NBA champion and XvsXSports Co-CEO shares his path from the court to advocacy and entrepreneurship.
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Show Notes:
In this Mission Matters episode, Adam Torres interviews Metta World Peace, Founder of Artest Management Group and Co-CEO of XvsXSports, on his evolution from NBA legend to entrepreneur and mental health advocate. From championship highs to building companies with purpose, Metta shares a powerful story of resilience and reinvention.
About Metta World Peace
Born Ronald William Artest Jr. , in Queensbridge, New York, Artest changed his name to Metta World Peace in September 2011 in an effort to encourage happiness and wellness. He is founder of Artest Management Group and Co CEO of XvsXSports. World Peace played professional basketball for 19 years. In his career he played for 6 NBA teams. He won the NBA World Championship with the LA Lakers in June 2010 and received the J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award – the NBA’s highest citizenship and community service honor – in April 2011. He was selected to the 2005-06 NBA’s All-Defensive Team, was voted by the media as 2003-04 NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year and was the only man with 271 steals in his first two seasons in the NBA, breaking Michael Jordan’s record. His autobiography, “No Malice: My Life in Basketball” was released in May 2018 with Triumph Publishing and a documentary on his life in basketball, “Ron Artest: The Quiet Storm” was released on Showtime in May 2019. World Peace is currently pursuing many entrepreneurial projects including the XvsXsports project which will launch to the general public in October 2020. World Peace is also known as a prominent mental health advocate, pop culture personality and media favorite. He raffled off his 2010 NBA World Championship Ring with the proceeds going to his nonprofit, Xcel University (now known as Artest University). The online ring raffle raised more than $650,000. Funds were donated to nonprofits that provide mental health therapists and mental health services to their communities and to provide scholarships to underprivileged youth in the New York City area.
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Full Unedited Transcript
Alright. Let’s welcome our next guest, meta World Peace. Metta World Peace. Formerly known as Ronald Artes Jr. Is a retired professional basketball player, entrepreneur, and a mental health advocate. I. Over his 19 year NBA career, he played for six teams winning a championship with the Los Angeles Lakers in 2010, and earning the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award in 2004.
He also received the J Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award for his community service. Um, beyond Basketball. He co-founded X versus X Sports and runs our test management group. His memoir, no Malice. My Life in Basketball was published in 2018, followed by a Showtime documentary in 2019. A strong advocate for mental health.
He raised over $650,000 for related charities through the auction of his championship ring. Join me in welcoming Metal World Peace.
I’ve been waiting for this one for a while. I hear your name a lot. You are very active, man. Yeah. Um, thanks for having me. Uh, Sharon, thanks for inviting me on you for a couple years and, uh. Thanks for having me here at Mission Matters, but yeah, you know, um, just moving with purpose, you know, you move with purpose and sometimes you don’t know where it’s gonna lead you, but you know, you have a goal.
Uh, you don’t know who you’re going to meet along that journey. You don’t know what’s gonna happen, but, um, you know, you have a goal in mind and it’s led me, you know, I just kind of switched tracks and, you know, I’m the train. Yeah. You know, and this, the world is our oyster, but it’s also our track. And if it fits, guides me in the right direction to meet people like yourself, you know, and you hear my name, then so be it.
You know, I’m gonna embrace it. A question I had in my mind. I mean, very, very few people experience this. What is it like to win an NBA championship? Uh, it was, it was, it was fun, you know. Um, just fun. What, like, come on, 15 years ago, 2000, what is it? Like 25? This is, you know, this is 25. Um, and that was 2010, so that was a long time ago.
But yeah, it was, um, it was definitely fun. Like. I always wanted to win the title, and you just never know when it’s gonna happen, you know? And it happened 10 years into my career, and, um, you don’t really feel it until it says zero, zero on the clock. And then that’s when, for me, that’s when it started to really sink in, uh, you know, one of the greatest days of my life because it was something I wanted to do as a, since a child.
Well, not since, since since a team, you know, I wanted to win the title. Um, you know, one of the greatest days of my life. That concept of being a champion, whether it’s in the NBA, like yourself or in business or whatever, somebody’s venture is like thoughts on what it is to become a champion and what it takes, you know, I think, um, basketball is something I’ve been doing since eight.
Wasn’t that good. Got better every year. Um, then I have a skillset. They draft me, I improve with their former NBA player coaches. And you know, I am who I am. I was a go-to guy before I got with Kobe. I was a go-to guy for the majority of my career. Uh, I was an expert at what I did, right? And then in business, they don’t always work like that.
You know, you’ll see a lot of athletes get involved during their career in different businesses. And if you don’t have the right mentorship or if you don’t have the right mindset for business, um, you can make mistakes. I don’t think any athlete’s gonna go into it saying, you know, I got a hundred million dollars and I want to just like, I want, I really wanna lose this in 10 years.
You know, I got, I want to invest in this project and I really hope I lose it all. Mm. I don’t think they go into it like that. I think they go into it one to 10, it, but not, uh, turning over all the stones rushing and not having a background in business. So from that perspective, how do you reset? You know, how do you take your losses but then get back on track, you know, and how do you have, do you have the grit?
You know? And I think, um, for me, you know, I, I always started late, you know, so I understand that about myself and I understand the longing. So, you know, uh, my, my journey has been one of, at some point we’re gonna win a championship again. Yeah. Looking at, um, when I say I hear your name often, not just in the news, not just in media, like you had, you had a release that came out a couple of days ago and I’ll, I’ll talk about that a little bit for fan up.
Um, so we’ll get into that in a moment. But in general, what, like, I was talking to, for example, Kathleen Ley the other day, and I’m like, Kathleen, we have met coming out. She’s like, what? And she, the love, like I talk to a lot of people, you get a lot of love from behind. Like a lot of the individuals there are like.
Your name comes up, but it’s always for good things. It’s, you’re supporting people, you’re supporting people when you, you don’t even need to, like, it’s something that’s coming from your heart. I don’t know where it’s coming from. What drives that like for you to show up? Well, you know, initially it was philanthropy.
I was doing a lot of philanthropy. Um, and I never had an interest in business. I didn’t have an interest in meeting people in business. I just had an interest in. Playing basketball, partying in Los Angeles hard and um, and philanthropy, and that’s what I did. But Phil, philanthropy and only focus on philanthropy and saying yes to every single thing, you know, that became overwhelming.
Yeah. And, um, so I wanted to figure out another way. And so I mean, that, that, that was the journey, you know, that was the journey. And, but I think because I, I’ve been helped. Uh, getting a scholarship to high school when I didn’t know what school I was gonna go to, then to college and even government assistance.
You know, there was times where we didn’t have no food and to. You know that no frills corn flake or that no frills butter or that no frills cheese. That turned hard. If you leave it, you know, out the refrigerator 14 hours, you not laughing then you don’t know. It’s okay. Yeah, fine. I’m laughing. But it was good when you, when ate it, right?
Corn Neal. But that’s all like assistance, you know? So it’s like I’ve been assisted. There was times where, you know, when your stomach is rumbling, people make bad decisions when they get hungry. Yeah. And they don’t even understand why they made that decision until they’re like in jail and all, they was just hungry.
Or they get cranky arguing, people get divorced ’cause they’re hungry, you know, like they just argue, get a big fight and they just, they didn’t eat breakfast angry, you know? And it is like, um, I, I, I, I, I, I remember the, I remember the times where people helped me and I wanted to do the same thing. I wanted to be there, but it could be a point in time where it’s overwhelming and it’s a little too much at times.
Yeah. So speaking of advocacy and, and um, and your philanthropy mental health, that’s been something that you’ve supported for a long time. Where did that come from and where do you see that that current state of mental health advocacy at? Well, for me, it was more about I had the ability to pay for therapists and I was like, wow, how can people pay for this?
Not everybody can pay for someone to fly from Pennsylvania to Sacramento for marriage counseling and parenting counseling. You know, at the price that we were paying for it. I’m just like, wow. So this is helping me and other people need this. Well, that’s not gonna work. So that made me want to talk about my story in this format in 2007, actually a long time ago.
Um, and then hopefully that could relate to someone and that’s your therapy. You just watch and hopefully you got something from that. Um, it was a company called, I mean a school, Chicago University. They actually had a program where. Their social working, I mean, I’m their therapist. Students, um, would charge $15 an hour, you know, for a session, which is great ’cause some people don’t have, you know, insurance and different things like that.
So, and now you see since 2010 after I thank my psychologist on national television, you know, all uh, pro sports teams, especially NBA, have therapists on hand. They didn’t have that prior to that. Jumping around a bit here. Um, our test management group. Maybe tell us a little bit more about, about the company and your vision for it.
You know, uh, 2015 we launched our test management group. Uh, I started to get, get an interest in business, real business in 2009. Um, 2012, I took a liking to all the new, uh, Facebook ads, the Shopifys that was coming out. Um. And then I thought that I can launch a tech company on my own and tried. And then in 2015 I was looking at, you know, my strengths and it was working with others and I was asking myself these questions.
So I launched a C Corp art test management group, just based off information I received. Mm-hmm. Um, I launched it at a 10 million valuation with, you know, no assets and then, you know, I couldn’t justify it, but I said, I think it’s worth 10 million. But I said one day it will be worth 10 million. Yeah. Um, and when I did it, I just wanted to get started just getting to the game.
Mm-hmm. You know, get into the game, miss some shots, you know, it is what it is. And, and I, I figured I’ll learn along the way and at some point I will fill up that empty. Evaluation glass with real substance. And that’s what I did. And, you know, I created a thesis six years, um, after I created, um, launched the company.
And this is 10 years later. And, you know, it’s turned into a private return into a private equity firm now because of the assets that we have, um, trying to make it into a product. But along that journey, it was a lot of ups and downs. There was times I wanted to quit, um, you know, and I just said, you know, uh, don’t quit.
You know, don’t get tired, you know? And, and now, uh, I learned a lot, a lot of lessons, and I’m grateful for ’em, you know, I’m really grateful for ’em. And, you know, now we’re, we got that second win and, uh, it was exciting. So what kind of projects, founders industries, like give a little bit of the complexion of maybe the thesis for our test management group?
Well, initially we didn’t have a thesis. Yep. Now, for the day. So we, the thesis that we set like four years ago, or five years ago, was areas where sports affect the outcome of success because I just needed to move forward and I was just trying to find ways to align and trim fat and not try to get involved in everything, every opportunity.
So that helped me find better companies and better founders, and I couldn’t really identify a founder back then. I didn’t know that you had to actually. Identify the founder, not just the idea. You get excited, oh, that’s a great idea, but you can’t really operate that idea. So I fell into that a lot. Um, now I’m better.
I got a better team. Um, the former CEO Bruce Moosa, I’m a CEO partner. Um, so, and the team is incredible. A lot of great operators. Um, you know, so I wanted to create. Along the way, I really wanted, I wanted the IPO. That was a goal, even though the IP market wasn’t great at one point in time, but I didn’t wanna focus on all that.
I just wanted to focus on the steps. You know, you could always not go public, right? So, um, the, the assets that I wanted enter the company was reoccurring assets, cash flow assets. And for sports, I looked at logistics as something that was, that we can use, um, athletes can use. When you look at. Consumer brands, you know, everything, this whole room is filled with logistics.
If you look at the materials, I mean, it’s written all over the, the, the public markets from the video to Amazon, the fashion over the shin to Nike. So I was like, I need a logistics asset that I own, and that’s carried to my DNA and what I’m doing. Um, and that was about five years ago. So now we have three logistic companies.
We’re active. Um, it’s probably my fastest moving company or asset. I have a great CEO that we put in place, so I’m really, that, that just happened well, that the concept hit me five years ago, four years ago, and now that’s actually coming to life. So we working on commercial bills and then we have, um, insurance is something that was always interesting to me for many reasons because obviously Warren Buffet is inspiring and it’s not me, but everyone.
And when you with that, his stock. You know, um, you look at the NBA arenas, you see State Farm, you see Geico, then you see new insurance companies come in, and all these new innovative insurance companies come in. Once again, how do I apply that to my ecosystem? What, how do I partner with people? Um, and even just fast forwarding a little bit as I had all these divisions, how I wanted to, you know, the assets I wanted under my ticker symbol, which is private now, um, I didn’t understand partnerships.
Until really three years ago, I didn’t even understand it three years ago. I just knew I needed to start creating partnerships and then start commercializing. And how do you bring value to your portfolio companies? How do you bring value to your own companies? So I just, you know, just keep asking myself these questions and, and now my partnership game is better, you know, um, making a pie bigger versus trying to keep everything to yourself.
And these are concepts that takes people a little bit longer. Sometimes it takes someone longer to get it, but you know, if you’re trying to perfect something, you know. Like, for example, I didn’t learn how to shoot with my left hand until I was 13 years old. And then that became my strength. I only went left when I was in the NBA.
You know, the scouting report was don’t let him go left. Yeah. That was my strength. So it is the same thing in business, right? You just keep working at it. Um, and, and just don’t give up. And the same people that was like, no, years ago, they’re talking to me now. Mm-hmm. And some, I’m actually in business with.
Amazing. Um, I read this the other day, so fan up, a hub for Gen Z and female sports fan. I know fans, I know our test management group is involved, but what can you tell us? Yeah, fan up is. Um, so we, we wanted to launch, um, a venture capital arm under our umbrella and we did that. This is a great partners. Um, Steven STOs, former CEO of Bus Mobile.
Alison Lamb, former Black Rock Carlisle, um, Tara Getty, former Navy Seal, former Stanford. So I was able to build a team, um, and then take the venture capital, uh, kind of model, take that pressure off of my firm. I didn’t, I wanted my firm to be a little bit different, more service based, um, firm, ecosystem based.
So we was able to create new entity, and that’s the entity that was to get, we got involved, the fan up, we got involved in, um, barcode, which is like an airline and stuff. Um, and that is a new fund. We, we deployed a little bit, but we’re actually, it’s a, we’re raising right now. Um, also, and yeah, Steven Sto is leading it, but Fan Up is a great company.
Um, they, they’re doing great big revenue, you know, um, we got in late, but it’s still a good company to be a part of. Alright, so, um, this is the morning, so I got one more question then I’m gonna open it up to the audience and everybody else gets to have time for a couple questions here. So. Um, so one of the things that we do here is, is publishing books.
So today we’re celebrating a book launch and we published over 400 authors. So whenever I have somebody on stage, I, I like to ask about their book, number one. But what’s interesting to me and what I try to encourage people to do is you don’t have to be an, in this case, MBA champion. You don’t have to be a celebrity, you don’t have to be.
All these things, like everybody’s story matters. So I’m curious about your, your thought process around your book and, and just storytelling in general and why people should share. I think we’ll talk about more storytelling. I think, um, storytelling’s important, coming to LA everybody wanna do movies and write books, you know, be a star, whatever.
Uh, but I think for me, you know, I’ve done that. I think I’ve been colorful on interviews and created this personality. But I think storytelling, um, is a way to tell stories. I wasn’t able to, I was always able to put out good content using the platform of the NBA, but I wasn’t able to create a story. My story was all over the place.
One day I’m rapping. One day I’m acting. One day I’m on Big Brother, you know, one day I’m getting rejected, like, who are you? You know? Um, and I, I, I actually noticed that. I was like, wow, my fans are really confused because when I got into digital marketing. I’m, like, I said, oh wow, my fans are really confused.
Yeah. So that, that led me to getting off Instagram, just hiding. I, I literally deleted my Instagram and I said, I, I missed a boat on a opportunity for a brand like Jordan’s. Just Jordan, you know, I was everything. And that doesn’t, you can’t really market to your family that, so I said, okay, I’m gonna come back at some point and.
I’ll be comfortable whoever I am. And now it’s like doing things like this, which I’m okay with, you know? Um, so I forget what’s the first part of your question? It’s just ENC encouraging other people to tell their story story regardless of their status. Or they may not be an NBA champion or like, it’s important and you can tell it different ways.
And I’m gonna start to tell mine, uh. The, uh, speak engagements. Yeah. You know, we also have a sports management pump vertical that we have agents and managers, and I’m going to use my own. We’re gonna create, we create our own booking vertical and they’ll book me. And it’s hard to manage me, so you can’t manage me.
I’ve been told I, I need a management company. I tell people all the time, you, you, you can partner with me, but you can’t manage. It’s impossible. So I had to create a company to actually manage me. Um, because of my mind is all over the place. So we’re doing that and they get a chance to actually, when they’re not working for me, I go and you and create revenue for your vertical and, and they can create revenue for themselves.
But when I need you, I need you. And, uh, yeah. So, um, now we’re gonna start booking. Um, I also don’t want to do certain things like I’ve turned down a lot of podcasts. Opportunities. Yeah. I could’ve made good money. But I didn’t wanna necessarily do what they wanted me to do. I’ve turned down reality show opportunities.
Yeah. I couldn’t made good money, but I don’t want to do that. So I had to create my own production company to set my own narrative, you know, create my own podcast company to create my own narrative. And I said, if it’s gonna take me 10 years, so be it. You know? And that’s what we’re doing right now. I got a great team.
We’re setting the narrative. And, you know, I wanna speak in corporate, I wanna speak at school, I wanna speak about entrepreneurship, I wanna speak about, uh, you know, family. And that’s still entertaining. You can make it entertaining. I can do a dance right now. That’s entertaining. I’m not gonna do that. I heard it.
Yeah. I’m saying you, you can still get entertaining without getting drunk on national tv, without having my wife have to have a drink just to entertain someone. Or without having to smoke marijuana. I’m not saying, you know, I’m not against marijuana, but I don’t necessarily want to show that on, you know, my podcast.
Yeah. I wanna do something different. I’m for marijuana. A lot of people have been locked up, you know, from the for smoking a joint, you know, which is crazy. But you know, from that perspective, um, now I’m able to tell my own story. You know, sometimes people would say, even documentaries, they do not encourage the person who’s being featured to be an executive producer on the dock, but they’ll do a dock without telling me, which is unbelievable.
I can’t believe you can do a dock on somebody quit without giving permission. But then even if people give permission, it is not what you all, it is not what you want, you know? So I think controlling your story is important. I think everybody has a story. You don’t have to get an NBA player and have a story.
Alright, let’s open it up for some questions. Who’s got some questions? I’ll take it up. Uh, you and I both set up the board for the YMCA. So first of all, thank you for the work you do for us there. But my question is on XVX sports, can you talk about your vision for that and what it is for the people that don’t know?
Yeah. Experts at Sports is one of the first companies I raised for LA Times invested and experts at sports. A couple other great notables. Calvin is in shareholder, one of the first shareholders in sports. Um, it was really to, um, create community in Los Angeles. Uh, it was an educational tool. I wanted to teach people, every level players to coach, how to coach, how to general manage, how to operate, how to ref, and then to find great competition and develop and localize that pro experience.
Um, we had an issue with development, which I had to build my own dev shop. It took me four years to build it, but we have it, so I would not be having issues with development anymore. Um, but yeah, so it was going well. We had a great community here in Los Angeles and it was, uh, you know, given sometimes we have a lot of talent, but you can’t find the talent.
The talent sometimes have to get a job. It’s a lot. Maybe at Starbucks or at. You know, um, target or something, and they’re not able to display your skills. So on Experts Sports, we’ve given you your time back as a player. So a lot of these players that had jobs, they was able to play with former pros and influences.
We had some players that couldn’t leave our side as we was in a case study mode going around Los Angeles and playing games and coaching. I was actually coaching, um, in the streets of Los Angeles. And you know, they, the only way they can contact you is with wifi and Facebook. They had to be next to you.
So as I was getting all this information, um, and we can be, get experts at sports and now these same influences that had nothing, you know, one player made a hundred grand winning a tournament. You know, another player started out with 2,500 player, um, Instagram followers on our platform, and now he has a million followers making money and using the big three.
His name is he. Um, Tristan Jazz started on our platform. White Iversson started on our platform. Um, so many players in Los Angeles, incredibly competitive games and incredibly competitive games. You know, not like these, it was my rules. It wasn’t these new rules, you know? So it was real competitive Los Angeles.
And so we had take a break. We took a break, um, from it, but now we’re bringing it back. And it started in the YMCA. That’s right. We actually built it in the YMCA, A fun concept. Alright, please. So met, uh, being part of the first team that did the first Neil deal and first day of college player in sports, and being that it was women’s basketball.
And how big the game got right now, in terms of everything, everybody car, we can name all names. Uh, what was your vision for that? Because I know you’re a basketball lover and you understand like the roots of the game. What was that like? Like you having that vision before? Yeah. You know, so in 2018, Mac alluded to 2018, we launched experts exports and I was actually also trying, I I, I had a wallet where the players would make money also, so we was able to drop cash into their wallet.
Um, this is before I didn’t even know about Web3 or NFTs at this point, or wallets. And then when I found out about the wallets, I’m like, oh, wow, I’m already doing this. Um, um, unfortunately the app wasn’t working, but um, and we were also 50 50 with men and women, so we, so the men games got more attention even though the women’s games wasn’t getting a lot of attention, we gave it attention and that was 2018 and a lot of our female influences.
Uh, you’ll see him this day, you know, uh, you’ll see him out there doing things on with the NBA and stuff. And so we were really early to the game with, um, even our head of sports being a female. Um, and we were really early to the game being the first partnership with my, my partner Steven Stokes. We, we were the first nil contract with the Cavender twins.
So we, we actually launched the first N contract, but we were actually doing nil before nil. But I think, um, obviously when you get a bunch of really smart people in one room, they’ll take it to the next level as such as they did look at college basketball. It’s incredible. So, yeah, I think, um, it was just, you know, I, I felt like women wanted, you know, they didn’t have the equal opportunities, which is why our sports program focused on women.
Um, we used to have to kick the guys off the court because the women would be playing and they would just be like shooting on the other side. Yeah, while the women are playing and we would literally have to get off the floor, just, you know, um, so we, we set a culture, a great culture at Experts at Sports, and, uh, we’re gonna bring it back.
And I’m coaching women’s basketball to this day. I coach Cal State LA as a volunteer coach, division two women. And, uh, I’m gonna be coaching women’s next year. And, uh, I love coaching women’s basketball. I, I like coaching guys too, you know. Um, but you know, right now I, I’ve been involved behind the scenes.
Um, hopefully it’ll get some recognition at some point. Hmm. All. Oh, start here and then I’ll go on back next. Hi Brandy. I think I know Ahi. Oh yeah, yeah, of course. We were in Miami together. I’m in the decentralized space and we think it’s very important for you to own your identity. And so I wanted to ask you, did you go back into tokens?
Did you go back into wallet? Are you distributing into your organizations with that mentality of where we’re headed? Um, yes. Um, yes and no. Yes. Uh, a no meaning I’m not trying to be CEO of everything anymore because Oh yeah, that’s too much, too hard. But in terms of my Yes. Meaning like my firm Yes. Where the right partnerships, um, decentralization identification.
And we have, so we’re building our portfolio companies up so the ecosystem can work together, you know, um, from layer one to layer twos, uh, case study. Uh, we fill our utility. We do have great utilities. So we’re, we’re, we’re primed. To launch a layer one or a layer two, we’re actually figuring out how and when we’re gonna do that.
Um, our wallet will have blockchain involved. We, we have a technology that I think is really great right now. It’s called athea, actually athea.com. Um, that’s, uh, the technology we’re using. Um, and, um, it, it can apply it to healthcare, health, FinTech, and then also any other case studies. So. But yeah, we’re definitely, um, paying attention and waiting for the right opportunity, uh, to, to continue to get involved.
And my firm is doing a lot of business development for the founder. But yeah, definitely, uh, paying attention to that. All right. Last question. Over in the back. Yep. There you go. Yep. Uh, so my question is around youth sports and its ability to transform America or the world really, because I think youth sports are a great place for kids to learn and build self-esteem.
I think there’s a focus on winning over teaching like team and, you know, because 99% of kids are never gonna play past maybe high school, right? So my question is how do we change the mindset around coaching across the country to change America? Because I think it’s like more children. Learn more from sports than almost anything.
Right? It’s such a huge focus for parents to coach your kids and get ’em involved in these different activities. However, it’s like the, when I, at least I, you know, I have two boys with 23 and 21. When they were younger, I coached 15 teams. I saw most of the parents wanting just to focus on winning, which is great.
But how do we change the mindset? Because this is a tool we have for our kids, right? This is like one of the greatest ways to transform our country, right? Because everyone wants to play sports, but how do we get the mind shift? How do we get the mind shift? You know, it’s a big, it is a good question actually.
Um, before I answer that question, I want to acknowledge the people that I know in the audience. Uh, Juliet, she has a great company. Um, that we might be, that we are advisor, say, might be, no, Mike, sorry. We are gonna be advisor and then Calvin has a she and tech sports flow. Good to see you, Darren. Um, some people I know, like really cool to see people I know more.
So I just wanted to say hello. Um, Esther. I knew Esther like how all these people I know is in the building. Um, but I think, um, American sports, it’s, especially basketball. I, I don’t like where it’s going. You know, um, look how much people are traveling in the NBA. I mean, can’t you watch basketball? I don’t understand it.
Um, we’re also setting up our players. So from a pro perspective and an amateur perspective, let’s talk about both. You know, we’re also, uh, setting up our country to not be the best in basketball. You know, uh, you have the overseas countries, they can play pro at 13. Pro at 15, we gotta wait and now we can’t compete.
You know, we’re, you know, America spend so much time fighting against each other here and it’s trickling down to sports now. You know, it’s trickling down to sports and it is just, you know, we need to figure this out. And, um, in terms of winning and losing, like it’s okay to lose. You shouldn’t be giving people wins.
You know, youth parents, no. Your kid lost. It’s okay. And then they, they get it back. You know, my kids, they didn’t, I wanted them to go to St. John’s, but they said no, they wanted them to go to my ed. It was a no, I wanted them to go to NBA. It was a no. I felt bad, but it was a no. And I think built carton, they figured something else out, you know, um, youth sports, it, it is a lot of sports.
People are getting hurt. Um, I think the kids could use a break. You know, as times get better, your skill sets, you know, there, there are a few, you know, parents that are really doing it the right way, but, you know, American sports, we gotta figure it out. You know, I think there’s a lot of gatekeeping. So there’s a lot of professionals that have the, the skill to help not getting the opportunities in, in, in high school level, private school level, college level, pro level.
Um, so I think it’s also an opportunity. To be a part of the change in sports. Everybody, everybody wants to own a team. Everybody wants to go the same route, but then there are companies going different routes. You can look online and you’ll see a lot of different sports companies and just be a change, you know, whether it’s youth, you know, build, you know, I think have the, uh, confidence to be the change, if that’s something.
But I’m a, I love sports, I love basketball. Um, I’m from New York City. You know, I get passionate about the city of New York is not producing players at the rate that we used to produce the players. And like, once again, you look at the NBAI love foreign countries. I love, but I’m just saying here in America, I’m competitive.
I love American basketball, you know, and, uh, I don’t wanna see the USA versus the world in the Allstar game because I don’t want lose. So I’d rather them just keep it as it is now. But we got, um. You know, change the mindset a little bit of sports. And I think we should let our team, we should let our teams play up if we can, you know, ’cause we gotta at some point catch back up.
’cause right now we are on the down slide. Alright, let’s give it up.