By MARTIN MUSUNKA Jr
Overtime is a media company that digitally distributes authentic sports content across many platforms including Youtube, Snapchat and Facebook.
The company also sells a variety of apparel with its logo and branding that has gotten a lot of recognition and countless celebrity endorsements from its uniqueness.
Overtime has named the youth basketball league Overtime Elite (OTE), which allows players between the ages of 16-to-18-years-old to earn a guaranteed minimum salary of $100,000 per year. The league has also made it possible for the young players to earn monetary value through their name, image and likeness (NIL).
On the road to youngsters becoming professional athletes, the basketball ecosystem has never been in favour of young athletes capitalizing on their NIL.
Prior to the recent policy changes, The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) always made their stance on young players making money.
This is seen in the case of Donald De La Haye, a former University of Central Florida kicker, who was ruled ineligible to play for his college football team and forfeited his scholarship, because he was monetizing his Youtube channel.
Zack Weiner, Overtime co-founder and president said, “These athletes deserve to be compensated right now for what they are. Even if they never make the NBA, people want to watch them play basketball and people want to potentially do endorsements with them off the court, so they deserve to be compensated now.
“For most of these athletes, they will end up playing professional basketball, and hopefully for a long time, so this also prepares them for that and puts the resources around them at an earlier age which is really beneficial. It’s that dual purpose.”
Overtime Elite tackles critical aspects that seem to be broken in the basketball world by offering a year-round development programme integrating state-of-the-art sports science, world-class coaching, performance technologies and prime facilities.
Overtime co-founder Dan Porter, an Internet entrepreneur and former president at Teach for America, has leveraged his network to bring forth basketballers’ experiential learning and provide a personalized and dynamic learning environment. This strengthens each athlete’s journey from proficiency to pursuing a career as a professional athlete.
“The most powerful force in education, which everyone strives for, is personalized education because we have different learning styles.
“I’ll look to leverage my network and we’re already in conversations with dynamic school principals—people who are very hands-on—and also individual tutors who have the strongest academic backgrounds we can find but also appreciate and are interested in everything our athletes are going through,” Porter said.
Overtime is also guaranteeing a payment of up to $100,000 towards college tuition on the occasion that an athlete decides to not pursue a professional basketball career. OTE athletes will also receive disability insurance coverage and full healthcare coverage.
While there has been much speculation on the concept of the basketball league, the highly subscribed media company proved its worth by accruing an astonishing amount of $140 million during a fundraiser only a month after the league’s announcement. Overtime managed to raise $80 million in a single round!
The investors in this single round were, Bezos Expeditions, the personal investment firm of the Amazon CEO, NBA stars, including Trae Young, Klay Thompson and Devin Booker. The Toronto rapper Drake is also an investor.
A portion of the $80 million goes to help pay for salaries of both players and staff, support the league, invest in the NFT sector and enhance its app.
