With the NFL in its offseason, New England Patriots Safety Devin McCourty says he's focused on securing generational wealth for himself and other athletes through a new venture capital mission called Broad Street Ventures. Co-founded by Malcolm Jenkins of the New Orleans Saints and Ralonda Johnson, current president of the organization, the group looks to educate athletes while helping them gain financially.
"For us, we wanted to create a vehicle that would allow Black and brown investors to learn about venture capital but also have access to some of the best deals in the tech and consumer space," Johnson told Cheddar.
McCourty said that his close friendship with Jenkins is what spawned his decision to invest with Broad Street Ventures.
"We played in an all-star game coming out of high school and we do a lot off-the-field things together, and I think from there he started to talk about a vision of having NFL players having access to a different kind of wealth," he said.
Both grew up in New Jersey before going on to their collegiate and professional careers.
For NFL players, unlike in some other sports like the NBA and Major League Baseball, contracts are not guaranteed, the average length of a career is significantly fewer years, and as a result, players often have to find other means to secure finances for their futures. McCourty said that Broad Street Ventures allows all athletes to learn about venture capital investing.
Ralonda Johnson added that the group provides information sessions where potential investors can not only learn the ropes but also about emerging technologies.
"Not everyone [who] attends may invest or not, but just so that they at least have an understanding of tech investing. We'll go over from seed through late stage, just as much information that we can give them," she said.
For McCourty, Broad Street Ventures presents an opportunity for professional athletes to change the perception that the general public may have of them. He said with this opportunity, sports figures aren't limited to just making plays on the field. They can invest and lift up areas and industries that they are passionate about, offering fans a closer look at the human and not just the athlete.
It's been an eventful past few weeks for the WNBA. One of the league's top players, Brittney Griner, remains in Russian custody after being detained at an airport last month. The league is also dealing with a scandal after fining a team for providing charter flights to their players. Emily Caron, sports business reporter for Sportico, joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Most employed women believe they deserve a pay increase, and they believe the Great Resignation can help give them leverage and room to bargain with management. Stephanie Heath, Founder of SoulWork, says they're right, and should use today's unique labor market as just one of their many talking points when discussing compensation with management. Heath joins Closing Bell to discuss best practices for negotiating a bigger paycheck, how to use the tight labor market to your advantage during a job hunt, and more.
Jarrod Loadholt, Partner at Ice Miller, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he calls President Biden's executive order on digital assets a 'home run' and explains the ways it benefits the greater cryptocurrency market.
Auction-based advertising infrastructure startup Topsort
raised $8 million in a seed funding round. Topsort says companies like Google and Amazon have been making huge profits from auction-based advertising for decades, but that the technology is complicated, exclusive, and hard to build. The company is trying to be a solution, by offering an auction-based advertising API to smaller retailers and marketplaces. Regina Ye, CEO and co-founder of Topsort, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Lance Ippolito, Head Trader at Future of Wealth, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says the President's executive order on crypto is a step in the right direction even though investor sentiment cooled off on Thursday.
After a week of headlines that ranged from a potential criminal investigation by the Justice Department to a 20 for 1 stock split, Michael Pachter, the managing director of equity research at Wedbush Securities, joined Cheddar News to shake out what wild week means for the tech giant and what he thinks is behind possible government antipathy towards the company. "If you look at Amazon, Capitol Hill hates them," he said. "And maybe it's just because Bezos looks like Dr. Evil, but I think part of it is that a lot of constituents of these legislators just don't whine at Congress, 'leave my company alone,' the way they do with Disney or Microsoft."
The ongoing semiconductor chip shortage has been impacting everything from the purchase of cars to smartphones. Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves spoke with Cheddar about the Biden administration's efforts to combat the issue and if the current crisis in Ukraine will have any impact on the global supply chain problems for semiconductors. "We're working very closely with all of our partners and allies around the globe, just as we have on the export controls and sanctions that we've applied to Russia to deal with that needless aggression," he said. "We're also working with them on the challenges of raw materials for a range of industries, including the semiconductor industry. We believe that we are going to be able to meet the demand for the for the near term."
From Wall Street to Silicon Valley, these are the top stories that moved markets and had investors, business leaders, and entrepreneurs talking this week on Cheddar.
Deputy Commerce Secretary Don Graves spoke to Cheddar's Alex Vuocolo about the ongoing semiconductor shortages and the push from the Biden administration to cover the supply chain problem as well as look ahead to future-proofing it.
