Is it a Terrible Time to Get into the Sports Business?

Modern media is built to make you think the sky is falling. Elections and tariffs and job reports, oh my! Of course, there’s trouble in the world, but I’m here to tell you that there's never been a better time to get into the sportswear space. Grab your golden briefcase and let’s dive in…

I built a career in brand marketing at Nike over the course of a decade, and it took me almost four years to get into the door there. I wish I knew a lot of things when I started. Half of my content is dedicated to my younger self.

After that decade at Nike & leaving three years ago, I’ve had my eyes open to even more places in the industry. Consult my rough chart here showing several of the intersecting points in the industry.

The Industry Elements:

I, like many people, thought that the way to get into one of these cool companies was just go to the big brands: Nike, Adidas, Under Armour…etc But, there are so many other opportunities in this world, like leagues : the NBA, NFL, the WNBA and many others.

And of course they have teams for each one of those which have roles across all of them. Example. If you had gotten a role, any type of role, at the Indiana Fever one year and one month ago, your life would change right after the WNBA draft when Caitlin Clark was signed. Similarly, if you’re working for the Dallas Wings and Paige Bueckers gets drafted to your team, you're gonna have incredible opportunity.

Today, there's so many challenger brands in the sports space that didn't even exist several years ago. We have brands like Bandit Running, Satisfy, Tracksmith, Melin hats, all kinds of companies. You have Moolah Kicks who are making basketball shoes only for women.

You have Togethxr, which is a media outlet just for women's sports. No other industry is growing faster.

In the golf space, there are tons of brands who are rising up to challenge these big brands. And you could arguably get a way better experience at one of these younger brands than you could at some of the bigger ones.

All this is to say nothing about marketing agencies. I spent the first couple of years trying to get into Nike by working at retail, and then I figured out you could work at a marketing agency as a brand ambassador or a creative director or copywriter or whatever your skill set might be. For me, I was an hourly brand ambassador, but I got to work much more closely with the clients AKA the people at the big brand.

And of course there were talented creatives 15 years ago, but there weren't that many places to showcase your work. Today, you can be a creator with just an iPhone on TikTok or Instagram or Snapchat or YouTube and be able to show off a skillset and creativity that was not valued 15 years ago, nor was there any mechanism to find you, and that is incredible!

This is to say nothing of all the athletes now that are attached to leagues and teams. Each big athlete has their own content team now. Plus, there's athletes in college through NIL that now need that same work. In 36 states, you can do NIL in high school. So the world is just full of opportunity and possibility.

But the media and social media will tell you that the sky is falling. There's no reason to fall for this. There is so much opportunity to have legitimate work to build a career that is long lasting and sustainable. This industry is only growing. Buckle up and get in where you fit in!

Education:
The number one question I get from Brands is how to maintain a Premium Brand in the Tik Tok era. 
This week The Fathers talked luxury social media and how people & brands can still compete in the TikTok world with high production content.

Chat GPT adds 20 pounds of muscle and cuban links to your frame…here’s the BrandFathers quick takeaways from the episode…

Or, you can always visit HowToGetAJobAtNike.com for some of my career resources & advice as well.

Blessings:

Young Men are Being Lied To on a daily basis.

Sports Betting, Get Rich Quick & Crypto scams are commonplace. This is not new, but the tools of the modern era make them ever present and remove any friction that is needed to prevent us from bad decisions. Bad decisions are uniquely part of the young male experience where his prefontal cortex (emotion/decision regulation part of the brain) does not fully develop until 25 years old.

I wrote about three principles below:
1. Get Rich Slowly 📈 2. Build Skill That Last 🔨 3. Become Marriage Material 🖤

I hope it blesses you (or someone you know) today.