Let’s skip the small talk,

This is insane. Noah here, writing this from Toronto, Canada.

Five years ago all I had was a recorded zoom call and a $40 Amazon mic chatting with friends. Now, I find myself at the Team Canada headquarters showing professional basketball players our app for athletes to build meaningful ownership.

We are now an international company with customers from the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Poland.

If you’re reading this, the game has changed. So if want to hang out on the new frontier with us, stick around ⬇️

LINEUP
1. Headlines of the week 🗞️
2. Athletes LIV For Equity ⛳️

3. Ownership Plays 👀

4. Live in the App Store 📲

5. Company of the Week: ALOHA 🍫

NEWS

🚨Headlines of the Week🚨

  1. The ATHLETES & ASSETS™ app is live!

  2. LIV Golf announces agreement with new lead investor; players to be majority equity holders in the league.

  3. JJ Watt designed Burnley FC’s 2026/27 away kit.

  4. Derek Jeter joins ALUM Holdings as a brand ambassador, board advisor and investor.

  5. Mo Bamba launches Mo Bamba Collects and is opening a trading card shop in Austin, Texas.

  6. Axum Capital Partners buys controlling interest in Victor Wembanyama’s hydration brand BARCODE.

  7. Tennis pro Arthur Fils joins Tiva as an investor.

  8. We sent our community to the World Cup!

A&A IN DEPTH

Athletes LIV For Equity

LIV Golf has reached an agreement with a new lead investor following the withdrawal of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund funding earlier this year. In the deal, the golfers are set to be majority equity holders of the league.

CEO of LIV Golf, Scott O'Neil, announced the deal this week, and it's signed and approved by the board. The investor's name and the dollar figure are still private, but the deal has been valued “between $250 million and $300 million… designed to sustain operations through at least 2030. More than 12 additional minority investor parties have also expressed interest in participating” (GolfPost).

In April, the Saudi PIF said it would stop funding LIV at the end of the 2026 season. Bankruptcy reports followed, along with stories of top players being unpaid. This deal is the league’s move at bouncing back from that.

Under the plan O'Neil is calling "LIV 2.0," players become the majority equity holders and the format shrinks to 10 team events with a set of "Five Team Majors."

PGA Tour players already hold equity through PGA Tour Enterprises after the Strategic Sports Group deal. The word “majority” is what’s doing the work for LIV.

LIV needed new capital and a reason for its best players to stay: the investor supplies the capital while the ownership stake is what keeps the stars.

Jon Rahm reportedly cost LIV around $500M to sign. If the deal closes in September, players like him stop being the league's most expensive contracts and start being its owners.

ATHLETE SPOTLIGHT

Ownership Plays

Derek Jeter is backing ALUM, a luxury hospitality company building private members' clubs and condo-hotels in college towns. The company was founded in 2021 and made its public launch on August 4, when it announced Jeter as brand ambassador, board advisor, and investor. The investor stake and the board seat are where the ownership sits. ALUM has its first development underway in Tuscaloosa and is eyeing Michigan, Ohio State, and Notre Dame.

8-year NBA veteran Mo Bamba announced he is opening a trading card shop in Austin. An athlete, popularized because of a song made by his friend, has spent his career run as a name printed on Topps and Panini cards, and now he owns the retail side of the hobby. The shop holds the inventory and the margin on singles, sealed wax, and grading.

JJ Watt designed Burnley FC's 2026/27 away kit, reviving a club crest worn from 1987 to 2009. He has been a minority owner of Burnley since May 2023; his design is him shaping a product he holds equity in. Burnley play in the Championship this season after relegation, and the kit is on sale through the club store now.

Victor Wembanyama's hydration brand BARCODE is being acquired by Axum Capital Partners, a Charlotte private equity firm buying a controlling interest. Wemby keeps his stake and stays on as a shareholder and strategic partner; the deal puts a price on equity he took in 2023 and gives the brand institutional capital. BARCODE was co-founded in 2021 by Kyle Kuzma, and Axum was co-founded by former NFL player Muhsin Muhammad, whose fund targets health and wellness brands. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter.

Four athletes, four modes of ownership built to last beyond their playing career across different fields: a card shop, a hospitality cap table, a football club, and a hydration brand.

MOST VALUABLE PLATFORM

Live in the App Store

While our platform has been around for almost a year, I am at loss for words with what we've experienced as a company the past month and a half...

The Athletes & Assets™ app has become the "business platform in your pocket" for now over 220+ notable professional across the U.S., U.K., and Poland.

This shift has happened in other industries with people of influence, and it was only a matter of time before sports caught on.

Backstage allows actors to find work independently.
UnitedMasters allows musicians to own their work.

And now Athletes & Assets™ allows athletes to build ownership instead of renting out their name.

Our core offering is endorsement-for-equity partnerships, but there are more resources in the app we can't wait to show everyone in the coming days.

I kept telling people "This is the future" but it's not anymore. It's the present reality of what has been a tidal shift in Sports & Entertainment.

Here it is - https://apps.apple.com/us/app/athletes-assets/id6790524794

- Noah, Founder/CEO, Athletes & Assets™

COMPANY OF THE WEEK

Company of the Week: ALOHA

ALOHA is a plant-based protein brand based in Colorado producing USDA Organic protein bars, shakes, and powders. Originally founded in 2013, the company was restructured in 2017 by CEO Brad Charron.

ALOHA is a Certified B Corp and has raised approximately $105M in total funding, including a $68M growth investment from SemCap Food & Nutrition in 2024. The company has surpassed $100M in annual revenue with strong growth across retail and DTC channels.

Click here to read their page built for athletes.


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