There’s an army of unsponsored athletes commanding attention at the U.S. Track & Field Olympic Trials this year, decked out in all-black, logo-less gear.

The 35 athletes are supported by apparel company Bandit Running’s Unsponsored Project, an effort to challenge the standard sponsorship model for professional athletes and boost up-and-coming competitors.

Unsponsored athletes in track and field would typically purchase their own apparel bearing the emblems of major brands, effectively providing free advertising for the companies. Instead, Bandit Running offers Olympic hopefuls the all-black kits and warmups — along with short-term endorsement deals.

Bandit co-founder Tim West said the company is giving out at least 35 two-week deals for unsponsored runners at the trials, a U.S. Olympian’s gateway into the four-year games. The deals consist of unbranded apparel, a platform and cash to cover expenses. Last year, Bandit partnered with nine athletes.

“We’re really hoping for a new sponsorship model where brands take a healthy piece of their budget and apply it to the kind of amateur, sub-elite athlete to help grow the sport. I think when you lift up, sort of the bottom, everything pushes up,” West told CNBC.

Bandit’s deals have a built-in release clause, West said, allowing an easy out for athletes who get a traditional sponsorship offer during the trials.

Given the high prices associated with competing, West said unsponsored athletes are “investing in themselves,” posing an opportunity for brands to step in and help out.

And, the all-black, logo-free kits help call attention to which athletes may be available to strike a longer-term deal.

Among them is Courtney Okolo, a 400-meter runner.

After winning a gold medal in the 2016 Rio Olympics and being sponsored by Nike for four years, Okolo, 30, is embracing the Unsponsored Project. She said getting support while competing without a sponsorship is difficult, but Bandit’s initiative makes it feel like she isn’t doing it all on her own.

Courtney Okolo, an athlete participating in Bandit Running’s Unsponsored Project, at the 2024 Olympic trials in Eugene, Oregon.

Considering the costs of training, flying to Eugene, Oregon, for the trials, booking a hotel and buying apparel to compete in, Okolo said, even just showing up to compete is expensive. Though she added that she’s been able to pace herself with money acquired over four years via her previous sponsorship, only a few athletes within the sport have such partnerships.

“I know for a lot of athletes, it’s super hard,” Okolo said. “They could still be running well, but financially, they can’t do it because training and all that takes so much of your time. It’s hard to have another full-time career to support yourself financially and train and be the best athlete. So, sometimes you have to just pick one or the other, and that can be really tough.”

Since graduating college, Brandee Johnson, 26, has been working two jobs and a side gig while training for hours a day to make her Olympic dreams happen. Johnson is an unsponsored track athlete who qualified for the Olympic trials this year.

Johnson said she joined the Unsponsored Project as an alternative avenue to achieving her goal, while attaching her name to something that is making a positive impact in peoples’ lives.

“It helps me be more comfortable and take a deep breath and be like, ‘Okay, I can do this, and I have everything that I need in order to be successful,’” Johnson said.

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The baseball legend and entrepreneur spoke to Inc. about what he looks for when investing in founders, the secret to his longevity, and why its important to enjoy the journey.

Watch the video here.

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Hello, I’m Bruce Einhorn in Hong Kong and welcome to Bloomberg’s weekly newsletter about the new space economy. Small nations are making impassioned pitches to space ventures that they need more services to survive. But first ...

Three things you need to know today:

• Elon Musk postponed a trip to India, where SpaceX is waiting for the government to license Starlink — just days before his scheduled meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
• Virgin Galactic is proposing a reverse split of its beaten-down shares.
• Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the creation of a new military unit for space.

The great divide

For officials and entrepreneurs in the US, China or Europe, space exploration is driven by a combination of profit, security, science and pride. For Madin Maseeh, head of the first space organization in the Indian Ocean nation of the Maldives, the motivation is more existential.

With a mean elevation of 2 meters (about 6 feet, 6 inches) above sea level, the country of some 1,200 islands near the equator faces obvious risks from climate change and melting ice caps. Satellites can play a critical role in monitoring the effects of rising sea levels that threaten to overwhelm the nation and its half a million people.

Better use of space-based assets can also help preserve the coral reefs that form the foundation of the islands.

“If our corals die off, it doesn’t matter if we are still afloat, the entire ecosystem is destroyed and the livelihoods of the islanders are destroyed,” says Maseeh, 30. “We know we need to monitor them. That’s where satellites come in.”

Maseeh is the driving force behind the second Space for Island Nations Conference, running through Wednesday at a resort near the capital city Male.

At the conference, he expects to release more details about a project to send coral into space late this year aboard a rocket from Jeff Bezos-backed Blue Origin to test how it responds to microgravity. Previous research on microorganisms in space has helped scientists better understand genetic pathways.

“If we are able to send corals to space in certain conditions, we might be able to bring that back to earth and seed some reefs with more resilient corals,” Maseeh says.

Companies and officials also need to focus on ways to improve the ability of satellites to observe tiny islands, according to Maseeh. “A lot of the use cases for these satellite providers are over larger land masses,” he says. “There’s a lot of room for them to optimize, calibrate, tailor their offerings for island nations.”

About 60 speakers are scheduled for the conference, with representatives from small nations like the Bahamas and the Seychelles as well as bigger countries like Japan and even Canada (which qualifies thanks to the more than 36,000 islands in the Arctic Archipelago). Executives from satellite operators such as San Francisco-based Planet Labs and Tokyo-based Axelspace are scheduled to be there, too.

As more people recognize the threat of a new space divide — with first movers from wealthier countries grabbing the most desirable spots in low-Earth orbit and the moon — events like the Maldives conference can improve the visibility of countries that traditionally haven’t been part of the space discussion, says Maseeh.

One of the goals is “to represent our voice in the space conversation,” he said. “Previously it was dispersed, or not even there. Now we have to have a more united and amplified voice.” — Bruce Einhorn

Lynk Global’s defense deal

Lynk Global, which aims to connect ordinary cell phones to low orbiting satellites, has signed its first major defense contract. Lynk will be competing for up to $900 million worth of orders over the next five years, along with other companies, to provide communications services to the US Department of Defense and other government organizations, according to the company.

Similar to plans SpaceX has for Starlink, Lynk intends to launch an array of satellites that will connect to regular cell phones on Earth, allowing them to send and receive data when they are out of sight from cell towers. Lynk has five satellites in orbit so far, and will look to expand this to 74 by the end of 2025 and ultimately a network of 5,000. In December, Alex Rodriguez’s special purpose acquisition company announced its intent to merge with Lynk Global in order to take the company public.

Rodriguez, who remembers that his family “lost connectivity for weeks” when Hurricane Andrew hit in 1992, told Bloomberg that Lynk technology will allow the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other government services to have “emergency backup communications services from space when the next hurricane hits.” — Loren Grush

The UN’s view of the space divide

Aarti Holla-Maini, director of the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs, spoke to C-SPAN earlier this month about the space economy, ways the Global North can help the Global South and how all nations could benefit from new innovations, since “without imagery from space, we wouldn’t even know that there’s a climate crisis.”

What we’re reading

Northrop Grumman and SpaceX are working on a classified spy satellite project that’s already capturing high-resolution imagery of the Earth, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the program.

Images taken by a satellite from Umbra Space revealed evidence of probable damage at an Iranian air base following an Israeli strike, the BBC reported.

SpaceX has begun a crackdown on unauthorized Starlink users in countries such as South Africa, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Space stock to watch

L3Harris Technologies inked a couple of deals last week. The Melbourne, Florida-based space and defense contractor said April 18 it will expand a rocket-motor manufacturing facility in Virginia and announced a contract with the US Space Force worth up to $187 million to upgrade space domain awareness. On April 19, the firm declared a quarterly cash dividend of $1.16 a share. Nonetheless, shares are down slightly so far this year after ending 2023 with a nice boost.

In our orbit

April 24-26: Space Technology Conference, Central Eurasia, takes place in the Turkish capital of Ankara.

April 25: China’s Shenzhou-18, the country’s first crewed mission of 2024, is scheduled to carry three astronauts to the Tiangong Space Station.

April 30: A rocket from German startup HyImpulse is expected to take off in the first mission from Australian spaceport operator Southern Launch’s Koonibba Test Range.

Talk to us

Please send us ideas, tips and questions. As always, you can reach Bloomberg’s global business of space editor, Eric Johnson, at ejohnson453@bloomberg.net (or via Signal). If you don’t receive this newsletter, you should sign up here.

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For his newest podcast venture, the former Yankee will explore the biggest and most daring moves in sports marketing and media, interviewing famous guests like Derek Jeter

With 696 home runs under his belt throughout his 22-year baseball career, it's safe to say Alex Rodriguez knows a thing or two about sports.

But he also has plenty of business and media savvy, after spending the past seven years as a sports analyst for FOX and ESPN. He's also been a guest judge on Shark Tank, is the current co-owner of the Minnesota teams, Timberwolves and Lynx, and the president of A-Rod Corp, his investment firm valued at $1 billion.

So it makes sense that his latest podcast venture, The Deal, is all about the most daring, innovative and exciting deals in the sports business world. Launching today, he hosts the series with Bloomberg Chief Correspondent Jason Kelly,

"The way that we see the world, at least my thesis is, is that growing up we had the three major sports: baseball, basketball, football," Rodriguez, 48, tells PEOPLE. "I think today the fourth sport — and probably as popular as any of them —  is the business of sports and media."

He continues, "I think there's a lot of interesting young people out there who love sports but have no opportunity to play in these three major leagues. But they all can participate somehow in the business — being a GM or president, marketing. There's room for males and females. Sports business is just growing tremendously year over year, and we really wanted to unpack it and understand it."

The Bloomberg Originals, 12-episode limited series will span both audio and video, and will explore the strategies and challenges behind some of the biggest business moves made by athletes, entertainers and executives across industries. Famous guests include Derek Jeter, Michael Strahan and Maria Sharapova.

"We thought there was an opportunity to really talk to some of the best minds in sports and media," Rodriguez says. Of course, he says it also helps him learn more and more about business, which he loves doing.

"I'm a lifelong student," he says. "The minute I wake up, I'm learning something, I'm reading something, I'm hearing something and then I go really narrow and deep on things that I'm super passionate about."

His co-host agrees with that sentiment. "Alex is a total sponge," Kelly says of A-Rod.

"He asks a ton of questions, even off set, which is one of the reasons we decided to do the show," he continues. "I think I also underestimated how massive his ambition is for this part of his life and his business career. Even in an era where former athletes are building businesses, few are trying to build empires."

Rodriguez credits his love of business from watching his mom Lourdes, 89, work like crazy to support him and the family when he was a young kid living in Miami.

“She was a secretary in the morning and served tables at night," Rodriguez recalls. "She’d be gone from 8 a.m. until midnight. I knew early on that financial literacy was my way out, and a way to help my mother.” He also adds that as lifelong renters, he yearned for the day he could actually own something. "I thought, boy if I could ever trade places with a landlord, that would be nice!"

Later, as a professional athlete, he says he also observed plenty of mistakes. “I saw so many athletes go from rags to riches to rags,” Rodriguez notes. “I didn’t want that to be me."

To read more about Alex Rodriguez, pick up the latest issue of PEOPLE, on stands now.

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He’s inviting comparisons to Michael Jordan—and Paul Newman!—and has a signature Adidas shoe, a Netflix crew in tow, and that “It factor,” per A-Rod. The Timberwolves star is enjoying a breakout season, but, as one NBA insider notes, “the playoffs are where you make your fame.”

Anthony Edwards doesn’t need much time to get the hang of something. Then again, Edwards doesn’t just “get the hang” of anything. He achieves mastery in record time, swiftly outclassing those with more experience—not unlike what he is currently doing with the Minnesota Timberwolves, the long-suffering franchise that the 22-year-old Edwards has transformed into a contender.

Edwards will gladly tell you all this himself. “That’s the crazy thing about it,” Edwards explains. “Like, it might take me a week. After a week, I got it. I figured it out. Over with.”

With everything?

“Everything.”

Now, Edwards is a supremely confident individual, but he’s also backed by witnesses who have seen him make a beeline from novice to prodigy. Jeremiah Zagar puts it like this: “Some people sit down in front of a piano and they can just play.” Zagar would know, of course; he directed Edwards in Hustle, the 2022 Netflix movie starring Adam Sandler. Zagar says Sandler, too, was impressed, comparing Edwards to Paul Newman, with his “effortless physicality” and “quiet confidence.”

Edwards played the film’s antihero, an NBA draft prospect named Kermit Wilts. In just 15 minutes of screen time, and with no prior acting experience, Edwards was a revelation. Critics and audiences loved him as a trash-talking heel. On set, the film’s cast and crew marveled at his surplus of charisma. “He wasn’t a scene-stealer,” says Kenny Smith, an Inside the NBA cohost who also had a role in Hustle. “He was the scene.”

Still, acting remains a side hustle for Edwards, who will be playing Sunday in his second NBA All-Star Game. In his fourth season, Edwards—known as Ant to most—is posting career highs in scoring, shooting percentage, and assists, as the Timberwolves arrive at midseason with the second-best record in the NBA. His continued ascension offers a possible glimpse into the not-so-distant future, when Edwards is no longer the league’s most promising player, but the outright best. Not that he’s waiting to claim top dog status.

“Oh, I think I’m the best player, for sure,” he tells me. (The rest of his top five, in no particular order: Luka Dončić of the Dallas Mavericks, Nikola Jokić of the Denver Nuggets, Joel Embiid of the Philadelphia 76ers, and Giannis Antetokounmpo of the Milwaukee Bucks.) Here, too, Edwards has some backing for his boasts. “He might be the best player in the NBA this year!” Smith says. “He might, arguably, be the MVP this season.”

That’s probably a stretch. Oddsmakers currently have Edwards as a long shot to win the award, while The New Yorker, for one, recently gave Jokić the crown of “world’s best basketball player.” But then, Edwards invites overreaction, maybe even justifies it, with routine acts of the extraordinary. Like his majestic dunk against the Pistons last month, when he soared over a hapless defender and slammed it with authority. Or his audacious self-alley-oop the very next night against the Grizzlies, a moment of improvisation that epitomized Edwards’s fearlessness. Edwards didn’t plan on suiting up for Tuesday’s game against the Trail Blazers due to soreness in his right knee, but he opted to give it a go at the last minute. Then he went out and dropped a casual 41 points.

“Every day he does something where I just look at him like, Bro,” says Jaden McDaniels, Edwards’s teammate on the Timberwolves. “He just does things that you can’t teach.”

What sets Edwards apart from other talented players—what makes him not just a potential MVP, but perhaps the next face of the NBA—are the unteachable traits he showcases outside the basketball arena. “He has that It factor,” says Alex Rodriguez, the baseball great who is now co-owner of the Timberwolves. Such magnetism can make you incredibly famous if it’s paired with transcendent athletic ability. Kobe-famous. Maybe even Michael-famous. With its two generational talents both inching closer to retirement, the NBA is on the cusp of a new era. LeBron James will turn 40 at the end of the year, while Steph Curry will turn 36 next month. Someday, not long from now, the league will be in the market for a new marketable superstar. Edwards stands as the favorite to be that guy—to be the guy—even if, for now, he won’t say so himself.

“It’s gonna be somebody who gets their shine,” he says. “I don’t know who it’s gonna be, but it’s gonna be somebody.”

We were supposed to be bowling, which is one of Edwards’s favorite hobbies. He only picked it up a couple years ago, but has apparently got it down. “If I got my ball, I’m throwing a 180, for sure,” Edwards says. He pauses, realizing he might not be giving himself quite enough credit.“Every time I go, I’ma crack 200 at least once.”

I’m unable to personally vouch for those exploits; our trip to the bowling alley was nixed due to the logistical burdens of the NBA’s grueling schedule. With the Timberwolves making a whirlwind visit to New York for a game against the Knicks, we meet instead at the team’s quietly luxurious hotel in Manhattan.

It’s New Year’s Eve, and I find the six-foot-four Edwards lounging in the lobby bar, where he’s decked out in an all-black sweatsuit; the hood, draped over a Chicago White Sox cap, partially obscures the diamonds clasped to each of his ears. Aside from Edwards’s headwear, his entire outfit is furnished by Adidas, most notably his shoes, which are indeed his shoes—that is, the AE 1, his first signature sneaker that hit stores in December. A true company man, Edwards wears them pretty much everywhere, on the court and off.

The release of the AE 1 was just one part of a yearlong bonanza that made 2023, as Edwards put it, “the most fun I’ve had in my life.” In July, he signed a five-year contract extension with the Timberwolves that could be worth as much as $260 million. A month later, Edwards was in the Philippines for the FIBA Basketball World Cup, where he distinguished himself as the best player on a United States team that finished fourth. Since October, he’s propelled the Timberwolves to their best start in franchise history.

The year closed with turbulence, however. About two weeks before our meeting in New York, Edwards was ensnared in controversy after a messy private matter spilled into public view. In a post on social media, a woman shared text messages with Edwards in which she revealed a positive pregnancy test. The text exchange included Edwards’s responses, wherein he flippantly urged the woman to terminate the pregnancy and also offered her money (the post was accompanied by a photo of a wire transfer for $100,000). Edwards issued an apology, saying he “made comments in the heat of a moment that are not me, and that are not aligned with what I believe and who I want to be as a man.”

When I broach the subject at the hotel, Edwards is contrite.

“I don’t want people to have a bad thought when Anthony Edwards is in their mind,” he says. “I’m always working on being better.”

For Edwards, it was the second public apology in a little more than a year. He was fined $40,000 by the NBA in 2022 after uttering homophobic language in a video he posted on Instagram. In a statement at the time, Edwards said he was “incredibly sorry” and that his comments were “immature, hurtful, and disrespectful.”

Edwards characterizes the more recent episode as a learning experience. “My people around me always want me to be a better person,” Edwards tells me. “They were getting on me just now about some stuff. So, I mean, that’s just the focus—on being better every day.”

The people around Edwards have multiplied as of late, a mark of his burgeoning superstar status. On this winter afternoon in New York, the hotel lobby is teeming with individuals in Edwards’s extended orbit: various representatives from WME, the powerhouse talent agency with which he signed last summer; a film crew from Netflix, which is trailing him for a forthcoming docuseries; and a security official from the Timberwolves, who stands four feet to Edwards’s left for the entirety of the interview.

At one point during our conversation, a waiter arrives with a glass of apple juice for Edwards and plates of bar food—burgers, boneless chicken wings, french fries.

“Did you order something?” he asks.

I did not, but apparently someone from Team Edwards had. He shrugs, then asks the waiter for some ketchup.

Edwards has always been well looked after, not least when he was still a kid in Atlanta and his life was upended by a two-pronged tragedy. In 2015, when he was only 14 years old, Edwards’s mother, Yvette, and grandmother, Shirley, died within eight months of each other, both from cancer. With Edwards’s father largely out of the picture, the two women had raised him, molding him into the man he’s now become.

“My mom was tenacious,” says his older brother Antony, better known as Bubba. “She was super competitive. She didn’t let us slack with anything, whether it was playing sports, cleaning up the house. She was on us regardless of what it was.”

Shirley brought the levity, nurturing the sense of humor that her grandson has displayed in so many postgame interviews. After dinners at Golden Corral, Shirley would have her grandkids in stitches by jogging a few laps around the family’s truck in the parking lot, telling them she needed to burn off calories from the hearty meal. “She was always cracking jokes,” Edwards says. “Always happy, always smiling.”

His older brother Antoine and his sister, Antoinette—only 21 and 18 at the time—gained legal custody over Edwards. “It definitely made all of us grow up a lot faster,” says Bubba, who is three years older. His younger brother “handled it like a champ,” Bubba says.

When he met Edwards around this time, Justin Holland expected to find a grieving teenager who had retreated into a shell. “Ant was the complete opposite of that,” Holland says. “He came in with loads of charisma, always smiling, always making everyone else smile. That was the first thing that stuck out to me.”

Holland was training aspiring college basketball players in Atlanta when a friend told him about Edwards, a kid with freakish athletic ability whom everyone called Ant Man. The nickname rang out on the Pop Warner circuit. Edwards was a youth football phenom, so much so that he became a local celebrity before the age of 12. A highlight reel that was posted on YouTube in 2012 shows him gliding past pint-size defenders, racking up one touchdown after another.

“Everybody thought at that point that he was gonna be an elite football player,” Holland says. By eighth grade, however, Edwards’s interests had shifted from the gridiron to hoops. When he showed up for his first training session with Holland, Edwards looked the part—tall and dripping with athleticism. “He was 14 years old, about 6’2”, nice build, nice frame, very athletic,” Holland recalls, “but a very mediocre basketball player.” He was raw, with a janky jump shot, and, as Holland puts it, “couldn’t throw a brick in the ocean.”

Edwards was left exhausted and humbled after the first training session, but he kept coming back, forging a relationship with Holland through the six to seven days a week they would spend in the gym together. By the time Edwards was 16, Holland’s assessment had changed dramatically. He told friends at the time that Edwards “might be LeBron-special.”

Edwards continued to blossom on the court after transferring to Holy Spirit Prep, leading the school to a Georgia state championship as a junior. Off the court, Edwards was propped up by a robust network of support. Holy Spirit was about an hour-long drive from Edwards’s home in Atlanta, so he would rely on rides from friends and family. At school, Edwards was mentored by an academic adviser, Rachel Little, who, much like Holland, took an immediate shine to him. “You’d meet him at this young age and you’re just like, How can you not root for this kid?” she says.

One of the top high school basketball recruits in the class of 2019, Edwards had offers from blue bloods such as North Carolina, Kansas, and Kentucky. Instead, he opted to attend the University of Georgia, a school best known for its football pedigree, in order to stay close to his family. Holland followed him there, selling his home in Atlanta and moving his family to the college town of Athens for Edwards’s lone year at Georgia. “He called me randomly one day and just told me, ‘Hey, coach, I want you close to me,’” Holland says.

Now living in the Twin Cities area with his wife and son, Holland acts as Edwards’s business partner. “My job is to take things off his plate—that allows him to be the best person and the best player that he can be on the court,” Holland says. “I just feel like I know him better than anyone and we make a great team.”

At his first training camp as a rookie, before he asserted himself as the Timberwolves’ franchise savior, Edwards was tapped for a very different role. Juancho Hernangomez, his teammate at the time, had already been cast in Hustle as the film’s protagonist, a basketball player named Bo Cruz who embarks on an unlikely journey to the NBA. But the film still needed a villain, a character to serve as Cruz’s rival. After meeting Edwards, Hernangomez was convinced he’d found the man for the role. “From the first day,” he recalls, “I knew he was going to be the best fit.”

With his ability to play basketball and penchant for shit talk, Edwards checked some crucial boxes. Plus, says Hernangomez, “he’s got that aura.” Hernangomez shared his intel with Sandler and Zagar, who did their own homework. Edwards had, by then, already established himself as a world-class interviewee with his quick wit and good-natured bravado, which caught Sandler’s attention.

“Sandler called me one day and said, ‘Take a look at this guy, watch his press conference,’” Zagar says. Zagar liked what he saw, and was even more impressed after Edwards’s subsequent audition via Zoom. “He was just so charismatic,” Zagar says. “He just has this innate, effortless charisma.” Noëlle Gentile, Edwards’s acting coach for the movie, describes it as a “dynamic aliveness,” adding: “Some people just have this light and spark, and he’s one of those people.”

Edwards had a blast on the movie, calling it one of the best experiences of his life, but all of the adoration from the crew made him suspicious. “Every time I did a scene, everybody would be like, ‘Oh, my God, bravo.’ You know what I’m saying?” he says. “And I’m like, Man, they probably just blowing smoke. They cappin’.”

Then he saw the movie for himself.

“I was like, Damn, I can act, bro,” Edwards says. “They weren’t lyin’.”

Audiences will have to wait for his second act; Edwards says he’s done with the movie business until his basketball career is finished. In the meantime, however, he’s still dreaming up future roles. “I want to be in some comedy shit because I am funny,” he says. Or maybe something grittier: “I want the first one to be action,” he says. “I want to be John Wick!”

The Minnesota Timberwolves are, by virtually every available measure, the least successful franchise in the NBA. Their all-time winning percentage ranks last in the league. They have won just two playoff series in their history, both in 2004 (when Edwards was two years old). And since trading Kevin Garnett to Boston, where he promptly won a title in 2008, the Timberwolves have mostly languished as a bottom feeder, starved of wins and relevance.

“The fan base has not seen a lot of success over the years,” says Marc Lore, a co-owner of the Timberwolves with Rodriguez. “They’re passionate and have stuck by the team for a long time without a lot of winning to back it up.”

Edwards arrived in 2020 after the Timberwolves made him the number one overall pick in the NBA draft, providing a swagger and toughness to a team that lacked both.

“There are a lot of players in the league who appear confident, but that confidence hides an insecurity,” says Timberwolves head coach Chris Finch, who took over the job midway through Edwards’s rookie season. “That’s not the case with Anthony. He’s confident because he actually believes in his talents, because of how he’s forged his way to where he is in life through all the obstacles.”

Edwards has approached this season like a man on a mission, establishing himself as the team’s unquestioned alpha. At the behest of Finch and Timberwolves general manager Tim Connelly, he came into training camp in the best shape of his life, having cut his weight from 239 to 225 and lowered his body fat to below 5%. Along with fellow NBA All-Star Karl-Anthony Towns and defensive anchor Rudy Gobert, Edwards has provoked something in Timberwolves fans that’s been scarcely felt throughout the franchise’s 35-year history: optimism.

“He embodies where we are as an organization,” Finch says. “Unproven, still a ways to go, but a lot of hope for the future.”

Edwards has proven a lot already in his brief NBA career. Last month he became the third-youngest player in league history to tally 6,000 points. Only James and Kevin Durant reached that milestone earlier. “There are no limits to how high he can go,” Rodriguez says. “In baseball, we used to call it a five-tool player, someone who does everything really, really high. But I think he’s a six-tool player because he has all the tools and all the intangibles.”

But stats alone don’t capture what it’s like to watch Edwards play, something I did three times in the span of a month this winter. To take in a game featuring Edwards is to embrace all the unpredictability and chaos that make sports so irresistible. There’s an electricity that flickers in the crowd whenever he touches the ball.

You can feel it during his methodical pregame warm-up, as small crowds of fans gather courtside or near the tunnel, documenting his movements with their phones, baying for autographs. But Edwards is locked in during this routine, which follows the same rhythms night to night. He takes the court about an hour prior to tip-off—well after most of his teammates have retreated to the locker room—always with his hood up, and accompanied by the same Timberwolves assistant coach. From there, Edwards makes his way to specific spots on the floor, attempting several jumpers at each: the elbow, the wing, the area where Edwards makes deadly use of the backboard. At one point, Edwards ventures over to the corner and accepts passes over his shoulder as if he is a wide receiver, tip-toeing the sideline before turning around and hoisting a series of ridiculous fadeaways.

Despite the zen-like preparation, Edwards can let his emotions get the better of him. He has bristled at the refs all season, insisting he should be drawing more fouls. After a win against the Thunder last month, Edwards ripped the officials, calling them “cheating-ass refs” and making other complaints that earned him a $40,000 fine from the league office.

I saw his frustration on display during a game against the 76ers a few days before Christmas in Philadelphia. Midway through the second quarter, Edwards nearly threw down a dunk for the ages, taking a backdoor pass and launching himself toward the basket, undaunted by the presence of Embiid in the paint. Edwards rose, seemingly as high as he could go, meeting Embiid at the rim, a midair collision that thwarted a would-be posterization. The crowd gasped as the ball ricocheted hard off the backboard. Edwards drew contact on the attempt but was not rewarded with free throws. And then he drew a technical foul for his ensuing protests.

A week later, in New York, I tell Edwards about my perfect view of his near-perfect dunk—it would have been spectacular! But he’s still not over it.

“No foul call!” he says.

The last 15 years of the NBA have been defined by player movement and the creation of so-called super teams, with multiple stars aligning on the same roster. And throughout the league’s history, marquee players in small markets have occasionally been lured by the bright lights of a coastal metropolis.

Edwards doesn't appear to be wired that way. Sure, New York and Los Angeles are “cool,” he says, “but they ain’t better than Minnesota.” And Edwards has embraced the Timberwolves, speaking often about his determination to bring a championship to the franchise. “Hell yeah, I ain’t going nowhere,” he says. “As long as they don’t trade me, we good.”

Finch believes Edwards’s “commitment is unwavering to the Timberwolves organization.”

“He’s a little bit of an outsider when it comes to the way he views the league,” Finch says. “I firmly believe he’s gonna say, ‘Hey, I’m not gonna be a part of your super team. I want people to come here and play with me, and we’ll win here together.’”

It bodes well for the Timberwolves that Edwards has taken to life in Minnesota. He lives a fairly quiet life in the affluent suburb of Wayzata with his girlfriend and three dogs. On the subject of his relationship, Edwards divulges very little, except to say that he isn’t in a hurry to tie the knot.

“No marriage,” he says.

Ever?

“Probably in a couple years,” he says. “I’m still young.”

Edwards doesn’t drink, but he indulges another vice at a casino not far from his home. There, he can be found at the blackjack table, although typically only for a couple hours at a time. Edwards might be competitive, but not enough to chase his losses. “I go in there with 10 to 20k, and if they take that, I’m gone,” he says.

Like other high rollers, Edwards finds himself in the company of A-listers, but he isn’t easily starstruck. “I don’t consider nobody to be a big celebrity,” he says. “If you’re not, like, Barack Obama or a president or somebody up there, I don’t consider you no big-time celebrity.” That’s a very Anthony Edwards thing to say, although he does concede to feeling a bit of awe when he met Michael Jordan during the predraft process.

“I was in the gym working out, and we got a call that MJ was gonna pull up,” Edwards says. “I’m like, MJ who? They like, Shit, Michael Jordan gonna pull up. I’m like, Bet. He walks in there. That was crazy. I ain’t gonna lie.” (His Airness offered the young star some parting wisdom. “He was just like, ‘In the post, you using your upper body too much. Use more of your butt,’” Edwards recalls.)

No current NBA player inspires more Jordan comparisons than Edwards. “He’s like a young ’84 Jordan,” Garnett, the former Timberwolves star, declared last week. There are several parallels––the silky midrange game, the aerial artistry, and, apparently, a shared love of blackjack. There’s also a physical resemblance; Edwards has caught the memes, but he doesn’t see it.

Edwards isn’t Jordan—not now, anyway, and maybe he never will be—but the coming months do offer him the opportunity to burnish his reputation in the NBA and increase his visibility beyond the league. The Netflix docuseries, which will also feature LeBron James, may introduce Edwards to a broader audience the same way Quarterback did with Patrick Mahomes and Kirk Cousins. And later this year, Edwards will take the role of front-facing corporate spokesman in advertising campaigns for both Sprite and Chipotle. But a deep postseason run in the spring is what would officially herald the start of the Edwards epoch. “The regular season is where you make your name,” Smith says. “The playoffs are where you make your fame.”

For the moment, Edwards’s celebrity burns brightest in the minds of Timberwolves fans and NBA die-hards. This is clear enough at the hotel, where Edwards and I are surrounded by tourists and holiday revelers. But amid a symphony of rolling suitcases and clinking glasses, he goes unnoticed.

I ask Edwards when he expects that to change. When will he be so famous that an interview in a public setting like this could easily invite a parade of autograph and selfie seekers?

“Two years from now,” he says. “For sure.”

It’s a reasonable estimate, but with Edwards, you never know. He might not need that much time.

Lynk’s proven two-way sat2phone connectivity is compatible with unmodified 2G to 5G mobile devices

Lynk’s “cell-tower-in-space” satellites have been proven on all seven continents

Associated capital raise is expected to accelerate manufacturing and secure launches as well as support satellite design and operations

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lynk Global, Inc. (“Lynk”), the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-standard-phone (“sat2phone”) telecoms provider, and Slam Corp. (NASDAQ: SLAM), a special purpose acquisition company (“Slam”), today announced that they have entered into a definitive business combination agreement (the “Business Combination Agreement”) under which Slam will combine with Lynk. Upon completion, the combined company will operate as Lynk Global Holdings, Inc. and its common stock is expected to be publicly listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LYNK”.

Charles Miller, CEO of Lynk, said, “With technology proven on all seven continents, and 36 full commercial contracts with partners that currently provide coverage to hundreds of millions of subscribers in approximately 50 countries, Lynk has the potential to provide continuous wireless connectivity to billions of people around the world, using the unmodified phones they use today.”

Alex Rodriguez, CEO of Slam, said, “Lynk seeks to connect the world by extending cell coverage everywhere. We are thrilled to announce this business combination agreement, which positions the combined company to capitalize on the massive, $1 trillion mobile wireless market as Lynk solves a core problem for the more than five billion cell phone users around the globe today. The combined company is set to deliver Lynk’s innovative, patented technology to areas that need it most and connect the more than two billion unconnected people worldwide.”

Lynk has engaged BTIG, LLC to raise additional capital ahead of the closing of the business combination with Slam. Proceeds from the anticipated financing will be used to produce more satellites, secure launches, and support satellite design and operations. This is expected to include the continued development, manufacturing and launch of a constellation of Low-Earth Orbit satellites. The constellation will complement the three commercially-licensed Lynk satellites that are currently in orbit and is intended to enable global communications using radiofrequency spectrum licensed to mobile network operators (“MNO”) without hardware or software modification to existing standard cellphone technologies.

Charles Miller added, “Through our proposed business combination with Slam, we believe Lynk will be well-positioned to raise capital through several avenues. The capital we intend to raise will accelerate our growth as we execute our plan to launch many more ‘cell-towers-in-space’.”

Investment Highlights:

Lynk’s patented and commercially-licensed sat2phone technology is compatible with any unmodified cellular device from 2G to 5G, and is positioned to be compatible with future generations of mobile devices. The company’s technology has been tested and proven in over 25 countries, on all seven continents, and Lynk has signed 36 full commercial contracts with partners to provide coverage in approximately 50 countries.

Transaction Overview:

Under the terms of the business combination agreement, the transaction values Lynk at a pre-money enterprise value of $800 million. Upon completion of the transactions contemplated by the Business Combination Agreement (the “Business Combination”), the expected proceeds will be used to secure launch timing and support satellite design, manufacturing and operations.

The boards of directors of Lynk and Slam have each approved the proposed Business Combination, the consummation of which is subject to various customary closing conditions, including the filing and effectiveness of a Registration Statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”) with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), and the approval of the shareholders of Lynk and Slam. Completion of the proposed Business Combination is expected in the second half of 2024.

Additional information about the proposed Business Combination, including a copy of the Business Combination Agreement, will be provided in a Current Report on Form 8-K to be filed by Slam with the SEC on February 5, 2024 (the “Current Report”). Additional information about the proposed Business Combination will be described in the Registration Statement relating to the proposed Business Combination, which Slam and Lynk Global Holdings, Inc. (“Topco”), a holding company formed to complete the Business Combination, will file with the SEC.

Advisors

BTIG, LLC is serving as capital markets advisor and JonesTrading Institutional Services LLC is serving as financial advisor to Lynk Global, Inc. Goodwin Procter LLP is serving as legal counsel to Lynk Global, Inc. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is serving as legal counsel to Slam Corp. DLA Piper LLP (US) is serving as legal counsel to BTIG, LLC.

About Lynk

Lynk is a patented, proven, and commercially-licensed satellite-direct-to-standard-mobile-phone system. Today, Lynk allows commercial subscribers to send and receive text messages to and from space, via standard unmodified mobile devices. Lynk’s service has been tested and proven in over 25 countries and is currently being deployed commercially, based on 36 MNO commercial service contracts covering approximately 50 countries. Lynk is currently providing cell broadcast (emergency) alerts, and two-way SMS messaging, and intends to launch voice and mobile broadband services in the future. By partnering with Lynk via a simple roaming agreement, a mobile network operator opens the door to new revenue in untapped markets, gives subscribers peace of mind with ubiquitous connectivity, and provides a potential pathway to economic prosperity for billions. For more information, visit www.lynk.world.

About Slam Corp.

Slam Corp. (Nasdaq: SLAM) is a special purpose acquisition company established by baseball legend, investor and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of A-Rod Corp., Alex Rodriguez, and Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Antara Capital LP, Himanshu Gulati. Slam intends to pursue investment opportunities with companies that have large and growing addressable markets, significant revenue growth, defensible business models and superior market share.

Additional Information about the Transaction and Where to Find It

This press release relates to the Business Combination involving Lynk, Slam, Topco, Lynk Merger Sub 1, LLC, a Delaware limited liability company and wholly owned subsidiary of Topco (“Merger Sub 1”) and Lynk Merger Sub 2, LLC., a Delaware limited liability and wholly owned subsidiary of Topco (“Merger Sub 2”). In connection with the Business Combination, Slam and Topco intend to file with the SEC the Registration Statement, which will include a preliminary proxy statement/prospectus of Slam and a preliminary prospectus of Topco relating to the shares of common stock of Topco, par value $0.00001 per share, to be issued in connection with the Business Combination. This press release is not a substitute for the Registration Statement, the definitive proxy statement/final prospectus or any other document that Slam or Topco have filed or will file with the SEC or send to its shareholders in connection with the Business Combination. This press release does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the Business Combination and other matters and is not intended to form the basis for any investment decision or any other decision in respect of such matters.

BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING OR INVESTMENT DECISION, SLAM’S SHAREHOLDERS AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AND ANY AMENDMENTS THERETO AND ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED BY SLAM OR TOPCO WITH THE SEC IN CONNECTION WITH THE BUSINESS COMBINATION OR INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE THEREIN IN THEIR ENTIRETY BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING OR INVESTMENT DECISION WITH RESPECT TO THE BUSINESS COMBINATION BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE BUSINESS COMBINATION AND THE PARTIES TO THE BUSINESS COMBINATION.

After the Registration Statement is declared effective, the definitive proxy statement will be mailed to shareholders of Slam as of a record date to be established for voting on the Business Combination. Additionally, Slam and Topco will file other relevant materials with the SEC in connection with the Business Combination. Copies of the Registration Statement, the definitive proxy statement/final prospectus and all other relevant materials for the Business Combination filed or that will be filed with the SEC may be obtained, when available, free of charge at the SEC’s website at http://www.sec.gov. In addition, the documents filed by Slam or Topco may be obtained, when available, free of charge from Slam at http://www.slamcorp.com. Slam’s shareholders may also obtain copies of the definitive proxy statement/prospectus, when available, without charge, by directing a request to Slam Corp., 55 Hudson Yards, 47th Floor, Suite C, New York, New York 10001.

No Offer or Solicitation

This press release is for information purposes only and is not intended to and does not constitute, or form part of, an offer, invitation or the solicitation of an offer or invitation to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, sell or otherwise dispose of any securities, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction, pursuant to the Business Combination or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. The Business Combination will be implemented solely pursuant to the Business Combination Agreement, filed as an exhibit to the Current Report, which contains the full terms and conditions of the Business Combination. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, or an exemption therefrom.

Participants in the Solicitation of Proxies

This press release may be deemed solicitation material in respect of the Business Combination. Slam, Lynk, Topco, Merger Sub 1, Merger Sub 2 and certain of their respective directors and officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from Slam’s shareholders in connection with the Business Combination. Slam’s shareholders and other interested persons may obtain, without charge, more detailed information regarding the names and interests in the Business Combination of Slam’s directors and officers in Slam’s filings with the SEC, including Slam’s initial public offering prospectus, which was filed with the SEC on February 24, 2021, Slam’s subsequent annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. Information regarding the persons who may, under SEC rules, be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies to Slam’s shareholders in connection with the Business Combination will be included in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus relating to the Business Combination when it becomes available. You may obtain free copies of these documents, when available, as described in the preceding paragraphs.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this press release, and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of Slam, Topco and Lynk are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may generally be identified by the use of words such as “estimate,” “projects,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “forecasts,” “plans,” “intends,” “believes,” “seeks,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “future,” “propose,” “potential,” “target,” “goal,” “objective,” “outlook” and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the financial position, business strategy and the plans and objectives of management for future operations including as they relate to the Business Combination and related transactions, including the anticipated financing, pricing and market opportunity, the satisfaction of closing conditions to the Business Combination and related transactions, the level of redemptions by Slam’s public shareholders and the timing of the completion of the Business Combination, including the anticipated closing date of the Business Combination and the use of the cash proceeds therefrom. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this press release, and on the current expectations of Slam’s, Topco’s and Lynk’s management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by any investor as a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results, and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside the control of the parties, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements involve significant risk and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Factors that may cause such differences include, among others, the following: (1) the inability of the parties to successfully or timely consummate the Business Combination, including the risk that any required regulatory approvals are not obtained, are delayed or are subject to unanticipated conditions that could adversely affect the combined company or the expected benefits of the Business Combination; (2) satisfaction or waiver (if applicable) of the conditions to the Business Combination, including with respect to the approval of the shareholders of Slam; (3) the ability to maintain the listing of the combined company’s securities on Nasdaq; (4) the risk that the Business Combination disrupts current plans and operations of Slam or Lynk as a result of the announcement and consummation of the transactions described herein; (5) the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the Business Combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees; (6) uncertainty of the costs related to the Business Combination; (7) changes in applicable laws or regulations and delays in obtaining, adverse conditions contained in, or the inability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals required to complete the potential Business Combination; (8) the possibility that Slam and Lynk may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; (9) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Slam, Topco or Lynk or any of their respective directors or officers, following the announcement of the Business Combination; (10) the failure to realize anticipated pro forma results and underlying assumptions, including with respect to estimated shareholder redemptions and purchase price and other adjustments; (11) risks related to domestic and international political and macroeconomic uncertainty, including the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas war; (12) the risk that any of the conditions to closing of the Business Combination are not satisfied in the anticipated manner or on the anticipated timeline or are waived by any of the parties thereto; (13) risks related to the rollout of Lynk’s business strategy and the timing of expected business milestones; (14) the amount of redemption requests made by Slam’s public shareholders; (15) the ability of Slam to issue equity, if any, in connection with the Business Combination or to otherwise obtain financing in the future; (16) risks related to Lynk’s industry; (17) the inability to complete any private placement financing, the amount of any private placement financing or the completion of any private placement financing with terms unfavorable to you; and (18) those factors discussed in Slam’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, in each case, under the heading “Risk Factors,” and other documents of Slam, Topco or Lynk to be filed with the SEC, including the proxy statement/prospectus. If any of these risks materialize or Slam’s or Lynk’s assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that neither Slam nor Lynk presently know or that Slam and Lynk currently believe are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Slam’s, Topco’s and Lynk’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this press release. Slam, Topco and Lynk anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause Slam’s, Topco’s and Lynk’s assessments to change. However, while Slam, Topco and Lynk may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, each of Slam, Topco and Lynk specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, unless required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Slam’s, Topco’s and Lynk’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this press release. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

Contacts

Lynk Global, Inc.
Investors / Media
Tony DeTora
tdetora@lynk.world

Slam Corp.
Investors
Alex Jorgensen
ajorgensen@prosek.com

Media
Russell Sherman
rsherman@prosek.com

‍

Lynk has proven two-way sat2phone connectivity on all seven continents, including SMS, emergency alerts, voice calls, and data, and is scaling to provide coverage everywhere on Earth at broadband speeds

Lynk believes it is the world’s only patented and commercially licensed sat2phone system

Combined company expected to list on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LYNK” in the second half of 2024

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Lynk Global, Inc. (“Lynk”), the world’s leading satellite-direct-to-standard-phone (“sat2phone”) telecoms provider, and Slam Corp. (NASDAQ: SLAM), a special purpose acquisition company (“Slam”), today announced that they have signed a non-binding letter of intent (“LOI”) for a potential business combination. Under the terms of the LOI, the combined company (the "Combined Company") would operate as Lynk Global, Inc. and its common stock and warrants are expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the ticker symbol “LYNK” and “LYNKW,” respectively.

Lynk was founded in 2017 by Charles Miller, President and CEO; Margo Deckard, COO; and Tyghe Speidel, CTO. Lynk’s proprietary technology created the sat2phone category, which encompasses products and services that leverage mobile phones. It designs, builds, and operates proprietary “cell-tower-in-space” satellites that provide direct-to-standard-phone connectivity and global coverage. Lynk believes it is the world’s only patented, proven, and commercially licensed sat2phone system. Lynk has proven two-way sat2phone connectivity on all seven continents, including SMS, emergency alerts, voice calls, and data and is scaling to provide ubiquitous service at broadband speeds. Lynk partners with wireless providers and mobile network operators (“MNOs”) to deliver connectivity to their customers through their existing mobile devices.

"Lynk was created with the mission to connect everyone, everywhere by providing affordable connectivity to billions globally using the phones already in their pockets," stated Lynk CEO, Charles Miller. "In effect, we’ve created a new category, and our operational technology requires no change to consumers’ phones while delivering services with immense lifesaving implications. As a public company, we will have access to greater capital to take advantage of the satellite-direct-to-device opportunity, bringing these services to even more people and truly ending the era of the disconnected."

Alex Rodriguez, Chief Executive Officer of Slam, said, "Lynk has built a truly global platform that is set to revolutionize the satellite-direct-to-phone sector. Since Slam's listing, we have sought to partner with a company beyond providing capital, through operational support, commercial network expansion, and brand amplification. Lynk is a perfect fit for our investment criteria. We are impressed by its innovative technology and proven ability to scale. The Combined Company is positioned to make a tremendous global impact, potentially providing broadband access to billions of people currently underserved by a lack of mobile connectivity."

Lynk and Slam intend to finalize their definitive business combination agreement (the “Business Combination”) in the coming weeks and will announce additional details at that time. Based on the LOI, the Combined Company is expected to be valued at no less than $800 million upon listing, subject to current market conditions. There can be no assurance that a definitive agreement will be entered into or that the proposed transaction will be consummated on the terms or timeframe currently contemplated, or at all.

Lynk Investment Highlights

Patented and Proven Technology

• Lynk believes it is the world's only patented, proven, and commercially licensed satellite-direct-to-standard-phone system.
• Lynk technology is compatible with any unmodified cellular device from 2G to 5G, and positioned for compatibility with future generations of devices.
• Successfully launched three commercial satellite cell towers in space and has begun operations in four countries.
• Lynk’s technology has been tested and proven in over 25 countries and on all seven continents.
• Lynk has signed 35 commercial contracts to provide coverage in approximately 50 countries.

Attractive Satellite Communications Market Opportunity

• Satellite communications represent approximately $14 billion of the broader global connectivity market valued at more than $1 trillion annually, growing at a 12% CAGR through 2030 to approximately $35 billion.¹
• Satellite-direct-to-device is a new category within satellite communications that analysts estimate could grow to become “the largest opportunity in satcom’s history.”²
• Approximately 750 million of the 5.4 billion existing mobile phone users are not connected on average at any point in time due to being in "coverage black spots."
• Traditional mobile cell coverage is limited by the economics of building and operating traditional ground-based cell towers, making it cost-prohibitive to expand mobile cell coverage into remote areas lacking coverage.
• Satellite cell towers are approximately four orders of magnitude lower in operating expense per square mile than traditional ground-based cell towers. This allows satellite cell towers to affordably fill in black spots and lower the pricing of ground-based cell towers.

Clear Growth Trajectory with MNOs

• Lynk partners with MNOs around the world to offer 100% geographic coverage in their territory by integrating seamlessly with their existing network.
• Lynk believes sat2phone services could drive 40% top-line growth in the mobile wireless market from today’s $1 trillion per year to $1.4 trillion annually.
• These estimates represent $150 billion annually from “everywhere connectivity” for the 5.4 billion existing mobile customers, and approximately $250 billion annually from new customers who buy their first mobile device once guaranteed coverage is in place.

Experienced and Proven Management

• Lynk leadership represents the best of the space, telecoms, and satellite industries.
• Average of 32 years of experience in the space and telecoms industries, in both the public and private sectors.
• Three Lynk co-founders lead the c-suite.
• Proprietary network of advisors with deep expertise and experience across satellite, telecoms, and technology industries.

Advisors

Jones Trading is serving as financial advisor and BTIG, LLC is serving as capital markets advisor to Lynk Global, Inc. Goodwin Procter LLP is serving as legal counsel to Lynk Global, Inc. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is serving as legal counsel to Slam Corp.

About Lynk

Lynk believes it is the world’s only patented, proven, and commercially-licensed satellite-direct-to-standard-mobile-phone system. Today, Lynk allows commercial subscribers to send and receive text messages to and from space, via standard unmodified mobile devices. Lynk’s service has been demonstrated in over 25 countries and is currently being deployed commercially, based on 35 MNO commercial service contracts covering approximately 50 countries. Lynk is currently providing cell broadcast (emergency) alerts, and two-way SMS messaging, and intends to launch voice and mobile broadband services in the future. By partnering with Lynk via a simple roaming agreement, a mobile network operator opens the door to new revenue in untapped markets, gives subscribers peace of mind with ubiquitous connectivity, and may possibly provide a pathway to economic prosperity for billions. For more information, visit www.lynk.world or follow @lynktheworld.

About Slam Corp.

Slam Corp. (Nasdaq: SLAM) is a special purpose acquisition company established by baseball legend, investor and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of A-Rod Corp., Alex Rodriguez, and Founder, Managing Partner and Chief Investment Officer of Antara Capital LP, Himanshu Gulati. Slam Corp. intends to pursue investment opportunities with companies that have large and growing addressable markets, significant revenue growth, defensible business models and superior market share.

Additional Information about the Transaction and Where to Find It

This communication relates to the proposed Business Combination involving Lynk and Slam. If a legally binding definitive agreement with respect to the proposed Business Combination is executed, Slam, or another party to the proposed Business Combination, intends to file with the SEC a registration statement on Form S-4 (the “Registration Statement”), which will include a preliminary proxy statement/prospectus. This communication is not a substitute for the Registration Statement, the definitive proxy statement/final prospectus or any other document that Slam or Lynk has filed or will file with the SEC or send to its shareholders in connection with the proposed Business Combination. This document does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the proposed Business Combination and other matters and is not intended to form the basis for any investment decision or any other decision in respect of such matters.

BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING OR INVESTMENT DECISION, SLAM’S SHAREHOLDERS AND OTHER INTERESTED PARTIES ARE URGED TO READ THE PROXY STATEMENT/PROSPECTUS WHEN IT BECOMES AVAILABLE AND ANY AMENDMENTS THERETO AND ANY OTHER DOCUMENTS FILED BY SLAM WITH THE SEC IN CONNECTION WITH THE PROPOSED BUSINESS COMBINATION OR INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE THEREIN IN THEIR ENTIRETY BEFORE MAKING ANY VOTING OR INVESTMENT DECISION WITH RESPECT TO THE PROPOSED BUSINESS COMBINATION BECAUSE THEY CONTAIN IMPORTANT INFORMATION ABOUT THE PROPOSED BUSINESS COMBINATION AND THE PARTIES TO THE PROPOSED BUSINESS COMBINATION.

After the Registration Statement is declared effective, the definitive proxy statement will be mailed to shareholders of Slam as of a record date to be established for voting on the proposed Business Combination. Additionally, Slam will file other relevant materials with the SEC in connection with the proposed Business Combination. Copies of the Registration Statement, the definitive proxy statement/final prospectus and all other relevant materials for the proposed Business Combination filed or that will be filed with the SEC may be obtained, when available, free of charge at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov. In addition, the documents filed by Slam may be obtained, when available, free of charge from Slam at www.slamcorp.com. Slam’s shareholders may also obtain copies of the definitive proxy statement/prospectus, when available, without charge, by directing a request to Slam Corp., 55 Hudson Yards, 47th Floor, Suite C, New York, New York 10001.

No Offer or Solicitation

This communication is for information purposes only and is not intended to and does not constitute, or form part of, an offer, invitation or the solicitation of an offer or invitation to purchase, otherwise acquire, subscribe for, sell or otherwise dispose of any securities, or the solicitation of any vote or approval in any jurisdiction, pursuant to the proposed Business Combination or otherwise, nor shall there be any sale, issuance or transfer of securities in any jurisdiction in contravention of applicable law. The proposed Business Combination is expected to be implemented solely pursuant to a legally binding definitive agreement which is expected to be filed as an exhibit to a Current Report on Form 8-K by Slam, and which is expected to contain the full terms and conditions of the proposed Business Combination. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

Participants in the Solicitation of Proxies

This communication may be deemed solicitation material in respect of the proposed Business Combination. Slam and Lynk and certain of their respective directors and officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from Slam’s shareholders in connection with the proposed Business Combination. Slam’s shareholders and other interested persons may obtain, without charge, more detailed information regarding the names and interests in the proposed Business Combination of Slam’s directors and officers in Slam’s filings with the SEC, including Slam’s initial public offering prospectus, which was filed with the SEC on February 24, 2021, Slam’s subsequent annual reports on Form 10-K and quarterly reports on Form 10-Q. To the extent that holdings of Slam’s securities by insiders have changed from the amounts reported therein, any such changes have been or will be reflected on Statements of Change in Ownership on Form 4 filed with the SEC. Information regarding the persons who may, under SEC rules, be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies to Slam’s shareholders in connection with the Business Combination will be included in the definitive proxy statement/prospectus relating to the proposed Business Combination when it becomes available. You may obtain free copies of these documents, when available, as described in the preceding paragraphs.

Use of Non-GAAP Financial Measures

This press release includes certain financial measures of the industry Lynk operates in not presented in accordance with GAAP, including, but not limited to CAGR. To the extent that forward-looking non-GAAP financial measures are provided, they are presented on a non-GAAP basis without reconciliations of such forward-looking non-GAAP measures due to the inherent difficulty in forecasting and quantifying certain amounts that are necessary for such reconciliations.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward Looking Statements

Certain statements made in this press release, and oral statements made from time to time by representatives of Slam and Lynk are “forward-looking statements” within the meaning of the safe harbor provisions of the United States Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Forward-looking statements may generally be identified by the use of words such as “estimate,” “projects,” “expects,” “anticipates,” “forecasts,” “plans,” “intends,” “believes,” “seeks,” “may,” “will,” “would,” “should,” “future,” “propose,” “potential,” “target,” “goal,” “objective,” “outlook” and variations of these words or similar expressions (or the negative versions of such words or expressions) are intended to identify forward-looking statements. These forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, statements regarding the financial position, business strategy and the plans and objectives of management for future operations including as they relate to the proposed Business Combination and related transactions, pricing and market opportunity, the satisfaction of closing conditions to the proposed Business Combination and related transactions, the level of redemptions by Slam’s public shareholders and the timing of the completion of the proposed Business Combination, including the anticipated closing date of the proposed Business Combination and the use of the cash proceeds therefrom. These statements are based on various assumptions, whether or not identified in this communication, and on the current expectations of Slam’s and Lynk’s management and are not predictions of actual performance. These forward-looking statements are provided for illustrative purposes only and are not intended to serve as, and must not be relied on by any investor as a guarantee, an assurance, a prediction or a definitive statement of fact or probability. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance, conditions or results, and involve a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions and other important factors, many of which are outside the control of the parties, that could cause actual results or outcomes to differ materially from those discussed in the forward-looking statements.

The forward-looking statements involve significant risk and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the expected results. Factors that may cause such differences include, among others, the following: (1) the inability of the parties to complete the potential Business Combination or to complete the contemplated transactions; (2) satisfaction or waiver (if applicable) of the conditions to the proposed Business Combination, including with respect to the approval of the shareholders of Slam Corp; (3) the ability to maintain the listing of the Combined Company’s securities on Nasdaq; (4) the risk that the proposed transaction disrupts current plans and operations of Slam or Lynk as a result of the announcement and consummation of the transactions described herein; (5) the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the proposed Business Combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the Combined Company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees; (6) uncertainty of the costs related to the proposed Business Combination; (7) changes in applicable laws or regulations and delays in obtaining, adverse conditions contained in, or the inability to obtain necessary regulatory approvals required to complete the potential transaction; (8) the possibility that Slam and Lynk may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; (9) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Slam or Lynk or any of their respective directors or officers, following the announcement of the potential Business Combination transaction; (10) the failure to realize anticipated pro forma results and underlying assumptions, including with respect to estimated shareholder redemptions and purchase price and other adjustments; (11) risks related to domestic and international political and macroeconomic uncertainty, including the outbreak of COVID-19, the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Hamas war; (12) the risk that any of the conditions to closing of the proposed Business Combination to be agreed upon in a legally binding definitive agreement are not satisfied in the anticipated manner or on the anticipated timeline or are waived by any of the parties thereto; (13) risks related to the rollout of Lynk’s business strategy and the timing of expected business milestones; (14) the amount of redemption requests made by Slam’s public shareholders; (15) the ability of Slam to issue equity, if any, in connection with the proposed Business Combination or to otherwise obtain financing in the future; (16) risks related to Lynk’s industry; and (17) those factors discussed in Slam’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022 and subsequent Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, in each case, under the heading “Risk Factors,” and other documents of Slam or Lynk to be filed with the SEC, including the proxy statement/prospectus. If any of these risks materialize or Slam’s or Lynk’s assumptions prove incorrect, actual results could differ materially from the results implied by these forward-looking statements. There may be additional risks that neither Slam nor Lynk presently know or that Slam and Lynk currently believe are immaterial that could also cause actual results to differ from those contained in the forward-looking statements. In addition, forward-looking statements reflect Slam’s and Lynk’s expectations, plans or forecasts of future events and views as of the date of this communication. Slam and Lynk anticipate that subsequent events and developments will cause Slam’s and Lynk’s assessments to change. However, while Slam and Lynk may elect to update these forward-looking statements at some point in the future, each of Slam and Lynk specifically disclaim any obligation to do so, unless required by applicable law. These forward-looking statements should not be relied upon as representing Slam’s and Lynk’s assessments as of any date subsequent to the date of this communication. Accordingly, undue reliance should not be placed upon the forward-looking statements.

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¹ Deutsche Bank Equity Research
² Analysys Mason, The Largest Opportunity in Satcom’s History: Direct Satellite-to-Device

Contacts

Lynk Global, Inc.
Investors / Media
Tony DeTora
tdetora@lynk.world

Slam Corp
Investors
Alex Jorgensen
ajorgensen@prosek.com

Media
Russell Sherman
rsherman@prosek.com

The former Yankee on his four daily hours of self-care, what makes for a good hire and advice from Warren Buffett.

ALEX RODRIGUEZ, the 14-time Major League Baseball all-star, has established himself as a businessman since he left the dugout in 2016. He manages a variety of real estate holdings and companies under his investment firm, A-Rod Corp, including the Minnesota Timberwolves NBA team, which he co-owns. On the side, he says he’s journaling toward a book about the lessons he’s learned in business and baseball.

“I just love to write,” says Rodriguez, 48. “I always say the great teachers are even better students. And I would say I’m probably a 90% student, 10% mentor. I have a lot to learn. I feel like I’m just getting started in my journey.” He says he has no set plans for the manuscript.

Rodriguez lives in New York City, Miami and Minneapolis with his girlfriend, fitness and lifestyle coach Jaclyn Cordeiro. He has two daughters, Natasha, 18, and Ella, 15, with his ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis. Here, he talks about dropping off his oldest daughter at college, what he thinks of the MLB’s new rules and the pop superstars he’s happy his daughters have as role models.

What time do you get up on Mondays, and what’s the first thing you do after waking up?

When I have the girls, usually my morning starts around 6:30. I have breakfast with them, then drive them to school and head right to the gym.

What does that part of your routine look like?

A combination of cardiovascular, some type of lifting. When I come home, it’s usually some meditation, stretching. I mix in a little cold plunge, sometimes a little sauna and just kind of get out in the sun a little bit and think, meditate, pray. I try to focus on 8 a.m. to noon as my time. I’m in the office every day from 12 to 6 p.m.

How about when the workday is over?

I’m very routine-oriented, because I played professional baseball for 25 years. I always wore my uniform. There’s a little bit of a military inside me. My half-brother spent years in the U.S. Air Force. Jac, my girlfriend, we started [taking] long walks after dinner, then working to prepare for the next day.

You dropped Natasha off at college last month. How is the transition going?

She’s never done better. I’m an emotional roller coaster. I’ve been talking to Cynthia, my greatest friend in the world and my co-parent to my two girls. She’s given me therapy. She’s a psychologist. It’s been working, but I’ve been really depressed, down and out. On the way to the airport when I dropped her off, I was a big box of mess.

People think of athletes as paragons of health and wellness, but earlier this year, you said you’re struggling with gum disease. What was that diagnosis like?

Any time they say “disease” is super alarming. The good news is I found out early, not late. Over 65 million Americans have it, and it’s even more prevalent in my community, Black and brown [men]. There is a correlation between oral health and poor health for your overall body. I thought it was important for people to know more. [Rodriguez is a paid spokesperson for the oral-health company OraPharma.]

Do you interview everyone who gets a job at A-Rod Corp?

I used to. I can’t anymore. We have probably 200 team members today. I have about five direct reports. Obviously I hired all of them. I talk with them daily, multiple times. What we’re looking for is a team player. Someone that’s a long-term thinker. And then someone that’s coachable. The same qualities I want working at A-Rod Corp are the same qualities that I think George Steinbrenner looked to bring into our club of the New York Yankees.

As an owner of the Timberwolves, what’s been the best part of becoming involved in a different pro sport and what’s been the most challenging?

It’s such a new space for me. I look at my good friend Magic Johnson, who was a legendary basketball player and now is a legendary businessperson and owns a baseball team. About 25 years ago when he started mentoring me, he basically handed me his blueprint book.

You seem to have a great friendship with Timberwolves shooting guard Anthony Edwards.

Everything about Anthony Edwards is fascinating. He’s wildly talented, but he’s also very, very likable. Because I played baseball, not basketball, there’s not this embedded competition about who’s better. I played for 25 years in professional sports. I was lucky enough to be part of a world-championship team. I’ve made tons of mistakes, and I can take those mistakes and lead with them and hopefully [the players I work with] can avoid some of the mistakes that I’ve made. But I think because of my mistakes, I’m in a position to be an important mentor to some of the younger folks.

What do you think of the new baseball rules?

I think Rob Manfred and Tony Clark have done an incredible job with really making the game better. Attendance is up 9.6 percent. The games are about 30 minutes shorter, which is great for the young demos. The game has become a little bit more athletic, a little bit more contact, so hopefully bringing the glory days back of baseball, the game that we all fell in love with. So I think it’s doing wonderful.

Your ticketing startup, Jump, is trying to compete with Ticketmaster at a time when many customers are looking for a more level playing field. Of fan swarms, are you a Swiftie or in the Beyhive?

Oh, I’m both. What they’re doing is incredible. I mean, what they’re doing for young women out there, equality, all the good things that we want our young daughters to have. I mean, Beyoncé and Taylor, they couldn’t have two better.

You’ve talked about how you cold-called Warren Buffett and he became your mentor. What’s the most important or unexpected thing you’ve learned from him?

It’s just the long term. No shortcuts. Always be a gentleman and pick your lane. Go narrow and deep and master that. But really think about nothing short term.

What do you do for self-care?

I get a facial maybe once every six weeks. That feels good.

What’s your most prized possession?

My championship ring with the 2009 Yankees.

What do you splurge on?

We spend two weeks out in the Mediterranean every summer. It’s my time of the year. I always say, “Work really hard for 50.” And those are my two weeks. And I do that with my daughters and it’s great. I lock them in the boat. They can’t get out. Fantastic.

What’s one piece of advice you’ve gotten that’s guided you?

Surround yourself with great people. You’re an average of the five people you surround yourself with.

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MLB legend, business mogul Alex Rodriguez headlines event to benefit students

Baseball legend, World Series champion and CEO Alex Rodriguez shared stories of perseverance as he helped the Cuyahoga Community College (Tri-C^®) Foundation raise funds for students during its Presidential Scholarship Luncheon.

The Foundation’s 2023 Presidential Scholarship Luncheon raised $1.1 million in critical funds to help Tri-C students in need achieve their academic goals.

The luncheon, presented by PNC Bank, took place Sept. 27 at the Renaissance Cleveland Hotel on Public Square. Rodriguez served as keynote speaker.

Since its inception in 1992, the Presidential Scholarship Luncheon has raised more than $24 million to help students with financial needs pursue higher education.

“The Presidential Scholarship Luncheon is a terrific opportunity for all of us to help students reach for the stars and provide a stronger foundation for the region’s future,” said Pat Pastore, PNC regional president for Cleveland and chairperson of the Tri-C Foundation. “We are grateful for our supporters who invest in Tri-C students and provide access to transformative education opportunities.”

Tri-C President Emeritus Jerry Sue Thornton, whose foresight and dedication to student success set the stage for the Presidential Scholarship Luncheon, was honored at the event and was presented the inaugural Presidential Legacy Award. The award commemorates the 60th anniversary of the College and the 50th anniversary of the Tri-C Foundation. The Presidential Scholarship Luncheon stemmed from Thornton’s desire to raise scholarship funds as part of her inauguration festivities.

“Dr. Thornton’s foresight and dedication to student scholarships paved the way for the success of the Presidential Scholarship Luncheon,” said Michael A. Baston, Tri-C president. “This event has become the cornerstone of our efforts to expand the resources available to Tri-C students.”

Rodriguez is the latest in a list of distinguished speakers headlining the event, joining fellow athletes Bill Walton (2019), Earvin “Magic” Johnson (2015) and Hank Aaron (1997). Past U.S. Presidents George W. Bush (2014) and Bill Clinton (2013), and entertainers Oprah Winfrey (2002), and Harry Belafonte (1996) have also headlined.

Rodriguez is best known for his accolades as a 14-time MLB All-Star and winning the 2009 World Series with the New York Yankees. During his 25-year playing career, he hit 696 home runs and more grand slams than any other MLB player in history.

He is the chair and CEO of A-Rod Corp, a broad-based investment firm that provides capital for world-class startups and partners in the real estate, health and wellness, technology, and sports and entertainment industries.

In 2021, Rodriguez joined the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and Minnesota Lynx ownership group. He is also an Emmy Award-winning MLB analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN, has been an investor on ABC’s Shark Tank, mentored financially distressed ex-athletes on CNBC’s Back in the Game and co-hosts The Corp podcast with Dan Katz of Barstool Sports.

The event’s co-chair sponsors included AT&T, A Taste of Excellence, Brewer-Garrett, Consolidated Solutions, Cuyahoga County Workforce Funders Group, Steve and Dana Demetriou, The Sam J. Frankino Foundation, Keene, Inc., The Lerner Foundation, Medical Mutual, Minutemen Family of Companies, and Thompson Hine LLP.

September 28, 2023

MEDIA CONTACT: Anthony Moujaes, 216-987-3068 or anthony.moujaes@tri-c.edu

The MLB analyst and former all-star will co-host the series with Bloomberg Originals chief correspondent Jason Kelly.

Former MLB all-star and Fox Sports analyst Alex Rodriguez is adding Bloomberg to his media résumé.

Rodriguez (often referred to by his nickname “A-Rod”) will co-host a new podcast and video series for Bloomberg Originals, The Hollywood Reporter has learned.

Called The Deal, Rodriguez will co-host the program with Bloomberg Originals chief correspondent Jason Kelly. The series will “explore the stories, strategies, and challenges behind some of the biggest business moves made by athletes, entertainers, and executives across industries,” per Bloomberg. Each podcast episode will have a video companion, which will run on Bloomberg Originals and on Bloomberg TV.

“Dealmaking in sports, media and entertainment requires a strategic vision and nuanced execution to compete in such a crowded space,” Rodriguez says. “Jason brings his experience as a seasoned journalist and I share what I’ve learned from the best in sports and business. Our show will welcome iconic figures to provide insights that you won’t hear anywhere else.”

The Deal will comprise 12 episodes, and is set to launch in early 2024. Endeavor and TKO president and COO Mark Shapiro is expected to be one of the first guests.

The series marks an expansion into sports content for Bloomberg, which already has the series Next in Sports and Power Players, and is planning a sports business newsletter and a dedicated sports section of its website.

Rodriguez — known as a savvy business executive off the field and outside the studio — also brings a major name to Bloomberg’s roster, joining the likes of Game of Thrones star Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, who also hosts a Bloomberg Originals program.

Rodriguez currently serves as an MLB analyst for Fox Sports, and as the host of ESPN’s KayRodcast, an alternate broadcast of Sunday Night Baseball. THR exclusively reported in July that Rodriguez is signing a new long-term deal with Fox, and is expected to depart ESPN after the season is over.

Mason Media, the production company and brand studio co-founded by businessman and MLB all-star Alex Rodriguez, has appointed Westbrook Media and CNN alum Dana Z. Currier as their new COO.

Currier will oversee production and operations for Mason Media’s expanding lineup of content, work on the company’s production and talent partnerships and help with fundraising efforts.

Currier’s appointment rounds out an all-female executive team, working alongside CEO Nora Ali and Amanda McPhillips, the company’s senior vice president of development.

“At Mason Media, our goal is to be the leader in innovative and forward-thinking stories across the constantly evolving entertainment landscape, and we’re thrilled to have Dana joining the team as we aim to achieve this mission,” said Ali in a statement. “Her experience speaks for itself, having overseen production for award-winning premium projects for film and television, and growing the bottom line as a seasoned operator. All of this coupled with her track record in managing teams on the brand and social media side make her the perfect complement for our team.”

Currier joins Mason Media having previously worked as senior vice president of operations for Westbrook Media, which is Jada Pinkett Smith and Will Smith’s media venture. Before her time at Westbrook, she was director of production for CNN Development, Original Series and CNN Films where she worked on “Parts Unknown: Anthony Bourdain,” “United Shades of America” starring W. Kamau Bell, “The Decades Franchise” and the Academy Award-nominated documentary “RBG.”

Mason Media was founded in 2021 by Ali, Rodriguez and entrepreneur Marc Lore. The company concentrates on premium formats, docuseries, documentary features and IP-driven scripted content for broadcast, streaming and digital buyers. Mason Media aims to tell stories around business, innovation, sports, entertainment and entrepreneurship, while elevating historically overlooked voices.

In a statement, Lore praised Ali, who has been CEO since the company’s inception, and commented on the team’s expansion with the hire of Currier: “Nora Ali is a powerhouse when it comes to creating engaging, visionary and compelling content. Having worked with her for a number of years, I’ve gotten the chance to see Nora’s high degree of leadership and business expertise first-hand. With this new hire, I know that Nora and Dana will continue to push the boundaries of innovative storytelling at the helm of Mason Media.”

Mason Media is part of Rodriguez’s A-Rod Media portfolio. Ever since retiring from baseball in 2016, he has focused on growing his business empire with a focus on media, entertainment and investments. Rodriguez also serves as CEO of A-Rod Corp, which is his investment firm.

Lore founded Wonder Group and Jet.com, which was acquired by Walmart in 2016 for $3.3 billion, and he previously served as president and CEO of Walmart U.S. eCommerce. Lore and Rodriguez are part owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and the Minnesota Lynx, having bought the NBA and WNBA teams together in 2021.

“Sharp content and smart distribution are key to driving brands forward,” Rodriguez commented. “Marc and I are excited to formally leverage our networks and expertise to help talented storytellers bring their ideas to life and create a space for audiences to learn about business and innovation.”

Mason Media is repped by UTA and Weinstein Senior, and Rodriguez is repped by WME.

Alex Rodriguez is preparing to send eldest daughter Natasha off to college at the University of Michigan — after making specific demands about her class selection.

“My only condition is because all these young actors want to bypass college and I’m always saying, like, ‘You can [study] drama, you can do whatever you want, but as long as you’re taking your business classes at Michigan; they have a great business school,’” Rodriguez, 48, exclusively told Us Weekly on Friday, August 4, of Natasha’s interest in the university’s prestigious musical theater program. “And that was [the] deal.”

Natasha — whom the retired baseball player shares with ex-wife Cynthia Scurtis, along with 15-year-old daughter Ella — graduated from high school earlier this year after committing to Michigan’s BFA program to study performing arts. The 18-year-old is set to move onto the midwestern campus later this month.

“I can’t believe it. I’m gonna drop her off in a few weeks in Ann Arbor, and I’m both incredibly proud of Natasha but also incredibly sad that my first baby is leaving us,” Rodriguez said on Friday, while promoting his partnership with OraPharma.  “And you know, for us dads, they’re always our babies — even if they’re 30 years old.”

The MLB icon has already started to see how different this home life will be with Natasha away at school during a recent overnight trip. “I had the first moment where I went to wake up my little one, Ella, and [their] rooms are right across from each other. And, you know, habitual — I’ve been doing this for 18 years — I go and knock in Natasha’s room and she’s not there,” he recalled to Us. “I’m like, ‘Oh, this is a preview of the next four years.’”

Rodriguez — who is currently dating fitness trainer Jaclyn “Jac” Cordeiro — further opened up about how Ella is coping with her big sister leaving home.

“I think there’s parts of her that are excited because she gets to be, like, the alpha in the house now [since] she has a younger stepsister, Cami,” he explained, referring to Scurtis and husband Angel Nicolas’ 7-year-old daughter. “But I think, for the most part, she’s definitely like all of us: Very sad and proud that Natasha’s going to Michigan.”

One of the ways Natasha is making her dad, in particular, proud is through her mindset about pursuing a career in the arts. “I think she’s crystal clear on what she wants. I mean, she’s such a hard worker and doesn’t expect any free rides [and] wants to work for everything she gets,” Rodriguez gushed. “She’s [a] special young lady and I think her goal is to perform in one of those big [shows] like a Hamilton or something like that.”

She’s going to the right place to get the training. U of M’s notable alumni include Darren Criss (Glee), Ashley Park (Emily in Paris), Benj Pasek and Justin Paul (composers, The Greatest Showman) and James Earl Jones, just to name a few.

When Rodriguez isn’t cheering on his girls’ accomplishments — and watching them “wear [him] out” at nightly family dinners — he is working with OraPharma to raise awareness for gum disease.

“I was shocked when I received the news in one of my regular visits and I was more surprised and quite honestly a little nervous and realizing how prevalent it was in the U.S. and especially with my community,” he told Us of his own early-stage diagnosis. “From afar it looks like, ‘Oh, everything’s good, everything’s perfect, blah, blah, blah.’ But … you see that it can happen to anybody.”

He added: “I know me personally, I’m not someone that looks forward to going to the dentist, but I think what I learned is it’s something that’s a must and something that all of us should take more seriously.”

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Alex Rodriguez is a busy man these days.

Not only is the former MLB star the chairman and CEO of A-Rod Corp, a broad-based investment firm he founded, he’s also CEO of Slam Corp, a SPAC focused in consumer tech, media, entertainment and health and wellness, an owner of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx, a strategic advisor to the Professional Fighters League, chairman of Presidente beer, an Emmy-winning baseball analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN, and a father of two.

There’s probably plenty more but you get the point. While simply reading that may be exhausting to some, Rodriguez explains how he manages it all.

“I think balance is super important,” Rodriguez said. “One of the things I talk about is priorities. My office knows I’m very structured and I have a routine. I’m in the office every day, suit and tie 12-6, but from 8-12 that’s my time—that’s when I get to do my cardio or if I want to lift, yoga, sauna, whatever part of my routine is that day. Then I go 12-6, and then I’m home with the girls and my family.

“I think that structure has worked really well for me rather than being all over the place. Instead of going wide and shallow, it’s about going narrow and deep and focusing on the things that are most important to me, which is my family first and then my work.”

While Rodriguez’s on-field resume—696 career home runs (fifth all-time), 2,086 RBIs (fourth), 2,021 runs (eighth), 14-time MLB All-Star, three-time AL MVP and 2009 World Series champion—speaks for itself, A-Rod has amassed an equally impressive empire in business, entrepreneurship and philanthropy off the diamond.

The former shortstop/third baseman has been a beneficiary of being both a mentor and mentee, working with the likes of Warren Buffett, Barry Sternlicht, Jon Gray, Mary Erdoes and Marc Lore. Rodriguez was also quick to point out that Magic Johnson played a role in helping shape his business career, not only as a friend, but as a mentor.

“They teach me business and I try to teach them a little baseball,” Rodriguez said with a laugh. “It’s a good exchange.”

While he continues to succeed by finding balance in his day-to-day life as well as his business ventures, Rodriguez is also benefiting from the balance he has with Lore, founder, chairman and CEO of Wonder Group.

The duo announced in May 2021 their intent to buy the Timberwolves for $1.5 billion. In December, Lore and Rodriguez exercised their option to purchase another 20% of the Timberwolves and WNBA’s Lynx as part of their three-step plan to assume full control of the franchises from majority owner Glen Taylor.

They closed their second, $290 million payment in March and have until December 31 to purchase another 40%, which Rodriguez confirmed is “definitely on time” and that they’re “excited and ready to go.”

“Marc has become in a short minute beyond a friend, he’s been like a brother to me,” Rodriguez said. “We are both New Yorkers, we both come from very humble beginnings, and we both have two daughters. And then we’re the exact opposite in everything else.

“Everything he’s absolutely great at, which is a lot of numbers—he’s very much like Rain Man—I’m terrible at. Some of the things I bring to the table like 25 years of experience, being a world champion, being able to lead great people into battle on the baseball field are complementary to him. I think it’s been a wonderful partnership.”

Bullish on baseball’s evolution

When he isn’t reviewing financial forms, Rodriguez is keeping a keen eye on Major League Baseball and the sport overall not only through his analyst work for two major networks, but as someone who played in the league for 22 seasons.

With attendance and viewership stagnant or declining, MLB introduced a slew of new rules and regulations ahead of the 2023 season to not only speed up games, but to make them more exciting for (younger) fans and viewers.

A pitch clock was introduced to limit the length of time between pitches. The defensive shift has been eliminated to promote more hitting and action. Bases increased in size from 15 inches to 18 inches.

“It’s always hard for baseball because we’re married to our history so much to make really aggressive, bold changes,” Rodriguez said. “I love the changes. I think they’re phenomenal. I think baseball’s going to bring the glory days back, especially because of these two changes—the time clock that’s shaved about 30 minutes off these games and then eliminating the shift and promoting line-to-line pure hitters.”

Through early April, batting average was up 16 points, stolen bases spiked 30% and the average game length is down 31 minutes and is on track to be the sport’s lowest since 1984.

OraPharma partnership

As if he needed another thing on his plate, Rodriguez was recently diagnosed with early-stage gum disease, despite never using chewing tobacco during his playing days.

With more than 65 million Americans with gum disease, Rodriguez partnered with pharmaceutical company OraPharma to bring awareness to oral healthcare, especially to the Hispanic community where more than 51% of adults have gum disease.

“I just went to my regular dentist meeting, which I don’t think anybody enjoys doing, but during that process I found out that I have gum disease,” he said. “Obviously anytime you hear the word ‘disease’ you get super scared but the good news is I found out it’s treatable.

“OraPharma is doing some incredible things and I really respect the work they’re doing. That’s when you take 1+1=3, so using my platform to let my followers know that this is something they can get ahead of, be proactive and learn from me. It’s something that’s important.”

A-Rod balks on doc talk

In April, the New York Post reported Rodriguez was working with Gotham Chopra and Religion of Sports, a production company he co-founded with Michael Straham and Tom Brady, on a documentary about the baseball player’s life.

While the report suggests Rodriguez is “looking to follow Derek Jeter with up-close and maybe personal documentary about his life,” a la ESPN’s The Captain, Rodriguez was quick to point out that nothing was in the works—yet.

“Nothing to report,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve been approached by pretty much everyone with interest about telling my story. I think when the time is right I’ll report something, but nothing to report right now.”

Read on Forbes

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ORLANDO, Fla. -- The Boys & Girls Club of America held their annual national conference in Orlando last week.

Close to 2,500 people listened to former MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez give closing remarks on Friday morning at the Hyatt Regency Orlando. The former New York Yankee is a Boys & Girls Club alumni and he learned to play baseball at the age of nine at the Boys & Girls Club chapter in Miami.

He was also a Boys & Girls Clubs of America member until 1993 when he was drafted No. 1 overall by the Seattle Mariners.

He is also a national board member for the Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

Watch the video here.

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Alex Rodriguez, former New York Yankees star and A-Rod Corp chairman and CEO, talks about investment advice he got from Warren Buffett, why he bought an NBA team, and if he thinks he can get in the Hall of Fame. This episode of "Bloomberg Wealth with David Rubenstein" was recorded April 6 in Miami. (Source: Bloomberg)

Watch The Video

Jump will use the funds to hire engineers and other staff.

Baseball legend Alex Rodriguez and his business partner Marc Lore have raised a $20 million funding round for a new ticketing and fan-experience business that they hope will outperform the industry’s troubled incumbents.

The funding round for Jump, which has been in stealth until now, was led by Forerunner Ventures and joined by Courtside Ventures, Will Ventures and Mastry Ventures. Additional investors include MetaLab and Drive by DraftKings, with early funding coming directly from the founders, including Rodriguez and Lore. Total funding is now at $30 million.

Management has engaged in talks with team owners and executives to figure out how to improve the status quo and lure potential clients. The ticketing industry has seen a lot of drama lately, with Live Nation Entertainment Inc. executives facing lawmakers in Washington over the botched sale of Taylor Swift tickets in November. Live Nation Entertainment was formed through a merger of Live Nation and Ticketmaster in 2010.

Rodriguez and Lore started considering the sector in 2020 when they tried to buy the New York Mets and got a look under the hood of a professional sports franchise. They concluded that there was a chance to improve overall economics by developing a service that caters to fans in the weeks running up to a game, during a match, and in the weeks afterwards.

“As Alex and I began exploring ownership opportunities with sports teams, we spoke to industry execs and began seeing first-hand how many teams were missing the mark when it came to their fan experience,” Lore said in an email. “We quickly realized that there were so many untapped opportunities to rethink the entire fan journey.”

Jump plans to offer services across ticketing, e-commerce, content and event experiences, including dynamic ticketing, which would allow fans to pay to move to a better open seat in the middle of a match.

Chief Executive Officer Jordy Leiser, a co-founder, said in an interview that management hopes to work with the existing ticket sellers and open up the industry with less exclusive deals. He hopes to make live events more personalized and less transactional.

Leiser said the capital will be spent on hiring as they build the product. Jump remains in development mode and needs engineers, product managers and data scientists. He said that Jump isn’t currently looking for additional capital but will raise more as needed, with the product still “quarters away” from hitting the market.

Rodriguez and Lore have put money behind many businesses over the past few years, including a $1.5 billion deal for a stake in the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves. Their other investments include online brokerage Tornado and sports stock market Mojo.

(Updates with additional details from CEO in seventh paragraph. An earlier version corrected the size of the funding round.)

The list introduces business personalities, entrepreneurs, executives, scientists, and artists with Latin American heritage who are making it happen outside of the region.

PRESS RELEASE — Bloomberg Línea, Latin America’s leading digital, financial, and business news multi-platform, presentsthe first edition of 100 Most Influential Latinos around the world. The editorial team comprises professionals in more than 15 countries inthe Americas.

The list - available in Spanish, Portuguese - features the names of prominent business personalities, entrepreneurs, CXOs, scientists, andartists who are leaders and who are leaving a distinctive mark on the development of different industries around the globe.

There are names like the Mexican filmmakers Guillermo del Toro and Alejandro G. Iñárritu, as well as the Argentines Antonio FabioNeri (CEO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise), the scientist Juan M. Maldacena, or Brazilians Camila Coelho, Ed Fleischmann(CEO of Edenred), and Ivana Ferreira (Nasdaq).

Founders and CEOs like the former New York Yankee Álex Rodríguez (A-Rod Corp.) and Antonio J. Gracias (Valor Equity Partners),also made it to the list. Plus, activists who seek improvements in the lives of millions, such as Luis Aragón (Border Angels), and artists whohave tuned the whole world to the rhythms emanating from the region, such as Cardi B, Ozuna, Jennifer Lopez, Ana de Armas, AnyaTaylor-Joy, Becky G, and more.

The List criteria

The editorial committee of Bloomberg Línea prepared this list based on proposals from the editors of the multimedia platform, who arelocated throughout the continent. Likewise, it reveals that they considered factors such as wealth creation, protection of social values,creativity in all fields, and contributions to science and culture.

Lists such as Latin America’s 500, the 100 Innovators of 2021, and 50 Women of Impact are part of Bloomberg Línea’s editorial offering andare complemented by its growing multiplatform content.

Consult the full list of 100 Most Influential Latinos

A new online betting exchange that facilitates the buying and selling of player stocks has commenced operations in New Jersey.

Mojo combines sports betting, fantasy sports, and stock market trading into a new online iGaming offering. Bankrolled by Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez, who are coowners of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves, Mojo says it allows fans to turn their “sports knowledge into real money.”

Mojo users can buy or short shares of more than 300 NFL players. A player’s value is based on his past performance, with their future price dependent on their play.

We always said if someone could create a sports stock market, it would be the holy grail for sports fans,” Lore said of Mojo, a project he says has been in the works for more than two decades.

Mojo went live this week in New Jersey after receiving an online gaming license from the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement (DGE). Mojo has raised $100 million to date, which has gone toward developing the innovative player stock market.

Mojo has partnerships in place with Caesars Entertainment and Penn Entertainment, the former of which is being utilized in New Jersey to qualify the player stock market platform for an online operating license. Mojo has plans to expand its operations into nine additional states next year and bring new sports, including college, onto the exchange.

While Mojo is the first legal player betting exchange to launch in the US, it isn’t an industry first. In the UK, the Football Index took millions of dollars in trades on soccer players. But the platform eventually went belly up, leaving users last year with around $155 million worth of “open bets.”

Mojo Gameplay

The goal for Mojo users is to predict an NFL player’s end valuation at their time of retirement. Mojo is currently acting as the market maker to assist in user liquidity. The company says player values are based on career stats, and prices move in real-time 24/7.

“One of the really important premises of our market is that when you own stock in a player you’re basically guaranteed a payout based on their on-the-field statistics at the end of their career,” said Mojo cofounder and CEO Vinit Bharara. “There’s this objective formula that always anchors the value of the stock.”

Bharara, who made his personal fortune with Lore by selling Diapers.com to Amazon in 2011 for more than half a billion dollars, explained that earlier prototypes for Mojo encountered the problem of players growing older and becoming less valuable than they were during their primes. To overcome the issue of players eventually being sold off and becoming valueless, Mojo challenges traders to predict a player’s value based on their career performance.

The Mojo Value mechanism is an objective statistical formula that increases or reduces a player’s value based on their performance. For example, a 10-yard gain for a running back increases the player’s Mojo stock price by a penny. A turnover by the same player slashes their stock by four cents.

“We tirelessly studied NFL analytics to arrive at the simplest, most intuitive way to measure a player’s impact,” Mojo said. “Mojo Value is a single number calculated by weighing six important stats to summarize an athlete’s impact in real-life games. The better the athlete, the more Mojo Value you should expect over any period of time.”

‘Intrinsic’ Value

Mojo believes it has arrived at the best method for valuing an NFL player’s worth. The baseline valuation determined on a player’s entire career — not only their worth this season — provides “intrinsic value,” so says Bharara.

When people buy a stock, that stock has what we call intrinsic value, meaning it has an objective dollar value that isn’t just worth what the next guy says it’s worth,” Bharara explained.

Mojo’s business model is predominantly based on the platform charging a 1% commission on all positions. If a user buys $500 worth of Tom Brady, the position is actually $495 after Mojo takes its cut. The site does not take a fee on cash-outs or settlements at a player’s retirement.

Like him or not, Alex Rodriguez is the most successful athlete-turned-business-mogul since Magic Johnson.

But the Chairman and Chief Executive Office of A-Rod Corp. is not too busy to notice that the notorious rift between him and Derek Jeter will be explored again in ESPN’s upcoming documentary, “The Captain.”

The 46-year-old analyst for ESPN and Fox Sports sat down with Front Office Sports to discuss his new “Step Up to the Plate” initiative with Anheuser-Busch to help Hispanic students seeking careers in sports business. In conjunction with the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, A-B has awarded nine students three-month paid internships in its New York office worth $15,000 apiece.

Almost 30% of MLB players are Latino — which makes recruiting more Hispanic executives to sports business both personally and professionally important to Rodriguez. Among his many business hats, the son of Dominican immigrants serves as Chairman and President of Presidente beer. Founded in the Dominican Republic in 1935, Presidente ranks as the No. 1 selling beer in the Caribbean.

Last year, the 2009 World Series champion ascended to the elite ranks of team owners when he and Marc Lore bought the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves for $1.5 billion. FOS quizzed Rodriguez on topics ranging from his current relationship with the 48-year-old Jeter to owning a team.  

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FOS: So ESPN’s “The Captain” premieres this Monday. Episode 3 will delve into your frenemy relationship with Jeter. How are things between you two?

A-Rod: Derek and I are good friends. We were texting last night during the “KayRod.” He was watching. I don’t know if he is a fan — but he was watching, having some fun with me. I think he was making fun of my white pants. But I love the Captain — he’s a five-time world champion. We’ve talked about the documentary. We’re completely aligned, and I’m excited to watch it.

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You’re getting critical acclaim for the “KayRod” telecast on ESPN2 with Michael Kay this season. Does the more relaxed, freewheeling style of a “ManningCast” format suit you better than the traditional studio?

I’ve really had a lot of fun and success with the Fox studio. I think we have an incredible team. The continuity is great. We know exactly who we are. It’s a little bit what they’ve done with NFL football, with Howie Long and Terry Bradshaw. But I think the “KayRod” is an example of where baseball and sports could move — especially baseball, because you have sometimes up to four hours to fill.

It’s almost like Baseball Watch meets podcast meets “Good Morning America.” You get a little bit of everything. We get to see the board. We get to present. We get to have really interesting conversations. And by the way, here’s the 2-1 pitch.

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Speaking of big sports TV news, how do you think Tom Brady will do in the broadcast booth?

I think he’s gonna crush it, really. I’m so excited for him. I do think he’s going to be one of the best. I think he’s got an incredible personality. He’s a good friend. I’m a huge Tom fan. He’s the greatest quarterback of all time — and he’s even a better person.

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You grew up in Miami. Any interest in buying a piece of your hometown baseball team, the Miami Marlins?

Not for me. I’m laser-focused on the Timberwolves. I’m so excited about where we are and where we’re going. It’s going to take a lot of my attention.

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How does NBA team ownership suit you so far?

I’ve really enjoyed the partnership with (Timberwolves owner) Glen Taylor and his wife, Becky [Mulvihill]. They’ve been incredible partners and mentors. I’ve learned a great deal and look forward to learning more. Marc Lore and I are really enjoying it.

Look, last year we went from 23 wins to 46. We had over 15 sellouts. TV ratings were up almost 50% — which in today’s day and age is saying a lot. And we have a really good core of young players led by Karl-Anthony Towns and Anthony Edwards.

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Do the biggest sports stars — from Michael Jordan to LeBron James to Magic — really want to ascend to the owner’s box, not the TV booth?

That’s a good question. I can’t speak for other athletes. I know that for me, I’ve always really respected the way Michael Jordan and Magic and some of the other athletes have transitioned to the boardroom.

I know that today, I get more calls from athletes than I have my entire career looking for mentorship, looking for advice. There’s an incredible appetite in investing and transforming to an entrepreneur, more than ever, for athletes.

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How can your ‘Step Up to the Plate’ initiative boost Latino representation, not only in MLB front offices, but acoss sports?

I think this goes beyond sports. If you think about the banking community, private equity, hedge funds, Wall Street — we need, across the board, more representation from Latinos.

I think we’re coming fast and furious. If the opportunities are there, then I think the rewards are going to be great for those who are employing these great young people. In sports specifically, it’s a no-brainer.

If you think about minorities in sports, about the athletes that are playing, a majority of them are minorities. A majority of them in baseball, for example, are Latino. So obviously it just makes for better business.

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If your franchise has more Spanish-speaking executives, won’t that help you attract Latino athletes possibly struggling with a language barrier in the U.S.?

I don’t think people have really understood the power of comfort. For a Latino player that comes here from their native country, it’s a very intimidating and daunting proposition. To have people in place that can help nurture and develop, I think makes them feel more comfortable. All of that would lead to much better results, much better numbers, more winning, better business.

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You’ve been involved with Presidente since 2020. We’re noticing more athletes investing in adult beverages: Troy Aikman with light beer, Conor McGregor with Irish whiskey. Why?

I think No. 1, it’s a very exciting and dynamic space. It’s one that we’ve been studying for years. I think the key in today’s world is that you have to have authenticity. I think the ones you’ve mentioned are very authentic. I’m very bullish on Troy Aikman’s beer. I think he’s gonna do fantastic.

I think the partnership with Presidente has been a role model for other athletes because of the Dominican connection. Same thing with McGregor. I think that’s also very authentic. I think you’ll see more athletes get involved with alcoholic beverages. I’m forecasting that over the next decade you’ll see an incredible amount of athletes getting involved in business.

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Who were your biggest mentors in business? The Oracle of Omaha?

I have had a lot of mentors. (Billionaire) Warren (Buffett) for sure. But other athletes, too. Magic has been a great mentor of mine and a friend, and someone who’s shared a lot of his knowledge with me.

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Baseball star turned investor plans to use his ‘network and platform’ to support the mixed-martial-arts company’s growth

Former baseball star Alex Rodriguez is investing in the Professional Fighters League and joining the mixed-martial-arts fight promoter’s board of directors as the company looks to enter new markets and start a new pay-per-view operation.

The funding round values the PFL at $500 million, according to the league. Private equity firm Waverley Capital Partners, headed by former top Warner Music executive Edgar Bronfman, led the $30 million round. Existing investors include Ares Capital Corp., Elysian Park Ventures, football legend Ray Lewis, rapper Wiz Khalifa and sports-team owners Ted Leonsis and Mark Lerner.

Competition in the MMA industry is heating up as the sport grows globally. Last year, Endeavor Group Holdings Inc. acquired the remaining stake in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the biggest MMA promoter in the US. Rival One Championship, which was valued at more than $1 billion in January and backed by sovereign wealth funds in Singapore and Qatar, signed a five-year distribution deal with Amazon.com Inc. in April and said it would begin holding events in the US in 2023.

The PFL has signed shorter-term two-year deals in many markets, including one in the US with Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN that runs through 2023, and has media agreements with the likes of DirecTV in Latin America and Channel 4 in the UK. Unlike traditional fight promoters, the PFL hosts a standard sports calendar, with regular-season matchups and playoffs culminating in world-championship bouts.

This fresh capital brings the PFL’s total funding to about $200 million. Founder and Chairman Donn Davis said in an interview that this round was small because the business is nearing profitability and the cash will be used for growth instead of operations.

Management will invest in business abroad and start a new “Super Fight” division, separate from its season format. In a new version of the classic pay-per-view model, fighters will get 50% of the revenue from their matches. Its first signing is Kayla Harrison, an undefeated lightweight, and Davis will look to lure more top names in the coming months.

“Media wants more, fans want more and fighters need more outlets,” Davis said. “The world is big enough for more than one winner.”

A-Rod’s Network

Rodriguez has put his money behind all kinds of ventures since transitioning away from baseball and into investment. Over the past year, he has backed an app looking to become a “stock market” for fans of professional athletes, an online brokerage business and a fusion-power startup. His special purpose acquisition company, Slam Corp., has yet to announce a target.

The former New York Yankees great made his biggest splash last year when he and former Walmart Inc. executive Marc Lore signed a $1.5 billion deal for a controlling stake in the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Lynx.

As a board member at the PFL, Rodriguez will use his “network and platform” to find ways to support the league’s growth, he said. He has been courting advice from some of the world’s top business leaders since retiring, working primarily out of his office in Miami.

“Sports leagues are really media and content companies,” Rodriguez said. “There is massive demand among fans for the world’s best fighters, and room for everyone in this category.”

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Ad Age's ranking of the hottest celebrity marketing moves of the past month

This month: Sports meets TV meets movies, Barry for berry beverage, Aniston markets collagen and more.

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No 5: Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson x DirecTV, Richard Jefferson, Scottie Barnes and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar x ESPN

Gasp! A tie! Two spots uniting TV brands with sports legends and big-screen favorites? A coincidence too starry to ignore. For DirecTV, baseball greats Alex Rodriguez, David Ortiz, Ken Griffey Jr. and Randy Johnson don the iconic “Ghostbusters” vacuum packs to duke it out with supernatural forces. Who ya gonna call? Sony Pictures to get this crew in the next movie.

An ad for the upcoming film “Jurassic World Dominion” doesn’t look so much like a trailer, but rather finds velociraptors terrorizing the ESPN offices. Commentator Richard Jefferson and Raptors (teehee) player Scottie Barnes get mixed up over the prehistoric creatures and another history books figure: Lakers legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. A fourth quarter cameo from “Jurassic” franchise favorite Jeff Goldblum equals a dino-sized good time.

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No. 4: Jennifer Aniston x Vital Proteins

Beloved actress Jennifer Aniston has long been a proponent of healthy living, but told Ad Age the pandemic has changed our definition of wellness. Her campaign for collagen-based health brand Vital Proteins takes a holistic look at health, both mental and physical, in its promotion for a line of nutrition bars designed by Aniston. Recruiting director Damien Chazelle, the campaign video is a moving scrapbook of Aniston’s wellness journey, offering a little advice to viewers.

Read Ad Age’s Q&A with Jennifer Aniston

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No. 3: Barry Manilow x Dr Pepper

Dr Pepper reintroduced its Dark Berry flavor by recruiting the musician to announce it would only return for people named Barry. The original post snagged more than 110 million impressions on Twitter and the Dark Berry timeline takeover saw a 38% rise in engagement for the brand. Dr Pepper followed up the post with another announcing the soda would be released to the masses, whether a Barry, Gary, Larry, Harry, Jerry, Kerry, Perry or Huckleberry.

To the tune of "Copacabana (At the Copa)" by Barry Manilow:

Read The Tweet

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No. 2: Rebel Wilson and Jane Goodall x HP

Reading the news is terrifying, but Jane Goodall offers a ray of hope through her work with HP. In addition to doing actual good through the brand’s partnership with Goodall’s foundation Jane’s Green Hope, HP brought a soothing conversation between the climate activist and comedian Rebel Wilson for those with anxiety over living life in 2022. The equal parts funny and sweet dialogue between the women settles on the most important message: it’s not too late to save our planet.

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No. 1: Ed Helms x Xfinity

And the grand finale: a Hollywood-worthy romp complete with a CGI beast, spaceships, swordfights and muffins. “The Office” star Ed Helms hops from adventure to adventure, taking on new accents and facing off against goliaths in this spot for Xfinity featuring appearances from FaZe Clan’s FaZe Swagg and pro boxer Evander Holyfield.

Shoutout: Mike Tyson files for trademark based on Holyfield ear-biting

Seattle and Tacoma are connected by a 34-mile stretch of Interstate 5. It takes about 45 minutes  to make the drive from the Mariners ballpark in Washington’s largest city to the team’s Triple-A  affiliate just to the south, a drive Alex Rodriguez made five times in his black BMW 525 during  the summer of 1995 while being sent up and down between the Mariners and the Tacoma  

Rainiers as his baseball career got off the ground.  

His last drive to Tacoma that season was the hardest. Rodriguez was frustrated and crestfallen  that he was not staying with the major-league club, and he called his mother, Lourdes Rodriguez,  in tears. He told her he was planning to quit baseball and return home to Miami to go to college  and play quarterback for the Hurricanes. Then he heard a laugh through the phone.  

“I said, what are you laughing about?” Rodriguez recalled. “This is not a laughing situation.”  

Lourdes grew up in the Dominican Republic, moved to the United States in the 1960s and  worked two jobs to raise three children on her own. So she found it difficult to feel sorry for her  son, the No. 1 pick in the 1993 MLB Draft who got a $1 million signing bonus as an 18-year-old,  because he had to make a 45-minute drive in a luxury car more often than he expected in his  second season as a professional ballplayer.  

“If you come home, we’re going to change the locks, and you won’t be able to get in,” Lourdes  told him. “Toughen up, dust yourself off, and you’re going to be fine. You’ve got to work for it.”  

As Minnesota Timberwolves fans get to know Rodriguez and Marc Lore, the friends who have  joined the team’s ownership group with the intention of becoming controlling owners in 2023,  they have tried to understand what connects the megawatt athlete and the serial entrepreneur.  Whatever differences the two men may have in appearance, background or expertise, they have  found common ground in similar upbringings.  

Lore’s mother, Chiara Lore, might never have threatened to change the locks on him as a kid.  But the tone in her voice, and the tone of her muscles as an amateur bodybuilder, made it clear  she was not to be played with.  

“She wasn’t the ‘you deserve a medal for participation’ kind of mom at all,” Lore said. “She was  much tougher. You could win and get the gold medal, but you still could’ve done better. She had  a high bar, which I think served me well in life, because I was never comfortable with just doing  OK or caring about just getting the medal.” 

Rodriguez’s father, Victor Rodriguez, left his family when his son was 9. And Lore says his  mother was also the only constant parental presence in his life, with his workaholic father, Peter  Lore, rarely present in the family’s day-to-day lives.  

“Both of our dads were non-participatory,” Lore said. “I don’t know what’s worse, not having a  dad around at all or having a dad that you can’t count on ever in any sense. Either way, it’s bad.  But we definitely bond over that and we talk about that and how we’re both incredibly driven  and our moms are similar. It’s interesting how the dynamics of how you grow up affect your  drive.”  

Lore spent his early years in Staten Island before the family moved to New Jersey. It was there  that Chiara, a mother of three, started exercising to try to get back into shape. She worked out  with a trainer at a local gym and quickly grew enamored with the bodybuilding culture.  Eventually, she started participating in local competitions, winning several in New Jersey and  Pennsylvania.  

“It was a lot of training. It was hard at the time; the training, the dieting, was really hard, and I  had three children I had to take care of,” Chiara said. “It was a few fun years.”  

Lore’s eyes light up when he describes going to shows to see his mother, who was 20 when he  was born, competing against other women. He said she could squat 350 pounds, and Lore loved  to watch the 110-pound woman pile 45-pound plates onto the bar at the gym while the big, bad  weightlifters looked on with skepticism. Chiara would ask them for help and then promptly rip  off a set right in front of them.  

“Only natural competitions,” Lore said. “But she was ripped. Like, crazy ripped. Like, you could  see every little muscle in her back.”  

Watching her go all-in on bodybuilding resonated with a young Lore, whose single-minded —  maniacal? — focus has become a calling card while building startups like Diapers.com, Jet.com  and now Wonder, a company that aims to make it easy for people around the country to order  fine dining meals and have them cooked and delivered right to their doors. The same goes for the  Timberwolves and Lynx, where Lore and Rodriguez have taken an active role in planning for the  present and future of the franchises.  

“You grow up and see somebody with that kind of drive and commitment, it was really cool to  see,” Lore said. “I definitely learned that from her.”  

As dedicated as Chiara was to the competitions, Lore said she didn’t let that get in the way of  being the stabilizing force at home. Lore’s father was a bit of a wild card, a dreamer always in  search of the next big thing. When Lore and his brother were in high school, Chiara trained with  Julianne Phillips, a model and actress who was at the time married to Bruce Springsteen. At one  point, Peter asked Chiara to have Phillips line up a deep sea fishing date for Springsteen and the  Lore boys.  

“They weren’t really into fishing,” Chiara said with a chuckle. 

That didn’t stop Peter from waking up his sons at the crack of dawn and driving to Springsteen’s  house, telling the boys they were going fishing with Bruce. Peter pulled into the driveway and  knocked on the door.  

“We’re thinking, ‘Holy shit, we’re going fishing with Bruce! This is crazy,'” Lore said with a  huge smile. “I can’t believe we’re actually doing this.”  

After several minutes, two large men appeared at the door, and they were not happy. They picked  the diminutive Peter up and carried him back to the car, his legs kicking furiously in the air the  whole way. Peter told them they were supposed to go fishing with Springsteen, but the security  guards appeared to have missed that memo. Peter calmly climbed back into the car to see his  boys, who were shaking with fear.  

“He has a little grin on his face, turns in his seat and says, ‘You guys still want to go fishin’? I  don’t think Bruce is coming,'” Lore said.  

While Peter was cooking up ridiculous adventures and crazy plans with low probabilities of  success, Chiara was the stabilizing force in the household. She was a stay-at-home mom who  raised her children to think big but made sure to keep them grounded. She left the overt signs of  affection to her parents, who doted on Lore throughout his childhood, but would often write  cards telling him how proud she was. 

“Most of the time I was in charge of the family,” she said. “I’m the one that kept the family  going, kept the family together, kept trying to make a good, healthy home for everybody. I do  feel good about that. I loved being a mom. It was what I always wanted to do when I grew up.”  

“She was also extremely reliable and really took care of her kids well and did everything,” Lore  said. “Was always there. It was just a stable force with my crazy, crazy dad.”  

One of Rodriguez’s rituals when he was a boy was to stay up late watching the New York Mets  and waiting for his mother to return home from her second job waiting tables. Lourdes would  leave the house at 6 a.m. to start her day as a secretary and wouldn’t return home on many nights  until 11 p.m. She would sit down on the couch while Rodriguez massaged her aching feet and  helped count her tip money from the night shift.  

“The reason I had two jobs was because it was so important that the family had a great education  and stayed in their sports,” Lourdes said through an interpreter. “No matter how many hours it  took or how hard it was, it was always worth it to support them and their dreams.”  

Rodriguez was born in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, and the family moved  around some in his early days, spending some time back in the Dominican Republic before they  settled in Miami. Even when he was a toddler, Lourdes said she could see something different in  her son.  

“I knew he would be a star by the age of 5,” she said. “He never did not have a ball and bat in his  hands. He was always so intense and determined about his baseball that I knew he had what it  takes to be a star, to be special.” 

When Victor left, Rodriguez’s older siblings and his mother banded together to keep the family  afloat. Rodriguez spent hours at the Boys & Girls Club after school while his mother worked to  provide for the family. Rodriguez said he initially assumed his father would return to the family,  

but when it became clear that wasn’t the case, he plowed even deeper into sports to find the  structure and discipline he was craving. Victor only saw him play in the big leagues one time, in  Minnesota in 2000.  

“It was difficult, but he responded well because of the discipline and help I received from his  older siblings and his grandmother,” Lourdes said. “With them it helped a lot and made the  transition a lot easier.”  

By 1996, the year after Rodriguez’s mother threatened to change the locks on him if he quit, he  was a star for the Mariners, batting .358 with 36 home runs and finishing second in the AL MVP  voting. He would go on to win three MVPs, one with Texas and two with the Yankees, and  become one of the biggest stars of his generation. He also became a hugely controversial figure  after becoming embroiled in a performance-enhancing drug scandal and was suspended for the  entire 2014 season.  

Seeing her son at the center of such controversy wasn’t easy for Lourdes, but she did not make it  easy on him, either.  

“The biggest thing I told him was to keep his faith and trust God through all the ups and downs,”  she said. “You learn from your mistakes, and the most important thing when you make a mistake,  you learn from it.”  

“It was more tough love,” Rodriguez said. “She appreciated once I took accountability for  everything, respected that and told me time to grow up. Enough is enough. She was not happy. If  I was looking for soft comfort, she was not the landing spot.”  

Since his playing days ended, Rodriguez has spent considerable energy trying to repair the  damage he did when he was suspended and initially tried to dodge blame. He has spoken bluntly  and publicly about the mistakes he made and has turned his focus to being a father to his two  daughters, Natasha and Ella Rodriguez, and to building a new business empire based on real  estate holdings and investments. He repaired his relationship with his ex-wife, Cynthia Scurtis,  who remarried. Rodriguez, Scurtis and her partner, Angel Nicolas, coparent Natasha and Ella,  and the entire crew attended Game 1 of the playoff series in Memphis.  

“I’m glad he learned from his mistakes and kept pushing forward,” Lourdes said.  

“My mom is a very tough lady who has had to fight for everything she’s gotten, for her and her  family,” Rodriguez said. “To raise three kids on her own with the limited resources that she had  is something that — I’ve never accomplished anything in my life that’s near that high.” 

When Lore and Rodriguez inked their deal with Glen Taylor to become the owners-in-waiting of  the Wolves and Lynx, their working-class mothers both had similar reactions.  

“I’m like, ‘What? Really? Can you afford it?'” Chiara said. “It’s something he’s always wanted  to do. That’s one of the ultimate things he ever wanted to do.”  

“I think my mom’s been around me long enough that I think she’s numb by now,” Rodriguez  said. “If I tell her I’m going to go buy the moon, she’ll probably say, ‘Oh yeah, what’s the down  payment?’ She’s a believer but at first shakes her head.”  

Neither mother has been to Minnesota for a game yet, but both plan on coming next season. As  outsiders, their sons were met with skepticism when they first announced their intention to buy  the Timberwolves and Lynx, with wary Minnesotans concerned about the future of their teams.  Some of that apprehension may not subside until a new arena is built and the teams are tied to  

the Twin Cities for decades to come, but the Wolves’ success and the enthusiasm both new  owners have shown has helped to open some doors for them.  

Lore ingratiated himself to the fan base, celebrating wins by taking his shoes off at the end of  games and interacting with fans on social media. Rodriguez has extolled the virtues of Minnesota and shown a little bit of humility along the way.  

“I’m so proud to be Marc’s partner,” Rodriguez said. “He’s become one of my best friends and  much more like a brother.”  

Their work is never done, but both Lourdes and Chiara feel as if they can sit back and enjoy  things now. They are the doting grandparents these days and could never have imagined back in  the day that their sons would be flying them around the world on private jets and joining the  ownership group of a professional basketball team.  

“I’m ecstatic that he’s accomplished all he has in his short life. But I also sometimes feel like I’m  in a fairy tale,” Chiara said. “I have to sometimes pinch myself and say, ‘Is this really real?’ You  read about it or see it on TV, a success story like this. I didn’t come from any of that, so the goal  was really new. I’m just very, very happy for him. I just have to say that I’m very blessed that  he’s in my life.”

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Alex Rodriguez, Chairman & CEO, A-Rod Corp discusses how modern athletes navigate opportunities off the field with Bloomberg’s Jason Kelly at the Bloomberg Power Players Miami event. (Source: Bloomberg)

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PLANTATION, Fla., April 29, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- UFC GYM®, the first major brand extension of UFC®, today announced that the company will continue its expansion in South Florida with the opening of its 40,000-square-foot UFC FIT® Plantation facility, located at 333 N. University Drive. Owned by former Major League Baseball superstar Alex Rodriguez, the premier fitness facility will be the second UFC FIT location in the state to provide functional fitness, UFC-inspired conditioning classes and access to world class facilities. The club will open for workouts on Saturday, April 30.

"We're proud to continue our relationship with Alex, a world-class athlete and successful entrepreneur who shares a similar vision as us when it comes to providing a complete and holistic approach to balanced fitness," said Adam Sedlack, CEO of UFC GYM. "We've created an amazing community of members and team members through our UFC GYM locations in Florida, and we are thrilled to bring our dynamic mix of premium fitness experiences to the residents of Plantation and the surrounding areas."

Rodriguez, a three-time MLB American League MVP, fourteen-time All-Star, 2009 World Series Champion and Chief Executive Officer of A-Rod Corp., previously secured developmental rights for UFC GYM and UFC FIT locations throughout Miami-Dade County. The new Plantation location will be his fourth club, following the success of the 24,000-square-foot Midtown and 31,000-square-foot Kendall UFC GYM locations in Miami, as well as his first 40,000-square-foot UFC FIT location in Pembroke Pines. UFC GYM and Rodriguez are in the process of developing an additional UFC FIT location in the market, to be announced at a later date.

"We have built an amazing community through our UFC FIT and UFC GYM locations in South Florida, including members and staff, who share a passion for fitness. I can't wait to bring UFC FIT to Plantation, Floria and provide the community with an unparalleled fitness experience and training program that I believe in," said Rodriguez.

The new multi-million-dollar facility will offer a group fitness studio, a weight room with free weights and Olympic lift platforms, robust cardio equipment, bag room, full-service locker room, towel service and more. UFC FIT Plantation is equipped with state-of-the-art mechanical ventilation systems, which will circulate fresh air using ducts and fans, ensuring the movement of fresh air throughout the club.

To further support a healthy lifestyle, the location will feature an Arm Bar Cafe and Recovery area, providing pre- and post-workout treatments. Members will benefit from pre- and post-workout Recovery services including cryotherapy, red light therapy and more. Options to access Recovery services will be available to gym members and non-members.

Members will have access to a one-stop shop for any and all fitness needs, including a schedule of dynamic studio-quality group fitness classes such as cycle, Les Mills BodyPump™, HIIT, Zumba and MMA-inspired group fitness classes such as Boxing and Kickboxing Conditioning. Youth programming for kids ages six and older, as well as a childcare service, will be offered to support fitness for the whole family.

UFC FIT will be open from 5 a.m. to 11 pm. Monday through Friday and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. More information about exclusive member presale rates is available at www.ufcfit.com/locations/plantation and by calling (754) 231-2955.

The rapidly expanding fitness franchise welcomes interested candidates to grow alongside the brand in key markets such as California, Texas, New York, Florida, Oregon, Washington and Hawaii. For franchising information, visit ufcgymfranchise.com or contact franchiseinfo@ufcgym.com.

ABOUT UFC GYM®
UFC GYM® is the first major brand extension of UFC®, the world's premier MMA organization, created in alliance with New Evolution Ventures™ (NeV), developers of many of the world's most successful fitness brands. As the first to unite the benefits of MMA with fitness, the brand is not what you expect, and more than you can imagine. UFC GYM's TRAIN DIFFERENT® approach provides members with the ultimate fitness experience and programming that secures results for all ages and training levels. With 160 locations opened and 1,000 additional locations currently in development globally, UFC GYM has revolutionized the fitness industry and positively impacted countless lives worldwide. In addition to its corporate-owned clubs, UFC GYM offers the opportunity to own and operate a franchise domestically and internationally through the UFC GYM® or UFC FIT® model. For franchise information, contact franchiseinfo@ufcgym.com or visit UFCGYMfranchise.com. For more information, please visit UFCGYM.com or UFCFIT.com. Follow UFC GYM on Instagram and Twitter @UFCGYM, Facebook.com/UFCGYM, and youtube.com/UFCGYM.

About UFC®
UFC® is the world's premier mixed martial arts organization (MMA), with more than 688 million fans and 198 million social media followers. The organization produces more than 40 live events annually in some of the most prestigious arenas around the world, while broadcasting to nearly 900 million TV households across more than 170 countries. UFC's athlete roster features the world's best MMA athletes representing more than 75 countries. The organization's digital offerings include UFC FIGHT PASS®, one of the world's leading streaming services for combat sports. UFC is owned by global entertainment, sports and content company Endeavor, and is headquartered in Las Vegas, Nevada. For more information, visit UFC.com and follow UFC at Facebook.com/UFC, Twitter, Snapchat, Instagram and TikTok: @UFC.

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See ya … on Sunday nights.

ESPN is doing what it can to catch lightning in a bottle twice, this time, shifting from the popular, overnight sensation "ManningCast" to the "KayRod" broadcast on "Sunday Night Baseball" this season.

All-time great baseball player-turned analyst Alex Rodriguez and longtime voice of the New York Yankees and radio host Michael Kay are teaming up for alternative broadcasts this summer, with a short slate of games

While there's some question as to what the broadcast will have to offer — and how people will react to more Alex Rodriguez — ESPN is swinging for the fences on a new alternate broadcast once again.

Here's what you need to know:

Why Alex Rodriguez and Michael Kay are on 'Sunday Night Baseball'

Playing off of the ever-popular "ManningCast," ESPN is leveraging the relationship between former Yankee and three-time AL MVP Alex Rodriguez with long-time Yankees broadcaster Michael Kay.

While details surrounding the broadcast are scarce, the idea sounds similar to the "Manningcast," but with

"Sometimes the game became secondary with the Manningcast," Kay said on a press call. "They were brilliant, and in big moments they were locked in. I think we’ll be locked in, as well.

"But the way Alex and I see this, I don’t want to speak for Alex, is to sit there as if we were sitting in the stands and we are on TV and we’re just talking about the game with a couple of friends that sit down next to us."

Per ESPN's release:

The KayRod Cast will include lively discussion and analysis, demos from Rodriguez, special guests connected to the game, customized graphics, social media and audience integration and stories from Rodriguez’s historic playing career.

A-Rod and Kay have a long-standing friendship — Rodriguez says that has endured for over a quarter-century — which ESPN hopes will come to the forefront on the broadcasts.

How to watch KayRod broadcast

• Dates: See schedule here.
• Channel: ESPN 2

The KayRod Cast is going to air exclusively on ESPN2 during select games throughout the 2022 MLB season. The broadcast will only air on ESPN2.

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No, the KayRod Cast WILL NOT broadcast every Sunday.

Some will take place from the ESPN studios in Manhattan, while other broadcasts will take place remotely.

Carta CEO Henry Ward joins Emily Chang to discuss how his company is teaming up with Serena Williams, Kerry Washington, Alex Rodriguez, Tan France, Steve Nash and Ashley Graham to raise awareness about the power of having equity and to offer a free curriculum to help anyone get started. (Source: Bloomberg)

Watch the video here.

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Alex Rodriguez, founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp, an investment firm, shared key leadership insights from his baseball and business careers in my latest "Art of Leading" interview. Subscribe here to receive future interviews.

Q. What are the leadership muscles from your sports career that have translated well to running a business?

A. Endurance is a big one. Baseball is a marathon, not a sprint. We played 162 games in a season, so the fact that you have to show up every day is a lot like business. Some days are good, some are not so good, and it’s impossible to be at 10 out of 10 on the energy scale every day.

Q. What are the keys to successful leadership for you?

A. If you pick the right talent, you’re halfway there. The other part is that you have to sincerely cheerlead and be a fan of your teammates to help them win. If you don’t have that, people will see right through that and perceive you as more of a self-serving leader.

You have to be able to mentor and bring people along for the ride. And that ride is never a straight line. There are going to be ups and downs. But if you have the right talent, then you’re going to be able to roll and pivot and fight through some difficult moments. I’ve learned the power of silence and listening. Pat Riley is one of my great friends and mentors. He talked to me early on about how a lot of coaches never stop talking. You lose the weight of your words when you do that. You have to be selective, prepared and clear about your message. A lot of leaders are great talkers but not-so-great listeners, and talented people have a lot to say if you give them space.

Q. Who were important influences that informed your leadership style today?

A. I’ve had some life-changing mentors, starting with my mother, and people like Eddie Rodriguez, who’s been coaching at the Boys and Girls Club for over 40 years. He’s had over 50 Major League Baseball players come through his program.

But I’ve also had mentors who had specific approaches or attributes that I wanted to emulate. I might have fundamentally disagreed with 80 percent of the way they do things, but there was one important thing that I could learn from them. Sometimes people are so quick in our society to just cancel someone because they have one flaw. What they forget is that there are things they may do better than anyone.

Q. Given all the challenges that leaders face today, the ability to compartmentalize is an important skill — something that you had to master in your baseball career. Can you share your tips on how to do that well?

A. Some people are just genetically better at it than others, but I do think you can work on it and improve. It’s really about poise and keeping your eye on the ball, and the goals you’ve set for yourself.  

It’s never a straight road. Tough losses are going to come, unexpected errors are going to come, but in the long term, if you practice good character, good habits, and you stay focused and humble, you’re going to have way more wins than losses.

In baseball, you’re not going to win all 162 games in a season. It’s impossible. It’s never been done. But if you keep a cool head and you have great fundamentals and a fantastic attitude with a good work ethic, then you’re probably going to win 100 and lose 62, and that makes you a first-place team.

Q. How do you interview job candidates?

A. The only people I hire now are part of my senior team, and it would be a lot more than one interview. It would probably be five to seven meetings. I want to take you to a social gathering and maybe to a ball game.

I want to know as much I can about you, and to make sure that our values and our missions are aligned. I would also take you to a couple restaurants to see how you treat the waitress or waiter. My mother was a waitress, and it’s really important to me that everyone is treated with respect. I also want to find out if you’re a missionary or a mercenary. I want someone who is mission-driven — someone who wants to do well but also believes that it’s important to do good in the world. It’s important that it’s not just about ROI, and that it’s about doing work that fits your vision and your values. A mercenary is someone who would do anything at all cost to get the absolute last dollar. That’s someone we don’t want working for this organization.

Q. What other career and life advice would you give to MBA students in their 20s?

A. From age 20 to 30, you should look at jobs as an extension of the MBA. The last thing you should worry about is how much you’re being paid. What matters is who you work for. Do they believe in you? Can they add value to your career? Will they bring you into meetings where you can learn from senior leaders?

It’s about getting your at-bats, rather just sitting on the bench, even if you’re making more money. You have to seek out the right team and the right culture. Even if you can make more money doing another job, the opportunity to learn from leaders like Bill Belichick, Joe Torre and Pat Riley will be priceless.

I also find that people can be in too much of a hurry. The younger generation today wants results first. I love the ambition, but at the same time, there has to be kind of a blue-collar approach of putting one step in front of the other and getting experience.

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The controversial baseball star is ready to redeem himself in business as an investor, real estate mogul and team-owner

Alex Rodriguez’s goals in business started as soon as he turned pro. Now on the other side of one of the most successful—and controversial—careers in baseball history, his ambitions are accelerating

“I came to a place of accountability,” Rodriguez said in an interview. “I had good moments and I had very tough moments [in baseball], but I have a clean slate when it comes to being a father, to being a partner, to being a business man, to being a friend. So I draw incredible motivation from that.”

During a series of wide-ranging interviews in Miami for the Quick take Originals series “Athlete|Empire,” the 46-year-old Rodriguez laid out a vision for a network of businesses under his A-Rod Corp. umbrella that builds on his success in real estate dating back two decades and now includes private equity and venture investments, a SPAC and an ownership stake in two professional basketball teams.

The baseball world continues to weigh Rodriguez’s achievements against his sins. The former Mariner, Ranger and Yankee is newly eligible for the Hall ofFame, and it remains to be seen if his world-class stats and subsequent work as a CEO, broadcaster and investor draw attention away from the troubling parts of his career on the field.

From MLB to the NBA

His partner in purchasing the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and theWNBA’s Lynx is Jet.com founder and Walmart Inc.’s former head of ecommerce, Marc Lore. He and Rodriguez met initially in a failed bid to buy the New York Mets and have since collaborated on a number of projects, including a $400 million fund called VCP Ventures.

Rodriguez has assiduously courted advice from some of the world’s best known business leaders and investors; his Miami office features pictures of him with Warren Buffett and Bill Gates. He credits basketball star MagicJohnson—one of just a few former players who moved into team ownership—with writing a blueprint for building a business empire.

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Winning on Social Media

Beyond those associations, Rodriguez has become a mega-presence on social media: A video board steps from his desk tracks his followers and impressions. He has more followers on Instagram than the team he just bought (the Timberwolves), the last team he played for (the New YorkYankees), or any other baseball player, current or former.

Rodriguez said his interest in social media and communications evolved in the year he spent serving the longest suspension in baseball history, his punishment for using performance-enhancing drugs. During that time, he“had an opportunity to turn the lens inward and understand why I wasA Rod is Building a Business Empire After His Controversial MLB Career - Bloomberg 1/12/22, 3:22 PMhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-12-24/a-rod-is-building-a-business-empire-after-his-controversial-mlb-career Page 4 of 6making some of the good choices, the poor choices, the bad bad choices ,and understand the conversation, understand storytelling,” he said.

“We’ve really leaned into data, into social media, the digital conversation and commerce,” Rodriguez said, noting that his teenage daughters were responsible for turning him on to Snap Inc., where he became an early investor. “We’ve invested a great deal into really understanding where we sit as a company, as a person, as a family.”

That analysis has helped drive investments in consumer companies likeHims & Hers, Gopuff and Acorns. All told, A-Rod's venture arm has backed more than 60 companies since 2011, and the portfolio has average annual unrealized gains of 2.2 times during the past three years, the company said.

“Establishing a filter has been really important,” said Lisa Peier, A-Rod's chief investment officer. “We think about Alex almost like a piece of land in real estate. You think about the highest and best use of the asset, and what would make sense in terms of specific verticals, types of deals, types of founders in companies where we can bring the most to the table.”

Earlier this month, Apollo Global Management’s Athene Holding Ltd. agreed to buy Petros Pace Finance for an undisclosed amount. A-Rod invested $10million in the commercial property loan originator in 2018.

That deal reflected Rodriguez's ongoing interest in real estate, and his ambitions there are growing.

Within sight of the first duplex he bought two decades ago in downtownMiami is one of his biggest projects to date: a 30-story residential tower called Grand Station. And in the booming South Florida property market and beyond, Rodriguez is snapping up single-family homes to renovate and rent.

“We think we’re still in the early innings of single family,” Rodriguez said.“And once we find something, then—and this I learned from Warren Buffett—be disciplined. But when you find your pitch, don’t go for a single or a double, go big.”

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Launching a SPAC

His SPAC, Slam Corp., has yet to announce a target. Talks with Panini SpA ended earlier this year after the collectibles company lost exclusive licenses related to the NBA and the NFL, Bloomberg News reported in September.

Rodriguez said being a basketball-team owner may achieve one of his overarching goals: being cool in the eyes of his daughters and creating a business they might someday be a part of. After a recent TimberwolvesA Rod is Building a Business Empire After His Controversial MLB Career - Bloomberg 1/12/22, 3:22 PMhttps://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2021-12-24/a-rod-is-building-a-business-empire-after-his-controversial-mlb-career Page 6 of 6game against the Philadelphia 76ers, his younger daughter, Ella, caught him off guard.

“She said, ‘Dad, I really like this basketball thing. Maybe one day I’ll get to run the business,’” Rodriguez said. “And I was like, ‘Oh my God, that’s the greatest thing I’ve ever heard.’”

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He walked into the ballpark, down the stadium stairs, dressed for the occasion in a crisp, new,  gray pinstripe suit with a vest and tie that he picked out when he first got to town for the Father’s  Day weekend series. He found his seat just above the visiting team’s dugout, unfolded the royal  blue plastic with his hands and sat down.  

Victor Rodriguez was a man of few words. But his future daughter-in-law was sitting by his side,  her hand cradled in his, and the shine in his eyes said everything that Victor could not. He had  never been there to see his son play, much to his shame. But he was here now. The emotion from  all that missed time rushing in.  

“The way he held my hand with such appreciation,” said Cynthia Scurtis, who arranged this  monumental visit, “you could feel the love and appreciation pouring out of him.”  

Rickey Henderson started the game with a single. As Mike Cameron strode to the batter’s box,  the moment Victor had been waiting for was upon him. Stepping out of the dugout, and into the  on-deck circle, was the Seattle Mariners’ 24-year-old shortstop. Alex Rodriguez was in the  middle of his fifth full big league season back in 2000, a few weeks away from his fourth All Star appearance and well on his way to his third consecutive season of 40-plus home runs.  

There he was, standing on deck. Victor’s son. The one he abandoned at 9 years old, along with  Victor’s wife, Lourdes, and two other children. He was not there while Alex developed into one  of the nation’s top high school athletes and worked his way to becoming the No. 1 pick in the  1993 MLB draft. Wasn’t there to watch him rocket through the minor leagues and didn’t make it  to his professional debut in 1994, or to any of the games when he became an everyday player and  one of baseball’s brightest stars in 1996. What mattered now, though, was that after 16 years of  estrangement he was here, watching his son play in the big leagues for the first time.  

Down in the on-deck circle, Alex tried to remain focused on facing left-hander Mark Redman.  The ballpark had always been his sanctuary. The blue sky over his head, the fresh air in his lungs,  the crunch of the dirt under his spikes — they provided comfort while those little red stitches on  the baseball gave him something tangible on which to concentrate. When he stepped on that  diamond he was too great to be ignored, to be left behind by anyone.  

But this wasn’t just any ballpark. This was the Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, home to the  Minnesota Twins before shuttering in 2009, and covered by a dingy, white Teflon roof that kept 

the elements out, but all the smells and sounds and tension inside. In here, there was nowhere for  the pain and the angst to go. It just hovered in the air.  

“You could see people’s faces pretty good,” Alex Rodriguez said. “I certainly saw him. I was  very, very nervous and I didn’t want to look up.”  

Twenty-one years later, Minnesota figures prominently in Rodriguez’s life again.  

When the The Athletic first broke the news in April that Rodriguez and friend Marc Lore had  reached agreement to become the eventual successors to Glen Taylor as owner of the Minnesota  Timberwolves and Lynx, there was a collective reaction that permeated through the Twin Cities.  

Huh? 

What would Alex Rodriguez, the three-time MLB MVP who had dated J-Lo, lives in Miami and  is one of the most recognizable and polarizing people in professional sports, want to do with an  unsuccessful basketball team in Minnesota? And yeah, it could be cool to have a former star  athlete take over for Taylor, a small-town owner who presided over one of the least successful  franchises in pro sports, but did it have to be A-Rod? Public Enemy No. 1 on a Yankees team that  tormented the Twins in the playoffs year after year, and a guy who sullied his career by getting a  performance-enhancing drug suspension?  

What did A-Rod want with the Timberwolves?  

Part of it was opportunity. There are a finite amount of sports franchises, and they rarely become  available because they appreciate in value so significantly over time. Rodriguez has spoken about  the Twin Cities’ corporate base and the belief that there is room to grow for a team that has  largely struggled over the last 30 years. But he also has said he always had an affinity for  Minnesota from his playing days, which made this more than a simple business transaction.  There was just something about the place that made him feel comfortable, and it wasn’t just the  success he had against the Twins.  

Sitting in the back of his mind with every trip here was that weekend series against the Twins  more than two decades ago, the first and only time his father ever watched him play in person.  Victor has since died, amplifying the significance of that occasion, of that stadium, of  Minneapolis. Buying the Timberwolves, in addition to the grand business opportunity and status  flex, is in some small way Alex owning a piece of that connection with Victor. In that sense,  Rodriguez being here strikes at the core of the human experience: a son and the approval of his  father.  

“He wanted his dad to be proud of him,” said Scurtis, who was married to Alex from 2002 to ’08  and was the driving force behind that reunion. “I think he wanted to give it the best he had to  offer. He wanted to really show him what he could do on the field. I think that it was like coming  full circle, the same thing you would do in a Little League game when your dad’s in the stands.”  

In some ways it drove him to the heights he reached as a player, and it also is a motivator as he  tries to reinvent himself in retirement. 

“Every time I think of Minnesota, I think of that moment,” Alex Rodriguez said. “It was maybe  the most important four days of my life from an emotional point of view to close a loop that had  been open and had been a big wound on me that I worked through a lot in therapy over the  years.”  

On July 27, 1975, Victor and Lourdes Rodriguez welcomed Alexander Emmanuel into a family  that also included a son, Joe, and daughter, Susy, from Lourdes’ previous marriage. The  Rodriguezes lived in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan when Alex was born,  and eventually relocated to their native Dominican Republic.  

Victor had played in the Dominican professional league in his younger days, and it was in this  baseball-obsessed country that Alex was introduced to the game.  

“To these kids in the Dominican Republic, baseball is everything,” Scurtis said. “The only way  they’re going to make it in life is through baseball. That is what they’re taught.”  

They moved back to the United States in 1979 and settled in Miami, but Victor grew restless  there. When Alex was in fourth grade, Victor left the family to move back to New York. Baseball  helped fill the void for Alex.  

“I always thought that he would go and come back,” Alex said. “I was wrong. You learn to  survive. Thankfully for me I had a strong mother and two siblings, my brother and sister both  older, that played assistant parents.”  

Lourdes worked two jobs to provide for the family and Alex spent the bulk of his time at the  Boys & Girls Club, where he did his school work and honed his baseball, football and basketball  skills. He never heard from his father through high school, but did receive a call from him on the  day he was drafted by Seattle in 1993. Alex said he wasn’t ready to repair the relationship at that  point, and there was an occasional foray here and there over the next several years that never  came to fruition.  

By the time 2000 came around, the Mariners were emerging as a threat in the American League,  and Alex Rodriguez was at the center of it all. He had spent the previous 15 years focused solely  on becoming a star and he had arrived in a major way. With his baseball legs underneath him and  Alex’s career firmly established, Cynthia started to nudge him toward a reunion with his father.  

“I felt there was an emotional need for him to just see who his father was, good or bad,” Scurtis  said. “To at least have that opportunity to make a connection with him again.”  

Somewhat to her surprise, Alex said he was ready.  

“I also knew it was important, but I didn’t have the courage to take that on in my early days of  my career because I thought it may be disruptive to what I was trying to accomplish,” he said. 

Alex and Cynthia talked about finding the right place for it to happen. Alex didn’t want it to be at  home in Seattle, where so many familiar faces would be around. They didn’t want one of the big  markets, like New York, where the media spotlight would be brighter.  

Rodriguez had always been fond of playing in Minnesota. He liked hitting in the Metrodome and  loved the friendly vibe in the city in the summer. It was small enough that they could avoid a big  media presence, but large enough that they could enjoy a great meal and a walk around the city  before games.  

With the location picked, they looked at the schedule and found the series with the Twins on  Father’s Day weekend. Cynthia tracked down Victor through one of Alex’s cousins, and plans  were put into motion.  

Alex and Cynthia stayed in a hotel away from the team for privacy. They found a place  downtown with two separate rooms on opposite sides with a suite in between them, emblematic  of Alex’s cautiousness.  

“I wanted to build guard rails so if things didn’t go well, I could still focus on my game and the  series,” he said. “That year we went to the postseason, so every game was very important.”  

(Bruce Kluckhohn / Getty Images)  

The Twins had not yet come out of a long malaise, so the crowds were light the whole way  through, an ideal situation for such a heavy moment. The announced attendance for Game 1 of  the series was 9,145, so it was easy for Alex to spot Cynthia and his father sitting just above the  dugout.  

“I can’t describe how honored I was to be there,” Victor told The New York Post in 2004.  

For someone who had spent so much of his life with a singular focus on baseball, Alex now  found his mind occupied by more than what the pitcher was going to throw on a 2-1 count.  

“I was feeling excited, sad and a little angry,” Alex said. “I wanted to play really, really well  because I wanted to show off and tell him this is what you missed out on for all these years, from  10 to 24.”  

The Mariners took three of four from the Twins that weekend, and Rodriguez went 8 for 17  (.529) with two home runs, a double and six RBIs. He homered in the first game and the finale,  fitting bookends to an emotional weekend.  

As quiet as Victor was, Alex could feel him in the ballpark all weekend long, a sort of sensory  overload after so many years apart.  

“His presence was so overwhelming.” Alex said. “For 24 years he hasn’t been to four games and  now he’s at four games in four days. It was a lot mentally and emotionally.” 

Cynthia was struck by the closeness of the resemblance despite the physical and emotional  distance that was between them for so long. They both were meticulous dressers, both preferred  to observe the scene rather than dominate the conversation.  

“He walked in and it was like fast forward many years and it was like watching Alex walk into  the stadium,” she said. “There was no mistaking that was his father.”  

Despite the resentment that lingered for Alex, the two fell into an easy interaction. They ate  dinner together, Cynthia said, as if the two had shared meals every night for the previous 10  years. They laughed and shared stories. Alex called Victor “Papi” and tried to connect as best he  could after so much time apart.  

“It was the first time that I had seen a man in Alex’s presence that, to me, it was very clear what  the pecking order was. His father was the dominant male at the table,” Cynthia said. “Alex took a  second seat to him. I had never really seen that before and I just thought, Wow, what a different  story this could’ve been if they had met sooner.”  

When Alex and Victor left Minneapolis after that series, Cynthia maintained some contact over  the years, but Alex said that those four days were about all his heart could handle at that point.  The father and son did have sporadic interactions after that, but nothing substantial, he said.  

“I remember when the series was over and he went home and I moved on to the next city that I  had found closure in my heart,” Alex said. “That was an important milestone for me to get over.”  

“I felt that they both had missed out on a great opportunity,” Scurtis said. “Alex missed out on  having a father and his father missed out on having a son. I was just like, Wow, what a shame.”  

On so many levels. At the most basic and formative, Cynthia could see the hole that his father’s  absence had created in Alex, who was still on the rise in 2000, a wildly popular figure in Seattle  and the player many figured would carry Major League Baseball into the new millennium.  

He played another 13 seasons after that one, signed what was at the time the richest contract in  pro sports history, a $252 million deal with the Texas Rangers, won three MVPs, a World Series  with the Yankees and made 11 more trips to the All-Star game.  

He also admitted to using steroids at one point of his career, was suspended for an entire season  because of his role in the Biogenesis scandal and feuded with the Yankees to the point that he  morphed from baseball’s golden boy into a player whom so many loved to hate.  

While he was serving the longest suspension ever issued by Major League Baseball, in 2014,  Rodriguez said he looked inward and re-evaluated who he was and how he interacted with  people. He emerged from that time away determined to atone for his mistakes and reinvent  himself, with the Timberwolves ownership another big step in that ongoing process.  

“For the most part, the people that don’t know me well, they’re going to mainly lean in on my  tough days because that’s really what got a lot of the headlines, and I don’t blame them,”  Rodriguez said. “It’s really up to me to show them who I am today. But I do think that those who 

are close to me have seen a different person, someone who has gratitude, who has learned from  their mistakes, someone who really values relationships and reputation.”  

Dan Katz knows exactly why Rodriguez is viewed as a villain in segments of the sporting fan  base. Also known as “Barstool Big Cat,” Katz has built the “Pardon My Take” podcast he co hosts with “PFT Commenter” Eric Sollenberger into one of the most popular shows in the  country by tapping into the everyday fan mentality.  

He remembers seeing a social media post from Rodriguez after he retired from baseball and had  started A-Rod Corp, a real estate and investment company, and Katz’s immediate reaction was to  start penning a tongue-in-cheek cover letter to apply for an internship.  

“He was signing baseballs at 1 a.m. and his computer was unplugged and I was like this is a  company I want to to work for,” Katz said, his words drenched in sarcasm. “It started as a joke,  100 percent I was trolling.”  

Katz appointed himself as A-Rod Corp’s intern, referring to his new “job” on his podcast as a  lark. Eventually, mutual contacts connected Rodriguez and Katz, and they started a podcast of  their own called The Corp, interviewing Kobe Bryant, entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk, designer  Steve Madden and others about their pathways to success. When Katz first met Rodriguez, he  expected to see another self-absorbed former athlete who knew it all. What he found was  someone much different.  

“He’s someone who has been humbled and someone who has failed very publicly and come back  from that,” Katz said. “He has so many experiences that he can draw from that make him an  interesting guy.”  

Humble? Alex Rodriguez? This is a guy who was photographed in Details magazine kissing a  mirror. He would parade around Central Park with his shirt off and was even rumored to have a  painting of himself as a centaur hanging in his home (Rodriguez has insisted this is not true).  

But those who know him well say Rodriguez is a much different person in retirement than he  was in the clubhouse. They refer to it as A-Rod vs. Alex. A-Rod was the baseball player who  struggled with authenticity and turned people off with a contrived demeanor meant to portray a  serious athlete, but ended up coming off as disingenuous. Alex is the businessman, the one who  takes copious notes when he meets with mentors, dotes on his teenage daughters and laughs  when someone like Katz gives him a hard time.  

“When I think of other major, major athletes, there’s very few that would allow that to happen,  for an outsider to come in their world and take the piss out of it sometimes,” Katz said. “He’s a  fascinating guy. He has failed a lot and succeeded a lot. It’s interesting seeing all those ups and  downs and peaks and valleys.”  

Lore first got to know Rodriguez when he was looking for a partner to buy the New York Mets.  They quickly bonded over shared philosophies on running a business, but also connected on a 

deeper level. Lore’s father didn’t abandon the family like Victor did to Alex, but he wasn’t home  much and Lore said he was always yearning for more.  

“When you don’t get the love that you so desperately crave from your dad, there’s this part of  you that drives you because you think, well if I do more, if I’m better, then my dad will take  note,” Lore said. “There’s sort of this chasing love thing that drives you. He has that. I have it. I  can relate to it. It drives you in a way that others can’t compete with.”  

Rodriguez and Scurtis have rebuilt the bridge after their divorce, both heavily involved in raising  their daughters, Natasha and Ella. Scurtis sees a more introspective, genuine and emotionally  available person now that the pressures and scrutiny that came with playing in pinstripes are no  longer there.  

“I think when it came to his craft, he knew how to do that,” Scurtis said. “But when it came to  everything else, there were a lot of gaps that needed to be addressed. And he didn’t have the time  or the energy to address them because he just needed to play.  

“Now I think once he retired is really when he started to dig into all of that. It’s made a huge  difference.”  

Rodriguez said he sought therapy after he “lost my way.” The money, the fame, the status was all  intoxicating, and he said he tried to portray an image of a “robotic” competitor that wasn’t really  him. When baseball was taken away from him in 2014, he had reached a crossroads.  

“At that point, I had two choices, I could fold the tents and go away or I can take full  accountability, serve the suspension and from that day forward start doing things in the most  honorable way I could and learn from your mistakes,” he said. 

David Ortiz let out a hearty laugh when he was told that Rodriguez buying into the  Timberwolves with Lore wasn’t exactly met with open arms from Twins fans when it was  initially announced.  

Ortiz has known Rodriguez for decades. They came up in the Seattle organization a few years  apart, are close friends but were also fierce rivals when A-Rod was with the Yankees and Ortiz  starred for the Red Sox.  

“Good-looking guy, big guy, power hitter, everyone wanted a piece of him,” Ortiz said. “He  faced a lot of hate put toward him. He had to put up with a lot of crap. In my case, I just had to  hit. He had to put up with a lot of shit. It’s a lot, man. It’s a lot.”  

Once a fan’s mind is made up, it can be tough to turn it around. Ortiz spent six years with the  Twins at the start of his career, so he knows why some people in the Twin Cities are wary of  Rodriguez getting involved with their team.  

“A-Rod is a guy that people probably judge him because of all the mistakes that have happened  in the past,” Ortiz said. “So what, man? We ain’t perfect. We make mistakes. We’re human  beings and no one is perfect in this world. If I want to judge you for what you did wrong, I gotta  judge you for the good things that you also have.”  

Marc Lasry does not go back with Rodriguez as far as Ortiz does and never has been locked in a  playoff series against him. But the owner of the Milwaukee Bucks has been in the boardroom  with Rodriguez as an investor in Rodriguez’s real estate development business. The partnership  has led to long discussions between the two about life and work.  

“He’s like a kid,” Lasry said. “He’s always curious. He’s always trying to figure things out. He’s  always trying to learn. You’re always surprised at just how nice he is. I think that catches a lot of  people off guard, because that’s not your first impression.”  

Rodriguez has spent years trying to change that first impression, putting himself in the public eye  with his baseball announcer role, recurring appearances on ABC’s “Shark Tank” and an active  presence on social media to try to show the changes he has made. His high-profile relationship  with Jennifer Lopez — they started dating in 2017, made a joint bid to buy the Mets in 2020 and  announced that their engagement was off earlier this year — introduced him to a new  demographic of fans as well.  

“Pre-suspension, I looked at winning as big contracts and home runs, RBIs and conquering,”  Rodriguez said. “Post my suspension, I really focused more on being a good father, a good  friend, mentoring others and more in that vein versus win at all costs.”  

He has spoken to Lasry at length about starting as an NBA owner. The plan is for Rodriguez and  Lore to gradually amass more equity in the Timberwolves with a plan to take control at the end  of 2023. When Lasry, who lives in New York, purchased the Bucks with Wesley Edens in 2014,  the partners were met with palpable skepticism about their desires to keep the team in  Milwaukee. Eventually they built an arena to solidify the team’s future in Wisconsin, retained 

star Giannis Antetokounmpo with a super max contract extension before last season and then  won the NBA championship, the team’s first title since 1971.  

“I think in the Midwest people will give you the benefit of the doubt if they believe that you’re  actually trying,” Lasry said. “For us in Milwaukee, we spent a lot of time in the community and  were able to accomplish a trust factor there. I told Alex he’s got to spend a lot of time in the  community, he’s got to spend a lot of time with the team and hire people that he thinks are really  good.”  

Rodriguez and Lore have been prominent voices and presences in the franchise since joining  Taylor’s ownership group. They have been clear in their messaging that they want to stay in  Minnesota for the long haul, and the Timberwolves lease with Target Center that runs through  2035 adds some legal weight to their words. They have started to get involved with charitable  organizations to connect to the city and are rolling up their sleeves and meeting regularly with  personnel on the business and basketball sides to determine what needs to be changed, while  attending games at home and on the road.  

The league, in fact, has already come down on them for being too involved. The Timberwolves  were fined $250,000 for funding a team workout in Miami prior to training camp. Rodriguez  hosted the team at his home as part of the trip, something that team sources said was pushed by  former president of basketball operations Gersson Rosas, who assured everyone that the Wolves  were acting within league parameters. A painful lesson, but a lesson nonetheless.  

Rodriguez and Lore were also directly involved in the decision to fire Rosas a week before  training camp and are in the process of setting a new framework of core values that they plan to  use as guideposts for creating the environment they want to oversee.  

“The fact that we lost that (Mets) bid was best thing that could’ve happened to us,” Lore said. “I  really think this feels so right. The sport feels right, the city, the state, everything feels great.”  

The accountability that Rodriguez took for his past mistakes resonated with Glen Taylor when he  was first meeting with him to discuss joining the ownership group. Rodriguez made no excuses,  including the fact that his father abandoned him, for why he lost his way during his playing days.  

“I’m not looking for people to give me a break,” he said. “The last thing I am is a victim.”  

Rodriguez and Lore have sat courtside at Target Center several times this season. Rodriguez has  been greeted enthusiastically every time he has been on the big screen from a fan base desperate  to see a winner after watching just one playoff series since 2004. He is no longer running from  the mistakes he made, he is owning them.  

“I think the interesting thing about A-Rod with that is he’s tried it multiple ways,” Katz said. “He  tried the way that was not great, where he was lying. He tried the way where he was pushing  back on the idea that he’s had some issues. I think that he’s come out the other end being like, the  best way to deal with this is to be open about it.” 

Ultimately, two things will endear him to Minnesota fans: if he plays a role in turning a long suffering team into a contender and if he makes good on his early pledge to keep the  Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Lynx in Minnesota. He can talk until he is blue in the face, but  the actions are what will make an impact.  

“Alex’s outcome is better than it has ever been because he has matured, he has his feet on the  ground,” Ortiz said. “He’s got beautiful kids. He’s teaching them how to be good human beings.  Everybody around him, he just wants that person to be a better person. That’s the A-Rod that I  know. That’s the A-Rod that I focus on. And people should do exactly the same thing.”  

And if fans still aren’t buying it, Ortiz said they should consider the source.  

“All they need to think about is that this is the enemy talking,” Ortiz said, laughing. “I’m a Red  Sox. This is the enemy talking.”  

More than two decades after that fateful series at the Metrodome, the feeling of being under the  watchful eye of his father for the first time in his adult life hangs with Alex Rodriguez. It’s the  kind of feeling that can tie a person to a place. The kind of thing that makes owning the  Timberwolves and Lynx so much more than a business transaction.  

He can’t change every mind. He can’t win every heart. But he can start with two and go from  there.  

“I remember when my father left, I surely kind of went down on one knee and had a prayer,” he  said. “That prayer was something along the lines of ‘Dear God, if you ever give me the privilege  of being a father, I won’t let you down and I will be a committed, present father for my girls. I’ll  never leave their side.’ So far, so good.”  

(Illustration: John Bradford / The Athletic; Photo: Maddie Meyer / Getty Images.)

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Apollo’s Athene Buys Clean Energy Loan Firm Petros Pace Backed by Ex-Yankee A-Rod

Apollo Global Management’s Athene Holding Ltd. has agreed to buy Petros Pace Finance LLC, a firm that originates commercial property loans, which caught the attention and backing of former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez in 2018.

Details of the transaction weren’t disclosed. Management will stay on and retain a minority equity stake in the business, according to a statement provided to Bloomberg News.

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Founded in 2013 by Mansoor Ghori and Jim Stanislaus, Petros Pace provides capital support for commercial property assessed clean energy, better known as C-PACE. The tool is an initiative derived under the U.S. government’s efforts to improve buildings with more energy-efficient features. It allows borrowers to repay loans over time with voluntary tax assessments, and also transfers repayment obligations to subsequent property owners in the event of a sale.

Rodriguez, the former New York Yankees player turned financier, and his investment firm A-Rod Corp. led a $10 million equity investment in Petros Pace in 2018, according to a statement at the time. 

Petros Pace has originated more than $700 million in long-term, fixed-rate financing since 2016, the company said. In June, the firm closed the largest transaction of its kind on record -- $89 million -- and the first in New York City.

To date, this type of energy financing is active in 27 states and the District of Columbia. 

The deal with Apollo is “a significant advantage as we further expand into major metropolitan areas like New York City, Chicago and New Jersey,” Ghori and Stanislaus said in the statement.

Athene, the insurance and retirement savings company backed by private equity giant and alternative asset manager Apollo, expects Petros Pace’s growth to accelerate given the expanding market for its financing and regulatory climate mandates.

Petros Pace “is highly complementary to our portfolio of diversified origination platforms and positioned for significant growth as more property owners seek financing for clean energy projects,” said Jim Zelter, co-president at Apollo.

The deal is expected to close in the first quarter of 2022.

Apollo agreed to acquire Athene in March in an all-stock deal valued at $11 billion, according to a statement at the time. That transaction is expected to close in January.

Bernard George, Tornado co-founder and CEO, and Alex Rodriguez, A-Rod Corporation chairman and CEO, join ‘Closing Bell’ to explore Tornado’s business model. Rodriguez explains why he decided to invest, and George explains why he founded Tornado.

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New CFO bolsters leadership at A-Rod Corp, adding to the firm’s diverse team of professionals

MIAMI--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A-Rod Corp (AROD), the investment firm of entrepreneur and former MLB All-Star Alex Rodriguez, announced today the addition of David Becker as Chief Financial Officer. David joins A-Rod Corp from Inner Circle Sports, where he spent over a decade executing on M&A advisory, capital raising, valuation, and restructuring in the global sports industry. Most recently, David played a pivotal role in the $1.5 billion Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx transaction between Rodriguez, his business partner Marc Lore, and current owner, Glen Taylor.

“Walking away from that experience, I knew David would be a great fit at A-Rod Corp and I am thrilled to welcome him to the team as CFO.”

“We had the pleasure of working with David and the excellent Inner Circle team during our acquisition of the Timberwolves and the Lynx this summer. David’s strategic insights, work ethic, and depth of knowledge shined,” said Chairman and CEO, Alex Rodriguez. “Walking away from that experience, I knew David would be a great fit at A-Rod Corp and I am thrilled to welcome him to the team as CFO.”

As CFO, David will be responsible for overseeing financial planning and operations across the firm’s portfolio of investments in real estate, sports, technology, wellness, and media and entertainment.

“I am excited to join A-Rod Corp’s deep roster of creative minds and strategic leaders as the firm continues to grow,” said David. “I look forward to beginning this next chapter and working with the full team to unlock long-term value and growth opportunities with entrepreneurs and innovators around the world.”

Prior to spending 10 years at Inner Circle, David worked in investment banking coverage at J.P. Morgan as an Analyst and an Associate, covering companies in the financial institutions and real estate sectors. Outside of work, David currently sits on the Board of Trustees and the Finance/Audit Committee for the Family Health Centers at NYU Langone and on the Industry Advisory Board for the Business of Sports School. David earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Emory University, with a concentration in finance. He will be based in Miami.

About A-Rod Corp

A-Rod Corp’s diverse team of professionals supports a portfolio that includes real estate, venture, sports franchises, and various investment platforms across the consumer, media, tech, and sports industries. Chairman and CEO Alex Rodriguez applies the lessons he learned as an MLB champion (and MLB’s 4th all-time home run leader) to lead the A-Rod Corp team—and win in every business that the firm backs.

Contacts

Media Contact
Ashleigh Honig, A-Rod Corp
ahonig@arodcorp.com

Russell Sherman, Prosek Partners
pro-arod@prosek.com

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Former baseball star Alex Rodriguez is backing a startup that’s trying to develop a power plant run off of nuclear fusion -- a niche of the energy industry that’s increasingly capturing investors’ attention. 

Focused Energy, based in Germany, is raising $15 million in seed funding set to be announced Thursday. It’s led by venture capital firm Prime Movers Lab. In addition to Rodriguez, other participants include former Walmart Inc. executive Marc Lore and Tony Florence of New Enterprise Associates.

Startups around the world are stepping up efforts to harness fusion power, a much-hyped clean-energy source that’s touted as safe and virtually inexhaustible -- but one that also faces serious technological hurdles. More than $2 billion has flooded into fusion-related startups, according to the Fusion Industry Association trade group.

Related: Is the Nuclear Fusion Revolution Finally At Hand?

Rodriguez, meanwhile, is looking for opportunities as he transitions away from sports and into investment. So far, he has backed hotels, financial services and beer, among other industries. He has partnered with Lore on major deals, such as for the purchase of the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves.

“Part of what I look for in an investment is a company that has the ability to solve big challenges and demonstrate long-term growth potential,” Rodriguez said in a statement. 

Getting Ignition

The ex-Yankee began dabbling in the energy sector in 2018, putting money into Petros PACE Finance, which finances energy efficiency improvements for commercial buildings.

Focused Energy was formed in July in Darmstadt, Germany, by a group that included two physicists. It seeks to develop and sell inertial fusion energy, which uses laser beams to start a fusion reaction. It’s also starting operations in Austin, Texas.

The technology is still years away. Management’s goal is to have a working plant in the 2030s. They’ll use the funds on laser development, design, testing and analysis. The method the company is using, if successful, will create “a large surplus of clean, climate-friendly energy for commercial use,” according to the statement. 

“The long-term goal is energy production from fusion,” said Chief Executive Officer Thomas Forner. “The big milestone here is to get ignition.”

Alex Rodriguez is suiting back up into his New York Yankees uniform!

The former Major League Baseball star, who retired from the Yankees in 2016, stepped back into his signature sports gear for the "Field of Dreams" game in Dyersville, Iowa. The Yankees and Chicago White Sox faced off at a specially-constructed ballpark next to the 1989 Field of Dreams film set on Thursday at 7 p.m. ET/4 p.m. PT. The matchup marks the first MLB game ever played in the state of Iowa.

"Field of Dreams⚾️," Rodriguez, 46, captioned an Instagram video of himself in the cornfields. "Who has seen this movie?! Comment below your favorite moment."

Field of Dreams star Kevin Costner is also at the game, and spoke about seeing the dream of the movie's fictional field become a reality while talking to CBS This Morning early Thursday. Costner portrayed Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella in the film, who heard a voice in the cornfields telling him, "If you build it, he will come." Eventually, he builds a baseball field unlike any other.

"I think everybody is taken aback," Costner said. "Whenever you are a kid and see grass this nice, you know it should say 'keep off.' It's just a perfect field, and to see this thing, it really captured the hearts of America, this film, nobody saw it coming. I knew it was a great film and written beautifully but nobody saw this coming and to see what's happened here is fantastic."

"My two great friends who made giant movies, they didn't have to come make this. They could have done another blockbuster but instead they believed in this story," he recalled. "This thing has a heartbeat. That being said, this is a movie that could also have fallen right off the cliff and been incredibly goofy. It was just magical what happened."

Speaking to ET back in 2019, Costner revealed that starring in Field of Dreams "almost didn't happen."

"I remember the first time I first read it, I thought, 'Wow, this feels really special,'" he said, telling ET that he was slated to do a different movie, but a delay in production made room in his schedule. "That movie has struck a cord with people. You understand the power of movies when you see a movie like that become part of the vocabulary."

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A 90-year-old beachfront hotel in Miami Beach recently traded for an undisclosed amount.

Miami-based CGI Merchant Group purchased the Celino South Beach hotel at 640 Ocean Drive, which will reopen this fall under the Curio Collection by Hilton. The purchase marks CGI Merchant Group's first major acquisition in South Florida using its newly created $650 million hospitality investment fund.

The fund made waves when it launched in December with the announcement that former baseball star and current ESPN commentator Alex Rodriguez joined as an investor.

The Celino South Beach hotel, built in 1930, has 132 guest rooms, including 26 suites. The property is comprised of four buildings, including the historic Park Central Hotel, Heathcote Apartments and the Imperial Hotel.

All hotels purchased under CGI Merchant Group's hospitality fund will become Hilton-branded hotels, the company announced.

Besides this new acquisition, CGI also owns the Gabriel Miami, Curio Collection by Hilton hotel in downtown Miami. The hotel reopened this summer.

"This is a critical step in our mission to breathe new conscious energy into the hospitality space across the vibrant Florida market and beyond," said CGI Merchant Group CEO and founder Raoul Thomas, who leads the fund.

Celino South Beach was previously owned by Park Central Partners LLC, an LLC led by Ricardo Tabet, CEO of Optimum Development USA, according to county records. Park Central Partners purchased the 26,000-square-foot lot for $34.1 million in 2013.

According to CGI Merchant Group, the company's hospitality fund will debut a new hotel brand later this year.

After a lull, investors are buying more hotel properties in South Florida. The biggest hotel sale of the year so far remains the purchase of the Margaritaville Hollywood Beach Resort for $270 million in June.

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Jon Krawczynski Aug 5, 2021

Seated next to each other in a Springfield, Mass., auditorium in May, Alex Rodriguez and Marc Lore found themselves surrounded by NBA legends as they listened intently to Kevin Garnett give his Hall of Fame induction speech on the stage in front of them.

Just two days prior, Lore and Rodriguez signed documents setting up a succession plan with Glen Taylor that will culminate in the two friends from New York eventually becoming majority owners of the Minnesota Timberwolves and Lynx. It had been a whirlwind negotiation, starting with a text message in March that opened the door, a pair of face-to-face meetings with Taylor in April to hammer out the deal and some final negotiations in May that locked down a $1.5 billion transaction in 45 dizzying days.

Now here they were, listening to the Timberwolves icon thank former executive Kevin McHale, the late Flip Saunders, some of his favorite teammates and pledge to rebuild the city of Minneapolis. It dawned on them right then and there: they now were representing a team that had become synonymous with KG, even if that relationship is strained now, and were preparing to be stewards of the same city that Garnett still holds close to his heart to this day.

“Kevin Garnett was giving this wonderful speech and we looked at each other and said, ‘Can you believe this?’ We’re two kids from New York who started at the bottom and now we’re part of this group,” Rodriguez told The Athletic.

“We both felt it at the same time,” Lore said. “It really hit us both. We looked at each other and we both knew what each one was thinking. We’re here. We’re owners. It’s a childhood dream.”

They had spoken with NBA Commissioner Adam Silver earlier in the evening, an unofficial welcome for a pair that had not yet received approval from the league’s board of governors (that came in July). During that evening, Lore wasn’t the entrepreneur who has built and sold businesses for millions, and sometimes billions, of dollars and has talked about building a “city of the future” with a reformed version of capitalism. Rodriguez wasn’t the ex-Yankee who hit homers and stirred controversy during his playing days, was engaged to Jennifer Lopez and has reinvented himself as a businessman and broadcaster in retirement. They were just two giddy friends taking selfies and preparing to join an NBA franchise looking for a jolt.

“Adam Silver came over and was very generous,” Rodriguez said. “We took a picture and were sending it to our moms and to our kids. That moment for me was like, ‘Oh my God, this thing is fucking happening.”

On its face, the marriage of a Minnesota basketball team run by one of the few legacy owners left in the NBA with a big-thinking tech mogul and a polarizing ex-baseball star doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. But Taylor believes he has found the two partners for which he has long been searching — young, energetic and competitive — with more in common than meets the eye.

“You just felt when you shook their hands that you had a deal. Sometimes when you shake hands with people, I wonder if they’re going to come through,” Taylor said. “But I was really confident. How they do business is so similar to how I do business.”

While Timberwolves and Lynx fans bite their nails about the future of the teams in the Twin Cities after two outsiders have positioned themselves to take over, Lore and Rodriguez say that one of the biggest things they share in common with Taylor is a belief in the Minneapolis market.

“We can’t wait to immerse ourselves in the community. We’re both looking to get a place there. We’re going to spend a lot of time in Minnesota,” Lore said. “We’re going to get to know the people, the fans, the business community. It’s a great town. Couldn’t be more excited.”

Rodriguez called the Twin Cities, the 13th-largest media market in the NBA, “a huge asset” in their eyes as they looked at the pros and cons of buying the Wolves and Lynx.

“Marc and I love the town. Long term, our vision is Minnesota all the way,” Rodriguez said. “We love it. We think there’s tremendous upside. We think it’s a great corporate town. We think there’s great social opportunities to bring people together.”

Rodriguez called Minneapolis a favorite city of his to visit during his baseball days, but his ties don’t end there. He was an investor in the Chambers hotel downtown for a while and said he has invested in “a few thousand” apartment units in the area over the last two decades. Lore has connections from his business dealings as well.

Even if Lore and Rodriguez did want to move the team, they would be powerless to do so for at least another two years. They have invested their first $250 million and will have two more call options over the next two years to increase their holdings. Until then, Taylor is still calling the shots. But Rodriguez and Lore will have significant influence in the direction of the franchise even before they own a majority of the team, and they say that Minnesota is where they want to be.

“I think it’s one of the most underrated cities in the country,” Rodriguez said. “The summers, the lakes, we were just there for the Super Bowl a few years ago. I’m really excited. If this was somewhere else, I don’t think Marc and I would’ve done the deal. We certainly wouldn’t have been as excited.”

Taylor sees that as partial validation for the statements he has made throughout the process about his confidence the Timberwolves would be staying in Minnesota. But as much as Taylor trusts Lore and Rodriguez, words can only go so far. Taylor also believes that the NBA is fully committed to the Twin Cities market and would prefer expansion to Seattle and elsewhere over the Timberwolves relocating and breaking a Target Center lease that runs through 2035.

For Taylor, the partnership with Lore and Rodriguez was the culmination of a years-long search for someone to take over the franchise that he saved from moving in 1994. There were fits and starts along the way with several other potential buyers, but Lore and Rodriguez broke through and sealed a deal. When they signed the papers at Taylor’s winter home in Naples, Fla., on April 10, the longtime owner said he just had a feeling that his search was finally over.

“I felt really good,” Taylor said. “Everything up to that point was like, ‘I think these guys are really going to do it. I hope that they can.'”

They could, and they did.

Timberwolves CEO Ethan Casson’s phone buzzed on March 27, and he reached into his pocket to find a text message from Reed Bergman, the president and managing partner at VaynerTalent, a part of serial entrepreneur Gary Vaynerchuk’s media empire. Bergman and Casson had crossed paths over the years, most recently on Feb. 25, 2020 at a VaynerMedia event at the Hewing Hotel in downtown Minneapolis.

“Is the team still for sale?” the text read. “If it’s not done yet, I have an intriguing idea I want to run by you.”

Bergman is friends with Rodriguez and Lore, who had teamed up with Lopez last summer in an attempt to buy the New York Mets. Bergman told Casson that he thought Rodriguez and Lore would be a great fit in Minnesota and that the NBA was better suited to their sensibilities. Taylor was open to the discussion and, two days later, Casson was on a Zoom call with Rodriguez and Lore, who asked for a sober analysis of the Timberwolves, a team with one playoff appearance since 2004.

There was no sugarcoating. While the Lynx were the class of the WNBA, the Timberwolves had a lot of work to do. Season ticket numbers were dwindling amid the lack of success and the pandemic. Television ratings were down and corporate sponsorships were getting harder to come by as well in a saturated sports market. The arena leaves plenty to be desired as well. As he laid out the challenges, Casson said he noticed the interest from Lore and Rodriguez growing.

“I love it,” Rodriguez kept saying. “I love it.”

Other groups who have explored buying the team expressed reservations when they peeked behind the curtain. Lore and Rodriguez have teamed together to invest in various businesses, and they were undaunted. This is a growth stock for them, a team with revenues near the bottom of the league, but a media market just above the middle of the pack and a wealth of Fortune 500 companies in the area, presenting opportunities for partnerships.

“The piece that struck us early, Marc and Alex really leaned into the challenge of this opportunity,” Wolves COO Ryan Tanke said. “Beyond how much they cared about people and getting to know Glen and Becky, they loved the climb we have in front of us.”

Taylor, Lore and Rodriguez took part in a Zoom call on March 30 to get a feel for one another. The three hit it off, and that’s when things shifted into overdrive. For whatever reason, a sale process that had stagnated through the winter was starting to see green shoots breaking through the thawing ground in the spring. Cleveland Browns owner Jimmy Haslam, former NBA player Arron Afflalo and Ryan Smith, who eventually bought the Utah Jazz, were among several groups to start sniffing around.

Lore and Rodriguez then made an important decision that would ultimately play a major role in their ability to complete a deal. After the promising initial conversation with Taylor, the two said they needed to meet Taylor and his wife, Becky, face to face to continue the discussions.

Through their research, Lore and Rodriguez knew that Taylor preferred to conduct business with a personal touch. That went double for the Timberwolves and Lynx. The Taylors see the two franchises as more than a business. It is a part of who they are and a gift of sorts from them to the community. After all, the Wolves nearly moved to New Orleans five years after entering the league when the original owners fell into dire financial straits. That is when Taylor swooped in out of nowhere to buy the team.

Taylor first started looking for a successor in 2012. Along the way, some interested parties walked away from negotiations believing Taylor never truly wanted to sell. First, there was his preference to have a buyer join first as a minority owner and ride shotgun for a few years before Taylor handed over the reins. More recently, some who explored the idea of buying the team believed that Taylor would change the terms anytime talks appeared to be progressing toward an agreement.

“I never got to the point where I wanted to get rid of it, but I was out there (trying to) sell it,” Taylor said. “I liked it. I enjoyed it. So I’m going to do it my way or I’m not going to do it.”

A big part of the Taylor way was to keep things simple, with no lawyers. He relied on face-to-face interactions and personal connections. Lore and Rodriguez wanted it that way as well, so they set about making plans to visit. Scheduling conflicts prevented them both from visiting at the same time, but the urgency to capitalize on the momentum created by their early conversations prompted Lore to fly to Naples for the first meeting on April 5th.

“I think it was all about just building that mutual trust early on, getting to know him and Becky,” Lore said. “We were at his home. We got to see where he lives and how he lives. We shared a lot about our background, about how we grew up.”

At first glance, it would be hard to identify similarities between the 80-year-old Taylor, who built his fortune in farming and agriculture and takes pride in spending most of his time at his home in Mankato, a city of 42,000 about a 90-minute drive from the Twin Cities, and the 50-year-old Lore and 46-year-old Rodriguez, two big-city guys with the cosmopolitan tastes to match. But the closer Casson looked, the more he started to see some commonality that could make a partnership work.

“There was something immediately apparent when they got together and shared their personal journeys,” Casson said. “They were all grounded from a very familiar place, albeit generations apart. And although Glen was always in search of the right framework of a deal, he was equally motivated to find partners that subtly reminded him of him.”

Lore prefers sushi for lunch on most days, but when he arrived at the Taylors’ winter home he found Becky Taylor cooking cheeseburgers on the grill, with potato salad and key lime pie for dessert. Casson and Tanke, Taylor’s two trusted allies, were there as well, and the process of peeling back the layers to find common ground began. Taylor and Lore both grew up in modest homes and ran track in their younger days, and they shared stories of their athletic exploits.

“We were both short-distance and low hurdles,” Taylor said. “We found out we did the same things, but it probably had to do with our physical makeup. We’re both not the tallest guys. They’re small things, but it’s interesting to talk to people who kind of went through the same things that we went through.”

Taylor shared stories of his ownership experiences in the NBA, how he built his business empire and told Lore what he was looking for in a partner. Lore shared some of his core values and spoke about the importance of establishing relationships within the organization and learning from Taylor’s quarter-century of experience in the league. He told Taylor that he and Rodriguez preferred a timeline that allows them to gradually assume the roles of principal owners.

“We all shared a common set of values,” Lore said. “It was just nice. It wasn’t lawyers. It wasn’t bankers involved. It was principal to principal. There was trust involved. We were all vulnerable. We shared things. We were open. And we also didn’t treat it like a typical private equity deal.”

After lunch, everyone went outside to the patio for more conversation. Taylor then went to his office, returned with five sheets of printer paper and handed one to each member of the group. On it was a simple, five-line chart with Taylor’s asking price right at the top. For Taylor, it harkened back to when he bought the Timberwolves from Marv Wolfenson and Harvey Ratner. In that meeting, he wrote out his offer on a yellow legal pad, no frills, no binding, one sheet. That offer was for $88 million. This one was $1.5 billion, on a sheet of paper faxed from his Taylor Corp. office in Mankato to his personal office in Naples.

“Marc, if I’m you, the first thing I’m wondering is, ‘How did Glen come up with $1.5 billion,” Taylor told Lore that day. “The honest answer, Marc, is I just want it.”

There was a long pause and then … “OK.”

“I think anyone else in that position would say, ‘OK that’s your starting offer. Now I’m going to go into deal mode and negotiate it. I’m going to take a slice out of it,'” Lore said. “He meant what he said. He said I’m just being honest. I’m not trying to get the most I can for the team. This is a fair price and this is what I’m looking for.”

Lore and Rodriguez discussed it and then went to work to make it happen. They knew that number was important to Taylor. They also knew that Taylor may be 80 years old and from a small town in Minnesota, but he was not to be underestimated or disrespected.

“Sometimes as a dealmaker, you really need to know when to accept the terms as they are and when to negotiate,” Lore said. “This was one of those times where the right decision was to just accept the terms as they were.”

That is what Taylor had been waiting to hear. From there, Lore, Rodriguez, Casson and Tanke went to work to hammer out the finer points of the deal over the next three days. By Thursday of that week, three days after Lore visited Taylor, they had the economic framework of an agreement in place.

“We just didn’t run into anything,” Taylor said. “Right from the very beginning we decided what we were going to do, and everything those guys said, we did. Working with the lawyers, they all were able to work those things out. There was no argument or disagreement. Some people just want to nickel and dime you to death on some issue and they won’t give you an inch. They weren’t that way. It was really a neat way to do business.”

On Friday morning, April 9, Casson and Tanke presented Taylor and his attorney, Greg Jackson, with the primary framework. After nine years of looking for a deal, Taylor said to Casson, “If these guys will do this, I’m in.”

“To Marc and Alex’s credit, they never deviated or wavered,” Casson said. “They said they wanted to do a deal, they wanted it to work for Glen and we want to be your partners and learn from you and so what type of deal do you need to see to bring this to fruition.”

It wasn’t until then that Rodriguez and Lore started to inform the people around them of how truly close they were to buying the Timberwolves and Lynx. From that point, attorneys and advisors for both sides got involved to construct the official document. From the first call with Taylor to the firm handshake on a $1.5 billion transaction with a unique, two-and-a-half-year runway: 12 days.

“The key is so many people when they get into these negotiations, they have to counter,” Rodriguez said. “If they don’t counter, they don’t feel good about themselves. I think one of the things we did well, we believed him. We came up with a fair price and we moved up on pretty quickly.”  

But there was one more step to take. Rodriguez had yet to visit face-to-face with Taylor. He was finishing up the final tweaks to the paperwork from the Masters in Augusta, Ga., on Friday night and felt it important to fly down to Naples to finish it in person.

“Well, Alex, I didn’t recognize you without your pinstripes,” Taylor joked when Rodriguez arrived.

It was Taylor’s way of breaking the ice. Rodriguez’s tenure with the New York Yankees certainly caused controversy, but he was particularly villainized in Minnesota, where the Twins have lost 18 straight playoff games dating to 2004. Thirteen of those losses have come against the Yankees. Taylor told Rodriguez playfully that he was always rooting against him when the Yankees played the Twins, but he also wanted to ask about his career as a whole, the good and the bad.

“He was frank and open about everything,” Taylor said.

One of Taylor’s go-to stories goes back to his original negotiations to buy the team. As that process was wrapping up, then-Commissioner David Stern sent a wingman named Adam Silver out to Minneapolis to find out if Taylor was legit. Silver came up to the small hotel room Taylor had rented while he was in town from Mankato. It was so small that Silver and Taylor had to sit on the bed together while they called Stern. The call lasted so long that they eventually leaned back against the pillows and kicked their feet up.

“Not lying on the bed, but sort of as if you were reading a book, on each side of the bed, having a conversation with each other and David Stern,” Silver told The Athletic last year. “Lying on this queen-size bed in a hotel room and talking through the deal with David.”

Did history repeat itself with A-Rod?

“I told them the story,” Taylor said. “That’s as close as we got to that.”

Rodriguez soaked it all in and reiterated to Taylor how much he was looking forward to learning from him over the next few years. Rodriguez and Lore are both big sports fans, but they are just starting to learn about the intricacies of the NBA, from the business to the rosters to the collective bargaining agreement.

“He reminded me of a college professor, someone who has all this information and is willing to lean in,” Rodriguez said. “From the jump, I just felt we were aligned from the vision and him wanting to be partners. He was a delight to deal with.”

Lore had pre-signed the papers before Rodriguez arrived. Taylor and Rodriguez were able to finish the process at the table in Naples. In the end, Taylor just felt comfortable not only with the financial wherewithal of Lore and Rodriguez, but of their leadership style, their vision for the Wolves and Lynx and their ability to work together to make that happen.  

“It was critically important to me in how they treat people under different circumstances,” Taylor said. “When you ask a question like how did you get where you are, what risks did you take? Both of these guys took risks to get where they are. Completely different risks. But they took risks to get where they were. I know a lot about that because I’ve had to do that myself. Nothing was given to me. That type of thing struck me as people that I was intrigued with and thought I could work with.”

Tanke is convinced that the decision to see Taylor twice at his home is what ultimately sealed the deal. It may sound trite or corny, but Taylor has always preferred it this way. And with one of just 30 teams in the league to sell, he could afford to be demanding.

“Everyone was focused on the what and not the who,” Tanke said. “Marc and Alex were genuinely interested in the who and wanted to understand what was important to Glen. Why hasn’t Glen found the right partner? Why hasn’t the team already been sold? They were truly curious about the who and the why and not just the what.”

Rodriguez and Lore may only hold a 20 percent stake in the team right now, but they are planning to hit the ground running. They will work with Casson and Tanke on any changes they want to implement right away, and Taylor will have the final say. Lore and Rodriguez are being counted on to bring a new energy and perspective to an organization that is trying to shock the system in the Twin Cities sports scene.

“This was a big idea,” Tanke said. “To reinvent the organization, it had to be bold. I don’t know that you can find bolder or more transformational than Marc Lore and Alex Rodriguez and that became a really great jumping-off point for the rest of the week.”

They already have plans to introduce technological advancements to the fan experience at Target Center, but Lore said they will be deliberate in examining other aspects of the organization. They have studied other franchises and ownership groups and have noticed that new owners often make mistakes early by getting too aggressive. And they don’t feel the need to rush because they’re planning on being here for a while.

“Glen had the team for almost 30 years. We’re thinking similarly,” Lore said. “We’re going to have this team for at least the next 30 years. … We don’t think we have all the answers. We’re not ready, quite frankly, to be making all the decisions right now.”

They are joining a team that showed some promise down the stretch with Karl-Anthony Towns and D’Angelo Russell fully healthy, coach Chris Finch getting his system established and Anthony Edwards blossoming into a dynamic scoring threat. But they have been whisper-quiet in free agency to this point, and it appears they will rely heavily on internal improvement to move up from 13th in the Western Conference this season into the playoff conversation.

In some respects, that makes the additions of the two owners-in-waiting even more important. Glen and Becky are still fixtures courtside during games, but the pandemic protocols have led to less direct interaction with the franchises. Lore and Rodriguez figure to be plugged into the day-to-day operations to try to push the teams forward.

“I need them to be ambitious because I’m not there every day to lead them,” Taylor said. “You want somebody that believes like you do that we can grow this company, we can do better, we’re not satisfied with what’s happening.”

Rodriguez and Lore plan to be in Las Vegas next week for Summer League, their first official appearance as NBA owners since they were approved by the Board of Governors. They sure felt like owners in that Springfield auditorium for KG’s Hall of Fame speech, enough for Lore’s throat to catch as he thought about the dreams he had as a child first to be a professional athlete, and then to own a team.

“For Alex, that dream came true. For me, it didn’t,” Lore said. “I’m a little bit shorter and less athletic. Once you realize that’s not possible, the next natural thing is ‘Well, then I want to own a team someday.’ … Just thinking about it through that lens as a kid, that giddiness came right back as an adult. I was able to say, ‘Wow, if I was able to tell my teenage self that I had this dream and it’s going to happen one day, no way I would’ve believed it.'”

(Top photo images courtesy of Getty. Design by Wes McCabe)

SAN FRANCISCO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hims & Hers, the multi-specialty telehealth platform focused on providing modern personalized health and wellness experiences to all consumers, has partnered with Alex Rodriguez to launch The Blur Stick – a new skincare solution developed specifically for men. Built to complement fan-favorite Hims products such as the Goodnight Wrinkle Cream and Customized Acne Cream, the new Blur Stick features premium ingredients like jojoba oil and aloe extract packaged in a sleek, travel-friendly tube that glides on quickly and provides long-lasting coverage for a diverse range of skin tones and textures. The Hims Blur Stick ($22) is available in eight unique shades exclusively at www.forhims.com.

Whether he is on the field or in the boardroom, Alex Rodriguez is focused on excellence in his routine. On the hunt for a product that could help him look and feel his best, covering the occasional blemish or dark circle without sacrificing on quality or convenience, Alex realized there were few options on the market for men. As an early investor, Alex turned to the skincare experts at Hims & Hers, knowing the team could develop an innovative product to meet this need. The result was The Blur Stick – a small-but-mighty concealer that applies easily across the face and neck to provide moisturizing, sweatproof coverage whenever and wherever the need may arise.

“Since I met the Hims & Hers team, it was clear to me that they were revolutionizing telehealth and direct-to-consumer products,” said Alex Rodriguez, CEO & Chairman of A-Rod Corp. and investor in Hims & Hers. “Like other Hims & Hers products, accessibility and convenience were central to the development of the Blur Stick. For years, I have been looking for something I can use to touch-up a blemish or razor bump quickly and discreetly, and the Hims & Hers product development team has delivered it.”

Sharing more about the decision to create The Blur Stick, Hims & Hers co-founder and CEO Andrew Dudum commented, “Breaking through stigmas and addressing ‘embarrassing’ topics head-on is core to what we do at Hims & Hers. To some guys, a few pimples or razor burn might seem like no big deal, but for many it’s something that can really weigh on their self-confidence and there weren’t many viable solutions out there to address that. I’m so grateful to be working with Alex on bringing this product to life and I think it will help a lot of people feel more comfortable and confident in their skin.”

The Blur Stick is available in eight shades ranging from fair to deep and comes packaged in a sleek container with a screw-top lid that makes carrying it throughout the day mess- and hassle-free. The tube—the size of a lip balm—has ingredients that soothe and moisturize while providing quick, smooth coverage that can seamlessly hide dark undereye circles and camouflage blemishes in a matter of seconds. The Blur Stick is the newest addition to the Hims & Hers suite of skincare products that also includes a selection of moisturizers, serums and supplements along with access to customizable Rx solutions for anti-aging and acne.

For more information please visit www.forhims.com.

About Hims & Hers

Hims & Hers is a multi-specialty telehealth platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals, enabling them to access high-quality medical care for numerous conditions related to primary care, mental health, sexual health, dermatology, and more. Launched in November 2017, the company also offers thoughtfully created and curated health and wellness products. With products and services available across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., Hims & Hers is able to provide access to quality, convenient and affordable care for all Americans. Hims & Hers was founded by CEO Andrew Dudum, Hilary Coles, Jack Abraham and Joe Spector at venture studio Atomic in San Francisco, California. For more information about Hims & Hers, please visit forhims.com and forhers.com.

About Alex Rodriguez

Alex Rodriguez is Chief Executive Officer of Slam Corp and the founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp. While best known as one of the world’s greatest athletes (a 14-time MLB All-Star and a 2009 World Series Champion with the New York Yankees), Mr. Rodriguez has transitioned to full-time investing. At A-Rod Corp, he leads a team of experts working to build high-growth businesses and enhance the value of more than 30 companies in the firm’s portfolio. He founded A-Rod Corp in 2003, purchasing a duplex apartment building on the theory that investing his MLB earnings wisely would protect him from the kinds of financial struggles that afflict too many professional athletes. Subsequently purchasing apartment units across the southeastern U.S., Mr. Rodriguez built a fully integrated real estate and development company. Following his success in real estate, he has invested in a variety of sectors where he has expertise, including sports, wellness, media and entertainment, and technology. Mr. Rodriguez has been a judge and investor on ABC’s Shark Tank, mentored financially distressed ex-athletes on CNBC’s Back in the Game, and currently co-hosts the podcast The Corp with Barstool Sports’ Dan Katz, interviewing CEOs, entrepreneurs, and sports legends. Committed to creating opportunities for young people to succeed, he serves on the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade and the Boards of Trustees for the University of Miami and The Paley Center for Media. He is also an Emmy Award-winning MLB analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN.

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Contacts

Linda O'Connor
press@forhims.com

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In addition to his company, which oversees the former MLB All-Star’s real estate holdings and investment portfolio, Rodriguez also runs a special purpose acquisition company and venture capital firm with former Walmart Inc. executive Marc Lore.

As a player, you’re presented with endorsement or licensing deals where you can rent your name and walk away. As an investor or owner, you have to be much more involved—it’s a different level of responsibility.

We’ve seen this power shift with personal brands becoming as powerful as big institutions. Now athletes and entertainers have a seat at the table with these conglomerates and can compete for the same asset, which would have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

As a professional athlete, you learn to go narrow and deep. You train to be perfect—or at least try. You learn from your coaches. It’s the same as an investor. You adopt attributes from mentors. I’ve learned that we can be good at a lot of things but can’t be great at everything. Narrow and deeper plays, where we invest our energy and interests, are the most worthwhile. By investing with that philosophy, others begin to learn what you like, and we’re presented with better opportunities.

To ensure we’re allocating resources where it makes sense, we like to move quickly and say no to deals that don’t fit. People appreciate clear communication, and even if that first deal doesn’t work out, it can be the beginning of a relationship. Declining certain deals properly and responsibly often creates future opportunities. —As told to Jason Kelly.

Link to full interview: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-05-19/a-rod-sees-level-playing-field-in-spac-space-video

By Jason Kelly

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The retired MLB star and entrepreneur Marc Lore will pay $1.5 billion for the NBA’s Wolves and WNBA’s Lynx after their failed bid to acquire the New York Mets.

Minnesota Timberwolves rookie Anthony Edwards, the No. 1 pick in last year’s NBA draft, was asked last month if he was a fan of the person who was negotiating to buy his team: former Major League Baseball star Alex Rodriguez. 

“I don’t know who that is,” he said. 

Edwards will soon know him as his boss: Rodriguez and billionaire entrepreneur Marc Lore reached a deal to purchase the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and the WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx for $1.5 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter. 

While the agreement is pending league approval, the teams confirmed the sale in a Friday statement. 

The deal positions Rodriguez, a generational athletic talent who was suspended for doping and then became a face of baseball in retirement, to be a significant presence in basketball for decades to come. Glen Taylor, the billionaire Minnesota businessman who owns the team, has said he expected to remain involved through 2023, when Rodriguez and Lore would take over as the controlling owners. 

It’s the latest unexpected turn of events in the post-MLB career of Rodriguez, the former New York Yankees third baseman and one of the greatest players in his sport’s history, who also served a year-long suspension for his use of performance-enhancing drugs. But he has been able to rehabilitate a badly damaged public image after his playing career was over. He embraced broadcasting, shined on Fox Sports and ESPN’s telecasts and branded himself a charismatic business mogul on social media as the chief executive officer of A-Rod Corp. 

His successful pursuit of the Wolves comes after he failed to buy the New York Mets last year. Rodriguez was bidding for the Yankees’ rival as part of a group with Lore and the pop star and his ex-fiancée Jennifer Lopez—they called off their engagement last month in a split made for the tabloids—but they lost to the deeper pockets of hedge-fund titan Steven A. Cohen. 

What nobody expected at the time was that he would soon be the owner of another team in another sport. 

Taylor, 80, bought the Wolves in 1994 for less than $100 million and kept the team in his native Minnesota in the face of pressure to relocate. The Wolves have been in the wilderness for more than a decade—this will be their 16th playoffs absence in 17 seasons—and Taylor openly flirted with selling the team several times throughout his ownership, including as recently as last year. 

But it registered as a huge surprise across the NBA when Taylor opened negotiations last month with Rodriguez and Lore, the founder of Jet.com and U.S. e-commerce chief for Walmart Inc. before leaving the retail giant in January, in a deal that came together quickly and promised to bring glitz to a franchise that struggles to attract marquee talent. 

After their exclusive 30-day window to strike a deal expired this week, they kept negotiating after the deadline to hammer out the final details. 

Taylor has said that Rodriguez and Lore pledged to keep the team in Minnesota and he wouldn’t have sold to them otherwise.

The sale of the Wolves makes them the second NBA team to change hands since the pandemic ravaged sports business, and it makes Rodriguez, 45, and Lore, 49, the newest members of a class of younger owners poised to reshape the league. This changing of the guard includes people with billions at their disposal after striking it rich in tech, venture capital and private equity. 

The deal also puts Rodriguez and Lore on track to own the Wolves when they might actually be good. The team’s recent misery put Minnesota in position to build through the NBA draft, and intriguing young prospects like former No. 1 picks Karl-Anthony Towns and Edwards have flashed signs of promise this season despite the team’s record. 

But it’s also unclear whether Rodriguez’s fame will resonate with a generation of basketball players who don’t follow baseball. Not long after Edwards was confused by his existence, Rodriguez shared a clip on Instagram and introduced himself. 

“Hi Anthony,” he wrote. “I’m Alex!” 

“What’s good my guy,” Edwards wrote back with the grinning-while-sweating emoji. 

Write to Ben Cohen at ben.cohen@wsj.com

Copyright ©2020 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

Appeared in the May 15, 2021, print edition as 'A-Rod Teams Up With Billionaire to Purchase Timberwolves.'

ATLANTA – (May 5, 2021) – Boys & Girls Clubs of America will induct seven new Club alumni into their Alumni Hall of Fame tonight during the youth advocacy organization’s virtual 115th Annual Conference. The ceremony will honor seven Boys & Girls Club Alumni, who have made major contributions in their fields, including sports, government, and music.

This year’s inductees, the “Class of 2021,” include: Tara August, Vice President of Turner Sports Talent Relations and Special Projects; Ciara, Grammy Award Winning Singer/Songwriter; The Honorable Jerry Demings, Mayor of Orange County; Frank Layden, former NBA and WNBA coach; Ricardo Lockette, retired NFL special teams player and wide receiver; Titus O’Neil, WWE Global Ambassador, philanthropist and author; and Alex Rodriguez, entrepreneur, philanthropist and MLB All Star.

The honorees have forged unique, successful paths as adults, but a shared Boys & Girls Club foundation of education, support and community brought to them through invaluable programs, attentive staff, and the connections made with other Club youth.

Boys & Girls Club celebrates the achievements of alumni each year with the annual induction ceremony.

“We are proud to recognize another group of outstanding Club alumni for this 2021 class. Each one provides true inspiration for our Boys & Girls Club youth, making it clear that they can accomplish their dreams,” said Jim Clark, president and CEO of Boys & Girls Clubs of America. “With shared beginnings at Boys & Girls Club, inductees exemplify what we aim to accomplish for our youth. Given community and encouragement to grow, and opportunities to succeed, they can go on to make their mark in the world.”

The Boys & Girls Club Alumni & Friends estimates there are more than 16 million living Club alumni today, with each individual being an important piece of our story and mission. More information on this year’s inductees:

Tara August
Boys & Girls Club of Greater San Diego
Tara August was 8 when she started going to the Club. She was struck by how many women worked there. Women coached them, taught them skills, urged teamwork, helped with homework. Seeing women lead the Club on a regular basis was life-changing for Tara. Today, she is Vice President of Turner Sports Talent Relations and Special Projects. In a male-dominated field, she has risen through the ranks to managing some of the biggest names in sports, including Charles Barkley, Shaquille O’Neal and Pedro Martinez. Tara facilitates on-air production, sales, marketing and promotional activities, serving as primary liaison to all sport teams, leagues, agents, and celebrities to facilitate contract negotiations and guest bookings. Tara August is also a Southeast Trustee for Boys & Girls Club of America.

Ciara
Boys & Girls Clubs of Metro Atlanta
Ciara Princess Harris was born in Killeen, Texas. As the only child of U.S. service members, she grew up all over, including Germany, New York, California and Atlanta, where she discovered the Boys & Girls Club. The Club was like an extended family for Ciara, with welcoming staff members who built strong bonds with all the kids. By age 14, Ciara was a talented singer and dancer. At 16, she signed her first record contract and, at age 19, released her debut album “Goodies,” which sold 5 million copies. Over her 15-year career, she has sold over 23 million records and 22 million singles. Ciara enjoys visiting Clubs to share her journey with members to let them know anything is possible.

The Honorable Jerry Demings
Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Florida
At the Carver Shores Boys Club, the close-knit Clubhouse provided Jerry Demings and his twin brother, Terry, a safe, steady space with mentors, structure, plenty of activities, and opportunities to meet new people and make new friends. Jerry’s Club experience also allowed him to develop leadership skills that provided the foundation for future success. After graduating Florida State University, Jerry embarked on a career in public service. He has since served as police chief of Orlando, sheriff for Orange County was elected Mayor of Orange Count in 2018, overseeing more than 8,000 employees and a $4.9 billion budget. He was the first African American to hold each one of those positions.  

Frank Layden
Flatbush Boys Club in Brooklyn, New York
Frank Layden was born in 1932 in Brooklyn, New York. From early on, Frank loved basketball and was known as one of Brooklyn’s best young players by the time he reached high school. His local Club invited Frank to join their basketball team. Playing for the Club provided Frank with tremendous exposure and led to Niagara University awarding him a basketball scholarship. After a post-college army stint, Frank became a high school teacher and basketball coach. He ultimately coached 10 years in high school, 10 years in college and 13 years in the NBA and WNBA. In 1984, he was named NBA Coach of the Year and NBA Executive of the Year.  

Ricardo Lockette
Boys & Girls Club of Albany, Georgia
The Club had it all for Ricardo Lockette. It is where he learned to swim, make art, use computers and show he was more than an athlete. Befriending Club kids of diverse ethnicities and backgrounds broadened Ricardo’s horizons and made it clear it was okay to be different. After graduating from high school, Ricardo played football at Fort Valley State University. In 2011, he signed with the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks as an undrafted free agent. As a standout special teams player and wide receiver, Ricardo became a fan favorite and a Super Bowl champ. Ricardo is now a player advisor for the Harvard Football Players Health Study, a research program that aims to make the game safer and address the well-being and health of former NFL players.  

Titus O'Neil
Boys & Girls Clubs of Palm Beach County, Florida
WWE Global Ambassador Titus O’Neil, aka Thaddeus Bullard, attended Delray Beach Boys & Girls Club at the age of 8 as a safe place to go after school. When he couldn’t afford to sign up for a local youth football league, a Club counselor paid his registration fee. He excelled on the gridiron, earning a scholarship to the University of Florida, where he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology and a master’s degree in administrative education. After a stint in the NFL, O’Neil pursued a career in sports entertainment, and eventually signed with WWE where he has become WWE Tag Team Champion, the first-ever 24/7 Champion and was recently inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame as the Warrior Award recipient, an award given to an individual who exhibits unwavering strength and perseverance and who lives life with the courage and compassion that embodies the indomitable spirit of The Ultimate Warrior.  He is known for his humanitarian work outside the ring as much as his work inside WWE and created the Bullard Family Foundation to provide children and families in need with programs and resources to help build character, develop relationships, and strengthen the communities around them.  In addition to the Boys & Girls Clubs, O’Neil also supports The Special Olympics and Pop Warner Football.

Alex Rodriguez
Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade
Before Alex Rodriguez became a baseball star, he learned to play the game at the Hank Kline Boys & Girls Club in Miami. Alex was 9 when met unit director and baseball coach Eddie Rodriguez. Though not related, Eddie was like a father to Alex. By high school, Alex was a brilliant baseball player who led his team to the state championship. He stayed a Club member until 1993, when the Seattle Mariners made him the #1 pick in the Major League Baseball draft. Alex went on to be one of the most famous players in baseball history. Over a 22-year career, he was named AL MVP three times, hit nearly 700 home runs and became a world champion. He is now a television baseball analyst for Fox Sports and ESPN, and a board member for Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade and also for Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

For more information on Boys & Girls Clubs Alumni & Friends or to join the community go to www.bgca.org/alumni.

About Boys & Girls Clubs of America
For 160 years, Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA.org) has provided a safe place for kids and teens to learn and grow. Clubs offer caring adult mentors, fun and friendship, and high-impact youth development programs on a daily basis during critical non-school hours. Boys & Girls Clubs programming promotes academic success, good character and leadership, and healthy lifestyles. More than 4,700 Clubs serve 4.6 million young people through Club membership and community outreach. Clubs are located in cities, towns, public housing and on Native lands throughout the country, and serve military families in BGCA-affiliated Youth Centers on U.S. military installations worldwide. National headquarters are located in Atlanta. Learn more about Boys & Girls Clubs of America on Facebook or Twitter.

Media Contacts

Sara Leutzinger
Boys & Girls Clubs of America
404-487-5624
sleutzinger@bgca.org

A-Rod, 45, one of the top earning athletes ever, has amassed a fortune of at least $400 million based on Forbes estimates. Rodriguez has used his star power, network of billionaire business leaders, and roughly $130 million in take-home pay (after deducting taxes, fees, and A-list spending and before compounded interest) to build A-Rod Inc—a sprawling portfolio with stakes in tech start-ups, trophy high-rises, construction firms, hospitality companies, and thousands of multi-family homes. “I came from very little,” says Rodriguez, whose family was often pushed out of apartments by rising rents. “I remember as a young boy, getting down to my knees and praying that one day, I would trade places with the landlord.” 

Rodriguez realized early on that he needed to start investing. "Your baseball career will take you to your mid-30s, if you’re lucky. While you’re old on the baseball field, you’re a kid in the business community,” says Rodriguez, who, following the lead of many MLB team owners, has plowed his earnings into investment properties. “I loved that as your playing career winds down, your real estate should be appreciating.” 

For advice, he leaned heavily on other sports and business moguls, like NBA great Magic Johnson. “Alex was the first athlete I met who really committed to be a great businessman. He was really serious so we clicked right away,” says Johnson, who made a fortune investing in sports, food, entertainment and real estate. “It’s funny how we’re so much alike. We don’t gravitate towards mediocrity. We want to be the best so we get with the best and do what it takes to get into those rooms with powerful people that have accomplished things we aspire to.” 

On road trips with the Rangers and Yankees, Rodriguez would reach out to the most powerful people in the city. “Magic taught me that when you go into all these cities, pick up the phone to see [if] the top business folks in town will meet you for lunch and you’ll be surprised at how many people will say yes,” says Rodriguez. “The trade was pretty simple. They taught me business. I taught them baseball. It was a good currency exchange.” 

For two decades, A-Rod collected business mentors the same way fanboys accumulate sports memorabilia. In 2000, after learning that Berkshire Hathaway had insured part of his record-breaking $252 million contract with his then team, the Texas Rangers, A-Rod cold-called Buffett’s longtime assistant Debbie Bosanek. “I said ‘It looks like Warren and I are in business together,” says Rodriguez. The call launched a twenty-year long friendship. 

A-Rod laughs when recalling how he wrangled his way into White Sox billionaire owner Jerry Reinsdorf’s office dripping in sweat, dragging orange dirt from the field behind him and still wearing his metal cleats after batting practice. “First of all, I probably smelled terrible,” says A-Rod. “Second, we never talked about baseball—it was all business.” 

A-Rod impressed Reinsdorf with his early portfolio and eagerness to learn. “He had been acquiring a lot of apartments in Florida and I told him the sunbelt was a good market,” says Reinsdorf. “I also told him he should try to acquire his assets relatively in the same geographic region so it’s easier to manage.” 

Rodriguez says there is one lesson he still follows. “Jerry said ‘Alex, if your occupancy is at 99%, your rents are too low; 88% means rent is too high. You should always be dancing around 95%.’And that's been our policy over the past 15 years.” 

There’s also an eagerness to teach himself the ropes. “In all the years I’ve known him, Alex has never shown up for a meeting without a notebook and five minutes after he leaves I always get a follow up with a to-do list,” says Mary Callahan Erdoes, CEO of J.P. Morgan’s $3.8 trillion asset and wealth management division.

A-Rod has plowed much of his energy and money into real estate in now red-hot southeastern Florida. Since inception, A-Rod Corp. has amassed a stake in more than 14,000 multifamily residential properties and developed more than 15 million square feet of real estate. The majority of the investments run through Monument Capital Management, which Rodriguez co-founded in 2012 to focus on multifamily developments. Monument’s playbook is to buy properties at a 15% to 25% discount, fix them up with its own construction team and, after years of appreciation, sell for a profit. 

It has since launched four funds, which hold properties worth at least $270 million net of debt, according to data provider Real Capital Analytics. Rodriguez won’t disclose how much of his cash he’s plowed into Monument’s funds, his stake in the firm or the company’s fee structure, but others say he’s hitting it out of the ballpark. “He convinced me to invest in his real estate funds, which have had incredible returns—amongst the best of anyone in the space,” says hedge-fund billionaire Daniel Loeb, who Rodriguez met at Art Basel in Miami over a decade ago. 

Says billionaire Jonathan Gray, the COO of private equity and real estate giant Blackstone: “It's clear that he has this attraction to real estate and a very good instinct to do a lot of it in rental housing where there's been a shortage of quality housing.” 

The cash flow from Monument has built a foundation for flashier bets. A-Rod has more than a dozen strategic joint ventures including deals with billionaire real-estate financier Barry Sternlicht of Starwood Capital, property management firm Stonehedge and Miami-based CGI Merchant Group. For the CGI deal, which was announced in mid-December, A-Rod is using his starpower to help raise $650 million to buy and develop hotel properties in white-hot Miami and other locales. (It recently announced a $30 million investment into Atlanta’s Morris Brown College with plans to convert it into a luxury hotel and training center). 

While he’s hung up his bat for good, A-Rod remains as competitive as ever. “The thing that people don’t see is Alex has a relentless pursuit of being the best,” [Jennifer] Lopez says. “It’s one thing to want it, and another thing to accomplish what he has already done.”

Super Bowl winners, N.B.A. greats and tennis royalty are tied up with blank-check companies. That can help SPACs sell themselves to start-up targets in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Madison Avenue has long known that athletes can sell almost anything. From soda to sneakers to car insurance, consumers eagerly snap up whatever their favorite sweat-drenched star is pitching.

Now a growing number of big-name athletes are taking their talents to Wall Street. Super Bowl-winning quarterbacks like Patrick Mahomes and Eli Manning, the tennis champion Serena Williams and the basketball Hall of Famer Shaquille O’Neal are just a few of the stars lining up to sell SPACs — the so-called blank-check companies that are surging in popularity as an alternative way for buzzy start-ups, often with little or no profits, to go public.

But they’re not just there to draw in dollars: Athletes provide star power that can be a crucial asset when SPACs — special purpose acquisition companies — are courting start-ups for a merger deal.

“Certain athletes carry a certain weight that gives them the ability to generate exposure and create buzz, whether it’s in the sports world or in the finance world — and so I think that that’s the ultimate motivation behind a lot of it,” said Ryan Nece, who had a seven-year career as a linebacker in the National Football League. Now he is a managing partner at the investment firm Next Play Capital, which has been approached about starting a SPAC but has no plans to do so — yet.

SPACs are in a race against the clock from the moment they make their shares available in an initial public offering. They generally have just two years to close a deal for a target company, or they must return the money raised from investors. And with SPACs being formed at a record pace, athletes can be useful partners when trying to close a deal — or simply getting a foot in the door.

Last year, 256 special purpose acquisition companies went public, raising $83 billion from investors, which was more than five times the record of $15.5 billion in 2019, according to Dealogic, a data provider. The competition has grown only more heated: As of Wednesday, 295 SPACs had gone public in 2021, raising $93 billion and breaking last year’s record in a matter of months.

About a fifth of the SPACs launched since the start of last year involved a sports figure or focused on acquiring a sports-related business, according to the trade publication Sportico, which is keeping tabs on every new SPAC filing.

Kristi Marvin, founder of SPACinsider, which collects data on the market, said adding an athlete to a board brought marketing clout. “It’s really not geared to the retail investor, but it’s geared to getting meetings with target companies to do deals,” she said.

Consider a $300 million financing deal to complete the merger of NewHold Investment, a SPAC, with Evolv Technology. It included a number of hedge funds but also several famous athletes, such as the tennis power couple Steffi Graf and Andre Agassi and the soon-to-be Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning. NewHold’s backers hope that adding star power to the deal will help attract customers for its crowd-screening technology, which is aimed at stadiums, arenas and schools, said a person who was briefed on the matter but not authorized to speak publicly.

Often, an athlete can be added to a SPAC’s board or advisory committee at little cost to the management group running it. Directors are usually compensated with shares, and some advisory board positions are unpaid until a deal gets done.

But some athletes are not content to merely add their names to someone else’s SPAC.

They include Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback, who is trying to raise $287 million for a SPAC with a focus on social justice, and Alex Rodriguez, a three-time most valuable player who retired from the New York Yankees in 2016 at No. 4 on the career home run list.

Mr. Rodriguez is the chief executive of his own SPAC, Slam Corp, which he established in February, and may sit on the board of whatever company it acquires. He said he and his partners had already seen more than 70 potential targets after raising $500 million.

Raising money through a SPAC allows his investment firm, A-Rod Corp, to take on opportunities that were out of reach before, he said.

“What has been the barrier for entry for us has been capital — and this levels out the playing field,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

He and his partner in Slam Corp, the hedge fund manager Himanshu Gulati, are looking to acquire a business in the sports, media, or health and wellness industry — but not a sports team, he said. (Mr. Rodriguez was also an investor in the telehealth company Hims and Hers, which went public in a SPAC transaction valuing the firm at $1.6 billion last year.)

Rich Kleiman, manager and business adviser to Kevin Durant, the All-Star forward for the Brooklyn Nets, said having an athlete on an advisory board of a SPAC might help get a meeting with a company. Mr. Durant, he said, had been approached about such an arrangement but decided against it because he would have little control over the company’s direction.

While Mr. Durant, who with Mr. Kleiman runs a growing media and investment company, Thirty Five Ventures, has fielded suitors, other athletes are reaching out on their own.

Forest Road, an investment firm, was the entry point for Mr. O’Neal, who was already an investor there when he contacted its chief executive, Zachary Tarica, about getting involved in its growing SPAC business. Mr. O’Neal was an adviser on its first SPAC, which last month announced plans to buy Beachbody, a digital fitness company, at a $2.9 billion valuation. He’s now an adviser on a second Forest SPAC.

Kevin Mayer, a former Walt Disney and TikTok executive who advised the first SPAC and is helping lead the second, described Mr. O’Neal as “a real businessman,” although he cautioned against investing in a particular venture just because a famous person was involved.

“If anyone were to ask me, I say you should definitely not invest in this SPAC because there’s a sports star or any single person,” he said. “They should look at the totality of the investment.”

Securities regulators have taken notice of the celebrity-endorsement trend, which has also attracted nonathletes ranging from Sammy Hagar to Jay-Z. The Securities and Exchange Commission put out an investor alert on March 10 cautioning retail investors not to buy shares of a SPAC simply because some boldface names are attached to it.

There’s reason for healthy skepticism.

SPAC investors buy in, usually for $10 a share, not knowing what kind of business they could ultimately own a piece of. The company could prove itself not ready for prime time — a problem that some in the financial industry see as a function of too many blank checks chasing too few start-ups in Silicon Valley and elsewhere.

A forthcoming study in the Yale Journal of Regulation by professors at the Stanford and New York University law schools found that the “circuitous two-year process” from I.P.O. to merger “creates substantial costs, misaligned incentives and, on the whole, losses for investors who own shares at the time of SPAC mergers.” Investors who bought shares in the I.P.O. and sold them before the merger tended to fair best, the study found.

Adewale Ogunleye, who spent 10 seasons in the N.F.L. and now heads the sports and entertainment group at the wealth management division at UBS, said he advised athletes to be cautious with their money and not jump into every hot investment trend. He said they — and any investor, for that matter — should approach a SPAC with open eyes and a desire to get as much knowledge as possible.

And any athlete lending his or her name to a SPAC must think about potential legal exposure if something goes wrong with a deal, he said.

“You have to be OK with other people winning and sometimes just sitting on the sideline,” Mr. Ogunleye said. “It’s the hardest thing you’ve got to tell an athlete.”

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Rents start at about $1,300 a month

Grand Station Apartments in downtown Miami is launching preleasing of the tower, which counts retired Yankees shortstop Alex Rodriguez as an investor.

Rovr Development, led by principals Oscar Rodriguez and Ricardo Vadia, is beginning to lease the 30-story, 300-unit building at 40 Northwest Third Street, near the federal courthouse, according to a press release.

Alex Rodriguez’s Monument Real Estate Services is the property manager, and he personally is an investor in the project, a spokesperson confirmed.

Construction is nearly completed, and move-ins are expected to begin this summer. Monthly rents for one-, two- and three-bedroom units will be $1,277, $1,427 and $1,963.

The $70 million project, a public-private partnership, is built on top of and expands the existing Courthouse Center garage. Rovr completed the P3 with the Miami Parking Authority. The property is also near the Government Center Metrorail Station and Brightline MiamiCentral.

Zyscovich Architects and Anillo, Toledo, Lopez LLC designed the building. Amenities include a rooftop terrace, a fitness center and spa rooms, indoor heated pool, business center and clubroom, and an outdoor kitchen with a grilling area, swimming pool and hot tubs.

Grand Station Partners closed on a $53 million loan in March 2020 from Kayne Anderson affiliate Saperian Capital to finance construction.

Rovr Development is also co-developing the District at 225 North Miami Avenue in downtown Miami with its partner the Related Group. The planned 37-story, mixed-use project will have 343 residential units and nearly 2,300 square feet of ground-floor retail space.

Rovr also recently completed the Fairchild, a luxury condo in Coconut Grove.

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This past fall, Alex Rodriguez – yes, that Alex Rodriguez, the one engaged to Jennifer Lopez and who could be on his way to the baseball Hall of Fame next year – was spit-balling with Lane LaMure, the chief investment officer of A-Rod Corp.

“We should do a SPAC,” LaMure told him. “They are custom made for us. We have more deal flow than I’ve ever seen in my entire 25-year career.”

But as A-Rod told Trillions last week, while the SPAC solved one barrier to entry – capital – he still lacked the institutional background commonly associated with mega-deals. Enter Himanshu Gulati and Antara Capital, a $1.25 billion hedge fund backed by Blackstone that has partnered with the baseball legend to raise a $500 million SPAC, branded as Slam Corp. “We’re competing with the Blackstones of the world,” A-Rod now says. “With the SPAC and Himanshu, we’re on a level playing field.”

But now the two-year clock is ticking, and with SPACs popping up faster than fly balls – and with a SPAC index cratering 20% in two weeks – there is no guarantee that Slam Corp. will hit a home run (okay, I’ll stop). What’s the plan?

• They have a template. A-Rod name-checked DraftKings and Peloton as two companies that “have done very well in the public markets.” The duo is “comfortable with health and wellness,” and is “getting very familiar with the beauty space. But DraftKings hits a lot of my buzzwords – baseball, sports – and gaming is really on fire.”
• The target needs tech. “We definitely want a technology component,” A-Rod says. “We want it to be the backbone of the business.” He pointed to his 2019 investment in Hims & Hers – the telehealth and wellness company – as another corollary.
• They acknowledge there’s a bubble. “There are too many SPACs and too many people entering the market, which is why it goes back to picking the one you think is well-capitalized with better management teams,” Gulati says. But, he argues, basically everything’s a bubble: “Does a 70% move in Bitcoin makes sense?” he asks. “I have a tough time understanding that. I don’t think it’s specific to SPACs.”
• They won’t commit to just one. “Let’s go crush the first one – the most important one,” A-Rod says. “One game at a time; one pitch at a time. But we’re not 75 trying to do one more thing — we’re entering the prime of our careers.”
• Gulati’s investing chops are obvious, but A-Rod’s are… kinda awesome? “I’ve always tried to keep it simple,” he says about his history of real estate investing. “My mother never had the money to buy anything. We always rented and often had to move every 18 months because the landlord kept raising rents. I remember wanting to exchange places with the landlord. About 12 years later, in my late 20s, I had an opportunity to buy a duplex and sold it a few years later for double. Then I bought a four-plex, an eight-plex – 60 units was my biggest acquisition. I put about 1/3 of my liquidity into it. I remember going into spring training one year and being so nervous – not for the season, but that 60 tenants would pay the rent so I can make my mortgage.”
• They’re fully aware of the common critique against famous faces leading SPACs. “When people talk about Alex being a celebrity SPAC, I want to be really clear,” Gulati says. “Take a look at all the other celebrity SPACs out there. They’re all directors or special advisors, which effectively means very little involvement – that they’re there for the marketing side. Alex is a CEO.”
• Everything in perspective. “I don’t think anything can compare to playing in New York at Yankee Stadium in pinstripes – the same uniform Joe DiMaggio, Babe Ruth, and Reggie Jackson wore,” A-Rod admits. “I can’t ever outdo my first act.”

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Closes new venture debt facility; welcomes Alex Rodriguez and Josh Richards to the #StepFam 

SAN FRANCISCO –– February 25, 2021 –– Step, the new modern-day financial services company built for teens and families, today announced it has crossed one million users. A first of its kind, Step offers users the ability to build credit before they turn 18 through a free, FDIC insured bank account, secured spending card and P2P payments platform. The company also recently closed a new venture debt facility and added major star power with baseball legend Alex Rodriguez and digital megastar Josh Richards joining Step as investors. 

“We’ve seen explosive growth since Step’s launch a few short months ago and we’re thrilled to be helping so many teens and families tackle money management,” said CJ MacDonald, Founder and CEO at Step. “The rapid adoption of Step reflects the evolving needs of today’s teens and we’re really excited to be working with partners like Alex and Josh to help push our financial literacy movement even further.” 

Year after year, harrowing statistics have been reported about the state of financial literacy in the U.S. with 34% of teens unbanked, only 21 states teaching personal finance content in school and college students graduating with an average of $5,000 in credit card debt. Consumers have had enough and they’re looking for not just a better product, but a better partner. It takes less than two minutes to sign up for Step. There are no gimmicks or fees, and teens can start managing their money immediately, all from the palm of their hands. 

“As someone who grew up with limited resources, financial literacy has always been a mission that resonates with me,” said Alex Rodriguez, Chairman and CEO at A-Rod Corp. “I tell my kids all the time that knowledge is power. Step is the type of tool that can empower young people by helping them understand personal finance and 

money management.” 

According to Common Sense Media, teens spend an average of nine hours online every day catching up on news, following the latest trends and teaching themselves new skills. Learning is at the core of teen engagement on social media, making it the perfect place to start talking to them about the importance of financial literacy and how to avoid the common money pitfalls of past generations. 

“Step has done an incredible job of tapping into the teen market by creating authentic and engaging conversations across popular social media platforms like Instagram, Snap, TikTok, Triller and YouTube,” said Josh Richards. “I truly never thought I would see a day where teens were actively talking about their banks on social media. Learning how to manage your money is such a critical life skill so when I saw a company making these conversations cool - I just had to get involved!” 

As Step continues to grow at an exponential rate, the company recently closed a venture debt facility with Bridge Bank to prepare for future capital growth needs and focus on becoming the number one banking platform for the next generation. 

About Step 

Step was founded by financial industry veterans CJ MacDonald and Alexey Kalinichenko to provide teens and their families with financial tools for today’s modern-day banking needs and to promote financial literacy for the future. The founding team has 50+ years in combined financial technology experience from companies like Gyft, First Data, Square and Google. Step is backed by Coatue, Stripe, Crosslink Capital and Collaborative Fund. Step’s financial products are powered by its bank partner Evolve Bank & Trust, Member FDIC and insured up to $250,000. To learn more, please visit: www.step.com.

NEW YORK – February 22, 2021 – Slam Corp. (the “Company”) today announced the pricing of its initial public offering of 50,000,000 units at $10.00 per unit. The units will be listed on the Nasdaq Capital Market (“Nasdaq”) and trade under the ticker symbol “SLAMU” beginning on February 23, 2021. Each unit consists of one Class A ordinary share and one-fourth of one redeemable warrant, with each whole warrant entitling the holder thereof to purchase one Class A ordinary share at a price of $11.50 per share. Once the securities comprising the units begin separate trading, the Class A ordinary shares and warrants are expected to be listed on Nasdaq under the symbols “SLAM” and “SLAMW,” respectively. The initial public offering is expected to close on February 25, 2021, subject to customary closing conditions.

Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC and BTIG, LLC are serving as joint book-running managers for the offering. The Company has granted the underwriters a 45-day option to purchase up to an additional 7,500,000 units at the initial public offering price to cover any over-allotments.

The initial public offering is being made only by means of a prospectus. When available, copies of the prospectus relating to this offering may be obtained from: Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC, Attn: Prospectus Department, 200 West Street, New York, New York 10282, or email: prospectus-ny@ny.email.gs.com, or from BTIG, LLC, 65 East 55th Street, New York, New York 10022, or email: equitycapitalmarkets@btig.com.

A registration statement relating to the securities became effective on February 22, 2021 in accordance with Section 8(a) of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. This press release shall not constitute an offer to sell or the solicitation of an offer to buy, nor shall there be any sale of these securities in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of any such state or jurisdiction.

This press release contains statements that constitute “forward-looking statements,” including with respect to the proposed initial public offering and the anticipated use of the net proceeds. No assurance can be given that the offering discussed above will be completed on the terms described, or at all, or that the net proceeds of the offering will be used as indicated. Forward-looking statements are subject to numerous conditions, many of which are beyond the control of the Company, including those set forth in the Risk Factors section of the Company’s registration statement and preliminary prospectus for the Company’s offering filed with the SEC. Copies are available on the SEC’s website, www.sec.gov. The Company undertakes no obligation to update these statements for revisions or changes after the date of this release, except as required by law.

About Slam Corp.

Slam Corp. is a newly organized, blank check company formed for the purpose of entering into a merger, share exchange, asset acquisition, share purchase, recapitalization, reorganization or similar business combination with one or more businesses or entities. The Company has not selected any business combination target and will not be limited to a particular industry or geographic region. The Company’s Founding Partners are A-Rod Corp and Antara Capital LP

Contacts:

For investor inquiries:

Alex Jorgensen

Prosek Partners

ajorgensen@prosek.com

For media inquiries:

Russell Sherman

Prosek Partners

rsherman@prosek.com

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Former Major League Baseball MVP Alex Rodriguez, now a real-estate mogul, joins a $650 million hotel fund

Baseball legend Alex Rodriguez is teaming with a Miami private-equity firm to invest more than a half-billion dollars in buying or developing hotels at a time when the industry has been ravaged by the pandemic.

The former New York Yankee known as A-Rod said he is joining CGI Merchant Group in its new hotel investment fund, which the firm launched this month. The venture aims to raise $650 million to acquire and develop properties in partnership with Hilton Worldwide Holdings Inc. brands. Maverick Capital Partners, a New York brokerage, will also be part of the venture.

Mr. Rodriguez has been a real-estate investor for many years, going back to his playing days. He founded his own real-estate investment company in 2003, the year before he played his first game for the Bronx Bombers. His Monument Capital Management has made more than $800 million worth of property acquisitions in more than a dozen states, according to its website. Mr. Rodriguez will invest some of his personal money in the hotel fund and help source deals.

He said investing in hotels right now is a way to capitalize on a travel rebound once the pandemic is under control. “We believe we can acquire assets that are strategically positioned to be in the top-performing percentile once restrictions are eased,” the 14-time All Star and 2009 World Series Champion said.

The CGI Merchant fund will look to invest in hotels and resorts across North America and the Caribbean, CGI said, with Miami, Seattle and New York City of particular interest. Raoul Thomas, CGI Merchant’s chief executive, said the fund will avoid large hotels with open floor plans and large banquet spaces. Lodging properties dependent on large group events, like seminars and conferences, may recover more slowly than those primarily attracting tourists, he said.

The fund has already made one purchase, the 129-room Gabriel Hotel in Miami, this past June, Mr. Thomas added.

While many other investors have been raising money in anticipation of buying up distressed hotels at rock-bottom prices in the near future, fewer U.S. hotels have changed hands this year than in almost any other year. The volume of hotel sales in 2020 is coming in 84% below 2019 levels as of October, according to a report from Real Capital Analytics, a real-estate data firm.

Hotel performance continues to suffer and business travel shows no signs yet of bouncing back. Hotel-room occupancy, as of the first week of December, is down 38% from the same week in 2019, according to hospitality industry data provider STR. Hotel executives have said they don’t expect industry revenue to return to last year’s levels until at least 2023.

Despite this grim prognosis, prices of hotels sold this year have fallen just 3.3%. Few sellers have been willing to meet the lower price expectations of buyers. “The owner of a hotel asset will not sell at a loss unless forced to do so because of distress situations,” RCA’s report notes.

But ongoing debt problems for hotel owners could spell deeper distress for the sector and more opportunities for investors like CGI Merchant and A-Rod. The partners said they view the hotel fund as a long-term strategy.

“Wealth is rarely created overnight,” Mr. Rodriguez said.

• Hims & Hers is a telehealth leader modernizing the delivery and accessibility of digital, consumer-focused healthcare services
• Transaction will enable further investment in growth and new product categories that will accelerate Hims & Hers’ plan to become the digital front door to the healthcare system
• Combined company to have an implied initial enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion, with the company expected to have an estimated $330 million in cash after closing
• Top-tier investors, including Franklin Templeton and clients of Oaktree, anchoring a $75 million PIPE
• Leading existing institutional backers of Hims & Hers, including Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures, IVP, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, McKesson Ventures, and the Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board intend to roll 100% of their equity

October 01, 2020 09:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time

SAN FRANCISCO & LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Hims, Inc. (“Hims & Hers” or the “Company”), a market leading telehealth company, and Oaktree Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: OAC.U, OAC, OAC WS), a special purpose acquisition company sponsored by an affiliate of Oaktree Capital Management, L.P. (“Oaktree”), announced today that they have entered into a definitive merger agreement. Upon completion of the transaction, the combined company’s securities are expected to be traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “HIMS.”

Hims & Hers is on its way to becoming a publicly-traded company!

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Company Overview

Launched in 2017, Hims & Hers has built a proprietary platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals for care across numerous specialties, including primary care, mental health, sexual health and dermatology, among others. Since its founding, the Company has facilitated more than two million telehealth consultations, enabling greater access to high quality, convenient and affordable care for people in all 50 states. The Company has driven 100%+ compounded annual revenue growth over the last two years and has more than doubled gross margins to 70%+, with revenue that is over 90% recurring in nature.

The future of healthcare will be led by consumer brands that empower people and give them full control over their healthcare. A direct relationship with consumers is the most valuable component in the healthcare system. Hims & Hers has endeavored to build a healthcare system that squarely focuses on the needs of the healthcare consumer. Hims & Hers directs the consumer experience from start to finish, uniquely positioning the Company in the rapidly-emerging telemedicine landscape to lead the industry in B2C-focused telehealth solutions.

Hims & Hers has built a strong customer base of highly loyal brand ambassadors who represent the future of the healthcare system. The Company’s customers embrace its convenient, digitally native product, generating organic growth through word of mouth and user-generated content, which enhances brand awareness and lowers customer acquisition costs. The majority of its consumers are millennials, a high-value generation at the beginning of its lifetime value curve that is poised to expand its purchasing power. The Hims & Hers platform is set up to serve these customers over the long-term by offering great user experience and access to high quality medical care.

As of June 2020, Hims & Hers had approximately 260,000 subscriptions on the platform.

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Management Comments

“We’re thrilled to partner with Oaktree Acquisition Corp. to usher Hims & Hers into our next phase of growth as we work to become the front door to the healthcare system, serving as the first stop for peoples’ health and wellness needs across hundreds of conditions,” said Andrew Dudum, CEO and founder of Hims & Hers. “Hims & Hers was founded to make it easier and more affordable for everyone to get the healthcare they need. We remain committed to advancing that goal as we expand into new categories of care and build an enduring healthcare company that brings choice, affordability and access to consumers.”

“We are very pleased to launch our Oaktree Acquisition Corp. franchise with this partnership with Hims & Hers, a rapidly-growing provider of much-needed innovation to the healthcare system,” said Howard Marks, Co-Chairman of Oaktree. “This transaction shows Oaktree Acquisition Corp. to be a complementary extension of Oaktree’s capabilities and builds on our strength in sourcing opportunities throughout the market cycle.”

“We founded Oaktree Acquisition Corp. to partner with a high quality, growing company that will benefit from a public currency for its next leg of growth,” said Patrick McCaney, CEO of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. “Hims & Hers is an ideal match and represents a unique opportunity to invest in a rapidly-growing company that is modernizing the delivery and accessibility of healthcare and wellness solutions. Over the past two years, the Company has experienced significant growth bolstered by the continuing widespread adoption of telehealth and digital patient care solutions – and we think this is just the beginning. We look forward to partnering with Hims & Hers to accelerate the expansion of its high-quality, end-to-end care services across the broader healthcare marketplace.”

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Key Transaction Terms

The business combination values the combined company at an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion and is expected to deliver up to $280 million of cash to the combined company through the contribution of up to $205 million of cash held in Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s trust account, and a $75 million concurrent private placement (PIPE) of common stock of the combined company, priced at $10.00 per share, from leading institutional investors, including funds managed by Franklin Templeton and certain Oaktree clients. The enterprise value equals 8.9x estimated 2021 revenue and 12.2x estimated 2021 gross profit, an attractive valuation relative to telehealth peers despite the Company’s leading growth and margin profile.

As part of the transaction, Hims & Hers’ current management and existing equity holders will roll nearly 100% of their equity into the combined company. Leading existing institutional backers of the Company including Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures, IVP, Redpoint Ventures, Thrive Capital, McKesson Ventures, and the Canadian Pension Fund intend to roll 100% of their shares and the transaction agreement provides for up to $75 million of cash consideration at closing to shareholders, at their election. Assuming no public shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. exercise their redemption rights and before any potential cash consideration to Hims & Hers shareholders, current Hims & Hers equity holders will own approximately 84%, Oaktree Acquisition Corp. shareholders will own approximately 12%, and PIPE investors will own approximately 4% of the issued and outstanding shares of common stock, respectively, of the combined company at closing. Furthermore, the combined company will be capitalized with up to $330 million in cash, including proceeds received from the transaction together with existing cash on Hims & Hers’ balance sheet. The business combination includes a minimum cash closing condition of $200 million, which is calculated as cash delivered from Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s trust account, plus cash delivered from the PIPE, minus the up to $75 million of cash consideration at closing to shareholders as described above. Hims & Hers intends to continue investing in growth and new product categories to accelerate its goal of becoming the digital front door to the healthcare system.

The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Boards of Directors of each Hims & Hers and Oaktree Acquisition Corp., is subject to approval by Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s shareholders and other customary closing conditions. The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2020.

A more detailed description of the transaction terms and a copy of the Agreement and Plan of Merger will be included in a current report on Form 8-K to be filed by Oaktree Acquisition Corp. with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”). Oaktree Acquisition Corp. will file a registration statement (which will contain a proxy statement/ prospectus) with the SEC in connection with the transaction.

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Advisors

LionTree Advisors is serving as exclusive financial advisor to Hims & Hers and Gunderson Dettmer Stough Villeneuve Franklin & Hachigian LLP is serving as legal counsel.

Credit Suisse and Deutsche Bank Securities are serving as capital markets advisors and private placement agents to Oaktree Acquisition Corp. Deutsche Bank Securities is acting as financial advisor to Oaktree Acquisition Corp. Kirkland & Ellis LLP is serving as legal counsel to Oaktree Acquisition Corp.

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Management Presentation

A presentation made by the management teams each of Hims & Hers and Oaktree Acquisition Corp. regarding the transaction will be available on the websites of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. at https://www.oaktreeacquisitioncorp.com/news and Hims & Hers at forhims.com/investor and forhers.com/investor. Oaktree Acquisition Corp. will also file the presentation with the SEC as an exhibit to a Current Report on Form 8-K, which can be viewed on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.

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About Hims & Hers

Hims & Hers is a multi-specialty telehealth platform that connects consumers to licensed healthcare professionals, enabling them to access high quality medical care for numerous conditions related to primary care, mental health, sexual health, dermatology, and more. Launched in November 2017, the company also offers thoughtfully created and curated health and wellness products. With products and services available across all 50 states and Washington, D.C., Hims & Hers is able to provide all Americans access to quality, convenient and affordable care through a computer or smartphone. Hims & Hers was founded by CEO Andrew Dudum, Hilary Coles, Jack Abraham and Joe Spector at venture studio Atomic in San Francisco, California. For more information about Hims & Hers, please visit forhims.com and forhers.com.

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About Oaktree Acquisition Corp.

The Oaktree Acquisition Corp. franchise was formed to partner with high-quality, growing companies to facilitate their successful entry to the public markets. By leveraging the deep capabilities and experience of its sponsor, an affiliate of Oaktree, which manages $122 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2020, Oaktree Acquisition Corp. seeks to provide best-in-class resources and execution, coupled with a focus on long-term partnership and shareholder value creation. For more information about Oaktree Acquisition Corp. or Oaktree Acquisition Corp. II, please visit oaktreeacquisitioncorp.com.

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Additional Information and Where to Find It

Oaktree Acquisition Corp. intends to file with the SEC a Registration Statement on Form S-4 containing a proxy statement/prospectus relating to the proposed business combination, which will be mailed to its shareholders once definitive. This press release does not contain all the information that should be considered concerning the proposed business combination and is not intended to form the basis of any investment decision or any other decision in respect of the proposed business combination. Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s shareholders and other interested persons are advised to read, when available, the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus and the amendments thereto and the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other documents filed in connection with the proposed business combination, as these materials will contain important information about the Company, Oaktree Acquisition Corp. and the proposed business combination. When available, the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other relevant materials for the proposed business combination will be mailed to shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. as of a record date to be established for voting on the proposed business combination. Shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. will also be able to obtain copies of the preliminary proxy statement/prospectus, the definitive proxy statement/prospectus and other documents filed with the SEC, without charge, once available, at the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov, or by directing a written request to: Oaktree Acquisition Corp., 333 South Grand Avenue, 28th Floor, Los Angeles, California.

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Participants in the Solicitation

Oaktree Acquisition Corp. and its directors and executive officers may be deemed participants in the solicitation of proxies from Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s shareholders with respect to the proposed business combination. A list of the names of those directors and executive officers and a description of their interests in Oaktree Acquisition Corp. is contained in Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s annual report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, which was filed with the SEC and is available free of charge at the SEC’s web site at www.sec.gov, or by directing a written request to Oaktree Acquisition Corp., 333 South Grand Avenue, 28th Floor, Los Angeles, California. Additional information regarding the interests of such participants will be contained in the proxy statement/prospectus for the proposed business combination when available.

Hims & Hers and its directors and executive officers may also be deemed to be participants in the solicitation of proxies from the shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. in connection with the proposed business combination. A list of the names of such directors and executive officers and information regarding their interests in the proposed business combination will be included in the proxy statement/prospectus for the proposed business combination when available.

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Forward-Looking Statements

Certain statements in this press release may be considered forward-looking statements. Forward-looking statements generally relate to future events or Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s or Hims & Hers’ future financial or operating performance. For example, statements about the expected timing of the completion of the proposed business combination, the benefits of the proposed business combination, the competitive environment, and the expected future performance (including future revenue, pro forma enterprise value, and cash balance) and market opportunities of Hims & Hers are forward-looking statements. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may”, “should”, “expect”, “intend”, “will”, “estimate”, “anticipate”, “believe”, “predict”, “potential” or “continue”, or the negatives of these terms or variations of them or similar terminology. Such forward-looking statements are subject to risks, uncertainties, and other factors which could cause actual results to differ materially from those expressed or implied by such forward looking statements.

These forward-looking statements are based upon estimates and assumptions that, while considered reasonable by Oaktree Acquisition Corp. and its management, and Hims & Hers and its management, as the case may be, are inherently uncertain. Factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from current expectations include, but are not limited to: (1) the occurrence of any event, change or other circumstances that could give rise to the termination of the definitive agreements with respect to the proposed business combination; (2) the outcome of any legal proceedings that may be instituted against Oaktree Acquisition Corp., Hims & Hers, the combined company or others following the announcement of the proposed business combination; (3) the inability to complete the proposed business combination due to the failure to obtain approval of the shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp. or to satisfy other conditions to closing, including the satisfaction of the minimum trust account amount following any redemptions; (4) changes to the proposed structure of the business combination that may be required or appropriate as a result of applicable laws or regulations or as a condition to obtaining regulatory approval of the proposed business combination; (5) the ability to meet stock exchange listing standards at or following the consummation of the proposed business combination; (6) the risk that the proposed business combination disrupts current plans and operations of Hims & Hers as a result of the announcement and consummation of the proposed business combination; (7) the ability to recognize the anticipated benefits of the proposed business combination, which may be affected by, among other things, competition, the ability of the combined company to grow and manage growth profitably, maintain relationships with customers and suppliers and retain its management and key employees; (8) costs related to the proposed business combination; (9) changes in applicable laws or regulations; (10) the possibility that Hims & Hers or the combined company may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors; (11) the limited operating history of Hims & Hers; (12) the Hims & Hers business is subject to significant governmental regulation; (13) the Hims & Hers business may not successfully expand into other markets, including womens’ health; and (14) other risks and uncertainties set forth in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and “Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements” in Oaktree Acquisition Corp.’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2019, and which will be set forth in registration statement on Form S-4 to be filed by Oaktree Acquisi-tion Corp. with the SEC in connection with the proposed business combination.

Nothing in this press release should be regarded as a representation by any person that the forward-looking statements set forth herein will be achieved or that any of the contemplated results of such forward-looking statements will be achieved. You should not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date they are made. Neither Oaktree Acquisition Corp. nor Hims & Hers undertakes any duty to update these forward-looking statements.

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Non-Solicitation

This press release is not a proxy statement or solicitation of a proxy, consent or authorization with respect to any securities or in respect of the potential business combination and shall not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy the securities of Oaktree Acquisition Corp., the Company or the combined company, nor shall there be any sale of any such securi-ties in any state or jurisdiction in which such offer, solicitation, or sale would be unlawful prior to registration or qualification under the securities laws of such state or jurisdiction. No offer of securities shall be made except by means of a prospectus meeting the requirements of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended.

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Contacts

Investor Relations

Hims & Hers
Bob East or Jordan Kohnstam
Westwicke, an ICR company
HIMSIR@westwicke.com
(443) 213-0500

Oaktree Acquisition Corp.
infoOAC1@oaktreeacquisitioncorp.com

Media Relations

Hims & Hers
Chelsea Harrison
charrison@forhims.com

Sean Leous
Westwicke, an ICR company
HIMSPR@westwicke.com
(646) 866-4012

Oaktree Acquisition Corp.
mediainquiries@oaktreecapital.com

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The direct-to-consumer telehealth startup will go public through a merger with special purpose acquisition company Oaktree Acquisition Corp. The combined entity is expected to be valued at $1.6 billion.

By ELISE REUTER

Direct-to-consumer health company Hims Inc. said it plans to go public through a blank-check company. The San Francisco-based startup confirmed ongoing reports that it was in talks to sell to a special-purpose acquisition company.

The men’s health company first made its foray with cheeky subway ads for hair loss and erectile dysfunction medications. Its similarly branded site for women, Hers, launched a few months later, offering birth control pills, and hair and skin care products.

But more recently, both brands have expanded their services beyond wellness to include virtual primary care visits and mental health services.

“From the moment we launched the company about two-and-a-half years ago, we knew we had struck a really strong chord with people,” CEO and Founder Andrew Dudum said in a phone interview. “Men were coming out of the woodwork talking about how excited they were to finally get care.”

In this case, Hims will merge with a SPAC formed by Oaktree Capital Management. The newly formed entity, called Oaktree Acquisition Corp., went public in July with the intent of using the proceeds to make an acquisition.

After the deal closes, Hims’ stock will be traded on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker “HIMS.” The combined company will be valued at roughly $1.6 billion.

Dudum said the company chose to go the SPAC route because it provided a faster speed to market and more certainty and flexibility than a traditional IPO. Hims has seen more than 100% compounded annual revenue growth over the last two years and has more than doubled its gross margins to 70%, according to internal data provided by the company.

The past six months, in particular, have been telling. Since the start of the pandemic, Hims began offering $39 cash pay virtual primary care visits, $60 psychiatry evaluations and $15 online support groups.  It also rolled out an at-home saliva test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19.

“It’s been a transformative time for the company. The virus has acted as a looking glass into the future, where you can see more people than ever understand the benefits of telemedicine,” he said. “We had a four-year product roadmap with expansion that we were able to execute in two or three quarters. … We feel really confident in the business and the brand as it stands today.”

In the future, Dudum plans to expand further into managing chronic conditions. High cholesterol, diabetes, sleep and infertility are some areas the company might explore in the future, he said.

But Hims & Hers will still stick to its cash pay subscription model, rather than billing through insurance. Most treatments the two brands offer range from $20 to $40 per month, and are structured as a subscription model.

“For the conditions we’re talking about today as well as in the future, we believe we can offer cash pay prices that are cheaper than if not equal to people’s copay for their insurance,” he said.

Hims’ current management and shareholders will roll almost all of their equity into the combined company. Some of its backers include Founders Fund, Forerunner Ventures, Thrive Capital and McKesson Ventures.

After the deal closes, Hims’ shareholders will own roughly 84% of the combined company, while shareholders of Oaktree Acquisition Corp will own a 12% stake. Dudum will have roughly 90% of the voting power of the combined company, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The combined company will have $330 million in cash, including $205 million from Oaktree Acquisition Company and $75 million from a private placement. The merger has been approved by both companies’ boards and is expected to close before the end of the year.

Photo credit: Screenshot of Hims website

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Kitu Life Inc, the company behind the coffee brand Super Coffee cofounded by three brothers who made our 2019 30 Under 30 Food and Drink list, announced today that it has picked up a minority investment from superstar couple Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez.

JLo’s and ARod’s investment is a follow on to the Series B round the company closed in July, which at the time put its valuation at over $200 million. Super Coffee expanded the terms of the round for the celebrity couple and closed the investment from Lopez and Rodriguez in August. Per Super Coffee, the post-money valuation is now $240 million.

Jim DeCicco, the oldest brother and the company’s CEO, says that it’s surreal for them that five years after starting the company they have attracted the attention of their childhood idol. (DeCicco says that growing up as Yankees fans the brothers pretended to be Alex Rodriguez while playing baseball in their backyard).

“The cool thing about them is that Jen is a global icon, Alex is one of the best baseball players to ever play the game, and they are at a point in their career where they are shifting from their huge personal brand to being known for their business acumen,” DeCicco says. “We view them as business partners rather than celebrity endorsement or brand advocates. They are going to coach us, this is a real partnership and as minority owners in our company they have a vested interest in seeing it succeed.”

In a press statement, Rodriguez says that they like winning companies with winning founders, who have energy and who are coachable.

“The brothers behind Super Coffee fit the bill. They have built a strong business in a short time and we look forward to helping the brand reach its full potential,” Rodriguez says.

Lopez adds that when Alex and she first heard the Super Coffee story and tasted the product, they wanted to be a part of it.

“We knew we could use our networks to build this brand globally,” Lopez says.

The investment comes after Super Coffee signed a deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev’ for national distribution to over 25,000 stores in June of this year. A few months earlier, in January, Alex Rodriguez became a co-owner and chairman of the Dominican Republic’s Presidente beer (owned by Anheuser-Busch).

“Initially the connection was serendipitous, but I think it was really part of the strategic value that Alex brings to our brand,” DeCicco says. “Once he found out that we were given an exclusive distribution deal, Alex realized that he can have an influence on the future and the outcome of our business by simply picking up the phone and leveraging his top-to-top relationship with Anheuser Busch’s executives.”

Rodriguez first heard of Super Coffee from Shark Tank where the brothers appeared in 2018. Then, the DeCiccos didn’t get a deal, nor an offer from any of the sharks (Rodriguez was a guest judge, but wasn’t present during the filming of that episode). At the time, the three of them asked for a $500,000 investment in exchange of 4.5%. Today, at a $240 million valuation, 4.5% share would amount to just under $11 million.

With the investment, JLo and ARod join a growing list of celebrity investors that have acquired a stake in Super Coffee, which already includes actor Patrick Schwarzenegger, Green Bay Packers’ quarterback Aaron Rodgers, Denver Nuggets’ center Mason Plumlee, and former NFL MVP Boomer Esiason, among others.

The company was started in 2015, when the youngest brother Jordan, who was a starting basketball player at Philadelphia University, started brewing coffee in his dorm room as a way to stay up late nights and manage a busy student athlete schedule.

Once they turned it into a company, Jim left his job as financial analyst for The Blackstone Group, the middle brother Jake stayed on for just one more year to get his undergraduate degree, and Jordan decided to drop out of school to accept the Peter Thiel Fellowship.

The NY-based enterprise currently has 90 full-time employees and has seen an explosive growth in revenue since its inception.  In 2016 Super Coffee made $200,000 in sales, in 2017 it was $800,000, in 2018 it grew to $3.5 million, in 2019 it was $26 million, and in 2020 their estimates are that they’re going to clear $70 million in sales.

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"Shark Tank," the critically acclaimed and multi-Emmy® Award-winning business-themed unscripted series that celebrates entrepreneurship in America, adds two brand-new guest Sharks for its 12th season, premiering FRIDAY, OCT. 16 (8:00-9:00 p.m. EDT), on ABC. Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS and co-founder of Madefor, and Kendra Scott, founder and CEO, Kendra Scott, LLC, and one of only 16 women to found a $1 billion company, will appear individually alongside Sharks Mark Cuban, Barbara Corcoran, Lori Greiner, Robert Herjavec, Daymond John and Kevin O'Leary in various episodes during the 2020-2021 season. Alex Rodriguez, legendary baseball player and founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp, and Daniel Lubetzky, founder and executive chairman of KIND, also return for the show's 12th season. Episodes can be viewed the day after their premiere on demand and on Hulu.

Produced by MGM Television and Sony Pictures Television, the unrivaled and beloved show, which has become a culturally defining series, filmed for the first time ever in Las Vegas, hosted by The Venetian®  and Sands Expo & Convention Center.

The new guest Sharks are (alphabetically) as follows:

Blake Mycoskie – Blake Mycoskie is a serial entrepreneur, philanthropist and bestselling author most known for founding TOMS Shoes, and is the person behind the idea of One for One®, a business model that helps a person in need with every product purchased. Since its inception, TOMS Shoes has provided almost 96 million pairs of shoes to children around the globe. In 2014, after selling half of the company to Bain Capital, Mycoskie stepped down as CEO of TOMS. Utilizing half of his proceeds, he started the Social Entrepreneurship Fund to help early startups with core social missions get off the ground with much-needed funding.  Since then, he has invested in over 25 social enterprises. More recently, Mycoskie co-founded his newest company, Madefor. A 10-month program that applies the principles of modern neuroscience, psychology and physiology to make your brain and body better. Created alongside scientists from Stanford, Harvard and other top universities, Madefor helps people learn and sustain positive habits and practices that have the greatest impact on their lives. Mycoskie has achieved numerous accolades for his unique approach to business including the Secretary of State's 2009 Award of Corporate Excellence, the 2015 Next Generation Award from Harvard's School of Public Health, the 2016 Cannes Lion Heart Award and the 2018 amfAR Award of Courage. Mycoskie has also been featured in People Magazine in the "Heroes Among Us" section and in Fortune Magazine's "40 Under 40," among others. Mycoskie also recently expanded his philanthropic efforts to include the funding of the Center for Psychedelic and Consciousness Research at Johns Hopkins, making it the first such research center in the U.S. and the largest of its kind in the world. Born and raised in Texas, Mycoskie now resides in Jackson, Wyoming, with his family, dogs and horses. In his free time, he can be found outside enjoying nature whether it is rock climbing, surfing or snowboarding.

Follow Blake Mycoskie on Twitter and Instagram.

Kendra Scott – Designer, founder and CEO Kendra Scott started her company in 2002 with only $500 and just three months after her first son was born. As a creative mind with a love of natural gemstones, Scott began going door-to-door to Austin boutiques armed only with a tea box full of her jewelry, captivating businesses and customers with her vibrant personality and unique eye for design. Determined to maintain growth and preserve the vision of her business, Scott waited over 10 years to accept outside investments. She has since grown the company to a billion-dollar valuation with over 100 stores nationwide and a thriving e-commerce and wholesale business. According to a 2018 PitchBook study, Scott is among only 16 women in the United States to carry the title of founder of a company valued at $1 billion. Today, Scott's company continues to operate out of Austin, Texas, with their state-of-the-art corporate office complete with a design lab and an industry-leading distribution center, both catering to her employees' career goals and family-life balance.  With family and fashion as two core pillars of her business, Scott maintains a focus on her third core pillar of philanthropy in all she does. Since 2010, the company has given back over $30 million to local, national and international causes. On a national level, Scott supports organizations that actively help women and children live their brightest, healthiest and most empowered lives. This comes to life through initiatives like the Kendra Cares program, where the brand brings its customizable Color Bar™ to pediatric hospitals across the country as a creative arts program. Scott has been awarded with the EY Entrepreneur of the Year 2017 National Award, the Breakthrough Award from the Accessories Council Excellence Awards, named Outstanding Mother of the Year by the Mother's Day Council, awarded Texas Businesswoman of the Year by the Women's Chamber of Commerce, listed by Forbes as one of America's Richest Self-Made Women, listed among the Top 100 Entrepreneurs of the Year by Upstart Business Journal, and named Best CEO by Austin Business Journal. In 2019, Scott was inducted into the Texas Business Hall of Fame. She is a member of the board of directors for the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

Follow Kendra Scott on Twitter and Instagram.

Watch the season premiere FRIDAY OCT 16 8|7c on ABC!

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Paley Front Row 2020 with Alex Rodriguez and Natalie Morales. The Paley Center welcomes baseball legend, acclaimed broadcaster, and entrepreneur Alex Rodriguez for an intimate conversation about his career on and off the field. Alex will discuss his many successes through the lens of his iconic presence on television as a baseball star; Emmy-winning broadcaster for ESPN, Fox Sports, and CNBC’s Back in the Game; and role as CEO of A-Rod Corp. Acclaimed journalist Natalie Morales of the Today Show will moderate this conversation.

Welcome to Human Capital, an open exploration of the ideas and people moving financial services forward. In each edition, we feature a leader or rising star who's changing the game in his or her own way. "Finance is an apprentice business," one often hears in this sector. Here are some of the teachers. Click Subscribe above to be notified of future editions.

When Alex Rodriguez popped into my Zoom window one day last week, I squinted. Who was this 45-year-old in a suit and tie? Where were the Yankees pinstripes?

Like many, my memories of Rodriguez are anchored to his career in Major League Baseball — to the 2009 World Series championship; to the three most-valuable-player awards; to the 2014 season, or lack of it for A-Rod, when he was suspended for the use of performance-enhancing drugs; and to the unceremonious exit from the New York Yankees and MLB a few years later.

Today's Rodriguez is different: measured, somewhat philosophical, and a student — not of sports, but of business. His investment holding company, A-Rod Corp, has been both busier than ever and in the midst of a strategy revamp. Expanding from its roots in real estate, it has been an investor in well-known consumer companies such as Snapchat developer Snap Inc. and private-aviation business Wheels Up, as well as other companies thriving during the coronavirus pandemic, such as telemedicine provider Hims & Hers and investing app Acorns.

Most recently, vying to buy the New York Mets has taken up much of his time, energy, and patience. Billionaire investor Steve Cohen this week reached an agreement to acquire the team, though the purchase awaits approval by MLB club owners.

I wanted to sit down with A-Rod to learn where his inspiration for investing came from, how he is honing the craft, and the lessons he's learned along the way. Our discussion went in other directions too, including a global deal he's preparing to announce and his take on business leaders' responsibilities during the pandemic and into the future.

Below are excerpts from the conversation.

It's clear, looking at the history of your investing and business-building activity, that the interest was there even at the height of your professional sports career. When did it begin?

It started when I was 10 years old. I've always wanted to be in business and I've always wanted to be a major league baseball player. Of course, every young kid wants to be a major league baseball player.

Watching my mother and how hard she worked gave me an inspiration that I wanted to do better. Early on, as a young man — my father left when I was 10 — I started to realize that I needed to do well to take care of my mother. That's really where the inspiration came from. And from her, I got my grit.

In my early 20s, I had my first crack at business by buying an apartment complex. I needed a $48,000 down payment, which was a lot of money and very scary to invest. I bought a duplex, then sold that, bought a fourplex, so on and so forth, and I built that portfolio to north of 10,000 apartment units in over 14 states all over the Southeast, predominantly secondary and tertiary markets like the Carolinas, Virginia, Houston, and markets like that.

Where did you turn to learn how to do this well?

I think the common theme for me has always been curiosity. I've had an intellectual curiosity and appetite that's always been really large. It's been an important vessel for me, both in sports and in business.

I also knew that you're only as good as the team you're surrounded with — that's true both in baseball and business. I studied people like Magic Johnson and Greg Norman, who were spectacular in their field and then went on to be even better businesspeople. That gave me the hope that, if they can do it, so can I — the same hope that Cal Ripken gave me when he was a six-foot-four shortstop and I said, hey, if I'm six-foot-three, then I can also be a shortstop.

A lot of my inspiration came from these male figures because my father had left home.

Magic sat down with me really early in my career and gave me some great advice. One was that, as a professional athlete, as you travel the country, you have two options. You can sleep in or go play golf or go shopping; or, when your game schedule is set far in advance and you know you're going to be flying into these places, why not make calls around the country, whether it's Warren Buffett or Howard Schultz or Barry Sternlicht? As you're traveling the country, the one common theme is people will want to meet you because you play for the Yankees; people will want to meet you because they may be fans. And the one thing that everyone wants to talk about is baseball. If you can exchange currencies and say, I'll teach you about baseball if you teach me about business, you'll be surprised at how many "yes"es you have. And that was the case.

What skills have you found transferrable from being a top athlete?

There are so many attributes, lessons good and bad, that I've brought over from wearing pinstripes to the boardroom. Number one is hard work. I know I have to be resilient, gritty, and roll up my sleeves.

There's no such thing as a schedule — you play until the job is done. And: You're there to win.

When you make mistakes, as I have done, own them. Get ahead of them. Understand the lessons, internalize the lessons, then get them behind you and move on.

And don't fall in love with a deal. Don't fall in love with ideas. Because if you're wrong, you have to be able to pivot quickly and change direction.

What do you want your investment portfolio to look like?

It goes back to the lessons that Warren Buffett taught me: Stay in your circle of competence. Go narrow and deep, not wide and shallow.

We really understand the things that we're passionate about so that we can bring to the table more than just capital. With anything we get involved with, we look for ways where our brands, our reach, or our team can infuse a lot of energy and create enterprise value.

That's why we've gotten into things that we really understood, whether it's health and fitness, whether it's consumer products. They are things that we believe in. We wouldn't get involved with something were we not also a consumer.

You mentioned bringing more than just capital to the table. What do you like your relationship with founders and entrepreneurs to be like?

We strongly believe that companies that we invest in have to have a great leader.

But the interactions are all so different — I can't think of one that is exactly the same. One may need help with assembling a great team, so we'll make introductions or we'll bring them in the right rooms, and a lot of times I'll be there with them. Another may have a great team but need help with marketing, and that's a whole different conversation that we have.

It's very fluid. But one of the things we take a lot of pride in is under-promising and over-delivering.

Looking at your own team, as well as your other projects and philanthropy, clearly diversity is a focus of yours. Why is that?

Selfishly, I think it’s the best way to run a business.

Growing up raised by a single mother who had two jobs, by a strong sister, and now having two daughters, I'm surrounded with strong women.

When you look at our 2009 World Series championship team, our MVP was from Japan. Our shortstop and our best pitcher was African American. Our two catchers were Puerto Rican. I'm Dominican. Our second baseman was Dominican. We had a white person playing first base who went to Georgia Tech.

We had the most beautiful, diverse team. That made us great. We all brought different things to the table. I think the same is true for business.

You mentioned earlier that you're surrounded by strong women. One of them is your fiancée, Jennifer Lopez, who has successfully done what we're talking about, becoming a business builder. What have you learned from her?

Devin, you're talking about a powerhouse. I've never met anyone who has the work ethic, the vision, the principles that Jennifer possesses. She does so many things that people call her a triple threat. I call her an octopus threat.

(Photo by Chelsea Guglielmino/Getty Images)

She has over 200 million followers across her platforms. She's sold over $8 billion of consumer goods, over $2 billion in her fragrance alone. And I think the biggest shift I've watched her make is she has taken an absolute juggernaut of a business that's been about licensing and now has converted it to an ownership business. That is a massive change when you're moving those type of products at that volume.

The past six months have thrown all of our lives and plans into disarray. How has it affected your approach to leading A-Rod Corp?

It goes back to the team. We've always thought communication is very important, so we have tripled down on it to the point where we try to have daily meetings for at least 30 minutes or an hour. While people are at home and working like you and I are right now, through Zoom, we want to preserve connectivity and also give confidence to the team that we're hanging tough, that when we get to the other side, we're going to be better than we were before.

Leaders have to step up when moments are dark. Later, when you're winning championships and things are going well, you can slide to the back and let everybody share the credit.

These are the times when leaders need to be heard and seen.

Looking forward three or five years, how do you want your portfolio to look relative to how it does today?

We've had a lot of internal talks with our senior management team about that strategy moving forward.

If we have over 30 companies now, I can see in five years having maybe 12 or 15. The idea is that we want to make more concentrated bets. We want to go deeper with our partners.

We have some really exciting announcements coming around the corner. One in particular will, I think, shock the world — it's a global project we've been working on for over three years.

So, those are the kind of bets we are looking to make — both allocating capital but also allocating our time, which is the most valuable currency that we have.

Anything you can share on that upcoming announcement? The space it's in? The size?

Not yet.

One thing everybody now knows you have been pursuing is the New York Mets. At the moment, Steve Cohen is awaiting approval to complete that deal. Is the process fully in your rear-view mirror?

When you think about these national treasures, it's something we have pursued rigorously and with a lot of passion. I'm really proud of the process and the effort that we have put forth. Just out of respect to the process, because it's kind of live until it's over, I would feel more comfortable if we don't talk about that just yet.

When you look to other professional athletes seeking to transition their careers into business, what do you think they must know?

They have to know that it's going to be difficult, that you have to put in the work. That if you're looking for a shortcut, it's going to be just that — it's going to be a shortcut and there's going to be a short outcome.

I've always thought about: What does the perfect team look like? If you have a really smart guy from Omaha who's 21 years old with a crew cut, and you have another 21-year-old at Michigan playing quarterback with a crew cut, and one day they take their competitive advantages and put them together, they have a dream team. That to me looks like Warren Buffett and Tom Brady. Tom Brady says, I'm going to go out and throw touchdowns, win championships, and make some capital. I'm going to give it to you, Warren. You go out and you invest it, and together we'll be a dream team.

That's what I think young players, both men and women, should be thinking about: Who is the Warren Buffett in your community with incredible intelligence, business acumen, experience? Then you have to create an alignment, both spiritually and economically, that works and gives everyone protection. You sign those documents, then you put your head down and go have a bunch of fun. Then Tom Brady can go throw touchdowns and win championships, and Warren Buffett can do what he does best, which is take that money and invest it. It's as simple as that.

That alignment of interest you're talking about must be important for high-earning athletes.

I'm 45 now. I've been a professional since I was 18 years old. So, I've made every mistake in the book. I've had the fortune to sign two large contracts. That gave me the time and the ability to come back to the table. Not every athlete is going to have that great fortune that I was fortunate to have.

But along the way, there are some key pieces that you need in your camp, whether that's a great attorney, a great business manager, making sure that you're aligned with them and that they understand your vision and goals.

One of your goals should be that when you make this type of great income from, say, age 20 to 30, you have a plan to be putting that money away. That way, when you're 35, 45, 55, and 65, you are reaping the rewards of those great decisions you made in your 20s.

Today you're building businesses, investing, spending time with your family, spending time on philanthropy, retaining your connection to the world of sports. What's one method that helps you juggle it all?

I think I have good training. I played for 25 years professionally, and nothing would ever compare to the grueling schedule of playing 200 games in 232 days every year. Nothing.

I have this thing that I always carry with me — it's a little piece of paper. On one side, I have my list of five or 10 people I owe something to, and then on the other side, who owes me something. One at a time, I check them off. Honestly, that's the only way I can operate. If I don't check them off, I feel like I'm missing something.

I think I'll try that myself. Who do you find you owe things to these days?

When I think about the people I want to always be communicating to, I think about people of color. I want to open doors for them. I think about the sports community. I think about the entertainment community. I want people to learn from my experience — mainly my mistakes, of which there have been plenty.

I think athletes have an opportunity to be some of the best businesspeople in the world, because they possess things that you can't really teach.

They have incredible work ethic. They're resilient. They're thick-skinned. They're coachable. They understand that they're not punching a clock — they're there until they win the game.

So, I would love to see the sports community convert from being "not good businesspeople." I think they can change that narrative. They can proactively start thinking ahead of it, and they can surround themselves with great people who have alignment with them. That will help make them winners post a career in sports.

We spoke about your passion for diversity earlier. The focus on diversity has taken on renewed significance nationwide in recent months. What has that meant to you?

First of all, I say kudos because conversation and change is happening — that's important to recognize. But more changes need to happen, and they need to happen faster.

Speaking to what I know best, I'd love to see women, people of color, minorities holding more of the executive positions in sports.

I think there could be a woman manager in the dugout — why not?

These are the kind of things that, if we all do our job, and if we make a difference in each of our spaces, then together we can make real change happen. We can give everyone an opportunity to enter the room, to come to the table, and to do big things. I know that when I see a young person who grew up like me become a business executive, it gives me great inspiration and hope.

I believe that opening doors for people is our responsibility as leaders. It's at the very top of my list of things to do for the next several decades. My work is just starting.

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NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez and Dan “Big Cat” Katz are back with another season of The Corp for Barstool Sports. It marks the third season for the podcast which launched in 2018.

Click here to listen!

World Series Champion & CEO and Chairman of A-Rod Corp Alex Rodriguez and Barstool Sports’ Big Cat interview industry leaders, sports legends, and entrepreneurs on what makes them successful in their specific profession. Business, humor, and stories from people who have lived the American Dream

Season 3 of The Corp features an entertaining guest list: Actress, Singer, dancer, fashion designer, and businesswoman Jenifer Lopez, 2-time NBA Champion, and Finals MVP Kevin Durant, late-night talk show host Jimmy Fallon, Rapper, Actor and Businessman Ice Cube, Broadcaster Joe Buck, Penn National Gaming CEO Jay Snowden and Designer and businessman Steve Madden.

Jennifer Lopez discusses her incredible career in entertainment, what drives her and keeps her motivated, her epic Super Bowl performance and more.

Kevin Durant talks about what drives him as a Champion, who inspires him, how he and Alex have had similar professional experiences and more.

Jimmy Fallon touches on growing up in comedy, being on SNL & more. Ice Cube shares how he navigated his successful career and how he has evolved.

Joe Buck discusses growing up in sports, calling World Series games, and injuring Alex. Jay Snowden talks about his career in the gaming industry and purchasing Barstool sports.

Finally, Steve Madden breaks down the rise of his shoe business, his time in jail & reclaiming his career.

The Corp is executive produced by Alex Rodriguez and Jeff Lee for ARod Productions along with Erika Nardini, Dan Katz and Henry Lockwood for Barstool Sports. Season 3 is sponsored by Presidente Beer.

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From pandemic curves to unemployment spikes to protest march estimates, the spring and summer of 2020 has introduced us to all sorts of mind-bending statistics. The one that surprised me most, though, came last month via America’s most successful Black entrepreneur, Robert F. Smith of Vista Equity Partners: More than 90% of Black-owned businesses, he explained, are sole proprietorships. In many ways, these business owners are the most entrepreneurial entrepreneurs: completely self-funded, self-driven and self-reliant. Tired of waiting for others to help deliver prosperity, they have to take it and make it themselves.

For Forbes, which has helped define what success looks like in America for over a century, this cohort and others like it offer us an opportunity to expand the continuum of who we cover, laud and learn from. Today, we’re introducing our next big franchise, the Next 1000, a platform that will scour the country to find those entrepreneurs working harder and thinking smarter as they blaze new trails to success.

Different than our “counting” lists, such as Billionaires or Self-Made Women, which numerically chronicle those at the very top, or achievement lists like the Midas List or 30 Under 30, which reward immediate past results, the Next 1000 will seek and highlight doers on their way, overcoming any and all obstacles to get there. These types of journeys tend to prove the most inspiring and, in finding them, we hope to elevate a new class of super-achievers.

We’ve tried to democratize the process of making this list. Any entrepreneur in America can apply, or be nominated, as long as you’ve been in business at least a year (whether full-time, part-time or side hustle), and have less than $10 million in revenue and have raised no more than Series A funding (with extra points for the do-it-yourself heroes extolled by Robert F. Smith). We’re looking for people with compelling personal stories and business models, as well those having an impact on their community, industry and the world. The application process will run through October.

This criteria will produce a list that looks like America, providing a platform for under-represented communities. Besides the racial, ethnic and gender diversity that will naturally occur by focusing on bootstrappers, we’ve designed the Next 1000 for geographic representation, carving up the country into eight zones, each with their own nomination pools, since amazing nascent entrepreneurs exist in every state, not just the coasts.
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It’s a big task. Luckily, we have an incredible team helping us sort through the nominations. The Next 1000 judging panel includes billionaire tech pioneers like LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman and Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg; investment ceiling-breakers like Ariel Investments co-CEO Mellody Hobson and Cowboy Ventures founder Aileen Lee; sports superstars turned entrepreneurial heavyweights like Alex Rodriguez and Russell Wilson; world-class mentors like National Geographic Society Chairman Jean Case and Morgan Stanley Vice Chairman Carla Harris; and self-starters like restaurateur Ayesha Curry, comedian Lilly Singh and Grammy Award-winning singer Ciara, who all understand how to translate influence into business — middlemen not required. Overseeing it all, we have one of own superstars, Maneet Ahuja, our senior editor for Small Business.

The past few months have underscored the hurdles faced by so many in America. With the Next 1000, we look forward to celebrating and accelerating those who haven’t let anything stop them from creating their own American Dream.

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"We remember what it was to grow up not being able to afford decent care," says Jennifer Lopez

Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez's star power might be astronomical, but the two will never forget their humble beginnings growing up in the Bronx and New York City, respectively. It's part of the reason why today, the duo are expanding their role with telehealth company Hims & Hers to help make healthcare and self-care accessible to, and affordable for, those in underserved communities. And in an exclusive interview with People, the new brand partners opened up about this important collaboration.

“We're always focused on providing for people who grew up the way we did,” says Lopez. "We feel like now we're in a different kind of privilege and our kids are growing up differently, but we remember what it was to grow up not being able to afford decent care.”

With a team of more than 200 licensed physicians and nurse practitioners across the U.S., and appointment prices starting at $39 (including the cost of any medication, if necessary), the company’s goal is for everyone to be able to seek treatment. (Hims & Hers’ providers are authorized to diagnose and fill prescriptions for more than two dozen conditions, from asthma to urinary tract infections.)

“We saw it as a company that was offering a modern approach to health and wellness in a way that was responsible and accessible. It's so great to be a part of,” says Lopez.

And Rodriguez notes that the platform combats the stigma associated with talking about sensitive issues.

“It facilitates things that can be very challenging, whether that's [discussing] embarrassing issues, or going to the pharmacy and waiting on-line.”

Lopez agrees. "All of that anonymity and the distance, it's a plus."

Not only are the two hoping to help democratize healthcare, they’re also trying to encourage self-care.

“Like everybody else, we're just trying to hold it together and not get too depressed over the situation that we've been in over the past few months,” Lopez says. “For me, meditating really helps to quiet the mind. But Hims & Hers offers mental health services, which is really great.”

But Hims & Hers doesn’t stop at services. The company also provides personal care products — and Lopez and Rodriguez are weaving them into their routines.

“My hair was over-worked, and so burnt out from so many years and so many jobs,” says Lopez. The damage led her to a mission to find a solution.

“Since I started trying the Minoxidil 2% [topical scalp treatment], honestly, my hair's grown about four inches in the past six months,” she says, adding that it feels thicker, too.

Now, Lopez uses the treatment in combination with the company’s shampoo and conditioner. “[Hims & Hers] has really basic, clean products with the right ingredients. It's nothing overly-fancy, and perfumed. It's just good.”

“[Skin-care] really hasn't been that important to me for a long time, unfortunately. And playing over 25 years of professional baseball and being exposed to the sun pretty much every day of my life, in many ways I'm paying the price now. But I'm catching up, and I do see improvement,” Rodriguez says, adding, “The Goodnight Wrinkle Cream is my favorite. Also, the Morning Glow Vitamin C Serum. I wish I'd had this at the beginning of my career.”

The products are available for a one-time purchase, but once you’re hooked like these two, you can set up a subscription.

Especially right now, with the population practicing social distancing, “It’s very easy to have your products just come every month,” Lopez says.

Another plus? Ranging from $15 to $39, they don’t come with a hefty price tag.

“It’s really important to make products that are affordable for everybody,” says Rodriguez.

And amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, the company has made primary care visits available in Spanish, and also have FDA-authorized at-home COVID-19 test kits, both additions Lopez praises.

The company’s ability to pivot to meet the needs of the public, especially in underserved communities, impresses Rodriguez as well.

“We really believe in [Co-Founder] Jack Abraham to [CEO] Andrew Dudum’s vision, the ability to execute. Anybody can have a good idea. Not too many people can execute at the level.”

Adds Lopez, "It's serving 100% of the population. That's always important to us."

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NEW YORK  (June 19th, 2020) — When Covid-19 struck, Cedric Bobo moved his internship program for Black and Hispanic students program online. But when he heard that New York City had canceled 75,000 paid summer internships, he took the program one step further.  He decided to use Project Destined’s learning platform as a gateway to replace at least some of those lost internships.

The project destined will administer the internship program in partnership with  Walker & Dunlop, inc.,  REPLI and REIRail. The paid summer internship program for high school and college students from diverse backgrounds is six-weeks in length and will provide students with the opportunity to work with leading commercial real estate firms, where live transactions will help participants gain real-world experience in digital marketing.

Click here for more information and internship opportunities.

HIGHLIGHTING CEDRIC BOBO:

Click here for the original CNBC article

For the past few weeks, Cedric Bobo, a former investment executive at the Carlyle Group, has spent the better part of his days on video calls, welcoming mostly Black and Hispanic students to paid summer internship programs.

When he’s not welcoming them, he’s pitching the programs to real estate executives, hoping they’ll fund even more students.

Bobo is co-founder of Project Destined, a nonprofit real estate learning platform that he launched four years ago. It teaches minority kids in cities basic finance by working with them to understand how property investments in their own neighborhoods work. They learn about how to value buildings, how mortgages work and how investors decide if a property is worth buying. They then pitch deals to panels of experts. Project Destined then invests in the some of the properties and offers the students a chance to profit from the deals through scholarship funds if they stay engaged.

Bobo teaches finance, but he preaches community ownership. Project Destined runs these programs in several major cities across the country, including New York, Detroit and Atlanta.

When Covid-19 struck, he moved the entire program online. But when he heard that New York City had canceled 75,000 paid summer internships, he took the program one step further. He decided to use Project Destined’s learning platform as a gateway to replace at least some of those lost internships.

“So many of our cities are challenged right now with budget issues. Seventy-five thousand students in New York alone lost their jobs for the summer, many of them Black and Brown youth. I talked to the [Real Estate Board of New York], and overnight we created 100 internships for students, and that was a real stimulus around the country,” said Bobo. “We went from there and began working with different corporates to begin to create more and more internships around the country.”

Bobo has recruited some of the biggest names in the real estate business: Brookfield Asset Management, Tishman Speyer, and Walker & Dunlop. The internships are five or six weeks and pay either $500 or $750, depending on the program. Students learn the basics from Project Destined’s courses and then connect directly with executives at the real estate firms sponsoring them. They will also hear live lectures from top executives at Brookfield, Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Amazon and former Yankee Alex Rodriguez, who runs his own real estate firm.

“We went straight to the real estate folks, and we went straight to CEOs. That’s really important because if you want to have action, you’ve got to have the leaders create action and then measure it,” said Bobo.

When the Black Lives Matter protests erupted, even more companies, large and small, began stepping up. He now hopes to fund more than 1,000 internships through the fall.

“The protests are critical because they create awareness, and we need to sustain that awareness, but the next piece is how do you translate that into action. So what we’ve been doing is working with the corporates to create true training opportunities where they can hire those folks,” Bobo said.

Another sponsor in the program is Vincent Harris, co-founder of a small, Black-owned proptech firm called REIRail. It is a lead generation platform for smaller real estate investors to source property deals. Harris has been passionate about financial literacy since he was a child. His mother lost their home to foreclosure because she didn’t understand how to manage her finances.

“That was a really formative experience for me. I remember the trauma, frankly, of that, and vowed to never be in a position like that, to never have my children be in a position like that,” said Harris.

What drew him to the internship program, he said, was that it’s not just about education; it’s about putting those lessons into practice and getting both finances and invaluable professional connections into the hands of students.

“A lot of the lack of access, that you see people demanding in the streets right now, comes from the fact that folks who have power, the power to hire, etc., don’t interface with Black and Brown communities. They don’t have a means of entry and so Project Destined is really cementing a pipeline of talent into these organizations,” he said.

On a recent Zoom call, Bobo welcomed Samuel Obasi to his new internship. Obasi, a Black junior at Towson University in Baltimore, explained why he wanted to make real estate his future.

“Not only can you build wealth for yourself, but you can use that to build affordable housing for your own people in your own area, your own neighborhood,” said Obasi.

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MIAMI (April 21, 2020) – Jennifer Lopez and Alex Rodriguez are doing their part amid the coronavirus crisis.

http://http://https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242168676.html

The pair have donated thousands of meals that will be distributed this weekend and next week to help hard-hit hospitality workers in the Miami area.

In all, Lopez and Rodriguez donated 20,000 chef-prepared frozen meals from their food line, Tiller & Hatch Supply Co., to feed unemployed hospitality and restaurant workers who have either been laid off or furloughed because of the coronavirus lockdown.

Meals will be distributed at the Newport Beachside Hotel & Resort as well as the adjacent Beach Bar restaurant at the Newport Pier. Other hotels that will receive donated meals include The Shelborne South Beach, DoubleTree By Hilton Ocean Point Resort, The Mayfair at Coconut Grove and The Mondrian South Beach.

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Renowned worldwide for his unparalleled accomplishments on the baseball field, ALEX RODRIGUEZ stands as one of the greatest athletes of all time, as well as an accomplished media personality and philanthropist. A leading voice on resilience and dedication, leadership and teamwork, and how to truly master your craft, Rodriguez delivered a compelling, engaging and informative virtual presentation on how to turn rejection into a home run. It's a powerful, high-quality, 45-minute interview, chock-full of personal anecdotes and actionable lessons that incorporates both multi-media and Q&A. Since quarantine, Rodriguez has been involved in numerous charitable and virtual initiatives, including the All In challenge to raise money to help feed people around the world, and giving a baseball lesson from his backyard.

A 3-time MVP, 14-time all-star, and a 2009 World Series Champion with the New York Yankees, Rodriguez is also the founder of A-Rod Corp, having built a fully-integrated real estate investment and development firm, all while managing a record-breaking baseball career. At engagements Rodriguez shares his “mindset of a champion” philosophy, leaving audiences prepared to excel in their own personal and professional lives. His rave reviews speak for themselves, such as: "Powerful, poignant, persuasive – a truly passionate performance... To say impressed in an understatement. Your expressive and raw discussion turned heads and changed mindsets. A remarkable feat. I believe what captured many hearts was your humility. The surprise and delight of your talk had everyone on the edge of their seats. The question and answer session in particular where many of your themes and advice organically came forth proved to be invaluable." (Intuit)

Watch "How to Turn Rejection into a Home Run"

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NEW YORK (Feb. 22, 2019) – A-Rod Corp announced its newest investment in Nova Credit on Friday afternoon.

“We are excited about this investment,” said CEO, Alex Rodriguez, “This venture celebrates our diversification. As a Dominican-American I am proud to be able to help out fellow immigrants who struggle differently. We believe in changing lives at A-Rod Corp and Nova echos that mission.”

This month, Nova Credit raised a $50M round led by Kleiner Perkins to finally make the global consumer credit reporting system whole. Mr. Rodriguez participated in the Series B funding along with Canapi Ventures and existing investors General Catalyst, Index Ventures, and NYCA Partners. Nova also welcomed Avid Ventures, Endeavor, Susa Ventures and Sound Ventures and the Edge of U2.

ABOUT NOVA:  Nova Credit is the premier cross-border bureau. Lack of a domestic credit history keeps millions of immigrants in the United States from realizing their dreams. The award-winning fintech helps newcomers and other global citizens apply for financial services using their international credit history from countries including Australia, Brazil, Canada, India, Mexico, Nigeria, South Korea, and the UK. We translate international credit data into a U.S.-equivalent score and report in a format familiar to American underwriters, who use it to evaluate applications for credit products. Founded by immigrants, we have a diverse team from around the globe who are creating a world beyond borders to help newcomers arrive and thrive.

ON A MISSION: We strive to enable the flow of humans not just for their economic potential, but because of the value of that movement itself in bringing new perspectives, creativity, community, and innovation. For Nova Credit, we are here to dream up a world beyond borders and our mission is to inspire and facilitate the flow of human diversity. The modern world as we know it has been created through the movement and collaboration of humans. Across changing borders, regions, and cultures, a continuous cycle of human migration and settlement is what defines us as different nations, composes our family histories, and shapes our personal stories.

PROBLEM SOLVING: All newcomers to the U.S. are rendered “credit invisible” upon arrival because American underwriters can’t access international credit data. Even if they have a good credit rating at their prior home countries, recent immigrants often struggle to accomplish the most basic tasks such as getting an apartment lease, a cell phone plan, credit card or student loan. Before Nova Credit translated international credit data to a U.S.-equivalent score, all newcomers had to build their U.S. credit history back to its previous levels from scratch, which can take as long as five years.

INNOVATION: Nova Credit’s core innovation is a U.S.-equivalent global credit scoring and reporting format, the Credit Passport®. Similar to a U.S. credit report, it contains a FICO-equivalent score, tradelines and inquiry history, allowing consumers who have recently arrived in the U.S. to attempt to demonstrate their creditworthiness to lenders. Partners like American Express, MPOWER Financing and Yardi can seamlessly underwrite qualifying newcomers without a U.S. credit score using Nova Credit. The solution requires consumer consent.For most countries, Nova Credit aligns the country-of-origin credit score to U.S. credit risk levels by matching the default rates. For example, a score of 1050 in the originating country that represents a default rate of 3% might equate to a score of 710 at the same default rate in the U.S. In that case the consumer’s score is adjusted to 710 for U.S. underwriting purposes.

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Iconic athlete, businessman, media personality and philanthropist ALEX RODRIGUEZ wowed a crowd of 800 executives at the Mortgage Bankers Association's CREF conference, engaging in a 45-minute conversation that touched on everything from business disruption, to lessons from the world of baseball, to insights into how to stay ahead of the curve, find your passion, and connect with the right people at the right time. Chock-full of riveting anecdotes and stories from an iconic 25-year career in baseball plus his latest ventures in business and entertainment, Rodriguez's remarks made headlines in industry press, and had the audience laughing, thinking, and inspired.

Besides being a legendary athlete, media personality, and philanthropist, Rodriguez is also a business powerhouse. He's the founder and CEO of A-Rod Corp-- a tremendously successful, fully-integrated real estate investment and development firm-- and so his remarks infused lots of insights into his business ethic and decision-making, how he built his corporate team from the bottom up, and the new investments he's most excited about.

Rodriguez is also the host of his own podcast, The Corp, and show on CNBC, Back in the Game. He seamlessly weaves his diverse portfolio into the conversation. Sought-out to speak everywhere from Intuit to Capital One, Rodriguez receives race reviews such as: "Alex, wow! You knocked it out of the park... You were beyond spectacular. There were so many takeaways. Thanks so much for sharing your personal story." (The NDP Group, Inc."

Watch Alex Rodriguez at the Mortgage Bankers Association event >>

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MIAMI (Jan. 29, 2020) – FOX SPORTS SUPPORTS, the community impact arm of FOX Sports, today announced the inaugural donation from its newly-formed “Gamechanger Fund” to the Hank Kline Club of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade.

To present the $200,000 contribution, FOX MLB Studio Analyst Alex Rodriguez, a Miami-Dade Boys & Girls Clubs Board Member, visited the club he attended during his youth in Coconut Grove, along with Eric Shanks, Chief Executive Officer & Executive Producer, FOX Sports, and Adrian Garcia-Marquez, NFL Announcer, FOX Deportes. Shanks and Garcia-Marquez also grew up in the Boys & Girls Clubs. The contribution was received by Alejandro Rodriguez-Roig, President of the Boys & Girls Clubs of Miami-Dade.

“The Boys & Girls Clubs could not have played a more important role in my development as both an athlete and a person,” said Rodriguez. “I’m very grateful that FOX Sports is supporting the organization and investing in the club I attended as a child, and the futures of the kids here today.”

The Gamechanger Fund, which is proudly supported by both FOX Sports and its parent company, Fox Corporation, is part of a lasting community commitment ahead of Sunday’s Super Bowl LIV on FOX. The Fund will provide AV equipment and education space for the club’s youth to explore future careers in television, digital and social media production. Club members will also be connected with FOX Sports employees and productions around the country for ongoing extracurricular learning and mentorship opportunities.

“I wouldn’t be where I am today if it were not for the Boys & Girls Clubs,” said Shanks, who also serves as the organization’s Pacific Region Chair. “Everyone at FOX Sports hopes the Gamechanger Fund will help to inspire the next generation and that one or more of these girls or boys is producing the Super Bowl someday.”

This project is rooted in FOX Sports Supports’ belief that increasing youths’ exposure to sports, in both on-the-field athletic pursuits and off-the-field professional ones, can deepen their connection to the game and become a driving force of change in their lives.

About FOX Sports
FOX Sports is the umbrella entity representing FOX Corporation’s wide array of multi-platform US-based sports assets. Built with brands capable of reaching more than 100 million viewers in a single weekend, the business has ownership and interests in linear television networks, digital and mobile programming, broadband platforms, multiple web sites, joint-venture businesses and several licensing relationships. FOX Sports includes the sports television arm of the FOX Network; FS1, FS2, FOX Soccer Plus and FOX Deportes. FOX Sports’ digital properties include FOXSports.com and the FOX Sports App, which provides live streaming video of FOX Sports content, instant scores, stats and alerts to iOS and Android devices. Additionally, FOX Sports and social broadcasting platform, Caffeine jointly own Caffeine Studios which creates exclusive eSports, sports and live entertainment content. Also included in FOX Sports’ portfolio are FOX’s interests in joint-venture business Big Ten Network, a licensing and commercial relationship with The Stars Group that created the FOX Bet sports betting platform and the FOX Sports Super 6 free-to-play game, and a licensing agreement that established the FOX Sports Radio Network.

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The former New York Yankees slugger is joining Anheuser-Busch as partner and chairman for Presidente Beer, which is based in the Dominican Republic.

Rodriguez received a shout-out on Instagram from his No. 1 fan: Jennifer Lopez.

Congrats Alex on your new adventure with @presidente__usa, so proud of you! @arod

Rodriguez will return to the broadcast booth this season on ESPN’s “Sunday Night Baseball.” In two years, he will appear on the National Baseball Hall of Fame ballot for the first time. His former teammate Derek Jeter was elected to the Hall on Tuesday. But Rodriguez, despite his 696 career home runs, is expected to face an uphill climb for induction because of his season-long suspension for PED use.

Rodriguez also will be appearing on the ballot with former Red Sox DH David Ortiz, who, despite hitting 150 less home runs, could have a stronger Hall of Fame case given his three World Series rings, although the Boston slugger also was linked to PEDs during his career.

Below is the press release announcing Rodriguez’s news:

Anheuser-Busch today announced a landmark partnership between the iconic Dominican pilsner Presidente Beer and Alex Rodriguez, with the baseball legend and entrepreneur joining as Chairman of Presidente USA.

Long associated with Miami sports, Presidente USA is taking the next step in its legacy by partnering with Rodriguez, who will bring a new energy to the brand by transcending the role of spokesperson and truly helping direct the brand’s efforts toward the rich, Dominican culture that Presidente represents.

Rodriguez, the son of Dominican immigrants, first picked up a baseball on the fields of Washington Heights, New York, before rising to the pinnacle of America’s pastime. His journey embodies the pride and passion that has driven Presidente Beer forward since its inception in 1935.

“Growing up as a Dominican-American in the US, Presidente was not only a beer, it was part of our community. It connected my parents to their home and was a part of every major community event, big or small,” said Rodriguez. “It is truly an honor to get behind a brand with such a deep connection to my heritage and culture, and I cannot wait to help build its future.”

Presidente beer is a powerful symbol of Dominican culture both stateside and abroad, known as a true taste of the Caribbean.

“We could not be more excited about this partnership with Alex Rodriguez, who is himself an incredible ambassador for the Dominican culture. Presidente is the number one Dominican beer brand in the world with tremendous growth potential here in the US on the back of this unique partnership,” said Ricardo Marques, Group VP Marketing for Value and Core, Anheuser-Busch.

As Chairman of Presidente USA, Rodriguez will help grow the Presidente brand presence in the U.S. in 2020 and beyond, including the release of new products and materials

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HOUSTON (Jan. 23, 2020) – After 22 seasons of baseball, superstar shortstop and third baseman Alex Rodriguez is taking a swing at something new: marketing beer.

The former New York Yankee, Texas Ranger and Seattle Mariner is the new chairman and co-owner of Presidente, the Dominican beer brand now owned by Anheuser-Busch InBev.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed, but to Rodriguez—the son of Dominican immigrants—the beer brand has an emotional connection. In an exclusive interview with Forbes, he said he feels “like it’s family”—adding that unless someone is from the Dominican Republic or grew up with it, “it’s hard to explain to others.”

“Presidente is one of the most prestigious brands in the entire country,” he said. “It’s what PepsiCo means to America. It’s synonymous with our country, synonymous with our flag. It’s unfortunate my father is not still here to watch this, but I think that he would be more proud of this partnership than my home runs.”

So what does this partnership entail? Details are still scant. However, according to Rodriguez, part of the reason the beer hasn’t caught on as much in the U.S. is that it all about the temperature that it’s served. (For him, it has to be “very, very cold” and “frothy white.”)

“The consumer will get very, very offended if it’s not at least that cold,” he said.

Presidente—first released by Cerveceria Nacional Dominicana in the Dominican Republic in the 1930s—was acquired by Anheuser-Busch in 2012 for $1.2 billion. Ricardo Marques, Anheuser-Busch InBev’s Group VP of Marketing for Core & Value Brands, said Presidente has been having growth in the “single-digits.” However, he said the partnership with Rodriguez will be “with us every day looking to grow the Presidente brand.”

“He’s so passionate about the brand and I assure you that he knows this brand better than I do,” Marques said. “It’s part of his culture and where he comes from so what we’re really looking for his vision of where he thinks this brand should go.”

While this is the first beer brand Rodriguez has worked with, it’s not the first brand he’s worked with. Others in the past include Pepsi, Planters peanuts and the coconut water Vita Coco.

“I don’t look at this from an investment or a marketing opportunity,” he said. “I look at this as a way to story-tell and brag about one of the best brands.”

So what comes next? Until now, the focus for the brand has been on East Coast cities with large Dominican populations such as New York and Miami but now the plan is to have a national strategy in place by opening day of the next baseball season—starting with a big activation at Yankee Stadium. Rodriguez said he might recruit some of his fellow Presidente-drinking, baseball-playing friends to help out.

“It’s the ripple affect,” Rodriguez said. “The hundreds of Dominican major league players and Latin American players that have played in this country, the first thing they do after a game is have a Presidente.”

(Article by: Marty Swant Forbes Staff)

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HOUSTON (Jan. 23, 2020) – What goes with baseball more than a cold beer?

Alex Rodriguez is buying a minority stake in Dominican beer Presidente through his investment firm A-Rod Corp, sources told Page Six, and the former slugger will serve as chairman of the brand.

The deal with Anheuser-Busch InBev is expected to be announced Thursday at a sales conference put on by the beer giant, we hear.

A source told us, “Alex bought a minority stake. They’re partners, and he’ll be the chairman, and work very closely with Anheuser-Busch as they look to do more together. There really is unlimited potential of what can be done. It’s real involvement and real ownership.”

A-Rod grew up in the Dominican Republic and Miami. Presidente has previously been the official beer of the University of Miami Hurricanes football team, as well as the Orange Bowl in Miami. The brew’s also been the official beer of Miami squads the Heat and the Marlins.

Sources said that A-Rod’s previously been brought dozens of offers to endorse or invest in liquor brands, but that he was ultimately only interested in pursuing Presidente as an organic match to his Dominican roots. Major League Baseball is also rife with Dominican stars from Robinson Cano to recently retired David Ortiz.

“Presidente and baseball are like a religion there. It’s a perfect fit for him,” said an observer, adding that in the States, “The upside is tremendous. There is a ton of growth space.”

A-Rod Corp encompasses a real estate investment and development firm, has investments in fitness studios by TruFusion, UFC and Energy Fitness. The firm also backs numerous media and tech startups.

“He’s building business in a big way with everything he’s built and learned,” said a source of A-Rod.

He’s also a commentator for Fox Sports and ESPN, and hosts “Back in the Game” on CNBC

(Article by: Ian Mohr)

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LOS ANGELES (Aug. 27, 2019) – Alex Rodriguez and Barstool Sports Release Season Two of “The Corp” Podcast

After the first season of The Corp became the No. 1 overall podcast last year, legendary baseball player Alex Rodriguez has reunited with Barstool Sports personality and host of No.1 sports podcast, Pardon My Take, Dan “Big Cat” Katz, for another season. Combining comedy, business and sports into one relatable platform, The Corp takes Rodriguez and Katz around the country to interview business leaders, sports legends, entertainment veterans and entrepreneurs to uncover the roots of their success and the mindset that let them overcome the inevitable obstacles.

Season two will open on August 27 with interviews with iconic actor Kevin Bacon and America’s first self-made female billionaire, Martha Stewart. Each week, the podcast will drop on Tuesdays, with accompanying video on Thursdays on YouTube. Guests also include storied racing driver Danica Patrick, WWE executive Stephanie McMahon, former Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz and entrepreneurs Dylan Lauren of Dylan’s Candy Bar and Ty Haney of Outdoor Voices.

In this second outing for the team, Rodriguez continues to share the untold stories of his baseball career and his experience founding the real-life ARod Corp, an investment conglomerate that has deployed hundreds of millions of dollars in real estate, media, consumer and fitness ventures. “It doesn’t matter where you competed. These guests, from Martha Stewart to Danica Patrick and Dylan Lauren, all stared failure in the eye and won that standoff,” says Rodriguez. “It’s a great lesson for us all.”

Dan ‘Big Cat’ Katz is known for his ability to bring out the most unexpected and candid moments from athletes and celebrities alike on his No. 1 podcast Pardon My Take. He brings those skills to The Corp and continues to infuse his refreshing and unique comedic point of view. “The goal of the podcast is to let successful people open up in a more relaxed atmosphere, tell their story and relate to the audience what it was like to climb their respective professional mountain,” says Katz. “I think listeners will enjoy what we accomplished with season 2.”

Along the way there will be five appearances from Barstool Sports CEO, Erika Nardini, who says, “In television, you’re working toward someone else’s definition of what’s funny or what’s allowed. With podcasts, you’re getting graded on by the fans…we control our own destiny here.”

The Corp is executive produced by Alex Rodriguez and Jeff Lee for ARod Productions along with Erika Nardini, Dan Katz and Henry Lockwood for Barstool Sports.

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We download wellness apps to help us track calories, water intake, mental health, and more. Now it's time to start doing the same with human connections.

If you were to scroll through your phone, how many wellness apps would be staring back at you? Two? Three? Five? No judgement: Self-improvement apps have proven themselves to be valuable tools for people looking to meditate and practice mindfulness, work out more efficiently, track food and water intake, cycle sync, match with the right therapist, become more calm, and pretty much anything else in the name of bettering our bodies and our minds. But with the launch of Thoughtful, a new type of wellness app, there’s now a tool to help us navigate what’s inarguably one of the most overlooked components of mental health: combatting loneliness and deepening our relationships with others to live more meaningful lives. And it couldn’t have come at a more optimal time.

Last May, the US Surgeon General issued an advisory about the public health crisis of loneliness and isolation, warning that a lack of connection can have profound effects on both our mental and physical health. (Heart disease, stroke, and dementia? All included as potential conditions of chronic isolation, in addition to more obvious ones like feeling adrift and depressed.)

Identifying and dealing with loneliness is crucial at any age, but interestingly, more than 70% of millennials—arguably the first generation to truly assimilate with and embrace the digital landscape—report feeling it, according to Thoughtful. The app also points out that young adults in general report being nearly twice as likely as those over age 65 to feel lonely or isolated.

In theory, we know the remedy—more meaningful and frequent connections—but it’s often difficult to put this into practice in a culture that’s largely incapable of putting our phones down, even briefly. The Thoughtful app is the first tool of its kind to actually help us do what the name implies: find ways to to be more thoughtful with our friends and family in real time and real life.

Cofounded by startup veteran Elizabeth Shaffer and Jet.com founder Marc Lore, and backed by VCP Ventures, which itself was cofounded by Alex Rodriguez, the team spent two years working with psychiatrists to create what the company calls the Connection Style test, a series of questions that determines your personality archetype, relationship values, and communication style. Your results then power a personalized experience in the app, and you receive daily guided prompts to practice reaching out, showing up, remembering dates that carry emotional significance, and better connecting with people you care about.

“Coming out of the pandemic, it was clear that so many people were suffering from a sense of disconnection, but I think the problem started before then,” says Shaffer. “We all know that our friends and family give us a sense of meaning and purpose, but with our busy lives, we struggle to make time for them.  I wanted to create an app that made it easy to spend a few minutes every day being there for our people.”

You might not think you need an app to remind you to meet your sister for an uninterrupted catch-up or to call your dear friend to wish her a happy birthday, but think about how much we do in a day—between work, the loop of rote daily routines and obligations, stressing over the news, and yes, obsessively spending time on our phones, life does get in the way. The Thoughtful app is, thankfully, here to show us that it’s possible to change that.

“I have always been aware of the value of my friendships, but since working on Thoughtful, I have been mindful of them in a deeper way,” Shaffer says. “I’m much less likely to cancel a coffee date and much more likely to send an “I’m thinking of you” text. I see spending time with friends as not only a fun thing to do, but as an investment in our mutual mental health, and something necessary for living a meaningful life.”

The Thoughtful app is available to download today, October 18.