NEW YORK — NBA All-Star Weekend in Los Angeles later this week will be filled with glitz and glamour, and also technology.
Not only is the NBA hosting its annual tech summit, but also the National Basketball Players Association is holding four player-only conferences with the tech world, according to National Basketball Players Inc. president Jordan Schlachter.
“We don’t have anybody coming to talk to our players for investment opportunities,” Schlachter said Tuesday at SportTechie’s State Of The Industry event at Barclays Center. “They’re non-solicitations in everything that we can do. But it’s making them understand the business. It’s making them understand what some post-playing career opportunities might be. What’s interesting to them is they’re young. They’re in their 20s. They all use this. They all are aware of it. It’s the hot thing to invest in right now and the hot business as they’re thinking about their post-careers.”
The Boston Celtics’ Jaylen Brown, a 21-year-old rising star, is leading one of those events, and according to Schlachter, it is expected to serve as a session for 15 other players.
“It’s just like a tech meet-up where they’re talking about the things that they’re doing, and we have some outside people coming in to talk to them just really to educate them a little bit better,” Schlachter said.
Brown told The Undefeated that the “Tech Hustle” he is hosting with Base Ventures would be a private event held on Saturday and include a networking lunch and speakers including Uber chief brand officer Bozoma Saint John. He said he had 150 to 200 RSVPs, including venture capitalists and startups.
“A lot of people wait until the end of their careers to really get things going,” Brown told The Undefeated. “I thought it would be more beneficial to start early, put your foot in the door and start educating yourself, because technology investments are where the real money is at.
“I thought it would be dope to put together an event like that so not only I can network, but put myself, other athletes and whoever finds it interesting in an avenue to network. I have a Rolodex for it. Whoever shows up, it will be great for them.
“I can’t wait. I’m super excited not only to be hustling in sports but besides sports as well. The theme is education through technology, but also hustle.”
Brown interned at Base Ventures during his year of playing college basketball at Cal and has shown interest in technology as a user of the mental skills app Lucid. He told SportTechie in August that he was looking at tech investments.
“I had the chance to see a lot of different startups and give their pitches and kinda get into that space of investing and understanding the game,” Brown said of his time at Base Ventures. “A part of me going to Berkeley was to be in that space of Silicon Valley where you have these huge hubs of like Bloomberg and Tesla and Netflix and Pixar and Google, that’s all based there in San Francisco, so a part of me going to Berkeley was putting myself in that area.”
Schlachter can understand why many NBA players are excited about technology.
“They’re young. They’re users,” he said. “One of the things that we try and educate our players on — look, to be frank — it’s also an investment opportunity that a lot of guys that have disposable income think that, ‘Oh, I can invest in this new tech startup and make 5X in a year,’ and it’s our job to let them know that’s not the case.”
So the NBPA will be hosting tech summits, helping players lead the way with the education process.
— Avery Yang contributed reporting to this story.