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This week, we’ve got a special treat: a quick business-and-basketball Q&A with the newest Nuggets starter and breakout star, Spencer Keith Jones. If you’ve been with us for a while, you already know Spencer is a core part of the A&A community. And if you’re an NBA fan, you probably caught hisfollowing it up with a 28-piece W last week. We checked in with Spencer about how he’s feeling after his first NBA start and which industries have been catching his eye as he balls out on the court.

LZ: What’s an industry you’ve been keeping your eye on lately and why? 

Spencer Keith Jones: An industry I’ve been following lately is neurotech. I got pulled into it through the sleep space because I needed something that didn’t just track my sleep but could actually influence it. I started working with Somni during the offseason to help manage the travel grind and stay on top of my recovery, especially as my minutes increased. That opened the door for me. I went from focusing only on sleep to thinking about how to maximize focus, attention, and the mental side of performance. At this level, the margins are so small that the mental edge becomes the real separator.

That curiosity led me to visit Kernel, where I went through a full assessment on my brain age and cognitive capacities. Seeing that data in real time made me realize how much room there is for athletes to use this kind of insight. A company like Kernel can help you understand how your brain responds under fatigue, how quickly you process information, and how stress or workload might affect your decision-making.

And the more I’ve learned, the more I feel like neurotech is going to matter far beyond sports. People are starting to care about their cognitive health the same way they care about physical fitness. Better sleep, sharper focus, stress management and overall brain longevity are becoming everyday priorities. 

LZ: What was it like starting your first NBA game? 

Spencer Keith Jones:  Starting my first NBA game was really a testament to always being ready. It actually aligns with a lot of my interests in the health and wellness space, and even the neurotech space. I’ve always prioritized looking at companies and tools that help me stay ready because in this league, things can change in an instant.

I didn’t find out I was starting until about an hour before our walkthrough. I knew there was a chance because two of our starters went down with injuries, but nothing was confirmed until right before. They chose me because they felt I was the best fit with that lineup. And it’s crazy to think about how fast things shifted. I went from playing spot minutes to suddenly being out there with a team that has won a championship, is one of the best teams in the West, and has All-Stars and MVPs on the floor. You go from watching those guys to figuring out how you’re going to fit next to them.

It was a wild moment. Staying ready is everything, and so much of that comes down to keeping your health and wellness where it needs to be. This league is full of injuries, and those injuries create opportunities. That’s really what I’m taking advantage of right now.

I’ll never forget hearing my name called in the starting lineup, standing there under the lights next to some of the best players on earth. It’s nerve-racking and surreal at the same time. But once the ball goes up, you settle in. You trust your preparation and you play. And since that night, I’ve gotten better with every game and created more opportunities for myself because of it.

For years, NFL and NBA fans have dominated the spotlight, while supporters of so-called “non-revenue” sports have largely been left on the sidelines.

Kevin McReynolds, founder and CEO of Overnght, saw that gap up close as a DI football player at UCLA and Nevada. His friends in Olympic sports constantly struggled just to find a stream of their own events.

“I had conversations with athletes like Kami Craig and Sami Hill—who have multiple Olympic medals—where they expressed frustration about this,” McReynolds recalls.

Inspired, he decided to build a solution himself. “I was originally working on building Snapchat for live sports,” McReynolds says. “But when I couldn’t get media rights to football and basketball, people started suggesting going after Olympic sports. And they were absolutely right.”

Over the past three years, he dove in headfirst, scooping up media rights to overlooked but deeply passionate—and often affluent—sports like rowing and water polo. That effort transformed Overnght into a seven-figure, subscription-based streaming home for year-round Olympic sports.

His first major partner was USA Water Polo, where he was immediately thrown into the deep end. “Every little thing went wrong the first time, but we did one thing well,” he recalls. “We had the best picture quality the sport has ever had.” Once that hurdle was cleared, McReynolds knew the rest would follow. Soon after, the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF) became the first conference to sign a deal with the newly established Overnght.

Overnght operates on a subscription model, offering an $11.99 monthly plan and a $105 annual option. It has already generated seven figures in revenue, though much of that is reinvested into media rights fees.

“For the longest time, these sports have had a Kodak mindset,” McReynolds says. “Offer it for free so more people get exposed.” He sees that approach differently. To him, that’s how businesses shoot themselves in the foot.

“If Olympic sports don’t move toward a monetization model that reduces year-end losses, they won’t be sustainable,” he says. “The money that supports football and basketball has to come from somewhere, and if a sport isn’t generating—or at least offsetting—its expenses, it becomes a real challenge.”

He believes Overnght’s rapid growth comes from finding new ways to help sports, schools, and organizations monetize in different ways.

Long term, McReynolds wants to build the go-to platform for all Olympic sports.

“Olympic sports fans typically watch their own sport, but they’re also willing to try others. That’s the key difference,” he says. “When you look at this landscape, you want to build places that focus on community. That’s what we’re aiming to do—bring everything together in one place.”

Just because a sport isn’t on every bar TV doesn’t mean it’s not worth watching—or that passionate fans aren’t already tuning in from around the world. Water polo and rowing are perfect examples: sports with rich traditions, incredible athletes, and global followings, even if they rarely get mainstream airtime. So I asked Kevin which Olympic sport he thinks people should pay more attention to and why.

LZ: And then my last question is, what's one sport that you guys have that you think people should get into? And why?

Kevin McReynolds:

Oh, honestly, I gotta go back to water polo and rowing here, right? Like, water polo—these men and women are gladiators in the pool. You're talking about a sport where you’re trying to score a goal while someone is hanging off of you, trying to drown you, essentially. It’s such a fascinating sport, and I wish more people would see it. We’re investing in that to increase viewership, as we’ve done since we’ve been in the sport.

I think, on the other side, rowing is one of the true, most fascinating sports in the United States—I’d say in the world in general, right? It’s the ultimate team sport: getting everyone in a boat, rowing in the same direction at the same time, and if any one of those things falls out of sync, the boat immediately stops.

I go back to last year—we had the IRA Championship, the Intercollegiate Rowing Association Championship, and Cal was in it. In the semifinal, Harvard was making a move, and they caught a crab. Essentially, a crab is when the oar gets stuck underwater and stops the boat immediately, and Cal was favored to win a national championship all year, right? For something like that to happen, I think it’s just a testament to the repetition, the grit, and the mindset these athletes have—this idea of one sound, one movement. That repetition and focus on doing the same thing over and over again without any issues are incredible. And the amount of stamina it takes to do that is incredible.

As our beloved Casey Toohill spoke about a few weeks ago, protein is the name of the game right now. At the same time, everyone is desperate to find sources of it that aren’t loaded up with microplastics and unpronounceable chemicals.

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