He Shoots, He Scores, He Invests
May 11 2000
Tired of reading about 25-year-olds making millions off the Web? Well, how about some press on professional athletes already making millions from their teams and looking to boost their take online?
Fortune offers just such a story in "Playing for Big Money" in its May 15 issue. With its uber-capitalist focus, the majority of the six pages discuss Champion Ventures, a $40 million "fund of funds" founded by former San Francisco 49ers Harris Barton and Ronnie Lott. Champion, comprised of 13 lucrative venture-capital funds, is open to investment from current or former pro athletes only, and has made the likes of Joe Montana, Wayne Gretzky, Barry Bonds and Drew Bledsoe rich. Er, richer.
Eventually, the article moves into the jocks' e-commerce plans. Writer Roy S. Johnson awards the title of "Most Visible Pro-Athlete Internet Venture" to mvp.com, an e-retailer of sporting goods that features Michael Jordan, John Elway and Gretzky as investors. Another notable entry is AthletesDirect.com, which works with various pro athletes to "build and manage their personal cyber-storefronts," and usually carries photos, audio clips and info about the star . Interestingly, Johnson reports, "Most of the players are paid nothing to participate, but share in revenues generated by advertising and merchandise sales." So Ken Griffey Jr. should smile at the $100,000 he gets on top of his cut of revenues from his site.
Even more interesting are the plans of L.A. Lakers' center Shaquille O'Neal and his Dunk.net, which lets customers purchase clothing and shoes, including customized models, which are available only online. O'Neal, Johnson notes, "Wants to crush the old-economy model of the sneaker and apparel industries the way Michael Dell body-slammed the computer industry with his radical made-to-order direct-to-consumer model."
But will any of these sites fly? Fortune doesn't ask. Instead, skepticism about jock Web ventures is offered up in a San Francisco Chronicle article. AthletesDirect lost $17.8 million last year, reports staff writer Benny Evangelista. Its Web site traffic also has been small, according to the Nielsen/NetRatings Internet audience rating service, with MVP.com's even smaller. He also gets damning commentary from Jupiter analyst Patrick Keane, who says only young fans visit athlete Web sites. "Finding out what Ken Griffey Jr. eats for breakfast is interesting to a very limited subset of consumers," says Keane.
Playing for Big Money
Fortune
More Ways to Score
SFGate
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Correction:
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