker 2: like a foregone conclusion. We already have a WNBA team there,

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Speaker 2: that reigning champions are there, so it seems like only

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Speaker 2: a matter of time before the NBA lands in Las Vegas.

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Speaker 2: What are your thoughts on that city now with everything

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Speaker 2: that goes along with it, the glitz, the glamour, or

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Speaker 2: the entertainment, the gambling. How about that as a as

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Speaker 2: the premier sports destination in America? Does that make sense

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Speaker 2: to you? Does that feel right to you? Or you?

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Speaker 2: Are you okay with that?

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Speaker 4: Yeah? I think Vegas is great.

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Speaker 3: It's like, you know, non expensive to live, taxes are great.

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Speaker 3: It's definitely a sports hub right now. Now you've got

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Speaker 3: new streaming, you know, betting within the streaming platforms, all

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Speaker 3: types of incredible stuff.

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Speaker 2: And don't forget the Sphere Meta. Don't forget that that

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Speaker 2: James Dolan's build, the structure out there that looks insane

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Speaker 2: that everybody wants to check out. It looks like an

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Speaker 2: amazing experience there. I think the Summer League, I believe

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Speaker 2: is going to be there in twenty twenty four, if I'm

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Speaker 2: not mistaken.

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Speaker 3: I think it's great. I mean, the Cup, it's awesome.

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Speaker 3: You you can better on it. I heard it generate

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Speaker 3: a lot of revenue. It's funny for the players. I

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Speaker 3: wish I had it, you know, to play for something

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Speaker 3: in the middle of the season, the beginning of the season.

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Speaker 4: Actually, you know, it just makes the game way more fun. Yeah.

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Speaker 4: I didn't get it at first.

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Speaker 3: I mean I actually did get it because I do

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Speaker 3: a lot of different things creatively with sports, so I

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Speaker 3: kind of understood it. I didn't think the NBA would

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Speaker 3: do something like that. That just goes to show you

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Speaker 3: that they got something even bigger up their sleeve, because

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Speaker 3: this is just a start, you know, and they're going

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Speaker 3: to accelerate whatever they got going.

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Speaker 4: But I thought it was incredible. I like how it

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Speaker 4: looks different too. That's really cool.

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Speaker 1: That's meta Standardford our test and a special conversation with

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Speaker 1: some of the Bloomberg Business of Sports producers Ariologami and

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Speaker 1: me Justin Milliner. We appreciate you listening. Make sure to

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Speaker 1: subscribe so you never miss a new episode, you do

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Speaker 1: an Apple, Spotify, or anywhere else you get your podcasts.

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Speaker 1: For Ariolagami, I'm Justin Milliner. Your regular hosts, Michael bar

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Speaker 1: Scarlett Fu and Damian Sasaur will be back this week

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Speaker 1: with an all new episode. Thanks for listening to the

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Speaker 1: Bloomberg Business of Sports from Bloomberg Radio