Riccardo Stewart: Hey, I wanna welcome you guys back to another
episode of the A-W-M-N-F-L podcast.
My name is Ricardo Stewart, I'm your host and I'm joined with
my friends and coworkers here.
And, uh, I wanna take some time to be able to reintroduce you
guys, especially new people who've been listening to the podcast.
We got Zach Miller.
Who we call the truth because of his knowledge, not only in the game of
football, but his financial wisdom.
I got my friend over here, Sam, I told the mayor because if you've
seen Sam, if you've heard Sam, if you've been around Sam, you know
that he gets everybody's votes vote.
And then the last person we had here is Jeff Lock.
We call him the professor, not only because of his wisdom and his unique
understanding of finance, but he has the ability to be able to teach knowledge
and uh, be able to pass on the game.
And so guys.
We wanted to take some time to be able to, to look at something
we talk about internally a lot, and that is the athlete, CEO.
And one of the ways to think about it for those of you who are listening is
there is the business of the NFL player.
You put in the name, and then there's also the business of the NFL.
And then what happens when those two overlap.
And so in today's episode, I wanna step back and, and talk about greatness and
what does it look like to be elite, and particularly how do these athletes,
particularly NFL players create that?
And so the first thing that comes to mind is, years ago, probably 6, 7,
8 years ago, there was a commercial that Adidas made, and it was a bunch
of elite athletes around a table.
It was soccer players, basketball players, football players, and they talked
about what does it look like to create.
And It was just this picture of athletes in themselves, they create value.
It's not their agents, it's not their financial advisors, it's they themselves.
And there, there's this almost like artist that comes to it of what does it look
like to be able to create, and we know that there's a lot that goes in there.
There's a lot of discipline, there's a lot of skill, there's a lot of
knowledge that goes to being successful.
And so I wanna start first with you, Sam.
How do NFL players begin to create value?
Now I'm gonna ask you to use an example.
I'm gonna tee you up a little bit because there's been a few contracts
that have been assigned this summer, and so maybe pick a, pick an athlete and
go, let's center in on how this person might have created value for himself.
Sam Acho: Well, let's use Brock Purdy as an example of how to create value.
I think of it.
Uh, very specifically each athlete, no matter if you're an athlete or
a non-athlete, but we're talking specifically with athletes, you have
a unique skill, gift, or ability.
That's why the team drafted you.
That's why you are where you are.
The way to create value is by figuring out that skill and maximizing that skill.
So for Brock Purdy, he talk about his intellectual capital, right?
His, his mind.
He talks up, there was a, a recent podcast he did, he said about 40% of the
time he doesn't even see his receiver.
And it sounds crazy, but for those of y'all who watch Ball, like everybody
on this podcast does, sometimes you'll see Brock Purdy throw a pass.
It's like, dude, the receiver's not even out of his break yet.
It's because he knows exactly where the receiver is supposed
to be before the receiver gets there, before the ball is snapped.
He knows okay, where he, he has a general idea of, of what the safety's supposed to
do, where the linebacker's supposed to be.
So that's that idea of like, man, that intellectual prowess, that's
what helps make Brock Purdy.
Brock Purdy, but it's not just the good, it's also the bad.
The first time I met Brock Purdy was in 2023 Super Bowl after his rookie year,
and he had played an NFC Championship.
He tour his UCL, so I met him at the Super Bowl radio row in a sling.
This dude was walking around in a sling.
Now you could argue this is before Brock Purdy was was Brock Purdy.
But the fact of the matter is.
The guy who just signed that contract that we're about to talk about went through
a huge deal of adversity from being Mr.
Irrelevant, the last guy picked in the NFL draft to having a pretty
solid rookie year to all of a sudden.
Gets injured in NFC championship game.
But from that time till now, yes, it was years of rehab.
Yes, it was years of belief.
But it's also him understanding, okay, there's a, there's a runway that I
have, I have to attack this opportunity.
So that's that, that intellectual capital, right, the physical
capital we've talked about.
But also the last piece I'll say is, is Brock Purdy keeps his circle small.
You think about if you watch commercials, you'll see him on a few.
You won't see him everywhere.
Social media, you won't see him everywhere.
He is very specific on who he partners with.
So the way you create value is not just being a, a good or great football
player on the field, but it's also knowing who's around you and maximizing
your play and turning your brand into a business off of the field.
And so that's the way that's a person.
I'll use Brock Purdy as an example, who has a great.
Had a great few years on the field, but notice you're seeing him pop up
at Applebee's commercials and in, in, in different car commercials,
et cetera, so that off the field income is growing as well.
Riccardo Stewart: Jeff, just going back to my, my picture of the artist, right?
I, I think about abstract art, and I'm gonna surprise you guys a little
bit here, a little Jackson Pollock.
And usually you just see the, you know, you go into the museum and you just see,
just you're looking like, what is this?
I'm like, oh, that's abstract.
Well, when it comes to the athlete, the athlete doesn't create an abstract.
There's usually a story behind the success, or we would say there's a
grit or a grind behind the glory.
And so Purdy has a story 'cause before he becomes the highest paid quarterback,
before he becomes the NFL player.
Like I can even go back to being from Arizona, living in Arizona,
watching him play in high school.
So as you, as you think about him creating, what's some of the story
behind him, building that human capital?
Jeff Locke: Yeah, I think not unique to to Brock, like all of us on this
call, no players, I mean all of us ourselves, like you have to go
through adversity to create value.
Like that's just the story of an NFL athlete and Brock's no different, right?
I went to small high school in Arizona.
Totally overlooked.
Three star coming out, even though he was Gatorade National, or
Gatorade, Arizona Player of the Year.
Took his team to the state championship.
Still a couple offers goes to Iowa State, becomes the dude though at Iowa
State, like becomes the QB right away.
Has a solid, solid career at Iowa State NFL draft time still.
You know, no one's really looking at him like he.
Maybe undrafted, you know, we're not sure what's gonna happen with this guy doesn't
have what the NFL considers the physical traits he needs to make it happen.
Right?
And like Sam said, he goes, Mr.
Irrelevant, last pick in the draft, nine other, the ninth of
the nine QBs drafted that year.
Of those nine QBs, he's the only one still on the team that drafted them.
Right.
Only one of the nine.
Crazy.
Just three years ago.
So adversity, adversity, injury, bounce back, right?
Super Bowl, appearance.
Pro Bowl.
As a rookie right now, he's gotten that contract, but I just, I imagine
all the times, like when I was staying late, after practice, getting
there early to practice, doing all the off season stuff and picturing
all the stuff Brock probably did.
To bounce back, not to bounce back, but to build himself up from where
nobody thought he could get to.
Riccardo Stewart: Yeah.
Yeah.
You, you guys know this.
One of my favorite shows I love watching is, is Shark Tank, and I love to see
what these entrepreneurs, they'll build something and then they'll come inside
this room and they're trying to see like who's willing to invest in this
value, this product that I've created.
And you always wonder after somebody gives them their money, or if
people say, no, we don't want you.
Like, what happens with that story?
And oftentimes the artist puts in the work and doesn't see the result of the work.
What is that ultimate result, particularly as it looks like in money?
Zach?
Zach Miller: Well, for, for Brock, it looks like 265 million extension,
and that's, that's essentially what you want as an NFL player.
You wanna be paid the fair market value for what you bring to the field and for
reality, you're locked up for so long.
With the team being basically paid under what you should be being paid.
You look at the rookie wage scale, you look at guys like Brock Purdy
that are drafted late, they're playing on much smaller contracts
than they would get otherwise.
That's why, uh, risk, why, why there's free, free agency takes so long to
get to why there's franchise tags.
All of those things exist to lower what you, what you kind of are supposed to get.
So for you to be able to play out a whole deal, get to either free
agency or get that extension that you deserve, it takes a ton of sacrifice.
And it's crazy to think like.
That is what human capital is.
You are worth all this money.
Your bank account just doesn't show it.
It's just like, just like being a small private company that
IPOs, it's just same thing.
There's, you're actually finally realizing your value as a
player and to get that money.
I mean, that's generational wealth when you get to kind
of get those kind of deals.
And so for Brock Purdy the five-year extension 265 million We'll breakdown
What is, what does guaranteed money mean?
What does skill cap and injury like?
What do those guarantees actually mean?
And then what's a Front loaded contract vs the back loaded contract when you
get the money in a contract matters.
True guarantees.
There's sometimes there's guarantees and then there's fully guaranteed.
What's the difference between those two?
The contracts are so complex that it takes, um, it's why, it's why the
entire agent field exists to be able to get the best contracts for guys.
It's why players need agents.
It's why all of that even exists is to get paid.
What you deserve is extremely hard as an NFL player.
But if you do the right things take of business.
It does finally get realized.
You get in the right position, you end up like
right
quarterback.
Riccardo Stewart: Yeah,
there's this beautiful picture there of the athlete being a CEO, and we said it
on the onset of this particular episode.
You gotta understand the business of you as an NFL player that, not that
you yourself is always a business.
You are a, a person, created what you've got, you got value,
beauty, dignity, and so forth.
But there's a business.
That you put in that physical, that intellectual, and that social
work to be able to create value.
What we wanna talk about next in the next episode is looking at,
okay, how do you monetize that?
And particularly what did those contracts look like?
Or in essence, how did you merge the business of you
with the business of the NFL?
So if there's something you heard today, you wanna, I wanna know
more about this whole like athlete, CEO, how do I create value?
Any questions you have, please reach out to us.
You can shoot us a text.
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