Mashburn’s N.I.L. Market Theory

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1:02Congratulations! You made the varsity podcast. My name is John Arand, and I'm Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today, Jamal Mashburn joins the pod. You probably remember Jamal as an NBA star from the 1990s or early 2000s. Or maybe you've seen him over the past couple of weeks as a TV analyst on the NCAA tournament games. But I wanted to get Jamal on here to talk about his business acumen. Not only does he own a bunch of businesses, but he's also been looking to own a team, either here or in Europe, and he's going to bring such a good perspective to the show. But before we get to Jamal Mashburn, today is Sunday, April 5th, and here's what I'm watching.

1:44It's the Final Four weekend, of course. Saturday's games were on TNT Sports. Monday's game will be too. Now, I love everything about the Final Four from a media perspective. This is the most unique deal that I've ever covered. It's a true partnership. I hate saying that, but it's true. It's a true partnership between CBS and TNT Sports. I mean that. The two companies schedule the games together. They produce the games together. The production trucks are filled with people from both companies working on the same game. This weekend, though, is especially unique because, as you all surely know by now, CBS's parent, Paramount, is in the process of buying TNT's parent, Warner Brothers Discovery.

2:30And by next year's Final Four, this is all going to be one big happy company. But right now, nobody really knows anything about how the new company will look or act. Well, I sat down with the head of TNT Sports last week to talk about what it's been like so far. Now, first of all, I have to tell you, Luis Silberwasser is one of my favorite people in the business. He's one of the most likable people in sports media. And when I talked to him, he painted a picture of how TNT sports employees are keeping their head down amid all the unknowns arising from the Paramount Purchase. One example, Luis has been negotiating with Gary Bettman about extending their hockey deal.

3:12He's in the process of adding new sports to TNT's portfolio. He's overseeing production for the Final Four games. As Luis told me, TNT Sports is producing more hours than it's ever produced. And he said that nobody inside TNT is really talking about the future. All those things are being decided later, he said. But he's operating the company as an independent company. In other words, it's business as usual, at least for right now. Okay, now let's get to Jamal Mashburn. Jamal, it's great to see you. I'm talking to you right now in Indianapolis, the site of the Final Four and the championship game.

3:51You've been covering the college basketball all season with Warner Brothers Discovery with TNT and TBS and all the different channels that carry the games. And so you're a great player from the early 90s with Kentucky. You know, you were with the NBA. You're now sort of an analyst about the game. Give me just a really quick open-ended question for you. What is the state of college basketball right now? Very, very interesting, because I look at it from not only a player perspective, but also from a business perspective. And I think there's a difference. And from a business perspective, I think there's still chaos.

4:34and that's considering the transfer portal and also NIL and then also how does it affect mid-majors and also how does it affect women's sports as well when you talk about allocating revenue sharing to athletics. On the court, I think it's in a great place. I think you have unique coaches out there and young coaches and older coaches that we all know, the Rick Pitino's, the Bill Celso's of the world. I think that's in a great space. The talent out there is undeniable. Kids like A.J. DeBonsa, Darren Peterson, we don't expect them to come back to college, but they've had a great impact and shown that freshmen can still play, especially at a high level and impact winning.

5:21But you're also seeing a lot of older players that are still in college that are maybe 25, 26 years old, which is very different. and how does that impact incoming freshmen and how college coaches recruit them. I think that's another conversation that has to be had. I see a bottleneck there where a lot of probably top freshmen are probably going to go lower Division I to improve their stock and concentrate on bigger stuff when they receive, when they have a good name or impress coaches and have gone through the rigor at least for one year at a college program. So to me, it's a balancing act. I think one side of his chaos and the other side of his is is doing well as far as performance on the court.

6:05So I love to ask people like you this question because you were you played in the early 90s. You played for Patino at a Blue Blood school with the transfer portal and with NIL. Do you think you would have stayed there for three years or do you think you possibly would have bounced around? Do you do you ever look at look at it from your own personal perspective? Yeah, and that's a great question. And a lot of people don't know why I chose the University of Kentucky. And when I chose University of Kentucky back in 1990, they were still on probation. They were still serving out that particular term for what other another coach did and players did at that particular time.

6:44So I chose the University of Kentucky not knowing what I was getting myself into as far as the fans and how they engage with the program and also the expectation of the program. I basically went there to follow Coach Patino because he could help me become a pro. And I identified early because he also coached the New York Knicks before he took the Kentucky job. So I was very familiar with him growing up in New York. And I really wanted to be a pro. And I thought if I went with him, he can help me reach that particular goal. For me, in this particular NIL era, I still hold true to the core values of what's the long-term goal and not thinking about the short-term money aspect of it.

7:29So I more than likely would have stayed at that particular time, regardless of NIL compensation or anything like that, because my goal was beyond college basketball. It was really to become a professional, but also a long term professional, which I turned out to have a 12 year career and also my core value system. I was willing to look for adversity and fight through the adversity because I knew how important that would be in order for me to be a sustainable pro. So I wasn't necessarily chasing money at that particular time, even though I left as a junior, what they call back then hardship, essentially.

8:07So for me, it was more about how could Coach Patino impact. And then I fell in love with the University of Kentucky being there with all support and fell in love with my teammates, guys from Kentucky, really understanding the culture and what Kentucky basketball meant, not only to them, but also to the fans as well and really embracing that. So I think for me, I wouldn't have chased a dollar figure to go to another university and leave Kentucky if I played in this current era. So that's what you would do. Let's say that I'm a kid, like you were Parade All-American, and I was a Parade All-American in 2026, and I came to you for advice.

8:48Would you give that advice, that same advice, or would you just kind of, I mean, it all depends, I suppose. Yeah, so I've actually gone through that with my son. My son actually played at the University of Minnesota and actually played for Richard Pitino, which is Rick Pitino's son who coached me at the University of Kentucky. Richard got fired in Minnesota and then took 24 hours later, took the New Mexico job. And my son went with him. And that was the beginning of NIL at that particular time. And then my son wound up playing three years there and then had that fifth year of COVID and made a different decision not to stay at the University of New Mexico, but to transfer to Temple.

9:27And throughout that particular process, I approached my son and he was like, Dad, what are your thoughts? And I said, well, what are your long term goals and and how can they help you with your long term goals? And what are your weaknesses and what are your strengths? And Temple came in there with Adam Fisher and the head coach there and really showed my son what his abilities were and how can he can help him improve. And they called back and said, Jamal, we only have I want to say I think it was one hundred thousand dollars with the NIL. And we know that's not your son's value. You can get more other places.

10:00And I said, well, that's not nothing that that's really going to, I would say, impact this life to a degree because I've done well off the court. So he doesn't necessarily need to look at the money right now and follow the money. So I would give him the same advice. I'm much more of a long term thinker in that regard. But everybody has different goals and what they want to accomplish out of it. And I don't begrudge anybody for that if they're going to go in, accept a lot of money. But I always say, what does it kind of lead to at the end of the day? does it lead you to your ultimate goal this is most guys that play division one basketball they ultimately want to be a professional basketball player and my thought process has always been money is great in the short term but when you start to travel into the nba ranks or overseas ranks money doesn't get you up out of bed to go practice you know um it just doesn't you know what i mean it sits in a bank account or you do whatever you buy things or whatever that's not going to help you through the grind.

10:58You really have to love it. And if you just love chasing money, you're not going to be successful at it long term. You may be successful at it short term. And if you happen to be just a natural at it, then more power to you. But I would give the same advice. Be a much more long term thinker in your approach and anything that you do in life. It has a much more sustainable quality to it. And I think you're at that particular point, really exercising who you are and what things mean to you. And that can be defining for the rest of your life. I love that advice. We're two old guys talking about this.

11:36Of course, you're right. I was 21 once. You tried telling me, like, oh, give up$100 ,000 and just for a long term, that's a tough pill to swallow for a young kid. It is. It is. And I totally understand that. And the generation, the millennials and the Gen Z's and different things like that. And I understand their perspective, you know, and like I told my son, you don't necessarily have to follow my advice or anything like that, but just consider it. You know, it's just another perspective. And at the end of the day, I want him to be an independent thinker, but also creating his own core values that he identifies with and sticks to for the remainder of his professional journey or college basketball journey.

12:22I just think it's the right approach. I just think that, you know, oftentimes when you lead with dollar figures and we don't we don't understand everybody's financial situation. But I think you miss things that are important to you if you're just looking at the dollar. It may not. They may be offering you two million dollars, but it may not be the right fit for you long term. That helps you develop. It may be the fit for you short term because they compensated you. But it may not be the right fit long term, but it also could work out. So I think everybody has its own different situation. It's just I approach it from a long term and a long view situation.

13:00Jamal, you know what I what I like about your answers? I gave you an open ended question about the state of college sports. And if I'm being honest, I expect you to talk about NIL. I expect you to talk about the transfer window and the chaos. And you did. You brought up the mid majors. You brought up a women's sports. Let's start with the mid majors, because I how how do they fit in right now? because i have to admit i love everybody loves the cinderellas but i went i went to the sweet 16 in dc which was michigan state and duke andst john's and uh and yukon those are not it was great it was great basketball i i was i was emotionally invested as a fan and uh and i didn't miss the cinderellas or the mid-majors one bit i gotta say yeah no i i understand that part of it but also too i look at it from the perspective of the whole ecosystem you know of college basketball you know the high points of of of the world um a lot of people got introduced to high point you know um i i did my research and one of my former coaches tubby smith was a head coach there so i was a little bit familiar it's the furniture capital of the world and some of the things that they do at their university and the kids that they go after those to me are stories that needed to be told and should be told.

14:21And they're told through the lens of college basketball when they reach a certain level. And then you got Miami of Ohio, who almost had a perfect season. And rightfully so, they should have been in the tournament, probably should have been a higher seed. But I've always looked at it as everybody can't play. There's only limited spots at the high major schools. And oftentimes I'm looking at the kids that probably need to improve their game a little bit. They're probably not as physically strong, but they still need an opportunity and a platform to play on. And they also want to compete against those high major schools because they didn't get offered to those high major schools.

14:56So I think there is a place for the emotional part of March Madness, meaning the stories that need to be told not only by institutions, but also players that transfer there and why they're playing. And on the other aspect of it, I think we're going to see moving forward where, you know, It might not necessarily be a Cinderella story in the context of what me and you thought of it, but it may be a reemergence of a program that we thought should be there. Like, for example, you know, as much as we talked about St. John's, we're really talking about Rick Pitino and the job that he's done with Zuby Echefor and some of those other guys of reviving a program.

15:34But in my opinion, they're a Cinderella story because I didn't expect them to go as far as they did based upon watching them throughout the whole year and watching them improve throughout the whole year and how Coach Patino coaches them. So we may think of them as a as a program that we recognize, but they haven't been there in a while. You know, and Rick Patino was the one that got him back there. I'm from New York City. I didn't want to go to St. John's. And the reason I didn't want to go to St. John's was because it didn't feel like a campus environment. It was a commuter school. You know, I'm leaving Harlem to go to Queens.

16:12My mom was like, no, you're not doing that. Go somewhere else and have something different. No regrets of St. John's and the people that have went there, but it just wasn't my path. And then on the other side of the coin, women's sports. I think your mom just wanted to get you away from Rucker Park. Correct, correct, correct. I grew up right across the street from Rucker Park. So I didn't need the pop and glitter of Rucker Park. I understood the realities of Rucker Park and the surroundings.

16:43If you were running a mid-major program, Jamal, how do you compete? Great question. Great question. I think on the front part of it, you've got to understand where you're at and where you fit within the system. And what I mean by that is from a player perspective and also from a coaching perspective. I think you have to offer and be honest with yourself and say, you know what? We're probably not going to have coaches stay here for a long period of time. This is going to be a transition job. A lot of players, even with the transfer portal, we may not be able to keep them for years. It may be one year.

17:25I would approach it from the standpoint of we're an institution, not necessarily a turnstile. We have a particular culture where we improve everybody to get to where they want to be. And that can be for coaches. That can be for players. I think you have to embrace the opportunity of being sort of a transition program. And you have to sell that and be honest to your fans and also your boosters that, you know, you're going to get a glimpse of a kid here for one year that may go on and do something special. But at the end of the day, or even a coach that does some special at another program once he leaves here.

18:02But we were a part of that development and we were a part of that story. And I think if you approach it in that particular way, then everybody's honest and everybody's considering of where the program's at. You know, everybody can't pay two million dollars for a top tier guard or different things like that. But what you could do is be a part of the development process of allowing them to get to that particular point. And one thing I do know about athletes and also coaches, they often remember where they started. And I think you should embrace that. Let me ask you a similar question about because you referenced women's sports and I think you can take this all to like all the Olympic sports.

18:45The current system of college athletics, is it good for women's sports and Olympic sports or do they need added help? I think they're going to need added help from the standpoint of resources. And, you know, I'm not in also the Olympic sports. The one thing I think people are kind of not understanding is when we talk about sports and we talk about athletes, sometimes we're really only talking about the top tier ones that actually have a chance to turn pro. We forget about the body and all the scholarships and the education that a lot of these particular students may not have access to if they didn't play sports.

19:25From women also to men to the Olympic sports or even some for some cases club sports in that matter. I think sports are a necessary part of society from the standpoint of organizing, the standpoint of lessons learned that can't be learned in a classroom, personal engagement, dealing with failure, being in a pivot after failure, dealing with success. And one thing that I've kind of always thought about in looking at the whole body of the sport is we can't just talk about the top tier without addressing the body and the foundation of it. And really, it's about education. A lot of athletes are not going to go on to be professionals, but there are going to be a lot of athletes that get a college education and go into the workforce and go into their careers with a better understanding of how to participate in the team and also how to lead.

20:22And I don't think that should be lost by just, you know, just talking about NIL. We got to still remember that there are student athletes, you know, at the end of the day. You know, I had the fortune of going to the University of Kentucky and being a get my honorary doctorate based upon what I've done off the court on the business side of things. And if I wasn't a student athlete, you know, I don't think I've been able to progress as an entrepreneur because entrepreneurs runs parallel with an athlete, in my opinion. There's things that I've learned on the court and have access to by being around people and meeting people because of the sport that are not even players.

21:04You know, they're mentors and different things like that. So, you know, oftentimes we're talking about the icing, but we can't forget about the cake and why all this was created around the student athlete. And, you know, obviously revenue sharing, the revenue and lame image and likeness, all that's important and it's evolving. But at the end of the day, a lot of them are not going to be pros. And there's some of them are there to get an education. We can't we can't deny that. And I think if you start to eliminate those things, you're going to eliminate a lot of people who may not have had a chance to attend a university.

21:40Yeah, you reference this. Your post-playing career, to me, is wild. As an entrepreneur, I'm sure you know the number. The last I saw was more than 90 companies or businesses that you run, including, you know, about 40 Outbacks, 40 Papa John's car dealers, a couple of Dunkin Donuts. How many is it at right now? Well, we've kind of toned back a little bit. I'm pretty much I think we're at seven car dealerships and we're in the waste management business and we're also in the Papa John's business. I did Outback. I want to say back in when I first got drafted in 1993, I had the fortune of meeting Chris Sullivan, one of the three founders of Outback, and he needed a limited partner and out in the territory of California.

22:29I was involved in an investment, I think, for 20 years and did very well with it. And, you know, Dunkin Donuts, we no longer have. We built out the territory, at least some stores and then sold that to another operator. So throughout my career, I've been always wanted to carry a briefcase and I had to figure out a way as a kid from Harlem. How do I do that? And that goes back to my other point of the scholarship for me. You know, basketball was the mechanism for me in order to carry that briefcase to give me insight, but also allow me to have a professional basketball career that I can have capital to invest and also build out an operating team and manage investments and also lead investments as well.

23:14So, you know, sports has done a lot for me in my life. And, you know, I hope that as we move through this particular period of the evolution of sports and revenue sharing, we don't lose the essence of why sports was created and how it brings us all together rather than separate us and how much we can learn from one another. So my business career was one that has a foundation in sports, you know, and I don't have an NBA. I have an NBA that I learned an NBA to get an NBA, you know, if that makes sense, you know. So learn while you learn is what they say, right? Correct. 100 percent. And I think that often get lost on us just looking at the shiny object of AJ, of A.J.

24:01DeBansa, whatever NIL number he got, or Darren Peterson, how many games he played or didn't play. There are other players and other people who have been very successful in sport and also lifted them out of situations that they wouldn't have been able to lift themselves out of because they were a student athlete. I mean, growing up in my neighborhood, you know, there was nobody that went to college. You know, college wasn't talked about, but it was talked about in my home with my mom and she often she told me at 10 years old when my mom and dad divorced she can't afford for me to send me to school i'm gonna have to get a scholarship and she told me point blank john choose between the arts academics or sports and um you know growing to be six foot eight you know i think i chose the right one you know but they all encompass and they all help you move things forward and move generations forward so you know um that's what i enjoy about sports and that's why i enjoy about being around young people and really get into their thinking and their understanding of why they are doing something and how they are doing something as opposed to chasing a dollar figure or whatever that may be you know money is a commodity you know at the end of the day if you have a great idea you'll find money for it but how do you go about leading your own life the lessons you learn there's some very good coaches in my opinion that have left the game um because they don't want to deal with nil on the transfer portal and to some of them i say shame on you you know what i mean and um i think you should still be a part of it because you know you got paid a very big salary and different things like that to coach these sports you know there's a certain level of responsibility that I think they have to the game as well.

25:54And some attire, some, you know, we understand what that's about and everybody has a different choice and a different mission in life. But for me, I'm always about, you know, loving the sports because of what it's done for me. I still play basketball to this day, John, you know what I mean? So it's just, it's in me, you know, it's, it's given me a lot. You're not worried about, you're not worried about your Achilles or anything like that coming. We're getting up that age there. You know, you know, I it's it's a I said I play basketball. That doesn't mean I'm playing any defense. You know, I'm shooting.

26:27You know, I don't play any defense, you know, anything like that. I have a rebounder. We get up shots and different things like that. But it's more mental for me at this particular part of my life and being connected to the game. And also connected to me to my son as well, who's in his first year as a G League player with the Long Island net. So, and I look at sports as the invitation to teach people about life. You don't play any defense. I think the Wizards are about to sign you then. Hey, let me take a quick break. I'm going to come back. I just want to ask you a couple more questions about your post-NBA playing career.

27:04Excellent.

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27:45It's so dangerous to live that more dangerous than a B minus or a C plus life, because when you're living a B or B plus life, you don't change it. You think it's good enough. Is it? I'm Susie Welch. I host a podcast called Becoming You. People think, okay, an A plus life is not available to me, but there is a way. We are all in the process of becoming ourselves. Listen to Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts. So, Jamal, you tried to buy the Charlotte Hornets. You were involved for a little bit in buying a French basketball team as well. What is it about team ownership that excited you? Why were those areas that you wanted to get into?