In recent years, professional athletes have been focused on leveraging their personal brands and athletic gifts to become more business-savvy and get involved in tech startups and digital content creation. In selecting the SportTechie Award for Most Tech-Savvy Athlete, there were dozens of strong candidates from across the sporting spectrum who demonstrated investment savvy, digital brand-building expertise and success in building their own sports technology products. Many athletes in the Bay Area, with their proximity to Silicon Valley, were heavily considered for their sports tech investment activity. Other nominees were extremely hands-on in building or experimenting with new technologies.
Ultimately, we felt Paul Rabil of the New York Lizards was most deserving of recognition for being the Most Tech-Savvy Athlete. Known as the “LeBron James of lacrosse,” Rabil uses the growing platform of professional lacrosse to build a thorough tech-focused brand to achieve new business and career opportunities. His secret in the digital space is authenticity.
“I think it’s similar to any company or entrepreneur or…any podcaster really starting from scratch, and you have to hone in on your authentic voice,” Rabil said on the SportTechie Podcast. “If there are people out there that have similar interests as you and in my case, that similar interest is the sport…then having that conversation with them first and figuring out the best medium to do so based on the demographic you’re trying to talk to, how good the content is, quality content and then cadence. I’ve invested my time, energy and resources in having ongoing conversations on multiple platforms and being authentic but also investing in creativity, doing highly-produced content as well as original content that’s off-the-cuff and even live streamed. It’s a work in progress, honestly…I think it just takes a lot of ambition and consistency.”
As the above video demonstrates, Rabil is very active in his own digital strategy, content creation and entrepreneurial ventures. He is the Founder, Chairman of Rabil Ventures, an investment fund that focuses on investing in and advising sports, financial, and health and wellness startups. Additionally, Rabil recently formed a content partnership with Amazon through The Paul Rabil Experience, an online instructional resource for lacrosse players.
Rabil’s mindset can be summed up in his approach to looking at the sport of lacrosse, and the platform it provides him: he sees it all as an entrepreneurial venture.
“We can confidently say that there is no other athlete in any sport who is producing as much content on a weekly basis as we are, and building the businesses that we are from scratch,” he said. “From our event business to our technology companies to the media that we’re putting out, there’s no other athlete on the planet that does this.”
The nominees for the SportTechie Award for Most-Tech Savvy Athlete were: