Rachel Zietz was a teenage entrepreneur who was an all-region lacrosse player from the state of Florida who received many accolades. While continuing to improve her skills she became fed up with the quality of her lacrosse rebounder(Bounce Back). She designed a new structure including a thicker net and stronger brace bars, which ultimately made a significantly more efficient product. This new design was adopted by the lacrosse community and became very popular. She made this product a reality and created the company, Gladiator Lacrosse. Her successful product led her to Shark Tank Season 7, Episode 28. Now her company is worth more than 5 million. Rachel even made Forbes Magazine’s, Shark Tank 7 of the Brightest and Youngest List. Through her huge success, she now has a flourishing business with various lacrosse-related products sold in lacrosse stores all across the county.
Archive for Sports – Page 3
Good Good is a group of 6 golfers who are changing the norm around golf. They make videos on YouTube and they create unique content that is very different from normal golf, they make it seem fun and something that anyone can play. The group started as several separate channels and then they decided to merge into one and make content that is on the next level. Garrett Clark was the main creator of the channel, he had his own popular channel, GM Golf. Garrett dropped out of college to pursue his dreams of creating YouTube videos. Good Good has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube. The group has a crew of professional videographers and video editors that make the videos high quality and engaging. Once the group took off in popularity, they started to make merchandise. They have their own golf shorts, shirts, hats, headcovers, and almost any other product you would need. The Good Good apparel drops every couple of months and they always have new trendy designs and products. Their latest venture has been sponsoring professional golfers who are on the Kornferry Tour. They pay their athletes to wear their apparel and to represent their brand. Good Good has changed the pretentious stigma around golf and I believe they have grown the game.
Mikey Williams is a high school basketball player who has taken advantage of the new era in amateur sports; the name, image, and likeness era. He is a five star recruit from the 2023 graduating class. Between Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, Mikey has over 6 million followers combined. According to recent reports, he is able to charge companies over $50,000 per Instagram post to advertise their product. His NIL valuation at the beginning of 2022 was around $2.6 million, over double the amount of big named college football stars like Bryce Young and CJ Stroud. Mikey has signed two very large deals, one with Puma and the other with a sports marketing agency. He became the first high schooler to sign a deal with a popular footwear brand. He is currently being paid to wear their shoes and apparel on and off the court.
In a recent interview on the I Am Athlete podcast, Mikey said that he wants to be worth 1 billion dollars by the age of 25. He feels that he needs to make investments with his money now if he is going to be able to reach that goal in the next 7 years. As he enters college or the NBA G-league, next year he will be able to expand his wealth exponentially.
Dude Perfect started out as just a group of friends wanting to have some fun. Cory and Coby Cotton, Garrett Hilbert, Cody Jones, and Tyler “Ty” Toney, were your typical friend group. They had been buddies for years and loved to have fun. Eventually, they all decided to try something; “Why not film some trick shots and post them on YouTube?”, they thought. I mean what is the worst that could happen. On April 9th, 2009, the friends posted their first video on their brand-new channel: Dude Perfect. The group had no expectation for the video would fare on the YouTube landscape, and left it thinking it would maybe amount to a few hundred views. But they were wrong. The video grew into an overnight sensation, garnering hundreds of thousands of views and attention from several top media outlets. Over the next few months, the friend group would continue dropping trick shot video after trick shot video, each one trumping the previous. As the attention and popularity of the channel grew over the years, the group had a choice, give up on the channel to pursue a “normal” career, or quite each of their jobs and go all in. The choice was clear, and not long after each of the friends had quit their jobs in pursuit of their passion. Almost immediately the channel exploded yet again, with tons of deals and sponsors pouring in, and the views and subscribers continuing to rack up.
As the channel grew in popularity, the videos and deals grew in magnitude. Through their channel, Dude Perfect broke numerous Guinness World Records, traveled the world, partnered with big brands like Nerf, made videos with many celebrity appearances, and even went on tour.
Throughout it all, there were three things always at the center of Dude Perfect: faith, family, and friends. Through these cornerstones, Dude Perfect was able to not only excel, but reach levels far beyond their imagination. Each member of the group admits that if it were not for their strong family connection, friendship, and Christian faith, Dude Perfect would have been nowhere close to its current level.
Dude Perfect is an excellent example of what is possible when pursuing one’s passion. Each member of the group made a risk when chasing their dreams. Through hard work, focus, prayer, and dedication, these friends reached new heights; but the best may be yet to come.
Clothing companies are a dime a dozen these days. It’s hard to scroll social media for more than 5 minutes without seeing another clothing company offering what they swear is a great deal on clothing you can’t differentiate from the last 12 advertisements you saw. Starting a clothing brand is a common outlet for entrepreneurs who don’t have any better ideas, but often if fails for lack of true innovation. Not Under Armour, though.
Kevin Plank, a former football team captain at University of Maryland, wanted clothing that would withstand sweat and rigorous physical activity. In 1996, he developed his first real prototype: The Shorty. The idea was that it was tight, light, moisture wicking, and dry. For the next couple of years, he developed heatgear and coldgear, and sold clothing from his grandmothers basement in Washington DC. After moving into a warehouse in Baltimore, it wasn’t until 1999 when Plank signed on to supply product for a football movie Any Given Sunday starring Al Pacino and Jamie Foxx that UA started gaining traction.
Wanting to make the most of the brand following the movie deal, the UA team decided to forego their paychecks and use them to purchase an ad in the ESPN magazine. This generated more than $750,000 of new sales and even more new brand awareness. By 2001, they were the official supplier for NHL, and had licensing deals with MLB and USA Baseball.
The main lessons to take away from this are differentiation and perception.
UA had to differentiate itself right off the bat in order to gain any traction. Thankfully, this was easier to do in 1996 than it would be today. In fact, it would be pretty difficult to differentiate UA from other clothing brands because there are so many that make similar items. But, it doesn’t matter because of the second lesson: perception. Because they were early to the clothing industry, they established their presence and dominance. While many Instagram-ad clothing brands are very comparable to UA items, UA has a distinct advantage: countless deals with NFL, NHL, NBA, or other teams, universities, movies, tv shows, or celebrities. They were able to differentiate themselves long enough to gain a brand loyalty and a favorable perception, and once they gained that favorable perception they no longer had to differentiate.
Since beginning his NFL career, Juju Smith-Schuster has been a fan favorite with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Not only is he an excellent player, but he has one of the best personalities in football. His enthusiasm radiates throughout the whole team and helps to lift everyone up during good and bad games. This outgoing personality translates directly to what Juju does outside the game of football as well. Although he is very good at football, he isn’t wide receivers in football (yet at least). Nevertheless, he is still one of the best marketed players in the NFL even though he is not the best player in the league. Through his own self marketing efforts, Juju has been able to become one of the most well-known athletes and exemplifies how to branch out to be more than an athlete.
Since making it to the NFL, Juju has made it known that he stays true to himself. He has not changed who he is because of his rise to fame and this has benefitted him. He loves having fun and is not afraid to go against the norms. When he first got to the NFL, Juju started making YouTube videos and streaming video games because he enjoyed doing it. He began to amass a very large social media following and now has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube alone. He was one of the first athletes to begin doing this and now this is the norm for athletes. He got criticized that this was taking away from his NFL career, but it has not proven to be true yet as he is still performing well. Not only this, but Juju even played Fortnite with the Ninja, Drake and Travis Scott. This got everyone talking whether it be the video game community or sports world. This blew up Juju’s popularity and as said before, started the trend for athletes to stream and play video games. Besides video games, Juju has also released clothing designed by himself for fans and followers. In addition to this, Juju has (or has done) endorsements with Oakley, Adidas, Pizza Hut, New Era, Call of Duty, and Art of Sport just to name a few. This is very impressive for someone so young like Juju, but is due to his own marketing efforts and following on social media. Juju has not shied away from being himself since coming into the NFL and has changed how players can gain popularity not only in the NFL, but in sports as a whole. He did not follow what everyone else was doing and went down the path less traveled by others in sports and is benefitting because of it.
How Star Wide Receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster Became His Own Brand
Although baseball is considered America’s national pastime, it is becoming one of the least popular sports in younger age groups. Nothing has changed with the sport, but that is the problem. With social media, television, and marketing larger than ever before, the MLB has done nothing to keep up with this. Sure, they are active on these platforms, but the NFL and NBA do a much better job of getting everyone talking about the biggest plays or the top players. Everyone knows who Lebron James or Patrick Mahomes is, but MLB’s top player, Mike Trout, is not on the same status as these players which is a shame. Mike Trout is already statistically better than many of the members of the MLB Hall of Fame, but he is not a household name. Trevor Bauer, pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds, has taken notice of this and is making strides to make MLB more marketable and got the younger audience back into the game of baseball.
Let the Kids Play
Bauer has been vocal about players marketing themselves, since the MLB has done such a poor job at it and is one of the biggest supporters of the “Let the Kids Play” movement in baseball. This movement supports players acting like every little kid playing the sport in local communities by encouraging bat flipping and celebrations which might seem against the tradition. But thinking this is the problem because the NFL and NBA encourages rowdy celebrations (within reason) as well and this is why they
are talked about more. Bauer attributes to this by getting fired up after getting a big strike out, strutting around the mound like Connor McGregor, or other celebrations just to get people talking. Some people like this and others hate it, but that is what challenging the norm will get you. Next, he publishes videos and interviews to the Momentum YouTube channel which is a YouTube channel run by athletes. He shows his pregame routines, how he stays in shape, and many other things that baseball fans like me find interesting to see. This has brought a new light to how players are able to see themselves marketing themselves and get their names out their.
Training
Bauer has also challenged how training and practicing as a pitcher is done. 10 years ago, not too many people pay attention the technological analytics in pitching. They might watch a video on a batter they faced but that’s it. However, Bauer was one of the first pitchers to use high speed cameras to look at spin rate of the ball and many other high tech. analytics. People thought he was crazy at first, but now, every team is using these analytics and technology and if they aren’t they are behind. He has also used different training aspects that have caught on with other pitchers in the league as well. Whether it be weighted baseballs to practice with or using resistance bands to properly stretch his arms, Bauer was one of the first to introduce these as well. Over and over Bauer has gone against the path and done things how he thought should be done and not only is he being successful with these tactics, but he is gaining more and more followers to his training ways.
If baseball wants to stay competitive with the other major sports, then it must improve how they market their players and the league as a whole. Trevor Bauer has not only done this well, but he has also challenged how training is done in baseball as well. This entrepreneurial spirit is what has made Bauer successful and he should continue to carry this out.
In this current age of technology and social-consciousness we see a new demand among children and adults of generation z wanting to make a positive social impact in some way with every purchase they make. Whether it is being environmentally sustainable, supporting a cause, or donating to a mission, every purchase needs to mean something. As a young person, Sofia Overton saw a vacancy in the market, along with a pain people were feeling within her own community. Sofia was only eleven years old when she started her company called Wise Pocket Products.
Her goal was to make life a bit easier for active children, just like herself. One day she observed her cousin put her phone into her boot because the leggings she was wearing were not conducive to storing cell phones. Not having a pocket to put your phone in is always a struggle so she framed this as a problem and grew determined to solve it. Gears began to turn and she soon went to work on a pocket that would be located towards the top part of the sock that was the right size and secure enough to effectively hold any cell phone comfortably. It was then that the Wise Pocket design was conceived and she went to work manufacturing and marketing her product. Though it was the cell phone that Sofia designed the pocket for, she quickly found that since her target market was primarily active kids, that both inhalers and epi-pens could also be safely and securely carried in the Wise Pocket.
She did not stop innovating at the sock-pocket technology, but has also innovated her unique Wise Pocket design into leggings to solve the original problem that her cousin faced.
Though safety, security, and style are the themes of Wise Pocket Products, Sofia has made redemption a major factor of her company. She found that in her school district alone, there are six-hundred and twenty seven homeless children. This saddened her so much that she, once again, innovated a solution to fix this deprivation in her community. For every pair of socks sold, the buyer makes a small positive impact in the life of a child in need. Sofia makes sure that with each purchase of a pair of Wise Pocket Socks that the Wise Movement is serving those suffering homelessness and need across the globe. She truly believes that warm feet equal warm hearts, and every child shall experience that. As a young entrepreneur, Sofia saw a problem, framed it out, implemented redemptive qualities, innovated a solution, marketed the solution, generated revenue, and to this day continues to bring warm feet and warm hearts to children in need. She continues to fight for those suffering homelessness while supporting herself with her own God-given entrepreneurial spirit.
Visit https://wisepocketproducts.com/ for more information!
In 2013 six friends were playing spikeball while on a beach in Hawaii. The game of spikeball was not well known, but was manufactured by Tomy games years ago in the 1980’s and 90’s. These six friends had numerous people come up to them and inquire about the game, how to play, and where to buy it while they were playing on the beach. At this point it was not a well known game. After finding out there was no current patent on the game the six friends were able to get together 100,000 dollars to start the journey of reviving the sport of spikeball. The main player in this journey was Chris Ruder. An ad salesman, Chris would work at his day job until 5pm, spend time with his children and wife until 9pm, and then work on spikeball until 2am. He did this every day for five years. At this point Chris had built the business to earn a staggering 1 million dollars in revenue per year. In 2014, the team was able to work with producers on shark tank and in May of 2015 their episode aired. They struck a deal however, it fell apart before the show even aired because the deal involved creating a Spiderman spikeball set with marvel. Ruder felt like this made spikeball a toy and not a sport. Even though they did not get a deal, they got the popularity. As of 2018, the company was bringing in 15 million in revenue per year. They pay $13 dollars per unit and sell the product for 59 dollars so there is a very high margin to be earned.
I really like how these entrepreneurs saw an opportunity and jumped on it. They really capitalized on this idea that was invented before them. It appears that the quest for money, and the goal of creating something for themselves drives them. The very interesting thing about these guys to me is how they did not invent much of anything rather,, they capitalized on poor marketing and made the sport fun. That is what sold units. They definitely have a drive. Ruder would work into early morning hours while he had a family for five years straight! That and their vision for something to be better than it is makes them perfect entrepreneurs. They inspire me because it reminds me that there is a lot of ideas out there that can be revitalized like this one! What really inspires me about these guys is their drive and effort they put into the sport. Through looking into these entrepreneurs I have found what it means to have determination and not give up!
The sport of spikeball took off in the mid 2010’s but the idea was originally invented in 1989. An entrepreneur by the name of Jeff Knurek had a degree in Industrial Design and Art Education and knew he wanted to be a toy inventor. He took a job with a toy creation firm in which his job was to come up with possible ideas for toys and then to pitch them to his team. This idea of spikeball started when Knurek originally pitched an idea of a “pitch back” net. This idea was very primitive. he started looking at how to make this a game and explored different objects that could be thrown off the net. One source says that he explored everything from large balls to square figures until he settled on the small round ball that we know today. He prototyped this idea with a hula hoop and then eventually with PVC pipe. He continued to build this idea until Tomy games bought it in 1989.
Looking at Knureks story, I really like how he took an idea that was nothing and built it into a game. Seeing how he came up with the ball and the round net is very motivating! It seems as though he was driven by his own motives. This was his job to come up with toys and he took it upon himself to come up with something great. This idea was interesting similarly because it was his job to come up with this idea! The firm he worked for seems very interesting. It encourages its employees to go out on their own and make their ideas great. Knuerek clearly has an entrepreneurial drive because of how he took this idea already to market. The thing that really strikes me about this story was how innovative this idea is. I can not find anything like the game of spikeball out there. He took the idea of volleyball and completely flipped it… literally! The way this entrepreneur motivated me is in originality. It shows me that I do not need to just slightly change something out there, or do something cheaper. Knuerek shows me that I could completely change how something is done!
If you would like to learn more about his story, check out his interview! https://roundnetworld.com/blogs/roundnet-players-around-the-world/jeff-knurek