These days, more and more athletes are making moves in business.
Yet, financial education and finding the right people to help you build wealth are still somewhat hard to come for athletes.
Sheldon Day and Tom Zheng are looking to change this.
The Players Company is a collective of over 500 professional athletes and accredited investors, dedicated to empowering individuals through financial education and exclusive investment opportunities.
Their mission is to equip members with the necessary tools to build and maintain their wealth.
Though the days where supposedly “70% of professional athletes fall on financial hardships shortly after they retire,” are slowly disappearing, TPC is focused on making that number 0%.
In this interview, we talked to Sheldon and Tom about how the platform has evolved since its inception, why generational wealth is personally important to them, and advice for founders looking to partner with professional athletes.
Hello, who are you and what is the name of your company?
Sheldon Day: Hi, I’m Sheldon Day. I’m a current NFL player and founder of The Players Company. I’ve been playing in the NFL for 8 years and currently entering my 9th Season.
I started TPC for one reason and that is to change the narrative surrounding athletes by becoming the moat we all need.
I started this journey in 2019 with an idea and we have grown the community to over 500 athletes and look to keep expanding through our activations in 2024.
Tom Zheng: My name is Tom Zheng, former NFL sports scientist, and currently co-dounder, and CEO of The Players Company.
We aim to help empower our athletes and investors to build generational through education, access to exclusive offerings, and community events centered around sports and finance.
What was the process of getting the company off the ground?
Sheldon: The process was nothing short of a grind. Being a starter in the NFL from when I first started the company to now being a rotational player has been a blessing for the growth of TPC.
I’ve gotten the opportunity to engage with various locker rooms to ensure my idea of The Players Company would be successful.
We’ve been going through iterations of our MVP and continuously collecting feedback from current and former athletes.
With me being a current player, I have unique access to many athletes.
As we built our business strategies, we gained relationships with gifted business-minded individuals.
We leaned on the experience of Bob Iger, Mav Carter, and Dave Finnocio to help ensure we were building a sustainable business.
I had one goal in mind when thinking about how to alter this market and it was how can I add value now while making sure athletes’ financial health and well-being are solidified for generations to come.
How is the company doing today and what’s the long-term vision?
Sheldon: The company is doing amazing. We have grown to just over 500 athletes who have associated themselves with TPC, whether that’s investing in deals with TPC, participating in our live events and webinars, or being an investor in the company.
Our short-term goal is to grow the community to over 1000 athletes and streamline our platform.
Our long-term time goal is to become the one-stop shop for every athlete. We want to be the safe space for athletes.
We’re definitely in growth mode which is both exciting and daunting.
We launched our web platform in February of 2024 and are extremely proud to announce that we closed our first on-platform syndicated investment into Nickelytics – a Techstars portfolio company and disruptor in the ad-tech industry.
Currently, we’re launching our Q2 slate of offerings on our platform this month and looking to build momentum and brand credibility in 2024.
Tom: In addition to our platform offerings, we are gaining momentum in the sports media space through our flagship events.
From our content house at Super Bowl 2023 to our star-studded Hoops and Icons event during the 2024 All-Stars weekend, we’re solidifying our presence and influence in the industry.
Our future events serve as powerful platforms to showcase our brand and engage with our community on a broader scale.
Our Q3 and Q4 plans are to expand and grow our educational offerings for The Player’s Company community.
We will focus on a diverse array of topics from personal finance to the intricacies of successful angel investing to empower our community to reach their goals confidently.
What advice do you have for founders looking to build strategic relationships and partner with athletes?
Sheldon: Lead with honesty and create an environment for them to learn.
We come from a sport that has typically dominated our lives.
We sometimes feel unqualified when we enter rooms and tend to listen more than we speak, but if a safe environment is created we tend to have a different outlook that provides tremendous value.
Also, do not lead with what the athlete can do for you but rather with what you can do for them.
A value add grows trust with an athlete and we usually let our guard down once we know the opportunity is genuine.
Tom: I’ve been very fortunate to build some cool relationships with a few athletes over my decade’s journey. I’ve learned that transparency is key.
Professional athletes often have had people soliciting them all their lives, so that makes it difficult to cultivate trust.
Be clear with what you’re proposing, outline how you can add value and how they can add value.
Find a win-win situation to grow together.
Are there any particular tools, software, or resources you use to be more productive?
Sheldon: Asana kept us up to date and made sure we stayed on task.
Community.com helped us communicate with the community we built initially for The Players Company.
Tom: In the start-up space, it’s important to have tools for team communication, project management, CRM management, and any marketing campaigns.
We’ve used a host of different products for each of these, but I’m a personal fan of MailChimp and Slack.
One of the most effective business hacks I’ve discovered is to invest in an assistant or virtual assistant.
It can transform the way you manage and prioritize tasks which helps with time allocation to where it’s truly needed.
What advice do you have for founders trying to build a team and hire talent?
Sheldon: I’ve learned a lot in this area from successes and failures.
Here are a few things that I use to streamline the process because adding a new person to your team has a substantial impact especially early on.
- Clearly define your vision, values, and culture to the prospect and make sure everyone is mutually aligned.
- Utilize your personal network and referral system to find good fits.
- Be transparent and communicative especially early on to mitigate a bad fit later.
- Stay flexible and adaptable. There are many moving pieces when you’re launching or growing a business, and people may have different opinions. There often isn’t a single good solution or direction.
- The most important piece of advice is to surround yourself with people you trust.
Why is the mission behind TPC and helping athletes build generational wealth so important for you?
Sheldon: The mission started around an undrafted free agent in 2018 who was experiencing financial distress while he was currently playing.
I contacted the parties who were supposed to have the player’s best interest in mind and they were not interested in helping this player out.
I also created a technology to benefit players when it came to their spending habits.
The decision-makers said it was a perfect fit and everything a player needed but they had to adhere to a partnership that was already established.
This is the point when I knew things had to change and we as players would need to create a system that benefited us no matter what sport we were playing.
Tom: I’ve been in sports for a long time, in a variety of positions – from being an athlete to being on the sports med side to being on the leadership side.
I’ve seen a lot of financial pitfalls in the athlete economy from being taken advantage of by close friends to living beyond their means only to regret it later.
I believe we need to change the narrative surrounding financial perception as it relates to athletes and entertainers.
Having come from humble beginnings myself, I understand what it means to build wealth from very little. It starts with education, access, and self-empowerment.
That is why The Players Company exists.
Are you currently hiring and if so, where can people apply and find out more?
Tom: Great question – we just onboarded for a few key roles for operations and marketing, but we will have a formal listing for our summer internship program coming up in early June on LinkedIn via The Players Company Page!
