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S1E4 - Brandon Copeland - Now It's Legal with Jim Cavale
108 Plays10 months ago
Brandon Copeland is a former NFL linebacker who was signed by the Baltimore Ravens as an undrafted free agent in 2013, after playing college football at the University of Pennsylvania. He played across 6 teams for 10 seasons in the NFL, including the Tennessee Titans, Detroit Lions, New York Jets, New England Patriots and Atlanta Falcons. Brandon joins Now It's Legal to discuss the importance of starting athletes.org with Jim with the goal to support college athletes in organizing them, empowering them and ultimately, amplifying their voice.
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About Now It's Legal
In July 2021, NIL forever changed the trajectory of college athletics. It’s been a long time coming as the NCAA has long needed changes like NIL, the transfer portal, revenue sharing and other benefits for college athletes. We introduce to you the Now It’s Legal podcast. Join us as we discuss the industry that holds the hearts of millions of fans who want to understand where its trajectory is heading. We are talking to those who are invested in and affected by NIL including: Former and current college athletes, presidents and head coaches, broadcasters and media personalities, investors and more. This is just the beginning of NIL and what it means for the future of college athletics.
Host Jim Cavale is a former college athlete and entrepreneur who has become an advocate for young athletes across the country. In 2017, he created the INFLCR app that allowed athletes to build their brand on social media, and in 2021, evolved into the NIL management technology for more than 100,000 athletes across 200 college athletic programs. INFLCR has since been acquired by sports tech titan, Teamworks.
In 2023, Jim founded Athletes.org which which is the players association for college athletes to negotiate the best terms for their college athletics experience. AO provides its member athletes with a free membership, empowering them with a voice, on demand support, and group licensing income in the same ways that professional league associations do for their member athletes.
Tune in to a new episode every Monday and join in on the conversation on Instagram with @nowitslegalpod and @jimcavale.
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Transcript
Introduction to Brandon Copeland
00:00:02
Speaker
What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Now It's Legal. And this is a special one because you're going to see an interview between myself and my business partner, Brandon Copeland. Cope, as we call him, is an amazing father, husband, business leader. He's the executive director of athletes.org, which is our newest venture. And we're partners in it together. Co-founders building the Players Association for college athletes.
Journey from Ivy League to NFL
00:00:28
Speaker
You're going to hear Cope's story and it's unbelievable.
00:00:30
Speaker
10-year NFL veteran came out of the Ivy League. He played at the University of Pennsylvania where he graduated from the prestigious Wharton School of Business. Off the field he did a ton during his 10-year NFL career. He became a professor at Penn.
00:00:45
Speaker
That's why we call him Professor Cope. You'll hear about that. He created a course for the younger version itself. He also had a top 10 Netflix show, basically Shark Tank for real estate folks. And Cope became a real estate investor, including in his hometown of Baltimore, where he is proudly going to tell you a lot of stories of how he came up there and his grandfather, who played 11 years in the NFL himself, Roy Hilton.
Importance of Mentorship and Ambition
00:01:11
Speaker
It's an amazing interview. Really excited for you to hear it. Check it out. Here's me and my business partner, Brandon Copeland. All right, Cope. So you and I have spent a lot of time with each other over the past, just a little bit over the past couple of years now. And I'm so excited for this conversation because I'm so excited to share your story, your passion,
00:01:38
Speaker
It is so authentic and impactful, and I want to share it with the world, right? And that's what this podcast is doing with all kinds of stakeholders, ADs, broadcasters, athletes, former athletes, sports executives, who all want to see athletes win, or at least say they do. But you really live it out, man. So where does that come from? Yeah, man.
00:02:06
Speaker
I don't think I'm special. One thing my wife and I, we always say is we're not special. We're blessed to have an extreme amount of ambition, an extreme amount of passion, but we've been
00:02:17
Speaker
even more blessed that God has put the right people in our lives to just take the blinders off, right? Like horses are on the horse race, and they have the blinders on, and they can see just what they can see.
Viewing Sports as a Stepping Stone
00:02:27
Speaker
And at certain phases and certain points in my life, there's been a mentor or grandparent or a parent that's believed in me enough to show me something that took the blinders off, and then now my ambition and my passion can
00:02:39
Speaker
Oh, I didn't even know that existed. Let me go chase that. Let me go work for that. And so for me, I feel extremely lucky. I feel like there are a lot of people who have the ambition that I have, who have the passion that I have, but they don't have anybody in their corner rooting for them or that's going to take the blinders off. And so I feel like one of my purposes and one of my jobs is to not only take those blinders off,
00:03:07
Speaker
but also give you the tools, the empowerment, the encouragement to feel like you can do it. Because I know a lot of people say this, if I can do it, you can too. But if you really know me and if you've seen my life, you would really feel like you can do anything.
Influence of Roy Hilton
00:03:23
Speaker
So much from that that comes to mind. But we can talk about the blinders. A lot of times, the blinders come off after you're done playing.
00:03:31
Speaker
But taking the blinders off on the bigger picture of the business that makes up the sport opportunity that you have as an athlete, taking the blinders off further to think about what you can do after you're done playing sports, a lot of those blinders are not taken off while the athlete is still playing. And for you, that wasn't the case. You've always had those blinders off and have been looking at sports as a vehicle, a means to more since your childhood. And a lot of that starts with your grandfather.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely, man. My grandfather, Roy Hilton, my hero, played 11 years in the NFL, won a Super Bowl with the Baltimore Colts. He went to two, lost to Joe Namath in the, quote unquote, greatest game ever played. He held up the number one first time. Yeah, exactly. I found out when I played with the Jets that he actually went out the night before the game and was playing poker with some of the guys on the Jets. So different time, different era. But with that being said,
00:04:30
Speaker
being able to grow up with a superhero as a grandfather.
00:04:35
Speaker
also just naturally influenced me, naturally encouraged me. My grandfather, he didn't care about how good I was as a football player. He cared about me as a human being. Obviously, he was extremely excited when I just happened to want to play football and I started playing in the fourth grade. And, you know, my mom was afraid for me to play like most moms probably are. And my grandfather, you know, let him play, keep him busy, and he'll stay out of trouble, right? And from that time,
00:05:04
Speaker
The beautiful thing about it was he never forced me to play. He never forced me to run after practice. If I wanted to learn, he would show me anything. But after every single game, even all the way through college, it was, how you feel? Did you have fun?
00:05:26
Speaker
cool. That's all that matters. And
Mindset and Physical Realities of the NFL
00:05:28
Speaker
that was it. Because I'd always tell him, you know, oh, I missed a tackle here. I'm just this here. Did you have fun? That's all that matters. And then as I evolved as a player and as I evolved as an athlete, he kept just as we all get older, you know, our parents and our grandparents start to show you more of themselves and start to tell you some of the
00:05:47
Speaker
the lessons they've learned, the mistakes they've made, maybe. And he always just shared with me certain things that he wishes he would have done differently. He had an opportunity to broadcast. And he was like, to be honest with you, Copa, I don't know why I decided not to. I told him no. I have no real idea why I told him no.
00:06:06
Speaker
And I always look back at that as, why didn't I say yes? If I were to say yes, who knows what doors would have opened for me. So for years, I said yes to as many things as possible because I remember my grandfather telling me that was one of his biggest regrets. And by doing that and by saying yes, sometimes maybe too much, that has led
00:06:28
Speaker
to me having a number of different experiences, but now it has led to me having more clarity over what I'm willing to say no to and now what I'm willing to say yes to and what I'm really willing to pour my time, effort, and energy into. And so, with all that being said, my grandfather has been a true hero of mine, but staring at somebody whose life was different because they played football.
Challenges and Persistence in NFL
00:06:51
Speaker
who had to have three knee surgeries, who couldn't lift his arm above here for the last 20 some years of his life as a result of it, whose biggest piece of advice to me when I entered the league was if he could do anything differently, he wouldn't play as long because it's a game that you pay for the rest of your life.
00:07:13
Speaker
changed my mentality so that, as you mentioned, as I go into the league, really, as I'm in college, as I'm in high school, I've always been trained that it's a means to an end. I know this thing ends. I see my grandfather. There's no fans cheering for him when he's going through those surgeries, right? There was no fans by his bedside, January 6, 2019, when he passed away and he had CTE, dementia, Parkinson's, and Alzheimer's, right? So, one, what really, really matters
00:07:43
Speaker
And two, how are you using the opportunity and the platform you have to selfishly, rightfully so, boost your own life, but in turn also change the lives of other people around you? So, Cole, your story is interesting. You grow up in Baltimore.
00:08:02
Speaker
You already talked about your grandfather. Big impact on you. You play for Biff Poggi at the legendary Gilman School. I joke because, you know, Cope and I talk about our private school experiences. I went to Christian Brothers Academy. I thought we were a big deal in New York. Then I found out about Gilman down in Baltimore. But, you know, you play for Biff there. And then you go to Penn.
00:08:26
Speaker
and you're a standout there. But it's not on the big stage, right? Now, I know Penn is the Alabama of the Ivy Leagues as well. I'm doing your light work for you. But, you know, undrafted free agent in a league where the first round pick lasts less than three years and you last 10. I mean, that's like,
00:08:47
Speaker
You know, you said it at the beginning, but a lot of people have been put in your life by God to take the blinders off and help you have the tools to do the most you can. And, you know, your story is really full of that. Yeah, no, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think that
00:09:08
Speaker
First and foremost, it's, you know, you gotta have it. And what it is is some little crazy, maniacal voice in your head that tells you you can do it, right? And one of the things my granddad used to always say is, you never lie to yourself. You know, he always tell me, I'm not gonna lie to you because lying to you would be like lying to myself. Why would I ever do that?
00:09:32
Speaker
And so if you have it, which is that crazy little maniacal thing and voice saying you can do it, also pair that with a little bit of work ethic, and you also have this ability to not lie to yourself so you won't cheat yourself, then you have something pretty special. And for me, that turned out to be,
Breakthrough and Veteran Combine Success
00:09:52
Speaker
hey, this crazy little belief, but this sickening work ethic. Like a lot of people talk about working hard
00:09:59
Speaker
And, you know, they have no clue what that looks like. I think I probably, you know, coming out of the league, I probably was like, let me take a second here because it's been sickening the last, you know, it's 10 years in the NFL, but before that, it means it's been my whole life. And what that looks like is, because you're talking about an undrafted free agent, so undrafted free agent,
00:10:28
Speaker
Coming out of University of Pennsylvania, I remember I get the call from the Baltimore Ravens. It's during pen relays at Penn and the last day of the draft, and they call me in the last round, hey, we're not going to take you on this round.
00:10:46
Speaker
We're going to wait and get you after the draft if you're available. Well, you better give me now, man. It's a bunch of teams calling. No teams calling, but I'm trying to sell, trying to sell. And ultimately, I remember they called me after and they signed me and it's my hometown team. It's the team I grew up going to games at Reed Ray Lewis coming out of and I'm pissed. And I'm pissed not because I'm going to the NFL, it's my dream, but I'm pissed because you
00:11:12
Speaker
You didn't think I was valuable enough to take a chance on me during the draft. Okay. All right. I'm going to prove you something, right? And so if you look at that mentality when I came in, it was I'm here for the marathon and not the sprint.
00:11:32
Speaker
A lot of people are here for the flash, and I remember coming into that training camp and some rookies on the off day going to the mall, that was a dime mall, Owens Mills Mall, and Snapchat was big at the time, hey, we in the league, we going by this, this, this. And I'm at the hotel like, we don't even have no real money. You might get cut next week. We just starting. And so having a realistic perspective of what really
00:11:59
Speaker
needs to be done and what the dream really is, has kept me just going, going, going, going, going. And I don't even know if I'm answering your question, but fired six times within the first two years. Second year told, hey, you're not good enough.
00:12:17
Speaker
Week two with
Founding Athletes.org and Retirement
00:12:18
Speaker
the Tennessee Titans, Ken Woods and Hunt is in. Ray Horton is the D coordinator. He brings in one of his guys, Quentin Groves, which is a great cue. Rest in peace. They end up releasing me. And I'm like, OK, I'll get picked up and go
00:12:32
Speaker
work out with the Steelers, work out with the Colts, work out with the Chiefs. Nobody signs me. And January 1st, 2015, hey, I give myself a year. I've been in the training facility and seen 30-year-old guys who've never made it to the league and they're training to get their first shot. And I'm like, I can't do that. That's not going to be me. We got to go provide a life for this family regardless. So January 1st, 2015, one year to get into the league.
00:13:03
Speaker
If not, pack it up, use that pen degree, and figure it out. I signed up to do arena football. I was going to sign up to do CFL, and I always told myself I never do either of them, but I was going to sign up to do CFL, but CFL has a two-year agreement. That's lying to myself. Arena football, I signed with the Orlando Predators. That year was the first time in history the NFL decides to do this thing called a veteran combine.
00:13:31
Speaker
Over 2,000 applicants applied. These were all former NFL players who had been released cut, you know, not in the league clearly. And they whittled it down to 100 players to go out to Phoenix that year and do a combine around the owners' meetings that year. I don't make the cut. So I'm like, damn. I go to Orlando. I fly down there. I check into the resort, win. Steve Wynn owned the team.
00:13:59
Speaker
It was like a wind resort or something like that, not one of the really nice ones. It was a AFL one, right? I unpack my bag and literally I finally, I lay down on my bed and my male sound makes the swoosh, the whoosh, like the old male sound. And so I just happened to look, usually I just wait, but I lay down, I look at my male, you've been invited to the veteran combine. What?
00:14:28
Speaker
Oh, well, I've been training for this the whole year. Okay. I call coach. He releases me from my AFL, uh, agreement. He, he blesses me to go up. I'm three days in. Um, I go to the veteran combine long story short, run a four, five, one 40 laser time. Go from having no teams in the NFL, give me offer to half the NFL, offer me.
00:14:48
Speaker
a spot on a roster. I was at 243 bucks in my bank account. Baltimore had 10 inches of snow and I was in Orlando at the time. I had a mentor, an angel.
00:14:58
Speaker
Tamiko Richardson who decided to fly me to Phoenix and Exos and train for two weeks and no cost to me and allowed me to just get a second shot of my dream. So I share all of that story to say I am extremely blessed, right? I could have been in Baltimore trying to train for 40 and 10 inches of snow and not get the shot that I deserve.
00:15:24
Speaker
By me getting a chance to play in the NFL, I've been able to change not only my life, my family's life, but other people's lives. From 2015 on, that's the quote unquote cope that people know. As I've heard some people say, that's my life after death.
00:15:42
Speaker
Well, I mean, not only did you have a 10-year NFL career that was birthed from that catalytic moment at the veteran combine, but you also became a professor at Penn during that time, developed Life 101, which is
00:15:59
Speaker
I was like to say, it's a way to teach your younger self all the things that you weren't taught when you were 18 to 22 and learn it. As a college student now at Penn in Cope's course, which you've packaged up to more than 100 high school districts and school districts in America, Netflix, basically Shark Tank for Real Estate show. I mean, you've done a lot, but you decide to retire last year.
00:16:28
Speaker
and you decide to go on this journey together with me to buildathletes.org and I think
00:16:36
Speaker
it's really important to make sure people understand where you come from and your story before they hear you talk about why you would make that decision because the reality is is we're trying to do something that nobody has ever done in history. There has never been a union or association of any sort for the athletes standing alone separate from the NCAA and the schools. Of course, the NCAA has SAC,
00:17:03
Speaker
I don't want to denounce SAC. SAC does a lot of great things, but it's not the same as the Players Association for the athletes separate from the schools, right? And so, you and I meet, we start this journey together, we decide to go build this thing out.
Empowering College Athletes
00:17:20
Speaker
You had a lot of other options. You could have become a broadcaster pretty easily. You had countless opportunities in business. Why did you decide? It's already hard to go start a business. This is the fourth time I've done it. It's definitely not suicide, but it's not for the faint heart.
00:17:43
Speaker
But you couple that with an age old industry that is changing. We've talked with Jay Bilas in episode one about all the court cases and what they mean right now for revenue sharing with athletes and athletes to be in a free market. We've talked to Sedona Prince.
00:17:59
Speaker
and episode two about what it's like to be a plaintiff in the house versus NCAA case and why there needs to be more equality between men's and women's basketball. And so here we are talking to the executive director and CEO of athletes.org, which is going to group up the athletes and represent them in the future or New Deal, as we call it in college athletics. It's a big undertaking, man. Why? Yeah.
00:18:28
Speaker
The why is, in my mind, it's simple, but it's kind of convoluted. I think, first and foremost, I just want to see us win. When I say us, I mean athletes. I think we make a lot of people money. We make a lot of people well-off. We make a lot of people comfortable. And when we finish playing our sport, that, again, people try to make you feel guilty because it's a, quote unquote, game, right? But they found a way to monetize it.
00:18:58
Speaker
A lot of times they tell you, well, you should have taken school more seriously, or you should have done this, or you should have done that. How? You should have done that major. My coach wouldn't let me do a different major. Sitting next to my rookie year, there was a guy of safety. I won't even narrow down the school or anything like that, but we get our first paychecks and he starts crying next to me.
00:19:26
Speaker
And I'm looking kind of like, yeah, what's going on? And he's like, you know, this is my first check ever. Ever. This dude makes it to the league. And for me, I've had jobs since high school and things like that. I'm just a natural born hustler. But he wasn't able to take on a job throughout his whole college career because in the summers they were training. And the fact that it meant that much to him, but that entire time, especially in college, there were people who were profiting off of him
00:19:56
Speaker
And there were friends of his who probably have that same reaction to their first check. But again, there were other people making money off of them in college. And the athletes have nothing to show for it. They maybe have some injuries. You may have a limp now, but you have nothing but memories to show for it. And now everybody tells you to get serious. And you're a little wounded as well, too. When you leave the sport, you're a little wounded mentally.
00:20:24
Speaker
So, to bring it all back, why? I'm doing this for a younger version of me, selfishly. I'm giving you the answers to the test. I'm giving you the blueprint. Like you said, I teach people about money and a lot of times people say, hey, well, what should I invest in? What should I do?
00:20:40
Speaker
You got to consult with a financial advisor. Athletes.org, we put legal experts in there. We give you background checks. We give you free second medical opinions. We put hospitals that you can choose from in there. So now we actually help you do. So for me,
00:20:59
Speaker
This is the way to make more powerful leaders, more powerful athletes, but also more millionaires.
Athletes' Voice in Governance
00:21:08
Speaker
We're going to set some athletes up for the rest of their lives. They're not going to sign dumb ass deals and be signing over years of their net worth. They're not going to keep getting taken advantage of by collectives promising them money that they are never going to see. They're not going to have financial advisors saying what they can do with their money.
00:21:27
Speaker
that now if you run a background check, you see they claim bankruptcy three years ago. How are you going to manage my money? You can barely manage your own, right?
00:21:35
Speaker
And now we get bad actors out of the space so that this chance of a lifetime we have with our sport, playing something we love, can be that, can stay that. It's not just the sport. It's also what the sport can do for your life after the ball stops bouncing or, you know, I don't know the other, the puck stops, you know, getting hit. I don't know. The baseball stops throwing.
00:22:00
Speaker
Well, so for the listeners and people watching that don't fully know exactly what athletes.org is, just explain athletes.org, how it's structured, what it does for athletes, all that kind of stuff. Yeah, so athletes.org, we're the Players Association for college athletes. We want to give athletes the ability to amplify their voice, give them trusted on-demand support, and maximize their income. And the Players Association, for those of you who don't know,
00:22:28
Speaker
I've been fortunate to be a part of a Players Association. My grandfather wasn't when he played 1965 through 1976. The Players Association is what allowed me to come into the NFL and get a great salary from my team, but it also allows me to have health insurance now.
00:22:46
Speaker
It allows me to have retirement benefits. It allowed me to not have to practice for five hours during two days. It had more structure around my experience as an NFL player. And right now in college athletics, there is no players association for the athletes. So when all the decisions are made,
00:23:08
Speaker
Whether it be about the money, whether it be about the health and safety, whether it be about mental wellness resources, concussion protocols, retirement benefits, whatever, there's no voice of the athletes actually in the room. And I think that should have changed a long time ago.
00:23:25
Speaker
I guess you and I are the crazy, you know, crazy two that are going after it along with our amazing team. Well, I mean, you know, with that, there's also a reality that there's a lot going on in the market court case-wise that is, I like to say, a writing on the wall for the future. Ed O'Bannon in his win over the NCAA is an example of, you know, foreshadowing N.I.
00:23:55
Speaker
and seven years after O'Bannon won that case, NIL began. But as you look at those court cases, the reality is a lot of decisions for the last more than a century have been made around how college athletics is structured. And everyone is sitting at the table helping with those decisions on board of governors.
00:24:20
Speaker
you know, councils and all these things without the athletes actually having a vote.
00:24:27
Speaker
And so based on where things are going with these court cases like House versus the NCAA, which is a $4.2 billion in damages estimations case focused on men's and women's basketball and football athletes, power conference, but there's other cases, Johnson, Carter, NLRB cases that have to do more with employment status of athletes. Like, is there even a way that new decisions can be made for college athletics without the athletes being involved?
00:24:56
Speaker
Well, I think we're biased, but I'm biased when I say, no, you shouldn't, and you can't make decisions without college athletes being involved.
Fair Treatment in Collegiate Sports
00:25:05
Speaker
And if you don't have the athletes actually organize and actually agree to anything, then you also leave yourself liable for lawsuits in the future, right? If you decide to just do a deal with SAC, then
00:25:19
Speaker
you are leaving yourself liable for potential suits in the future. And it's not no knock on sack. I was a part of sack when I was at the University of Pennsylvania, but that's too close to you as the NCAA. And right now all these cases are happening because athletes weren't in the room in the first place. And if you look up at the pro level, the pro level has done this extremely well. They built
00:25:44
Speaker
one of the best businesses in the world. I'm going to take football because that's the one that I know the best, right? The NFL sits on one side of the table and the NFLPA, the Players Association for the Players, sits on the other. And as much as to the outside world, these folks are just butting heads all the time, all the time, all the time. Really, they're keeping each other honest.
00:26:09
Speaker
Iron sharpens iron. Hey, you agreed to not cross over this line when it comes to the players. We're calling you out on it. You agreed to it. Don't do it, right? It allows for bad actors to not come into space and just run it the way they wanna run it, right? You agreed to pay all the players a minimum salary of this. You agreed to cover their insurance for this long, whatever it may be, right? But the NFL,
00:26:35
Speaker
At some point said, you know what, it's a lot better for us to have one organization that we negotiate with. So when I was a rookie with the Baltimore Ravens, an NFL team, a member of the NFL, the NFL Players Association came in to that locker room, to that auditorium, and talked to me about 401k benefits and all these other things that they fought for over the years that now I'm privileged to have, but it's odd, or to most people it could seem odd,
00:27:05
Speaker
the person on the other side of the table would allow the space for the NFLPA to even come into the room and make that introduction. So the Baltimore Ravens helped sign me up for the NFLPA because again, at a certain point, while everybody thinks that these two are buttonheads together, they built an amazing partnership and they built one of the best businesses in the world, right? Having these athletes organized, having one entity to negotiate with,
00:27:35
Speaker
is easier and simpler for everybody. And ultimately it'll save the NCAA, the conferences and the schools a lot of headache in the future of doing deals that can be scrutinized because you didn't actually have the athletes at the table with their own organization.
00:27:55
Speaker
So we're at the University of Alabama Birmingham today, UAB, and a beautiful facility here at the football complex. And we were kindly invited by Trent Dilford, that football coach, to come in and speak to the team. And this was a monumental day for athletes.org, right? Athletes.org already has how many athletes signed up? Total? 2,327 as of this morning.
00:28:20
Speaker
Seven and a half months in, 2,300 plus, and mostly power conference, men's and women's basketball, football, and there's about 9,000 athletes that play at those schools and those sports. You know, athletes.org is making its way toward that number in organizing athletes, but we've never been on campus.
00:28:41
Speaker
invited by a coach into a room with all of the team in here. I mean, we had the whole team in here and we had the coaching staff. And we talked about a lot of topics that could be perceived as controversial, but we were embraced from the head coach down.
00:28:57
Speaker
and the whole team signed up. First time it's ever happened for athletes.org. Hopefully first of many, but it leads into my next question. Your NFL PA example makes a lot of sense. One group to negotiate with, the owners on the NFL side should want to know that the players are getting what they need to be at a certain standard in all the categories. There should be accountability
00:29:24
Speaker
Are you saying that colleges should start to embrace AO like we were embraced today at UAB? And if so, why? Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.
Success at UAB Campus Visit
00:29:34
Speaker
I think that one, you should want your athletes' voices to be heard. A lot of people are going to talk about it from a money standpoint and a revenue sharing standpoint. I think that's where a lot of people get afraid.
00:29:46
Speaker
Right? But also from a benefit standpoint, what we've built is special in seven months, right? Like we've built something extremely valuable, extremely useful. And there are a lot of benefits that you get as a member of Players Associations in general, but specifically with athletes.org that you should want your athletes to have. So first and foremost, if you take this oath of I'm here for the student athlete and I want to see them win, I want to see them maximize their opportunity,
00:30:16
Speaker
Well, then you're also for AO, because AO is helping to maximize their opportunity, not just with the money, but also with free mental wellness resources, with free second medical opinions, with free pro bono legal services, with accountants and financial advisors, and giving them a voice and a seat at the table so that they're not taken advantage of. Now, when you take a step back, there are a lot of folks like, well, you know, what is this really doing for us?
00:30:44
Speaker
What is this really doing for me as the organization or as a school? Well, when you have an athlete, I've seen in NFL locker rooms, a lot of athletes going through a lot of battles and difficulties by themselves, where they don't have a place to go to. They can't ask for help. So now during the season, when the whole team is counting on them to perform, they're also battling something at home that's just been eating at them, right?
00:31:10
Speaker
It's hard to go on the field and be at your best with a smile when things are just crumbling on the outside. And sometimes you don't want to go to the university and tell them everything that's going on. You don't know if you can trust them or not. Whether that is true or not,
00:31:25
Speaker
We all know that there's different experiences at different universities. And so by having athletes.org, not only are you protecting your players and giving them the best resources possible, but you're also giving them another outlet so that the problems they don't come to you with, they have a safe place to go to prevent that problem from being something that is detrimental to their careers and worse, their livelihoods.
Future of College Sports
00:31:54
Speaker
I mean, we actually saw and heard a lot of that today. I mean, this was a pretty interactive session. And I mean, what was it like for you to experience the athletes from this football team and the things that they shared? Yeah, I think, you know,
00:32:13
Speaker
When you're building something or doing anything, you, one, you gotta go into the booth, you gotta go into the studio, and you're just focusing, you're just writing, you're just creating, creating, creating, creating, creating. And you live for, as a football player, you live for game day.
00:32:29
Speaker
This was game day for us, getting in front of our athletes. And every once in a while you have affirmation that you're on the right path and you're building something that is actually valuable to the people you're building it for. Today was just that. You have young men in here, and we're just with the football team, so you have young men in here who are sharing stories, powerful stories about where they come from, about who they are.
00:32:55
Speaker
about what their hard work is going towards and if they had an extra dollar or two, what they would do with it, what they need, right? And again, it's just incredible. One young man talks about how he was homeless and how he takes 10% of his stipend check to give Bibles to local organizations so that their kids can start learning about God, right? Wow.
00:33:22
Speaker
How do we give him more? How do we support him more? It's truly incredible, young human beings. And again, just for them to even spend time after the meeting, most meetings you get out of as fast as you can, and you go back to doing whatever you were doing. They were lined up. To spend time after meeting, hey, we're going to have more of these. Are we going to do this again? Can we do Zoom? Hey, can we just change numbers? Can you mentor us?
00:33:48
Speaker
That's what you do it for. And again, I think the beauty in athletes.org and the beauty in our relationship is the fact that it isn't just Jim or Cope. We have a team that's really about this life. We really do. And as you talk about everything you just mentioned with the people we were around today,
00:34:09
Speaker
It makes me think of even before we started athletes.org, just the NIL era, starting in 2021, and some of my experiences being around athletes in my last company. I was always amazed by how sophisticated and mature athletes are today, because I can remember myself as a college athlete. And that was 20 years ago for me. For you, it was 10 years ago. But I'm sure you can remember as well.
00:34:39
Speaker
I don't know how I would have handled a lot of these things. And so the modern college athlete is quite sophisticated and they have been told for a long time, we'll figure this out. You just keep working hard and try to get on the field or court. And I think they're realizing from our experience in building athletes.org that they're seeing that that's not true.
00:35:03
Speaker
benefits and revenue sharing and what's on the table. It's an interesting topic, right? Because you kind of create a game of
00:35:12
Speaker
you kind of create a game of dominoes, right? Where it's like, all right, we're gonna share revenue with the athletes who produce it, which is mainly football athletes, mainly power conference football athletes. And then people will say, well, what about the Olympic sports? And how do we still subsidize that? And what about Title IX? And how do we make sure that it's fully funded? And they'll bring up a lot of points. But the reality is, if everybody got in a room, we could figure this out.
00:35:42
Speaker
And we saw a little bit of that in Phoenix when we had the NCAA, several athletic directors, and six of our athletes from across football, men's basketball, women's basketball, and Olympic sports, all in the room talking about these topics. So getting in a room, there's a power in that, and that's something that, in addition to signing up athletes, aoathletes.org, it's going to be able to get that table built.
00:36:09
Speaker
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Need for External Support Systems
00:36:11
Speaker
Like you said, it's conversation. I think that I don't want to demean how complicated of an issue this is. And this is a Penn grad, a Gilman grad, a Wharton grad, an internal Wall Street. Christian Brothers Academy grad. Christian Brothers Academy grad. I'm not the brightest in the world, but I can handle my own. This is a complicated topic. This is a complicated issue.
00:36:39
Speaker
All I know is we don't get to the bottom of it if we're not all trying to solve it together, right? And by having that room, which was powerful, which everyone in the room agreed that we need more of it and we're looking forward to doing more of it here in June, we already made progress, right? Like you were able to see that we're not that far off. Let's get the issues out there. Let's talk about them and let's,
00:37:06
Speaker
figure it out, right? There's more complicated things on this earth that people are solving for actively because they're actively working together to find a solution. We can figure this out. And a lot of the things have already been solved for at the pro level. Yes, it's college athletics. Yes, there are more sports. Yes, it will have its own uniqueness and complications, but
00:37:31
Speaker
I know for a fact we will never solve it the best way possible if we don't come together to solve it. Because as we started this thing with, isn't it for the athletes? Is it in their best interest that we solve it? Why are they still outside of the room? They don't have it. There's their opinion not matter, right? They don't have a perspective. And one of the things I want to share, too, is one of the most powerful points in that room
00:38:01
Speaker
in Phoenix was when one of our athletes, I won't call her out here, but she said, you know, I hear from the leaders a lot of the times that, you know, well, we need the landscape to shake out first. We need to see how everything is going to play out, right? And they have this let's wait and react mindset. And she said, I'm going through it now.
00:38:23
Speaker
My experience is being impacted today. I'm going through stuff I need help today. And you keep telling me, we'll just wait and just hold on and bye bye. Your job is to help me today. So what are you doing? Are you gonna let other people solve the problem or are you gonna be a part of the solution? All we're doing is inviting you to the table. If you're not willing to accept the invite, says a lot more about you than it does about us.
Risk and Impact of Empowerment Initiatives
00:38:49
Speaker
Well, you know, what I've found interesting with not accepting the invite is, um, I mean, coach Dilfer took a huge risk today by bringing us in the room and letting us talk with the team because he knows it's great for the athletes to be exposed to what we have to offer right away with the benefits we've already built.
00:39:08
Speaker
And that's that support portion of the support voice income pieces that we offer athletes. But he also, he knows where this is going and he knows that his athletes being organized is going to help them have a voice and that we're the organization to do that. And he said a lot about that today. We hear 99.9999999% of the coaches and athletic directors say
00:39:30
Speaker
I can't do that, or I can't talk to you in public, I can only talk in private, or I can't go to that meeting in Phoenix or whatever, and their excuse is risk. And that there's a lot of liability if I talk to you, but it could be held against me in a deposition for one of these court cases. And the reality is, how small is that risk?
00:39:54
Speaker
versus how big the risk is in not figuring out the future of college sports. Yeah, yeah, I think that one, that was one of the things that we attacked in Phoenix and everybody decided that the risk of not figuring this out is, like you said, much larger than the small risk of let's stay on the sidelines and not talk about these things. Because, you know, ultimately, I mean, frankly, we're talking about what's right.
00:40:24
Speaker
Right, like cut out all the, the way I lasted 10 years in the NFL is because I kept things really, really simple, right? And when I look at this, you have young people who are generating a lot of money for other folks, pay them, right? You don't have to pay them everything, but you gotta pay them something, right? Like this isn't that hard of an issue to wrap your head around. You gotta take care of them.
00:40:50
Speaker
Right? And when you look at this, this is, there are a lot of black and brown athletes who are generating a lot of this revenue for these schools and these universities. And when they go home, they go, some of them, not all of them, I don't want to generalize, but some of them go home to nothing. Absolutely nothing. And a lot of the people saying, ah, who wait? Ah, let's not talk about that now. They get to go vacation.
00:41:20
Speaker
With their families and nice houses and beautiful families and great situations that I Mean and there's nothing wrong with that. Not at all. That's that's a beautiful thing. Not at all, but there is a discrepancy There's a discrepancy and if you don't want your athletes to have a comfortable life like you and
00:41:41
Speaker
Well, again, you're showing your true colors. And again, all we're doing is a conversation. It's not even us asking for it anymore. It's your athletes asking for it. And a lot of times, when the leaders are found, because I know some folks are going to watch this and they're going to be like, oh, we're going to get in there and get attacked.
00:41:59
Speaker
I'm getting passionate now because, again, this is a younger version of me who just wants to change my life. While you don't feel any financial pressure, like a young man said today, he was homeless. Any money he makes, he can try to retire his dad and pay his dad back for all the hard work that they put in for him.
00:42:19
Speaker
and he has six brothers, right? These stories are etched in my mind. I want to help him. And so I know a lot of people think that, you know,
00:42:30
Speaker
If I come into this room, it's gonna be contentious, you're gonna be arguing with me, all that stuff. No, it's a conversation. And with a lot of times, the reason why we bring people in the room is because we're also learning. I can't solve for your perspective if I don't know it, if I don't hear it. Last week in Phoenix, one of the ADs spoke up and said, hey, I get it, we need to keep progressing and advancing the ball forward, but let's keep in mind,
00:43:00
Speaker
In 2006, we had no mental wellness resources. We had no training table. We had no this. So there have been progressions. Absolutely. Let's not account for that.
00:43:12
Speaker
We need your perspective to take that into
Financial Management Education
00:43:15
Speaker
account. If you weren't in the room, I probably would have discounted it myself, right? That's why your voice needs to be in the room. That's also why the athlete's voice needs to be in the room so they can tell you what they're going through so we can solve for that as well. So a lot of these things become learning sessions, info sessions as well too, but as we've talked about, they are also setting the table for a real live negotiation and it's kind of happening live.
00:43:42
Speaker
I'm going to go ahead and put you on black. If you don't want to be in the room, hey, well, it's going to get negotiated with or without you. Well, and what I think is interesting is we've seen recently the Super League press releases and people are writing about this group and they got this proposal for a Super League for football.
00:44:02
Speaker
And so we've seen a few different people call out, well, if the SEC and the Big 10 aren't on board with that Super League, it'll never happen because you can't do anything without them.
00:44:14
Speaker
And I think it's really a step further if the athletes aren't on board with whatever happens next, whether it's a super league eventually or revenue sharing as a result of the decision in the house case or the settlement of the house case or whatever it is. If the athletes aren't on board, if you don't have the athlete schools, I don't care what conference you're in, SEC, big 10, big 12,
00:44:36
Speaker
If you don't have the athletes, we've already seen how important that is with NIL and how it's been manipulated by donors laundering money to induce players to go to those schools because they can't win without the athletes. So sorry to belabor it, but it's really important. And I think also what's important is this is not just about revenue sharing. And you said earlier there will be some millionaires made.
00:44:58
Speaker
There will be, but there'll be a lot of athletes that won't make a time. At UAB, if football players had revenue sharing, it's not going to be life-changing, but it's going to be a vehicle to start learning how to manage your money. It's going to be a vehicle to start maybe doing some investing. We talked to several here today who have used NIL money to have Airbnbs and do some real estate investing. But there's a non-revenue portion of the voice athletes need to have and the deal that needs to be done that's important too. And it's those benefits.
00:45:27
Speaker
And we heard an Olympic sport athlete who's really high up in sack, you know, say two things at that private meeting. Number one, she said that, you know, sack is great, but there's a need for this as well. And it's all the reasons we just talked about athletes need to be able to
00:45:47
Speaker
to advocate from an outside organization and eventually negotiate from it. But she also said, Olympic sport athletes don't expect to have the same revenue sharing opportunities as football players, right? And so that was something the leader in the room, who you mentioned, talked about the progression of benefits and mental wellness over the last 20 years. He learned, oh, really?
00:46:10
Speaker
You wouldn't expect, OK, so that would be different if it was just the players who produced the money would get to sharing it. Not every player. That would save some money to invest into these sports and these ways and these benefits for these athletes. So getting in a room is the only way to understand those perspectives and also be able to talk about all of these issues and find out who is trying to get what. Absolutely, man.
00:46:40
Speaker
I mean, everybody can, we talk about it all the time, ideas are praised, but execution is worshipped. You know, that's a quote that I learned from Dan Gilbert. It's, everybody can ideate about what it's going to look like, and this is my plan, and this is my this, and this is my that. Are we going to execute or not? Right? Like, let's get down to it. And I think that having more of these conversations allow for
00:47:11
Speaker
the execution to actually come out and evolve because like you said, now they did, oh, you're not thinking that? Okay, cool. Now we're really talking. All right, well let's go to the next step. Let's go to the next step. Let's go to the next step and you look up after time and you've figured it out. You've solved the puzzle. I always call it a Rubik's Cube. You've unlocked a Rubik's Cube and one day we're gonna have a number of these conversations again. Some people will never wanna join the room.
00:47:38
Speaker
That's okay. It's going to happen, right? Like, we don't lose. Yeah. Like, that's not one thing that we do, right? So you can, you either win with us or watch us win. And I don't, I'm not threatening anybody or anything like that. I'm just calling it like, this is not us. We're not being empowered by you and me. We didn't create this. Exactly, right? We're trying to solve it. We're trying to solve it and we're trying to make sure the athletes get their piece.
00:48:03
Speaker
And we're trying to solve it as a group. And we're building bridges as we solve it. We're not us versus them. Exactly, which is why we're inviting everybody into the room. And so, again, as we keep executing and as this Rubik's Cube continues to be solved, we're all going to look up and find a deal that we're going to be like, wow, like, this works.
00:48:25
Speaker
And hey, maybe this is, I mean, one, it should be better than where we are today, but maybe this is like, again, the NFL and the NFLPA. Every single time there's a CBA negotiation, oh, we don't have money to do this, we don't have money, we can't do this, this.
00:48:40
Speaker
And then, as soon as it's done, there's a record-setting media deal. The pie keeps growing. Everyone keeps winning. Fans at home get to enjoy the game in different ways that they've never been able to before because they've been able to come to the table and create a deal. That makes everybody happy, right? NIL money is great. Don't get me wrong, I'm never going to say, let's stop letting the kids make money.
00:49:04
Speaker
Sorry, not kids. I'm going to correct myself on camera, keep it in there. Not kids. Let's stop letting these adults, these athletes make money, right? I want to see you eat. I want to see you win. But NIL money is like Patrick Mahomes just making money from State Farm and him not being able to make a check from the Kansas City Chiefs.
Securing Athletes' Futures
00:49:22
Speaker
We would look at Patrick Mahomes like he was crazy for doing that, right?
00:49:26
Speaker
it's time to change it. When I do say millionaires, the reason why I say millionaires like that, I understand, I want people to understand this because a lot of people are going to hear the millionaires and be like, oh, whoa, you think all of us are going to change? Even the back up, back up, back up, back up, back up. Like, right, like I understand that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. But the reason why I started teaching about money, the reason why
00:49:51
Speaker
As you learn about investing and as you teach people this stuff, you learn that there are small decisions you can make early and you can allow them to work for you the rest of your life. So some of the small investments you're able to make in a retirement account early and put that to work for you with compound interest, you can almost, almost, there's not a lot of guarantees in the world, but at certain numbers, almost guarantee the fact that at a certain age, you will be a millionaire or a multimillionaire.
00:50:20
Speaker
So there's some small decisions, and I don't even want to say small, they're monumental and historic decisions for this field. But imagine if you as an athletic director or you as a coach could say, hey, listen, I'm going to give my kids, I'm going to give my athletes the best experience possible. But I also am guaranteeing the fact that I know one day they will be millionaires if they put this money in here and do it like this. And that's just one of the many benefits of
00:50:50
Speaker
revenue sharing and of what AO brings to the table. Well, and my concern with NIL is only that I love that young adults playing the sport they love are able to now make some money that they never could make before. And I love seeing deals like DB from Alabama going to Ohio State for $600,000 and Land Rover and, you know, a nice place in downtown Columbus. I think it's great.
00:51:21
Speaker
But NIL seems to only, because of the lack of structure and how it's being funded, the way it's being funded by donors and these collectives, it just seems to be reinforcing
00:51:33
Speaker
now being the most important and not later. And what I mean is I'm going to get whatever I can get with this NIL, I'm going to get the bag, as all the athletes call it. And I get it. Go get the bag. But unfortunately, you saw this a lot in the NFL locker rooms you were in where you had guys that had
00:51:52
Speaker
Bigger longer-term contracts, but blew all their money because they were living in the now and you were sitting there It's at the beginning making league minimum and then eventually getting your first multi-year deal and making more and more and and you were acting like you didn't have anything but in the hotel room, right and so helping young people be fiduciary responsible be stewards and
00:52:17
Speaker
is so important. A lot of people are like, you know, fans will say, they should just put it all in a trust, you know, and the athletes will have it later. Well, I don't know about that. But here's what I do know. If you want to have vehicles like that, the athletes have to agree to it. And if you want the athletes to agree to something, they have to be a part of one group. Absolutely. Absolutely. They have to be in a room.
00:52:38
Speaker
They have to be educated, their voices have to be heard, and a lot of them know a lot about this stuff already. They've been thinking about it, they've been talking about it, so by you continuing to keep them out of the room, again, people are exposing themselves. And a moment like this would trend over bringing us in here and also calling out folks, right? Like, hey, like,
00:53:00
Speaker
We love you. We genuinely want to see you win. There's going to be more and more young athletes that come up and say, I want to go play for the coach that wants to see me win, not just for the program for the next four years, but for life. And not just say it because it's a good quote on the wall, and it looks really, really good when recruits walk through and the parents walk through, but really mean it. Show me. Don't tell me. Show me. Don't tell me.
00:53:27
Speaker
Cope, thank you so much, man. So much fun today doing this, but then to follow it up, hearing your story more and sharing it with others. It's special, man. I love being partners with you and building this thing together with you and the team. Appreciate you having me, man. Two claps and a whoop. Great stuff from Cope. And I mean, listen, whether you're the commissioner, a parent, an athlete, a coach, a president,
00:53:55
Speaker
If you're a part of college athletics and you're impacting this industry, you have to really take what Cope said about thinking forward and keeping the young people that this industry is all about first.
Subscribe and Follow Us
00:54:08
Speaker
and incorporate it into whatever it is you're doing. That was such a good interview. I'm so thankful that Cope and I could do that. And listen, I hope you're following the show and subscribing to it, but if you're not, please go to Apple Podcast or Spotify Podcast, whichever engine you use, and subscribe to Now It's Legal with Jim Cravat. You can also follow us on Instagram to get short sound bites from each episode before they come out. And you just go to Now It's Legal Pod on Instagram and follow us there.
00:54:38
Speaker
And of course, if you want to be a guest or you know somebody who should be a guest, send us a message because we're going to continue to have athletes and parents and coaches and ADs and other folks influencing the future of college athletics. Join us on future episodes right here on Now It's Legal.