CardVault by Tom Brady has gone from 3 stores to 17 in 18 months, with revenue up more than 400%, and Brady just added 15 investors to get to 100 total.

The group includes RedBird Capital founder Gerry Cardinale, JAY-Z, Silver Lake co-CEOs Egon Durban and Greg Mondre, Fenway Sports Group principal owner John Henry, Yankees captain Aaron Judge, Oilers captain Connor McDavid, UFC CEO Dana White, and more. Neither the size of the consortium nor CardVault's valuation was disclosed. Brady acquired a 50% stake in February 2025, when the company operated 3 stores.

It now has 17 locations, with roughly 24 expected open by the end of the year and a stated target above 100. Revenue has grown more than 400% over the last year. Co-founder Chris Costa told Front Office Sports that every location is profitable to date.

Both Judge and McDavid are among the most traded names in their sport's card market. They both now own a piece of the chain that sells those cards. Brady is the same case at a larger scale: his rookie cards are one of the most liquid assets in the hobby, and he owns half the retailer moving them.

The money follows a market that got much bigger. The card industry was worth $10 billion to $14 billion before the pandemic and reached about $50 billion this year, and Fanatics bought trading card giant Topps for $500 million in 2022.

Athletes have been the product in this market for 70 years. Judge, McDavid, and Brady will now sit on the ownership side of it to reap the full benefits.

When I started my journey of working with startups I knew in season was the trickiest time. Time and energy, I never felt like I had enough. The reason being, you have to keep the main thing the main thing. Your on field performance cannot suffer because of your outside business interests.

There’s the time issue, most of it has to be dedicated to your craft. In season, maybe you have a few non-sport hours a week or some set aside time on your off-day. Couple that with energy. Offseason was constant networking, scrolling LinkedIn and sourcing opportunities, but in season there’s not a ton of energy reserves. Many off-days I still felt like I had been in multiple car crashes. Not the best time for outside career exploration.

In my experience the manual process of sourcing and evaluation took months or even years. Hence my excitement about the app. Now it is 3pm on a Tuesday off day and you have a bit of free time. You can open the app, scroll, chat and book a meeting in five minutes.

In many ways it feels built off the backs of years of conversations that Noah and I had for years. “How do we get athletes the best opportunities for ownership in the most seamless way possible.”

 Now it’s here. It is ownership and professional development in the palm of your hand. It lets you keep the main thing the main thing.

108 first-time downloads in week one. So try it out. Play around with the app.

I promise you, I lived the old way of doing this. That was far less fun than we’ve made it now.

NFL and MLB legend Bo Jackson on NIL (via The Big Podcast with Shaq): “It’s ruining college sports…”

Jackson says kids are being handed money when they lack financial sense, and then taking it into the transfer portal. Here’s where we disagree:

JuJu Watkins was offered the same equity-for-NIL structure Unrivaled gave Paige Bueckers and Flau'Jae Johnson, and she pushed to write a check instead. In November 2025 she became the first known college athlete to directly invest in a professional women's sports franchise, joining the Boston Legacy FC ownership group as a torn ACL cost her the entire season. The stake keeps working while she can’t.

Jeremiyah Love arrived at Notre Dame in 2023 with no NIL deals and stayed selective as they came, finishing at a $1.5 million valuation, 29th in college football. He added a Doak Walker Award and a Heisman finalist season and never entered the portal. He also said that he plans to leave his record $53 million rookie contract untouched because of how NIL had set him up.

Deron Rippey Jr. is 18, Duke-bound, and ranked 8th in high school basketball at a $1.1 million valuation. He signed with frozen pasta brand Ripi in March for a five-figure payment plus a stake under 1% that vests over multiple years based on his continued involvement. Ripi is projecting $6.5 million in 2026 revenue, up from $350,000 in 2025.

Jackson’s main concern was roster churn, which is real. Indiana won a title starting 14 portal additions. However, the money is also teaching. Watkins understood at 19 that granted equity and purchased equity are different instruments. Rippey read a vesting schedule at 18 and signed one that pays him for staying involved over multiple years. Those lessons used to arrive later on in an athlete’s career, after a first pro contract, when a bad decision costs big bucks.

Fewer than 2% of college athletes turn pro. The other 98% used to leave school having never negotiated anything. Now they report deals of $600 or more through NIL Go within 5 business days. Athletes are now putting contracts, taxes, and an advisor in front of them before they turn 21, thanks to NIL.

Koia makes ready-to-drink plant protein shakes out of Los Angeles. Chris Hunter runs it as co-founder and CEO–he also co-founded Four Loko and Not Your Father's Root Beer. They now cover protein shakes, a higher-protein Elite line, kids' bottles, powders, and a protein soda. It sells through Whole Foods, Sprouts, Kroger, Publix, 7-Eleven, Target, and Walmart.

Chris Paul invested in August 2021 after going plant-based in 2019 and crediting the switch for his recovery and stamina. In April 2022 Koia announced a group of more than 20 investors ahead of a Series B, and the athlete names in it came from three different leagues: Kyler Murray, Ryan O'Reilly (NHL), and Josh Bell (MLB).

Paul's involvement came with work attached. He and Koia put vending machines on HBCU campuses starting in 2022, and Koia donated 50,000 bottles through GoPuff.

Koia did close to $60 million in retail sales and 35 million bottles in 2021, at roughly 100% year-over-year growth. The athletes who came in at that stage bought into a brand still moving from 17,000 doors to 34,000, and now own the upside.