The key to Overtime, like any venture-backed startup, is how can we burn the money we have fast enough to create some metrics that will lead to an exit.
Feels a little like the XFL. I remain amazed at the number of “social media influencers” who make significant revenue so perhaps this will work…just seems like a house of cards financially.
Apparently these Bewley brothers are already 18 years old despite being 2023 recruits. Seems like a unique situation.
Would love to see the business plan. It’s great to have investors, but how are you marketing this and actually being liquid.
Agreed I think you probably have 8 players at most 10. If there were ever injuries some guys who may not have been getting big minutes will be loaned to another team.
I suspect they will also take lesser talented kids that aren’t being paid but still want to train/play in the environment. I mean maybe it becomes like IMG where normal kids are paying high tuition to be there alongside the others who are paid to be there.
It’s also possible that $20k +room and board would be plenty attractive to lesser ranked players. Especially when the other offer is “go to high school and not get paid”
For guys who think they deserve to be paid but aren’t seeing other offers. There are probably 1000 kids who think they are top 100 players, so get some of them, and if there is enough interest then there will be ad revenue.
That’s the scary situation. Where do those kids go after HS when they can’t play college and the G league doesn’t want them?
Absolutely scary. Unfortunately I imagine that OTE isn’t worrying about it as long as they can make money for themselves.
How does OTE even stand to make money? I don’t see a revenue model. Feels like they will just burn through the $80 million and that’s that.
How do the Prep school schedules work now? I know there are some tournaments. Do they set up individual matchups the way Michigan will set up a home and away with Oregon?
I agree. Maybe they’re hoping for a TV deal, but the cable model and subscription model are still evolving and I doubt there’s a market for moderately talented high school games. I’m sure they can get some investment from shoe companies hoping to snag the one or two stars from this league before they make it big.
But Dylan’s right…what happens to the kids in this league that age-out and have no pro future? Maybe they go to a lower-tier international league? If they want a college degree they will need to pay their own way. Will the six-figure contracts for two years sustain them long enough to find another career?
They are a pretty massive social media brand? I assume they are monetizing those streams better than most.
I won’t pretend to understand the social media revenue model - I’m too old for that apparently. I suppose that might be how OTE stays viable. I’m not quite sure what it means for the players. The ones that earn $200k for a couple years and then make the leap into a pro contract will probably do pretty well. The ones that don’t…we’ll have to see.
Yeah, right now I’d say it makes sense for someone like Isaiah Todd who by all accounts was planning to play for money when he was done with HS.
If you are a top-20 type of kid as a sophomore and absolutely planning to go the Ignite path… You can make real money over two years and then go to the G-League rather than taking whatever pay out you can get by jumping from prep school to prep school.
If you are a top-100 HS player or worse, doesn’t really make sense to me.
I guess so but I have doubts about scaling a social media rev stream into a whole league’s worth.
If OTE turns into one team like Ignite that barnstorms against Maccabi Tel Aviv and APOEL I could see it.
I mean, the whole thing is a media play. It is all about growing the media brand, the league is just there to be a media product.
The company said its content is streamed more than 1.7 billion times a month across all social platforms. Since its launch in 2016, Overtime said, it has nearly 50 million social media followers.
https://twitter.com/TiptonEdits/status/1395797958503944195
Along with his decision to turn professional, Henderson has decided to reclassify to the 2021 class, joining the Ignite for this coming season and has been slotted as the No. 10 overall prospect in the 2021 class.
Regardless of Henderson’s decision to reclassify, he still has two years before he will be Draft eligible given that Henderson will not turn 19 until the year of the 2023 Draft.
This part is interesting. Feels like they need to make some way to have an exception to this and you’d see a lot more guys jumping up to do it. Same idea is kind of slowing down Emoni’s path.
That’s a salary there though…
https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/1395799116291190788
You’re just putting a lot of cards into still being a top 20 type who the G League will want in two years. I feel like there’s generally a few prospects at that point each year who were physically dominant for their age and then fade into generic top 100 territory.
Someone like Todd regressed but still was very much in the G League territory. I’m talking about guys who are never really considering college hoops.