Today’s post is heavily inspired by Pitchbook’s Weekend Pitch, written by Kevin Dowd
The ultimate goal for Overtime, which has raised more than $30 million since its founding in 2016, is to become the ESPN for Gen Z. The company first gained a following with short-form video highlights on social media, deploying an army of videographers to high-school gyms across the US in search of the next big thing. Eventually, it expanded into reality shows and web series built around a roster of budding basketball stars.
For its next act, Overtime plans to launch a semiprofessional basketball league that will pay some of those stars to leave high school and begin their pro careers, according to a report from 247 Sports, in a stark departure from the amateur ethos that has defined the teen circuit for decades. The league plans to launch in September, with payment for players "expected to be well within the six-figure range."
There are a few different points of interest here across the landscape of sports, influencers and investors. Let's take them one at a time.
First, Overtime's new effort continues a trend of elite basketball prospects turning pro earlier and earlier in their careers. Teen pros have long been the norm in Europe, but in the US, nearly every young star would graduate from high school and attend at least one year of college. But that norm is eroding, as names like LaMelo Ball have excelled in recent years by following a different path. The NBA is widely expected to change its rules in the near future to allow players to enter the league directly out of high school. If these sorts of shifts continue, Overtime could be ahead of the curve.
This also marks the latest episode of venture capitalists backing an upstart sports league. The most recent example, the Alliance of American Football, failed to complete one full season before descending into bankruptcy. The obvious problem with the AAF, though, was that it was putting out a second-rate product—the best football players are already in the NFL. Overtime's prospects for success may rest on the types of kids they're able to sign, both in terms of the quality of their play and the size of their followings.
That, to me, is what the league ultimately comes down to: a bet on being able to monetize the huge interest in certain prospects who have turned into social media stars. 247 Sports reported that one of Overtime's top targets will be Mikey Williams, a high school sophomore and slam-dunk savant who's widely ranked as one of the best prospects in his class. He already has his own web series on Overtime, and he claims 2.7 million followers on Instagram. Another top prospect in Williams' class is Bronny James, whom you might better know by his birth name, LeBron James Jr. The 247 Sports report didn't mention the younger James, but he could be another intriguing theoretical target, with 5.8 million Instagram followers of his own.
Instagram followers obviously aren't everything, and who knows what sort of players will ultimately be interested in Overtime's new league. But those huge numbers highlight the potential the company sees for this sort of venture.
"Nobody had built a national brand for reaching these kids," Overtime co-founder Dan Porter told Variety back in 2018. "It’s the same dynamic as YouTube stars with massive followings."
We've seen the impact influencers have had on other startups. TikTok is the obvious example. Snapchat is paying popular creators millions to post content on its app. Rapid adoption by influencers has helped Clubhouse, the audio-only social platform that is also backed by Andreessen, to reportedly increase its valuation tenfold in about eight months.
I'm curious to see the specifics of Overtime's plans. It seems unlikely the company will broadcast its games the same way that, say, ESPN televises a typical NBA game on a Friday night. I would expect the product to cater to the same sorts of younger fans who are already Overtime's audience—the sort who are probably less interested in sitting down to watch two straight hours of basketball and more interested in the highlights, in the characters, in the stories.
Perhaps the main product won't be the games themselves, but rather a web series (or several series) going behind the scenes of what life is like as a 16-year-old pro player. That's pure speculation, but it seems more in line with the ethos of Overtime. The main attraction isn't the sport itself. It's the people who are playing it.