NFL Players' Podcast

Every locker room has deal flow: somebody's guy talking about the market, ETFs, mutual funds and the next private deal. Riccardo Stewart, Sam Acho, Jeff Locke and Zach Miller break down what all of it actually means, the way they'd explain it to a teammate. Sam lays out what defines the public market (transparency, liquidity and a general sense of stability that's never guaranteed) and why the private side is "buyer beware." Zach explains stocks and bonds, real estate and venture capital, and why private deals take far more due diligence. Jeff turns mutual funds and ETFs into a shopping cart, then gives a direct answer on where a young player should start: public first, keeping money accessible for life after football, and private markets later, only with money you can lock away and a system for reaching the best of them.

Get in touch: https://www.athletefamilyoffice.com/talk-to-a-pro?utm_source=awm-capital&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=ep-79-public-markets-first&utm_content=show-notes

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Chapters
00:00 Welcome To The Locker Room
00:22 What Does "The Market" Actually Mean?
01:17 The Public Market: Transparency, Liquidity, Stability (Sam Acho)
03:09 Stocks And Bonds, Explained (Zach Miller)
04:48 Mutual Funds And ETFs: The Shopping Cart (Jeff Locke)
06:33 When The Market Goes Private
07:10 Private Investments: Buyer Beware (Sam Acho)
09:45 Real Estate, Venture Capital And Due Diligence (Zach Miller)
12:06 Public Or Private First? (Jeff Locke)
14:55 Get Our Resources: Text 602-989-5022

Creators and Guests

Host
Jeff Locke
Wealth Strategist and CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®) at AWM Capital
Host
Riccardo Stewart
Former college character coach and Director of Human Capital & Family Leadership
Host
Sam Acho
Director of Human Capital and Impact and an in-studio and game analyst for ESPN.
Host
Zach Miller
Former NFL player and current CERTIFIED FINANCIAL PLANNER™ (CFP®)

What is NFL Players' Podcast?

The podcast by NFL players for NFL players. Each week, we break down the biggest events in football and how they directly impact a player's career and money.

Join Former NFL Veterans Sam Acho (Bills, Bucs, Bears & Cardinals), Zach Miller (Seahawks & Raiders), Jeff Locke (Vikings, Colts, Lions, 49ers), and college coach, Riccardo Stewart, for a raw and unfiltered conversation about the game, the business, and how players can achieve generational wealth.

Jeff Locke "The Professor" (2):
private markets are sexy and cool.

Everybody wants to be in them.

But what we see is people get into
them way too early, and they get into

ones that are truly not the best of
the best, and then you get wrecked.

Sam Acho "The Mayor" (2): when we talk
about the public side, we talked earlier

about stability, liquidity, transparency.

On the private side, it has none of that.

The private side is almost
a sense of buyer beware.

you could invest in the next Apple or
Google or whatever, the next startup.

But that company could go to zero.

Jeff Locke "The Professor" (2): As a young
NFL player, I'm hoping I play 10 years,

but the stats say I'm gonna play four.

That's just the reality of the NFL.

So I need my assets accessible
for me to go and do the next

thing in life after the NFL.

I'm not gonna lock them up in
7- to 10-year private funds.

it's public markets first,
especially early on.

And then you gotta get a system in
place to get into the best of the best

privates when you have the money that
you can lock away for 5 to 10 years.

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2): I
wanna welcome you guys back to another

episode of the AWM NFL Podcast.

My name is Ricardo Stewart.

I have the privilege of being your host,
and I'm joined here with my coworkers,

Sam Acho, Jeff Locke, and Zach Miller.

We call Zach "The Truth," Jeff "The
Professor," and we call Sam "The Mayor."

They call me "The Coach," so I get an
opportunity as a coach to be able to

kick all the questions to you guys.

Fellas, I wanna go in the locker room, and
the setting is just guys talking about,

quote-unquote, the market, and there's
always somebody in there that goes, "I

hear my guy, my FA, talk about the market,
the public market, the private market,

ETFs, mutual funds, et cetera, et cetera."

Like, what does that actually mean
when I hear the word deal flow?

I just wanna break it down and go on.

If you're in the locker room, Zach,
with your knowledge, Jeff, with your

knowledge, Sam, with your knowledge,
and you begin to talk about,

like, what actually is the market?

And so I'll start first with this.

When you think of the word the market,
you think about going to the supermarket.

Wherever you live, you have a
grocery store, whether it's in, in

Arizona, it's Fry's, it's Safeway,
it's Albertsons, and so forth.

You go to the market to be able
to get things, to purchase things.

In the same way, in an investing
world, there is something called

the public market and the private
market, and I'm gonna kick it to

you guys to be able to talk more
about exactly what are those things.

Sam, The Mayor, let's start with you.

Simply put, is meant by the
phrase the public market?

Sam Acho "The Mayor" (2): The public
market is just an opportunity for everyday

individuals like you and me, and maybe
anyone listening to this podcast, to be

able to invest in different companies.

Now, it's defined by a
couple different things.

One of the, one of the things
that defines the public market

is the idea of transparency.

Everyone has access to all the available
information, so there's nothing that

you know that I may not know that may
happen with the price or the company.

Like, all the available information
is public and there's transparency.

The second piece that helps define
the public stock market is also

the idea of liquidity, meaning,
okay, I can buy and sell and I can

get my money out today, tomorrow.

I can put more money in, right?

So it's easily that the, the, the,
the, my money is easily accessible.

And then the third idea that you,
when you think about the public stock

market, is a general idea of stability.

Not guaranteed, but stability.

So over the last century, almost a
hundred years, the public stock market

has returned right around ten percent.

Now mind you, there's ups
and there's downs, and that's

just the last hundred years.

It doesn't guarantee what's
gonna happen the next hundred.

But there's a general idea of stability,
transparency, those are probably the two

main things in addition to liquidity.

I can get my money in quickly,
I can set it in quickly.

And so that's the public
stock market at a base level

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2): Nice.

I like what you said too, Sam,
that all information is known.

Like, when it comes to the public market,
there's no Conner Stallions, if you guys

know, the, the, the guy from, the guy
from Michigan that was stealing signals.

There's no stealing signals when
it comes to the public market.

All the information is available.

Okay.

Zach, I probably don't know
anybody who thinks about investing

and the public markets and
private markets as much as you.

So I'm gonna ask you the question of give
me some examples of what, what are these

investments, and what would be included
in this broad sense of the public market?

Zach Miller "The Truth": Yeah.

The public market is really
made up of, of stocks and bonds.

And so if you think stocks, some
people, the fancy term is equity.

And if you think bonds, the
fancy term is fixed income.

Stocks is just ownership in companies.

So you think Amazon, think Apple,
you know, you all have iPhones.

You get stuff from Amazon all the time.

I know I do.

You can have ownership along with Jeff
Bezos in Am- in Amazon just by going

on a brokerage account and buying their
stock or buying equity in the company.

So then you get to…

If Amazon does well, you do well.

If Amazon does bad, you do bad.

So that is-- that's the
true part of owning stocks.

When, when they're doing well,
you're making money, but they

can go down, and many do go down.

Let's contrast that with what a bond is.

Bond is just loaning money, and it's
not loaning money to your buddy.

It's loaning money to usually
really good companies or, in the

case of the safest investment in
the world, to the US government.

So if you lend your money to
the US government, those are

just called US Treasuries.

It's the safest investment in
the world, and the government is

gonna pay you back with interest.

They'll pay you the full amount
back with interest along the way.

And so that's the easiest way
for anyone to invest is stocks,

bonds, equity, fixed income.

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2):
Okay, so here I am.

I'm in the locker room.

I'm a young, I'm a young buck, and
I got a guy, he's, he's investing

my money and so forth, but I don't
really know what's going on, and I'm

hearing people talk about mutual funds.

I'm hearing phrases like ETFs,
they're slinging these things

around and it makes no sense to me.

Jeff, what in the world is that?

Make it make sense

Jeff Locke "The Professor" (2): The
mutual funds and ETFs are just ways

to buy stocks and bonds very simply.

So picture the grocery store, right?

You walk into the grocery store
and ev- all the shelves are

different stocks and bonds.

There's Amazon, there's Google,
all these different things, and you

take a shopping cart around, right?

And you're tossing the stocks
and bonds into the shopping cart.

The shopping cart is the
ETF or the mutual fund.

It's just a collection of stocks
and bonds, It makes it easier.

I don't have to go to the grocery
store every single time and knock

all my stocks and bonds into my cart.

I hire a guy, right?

To pick the right shopping carts.

They're preselected in the
mutual fund or the ETF.

So that's all it is.

It's just a way to access the public
markets, And somebody else is choosing

which stocks and bonds go into the basket.

They're a little bit
different, though, right?

Mutual funds and ETFs
really do the same thing.

Two differences, mutual
funds only trade once a day.

ETFs, you can buy and sell it whenever
you want throughout the business day,

and then ETFs are a little bit more
tax efficient, and that's really it.

Mutual funds are the OG, right?

They've been around a long time.

ETFs came along as kinda the
new hot thing that a little

more friendly to an investor.

But all the same stuff.

It's just a basket of goods

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2):
So I'm tracking.

Got the public market.

Anybody can go to the grocery store,
anybody can get a basket, and if you

have the resources or money, you can
buy the different, or investments.

But then it becomes private, and
that's where the market breaks down.

Because I don't…

I know of expensive markets.

I mean, Jeff, where you live,
there's Erwan, which is very

expensive, but anybody can go
there if you have the money.

Private is a little different, and
so there's really no analogy I can

say where it's like, well, maybe this
becomes like one of those golf courses.

Maybe it becomes like one of those
private country clubs that only

certain people can get access to.

Maybe.

Sam, it comes to public versus
private, what makes an investment

private as opposed to public?

Sam Acho "The Mayor" (2): So when we talk
about the public side, we talked earlier

about stability, liquidity, transparency.

On the private side, it has none of that.

The private side is almost a
sense of, of, um, buyer beware.

Meaning like, all right, these companies,
you could invest in the next Apple or

Google or whatever, um, the next startup.

But number one, that
company could go to zero.

So in order for you to actually
invest, right, there's not this,

"Oh, man, I think 10%," no.

In order for you to actually
invest, you have to be what's

called a qualified purchaser.

And all that means is, hey, you
have enough money to where we think

you have a level of sophistication
where there is no transparency,

but you know what you're doing.

Qualified purchaser means you have to have
$5 million of investible acce- uh, assets.

So you can't just be, "Oh, man,
I got a couple hundred thousand.

Let me go and, and get into, you
know, private equity or venture

capital or these private investments."

You have to have a certain
level of sophistication.

And so, and the reason behind that is,
um, there's not available information

everywhere that everyone has, number one.

Number two, there is a chance that this
money that you, that you invest in these

companies may go to zero, or shoot, it
may double, triple, quadruple, right?

It could, you know.

so that's kind of the second piece.

And then the last piece that makes a
private, the private market, like private

investments different than the public
stock market is the liquidity piece.

Liquidity meaning in the public stock
market, man, I could sell, I get

my money back in a day, two, week.

In the private market, sometimes that
money might be locked up for eight to

10 years, or maybe five to seven years,
depending on the kind of investment.

So that money could grow, but also you
may not see it for many, many years.

And so on one hand, in the public stock
market, everyone knows everything.

You can get your money quickly.

There's a general idea of what at
least in the past returns have been.

Maybe not as much upside, but general.

Whereas in the private
side, not transparency.

There's not a guarantee, you know,
uh, not an idea of what it could be.

It could go really high,
really low, or zero.

Um, and then li- the liquidity piece, your
money will be locked up for an extended

period of time, five, six, 10 years

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2):
Zach, to you.

Give us some examples of
what are private investments.

And also, is there an equal amount
of public market investments

and private market investments?

Zach Miller "The Truth": So one of
the easiest ones to think about is

if you buy an apartment building,
that's a private investment.

Um, anything you buy real estate-wise
that's, that's not a, you know,

publicly traded real estate investment
trust, which is just called a REIT,

those are all private investments.

Those are risky, just like Sam said.

They're illiquid.

You have to m- manage them.

If you're buying an apartment
building yourself, you have to

actually manage that and put, or
put a team together that does that.

The other thing-- That's
kind of real estate side.

The other thing, you could buy a company.

You could buy an early-stage
company, late-stage company.

Early-stage private investing
is just called venture capital.

Venture capital can be one of
those places, like Sam mentioned,

where you could get actually 100X.

You could get 1000X your investment.

But you can also go to zero, and
many times they do go to zero.

So think ChatGPT, Anthropic, and Claude,
all these AI companies, they're all,

uh, gonna IPO soon and go from that
private investment world to the public

investment world, just like we saw
SpaceX do here, um, a few months ago.

That's gonna happen, and those companies
that you were-- If you were invested in

any of those companies early on, they
are gonna be hundred or thousand times

X companies, where you make an ungodly
amount of money on your investment.

But anyone who invested in those probably
invested in a lot of other ones that

went to zero, so that's the part of it.

There's ninety-eight percent
of the companies in the US and

Europe are private, uh, companies.

So public makes up the most market cap
or how much they're worth, how much

value they're worth in the, in the
order of, you know, fifty-plus trillion.

But the actual number of companies
is where there's more of, like

ninety-eight percent to two percent.

So that private investment opportunity,
there is just more companies out there.

It's why it requires so much more due
diligence, so much more evaluation and

understanding how you're investing.

Are you actually getting
a ret- good return?

Most real estate investments are bad, have
bad returns or, or the returns just suck.

And so you have to really do your due
di- diligence on all of the private

side way more than the public side.

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2): All
right, Professor, as an NFL investor, is

there an order it comes to picking if I'm
gonna choose to invest in public or if

I'm gonna choose to invest in private?

Like, is there, is there a rhyme or
a reason, wisdom or planning that

goes into which market am I gonna
take my cart and begin to shop?

Jeff Locke "The Professor" (2): To
Be very direct, public first, That

really should be where you are.

For all the reasons we've talked about
on this podcast, the main one, Sam

talked about a bunch of liquidity, right?

As a young NFL player, I'm hoping
I play 10 years, but the stats

say I'm gonna play four, right?

That's just the reality of the NFL.

So I need my assets accessible
for me to go and do the next

thing in life after the NFL.

I'm not gonna lock them up in
7 to 10-year private funds.

So that's building block one, like
don't jump into stuff that your

money's locked up and then you
can't have access to it when things

don't go the way you want them to.

Next, Sam also talked about, right,
to get into the best of the best

private investments in the world,
you need 5 million investable assets.

That's a qualified purchaser.

like Zach talked about, apartment
complex, all I gotta do is make sure

the bank wants to give me money for the
loan to go and do an apartment complex.

I can get an apartment complex without
being a qualified purchaser and just

my best, but it's usually not the best
thing to do when you're starting out.

And lastly

Most private investments
lose money, right?

Only 30% of private investments actually
beat their public market equivalent.

So Zach talked about 98% of the
world of investing is private, right?

Only 30% of that giant block
actually beat that 2% of

investments in the world, right?

So you have to find a way, you have to
have a system in place to get into the

best of the best of the best private
markets make it even worth doing,

because they're more costly, they're less
liquid, they got longer holding time.

There's all these reasons, So
private market, private markets

are sexy and cool, right?

Everybody wants to be in them.

But what we see is people get into
them way too early, and they get into

ones that are truly not the best of
the best, and then you get wrecked.

it's public markets first, especially
early on, and then you gotta get a system

in place to get into the best of the
best privates when you have the money

that you can lock away for 5 to 10 years

Riccardo Stewart "The Coach" (2): Love it.

I love it.

Thank you guys for educating
us and educating our listeners.

But when you hear the public
market, it's just that, it's public.

It's available to everyone,
and you can participate in it.

market, hmm, buyer beware is what you
said, Sam, is you need to have a team

of experts who are able to look at
investments and who have the designations,

that means the education, that that is
what they're expert at, is being able to

understand those particular investments.

We believe that the best way for you
as an NFL athlete to be able to do

this is to have a family office, and
if you wanna know more about the public

market, the private market, venture
capital, private equity, and all the

things we mentioned about ETFs and
mutual funds, we would love to be able

to give you some resources about what
that actually is and to educate you.

So please shoot us a
text, uh, give us a call.

Our number is 602-989-5022