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- [00:00]
Host
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- [01:01]
Narrator/Announcer
Bloomberg Audio Studios Podcasts Radio News I'll cut to the chase.
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Interviewer
What if he played for the Giants? The Giants is 11 times bigger than the New Orleans market.
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Host
Yep.
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Interviewer
He is the most unsung giant of wide receiver football in the history of the league. There's no one close, I think a Cliff Branch at Oakland who I knew at Boulder years ago, everybody you know, Marcus Colson joins us now from his New Orleans Saints with all of his accolade over the years and he's kept it going out of hofstrapahl with his philanthropy as well.
- [01:41]
Host
Marquez Colston joins us here. He's the founder of the Champion Fund. Before we get to your fund, Marquez, seventh round out of Hofstra. Yep. Dude, how did you make 10 years in the NFL and then become like the top receiver for the Saints? How did that happen? Talk about a long shot.
- [01:57]
Marquez Colston
Yeah, I mean, it's one of those things where I think the way that I came in, I was never able to get comfortable, never felt like I had job security. And once you get into kind of that mindset, you just keep striving for the next thing. So 10 years later I was, I was able to leave. Pretty accomplished.
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Host
Awesome story, man. Talk to us about the Champion Fund. What is it and what are you trying to accomplish here? Sure.
- [02:19]
Marquez Colston
So, so the Champion Fund is a, is an interval fund. So it's, it's an SEC registered fund. And the mission and vision here is to make the sports asset class accessible to every investor. You know, over the last decade or so we've seen more and more, you know, news and more and more conversation around the sports Asset class and how it's growing. But it's typically been institutional investors only. And what we know, me personally, you know, being the product on the field, as a player transitioning into the investment world, having some ownership and operational experience for about seven years. So I've been able to see this asset class from a bunch of different lenses. And the one thing that you realize is the biggest value catalyst for the asset class itself. The athletes, the fans, the coaches, administrators, they create all the value but get none of the equity in it. So the Champion fund is really a vehicle that makes that whole asset class accessible to everybody.
- [03:13]
Interviewer
How's been the response?
- [03:15]
Marquez Colston
It's been a really good response. Right now we're out trying to secure those anchor investors, those institutional investors to kind of anchor the fund. But the concept has been really well received. The portfolio companies that we're in right now really love the concept of being able to get to kind of a distribution network of investors that typically they wouldn't have access to. So it's been well received.
- [03:42]
Host
Where do you guys see value today? Because I mean the numbers have just gotten so huge. Like the NFL is not even a billionaires club anymore. It's private equity, it's institutional money and even the NBA. The value of these franchises, where do you see value in some of these? Maybe other areas of sports that are also growing?
- [04:00]
Marquez Colston
I mean that's where we see the biggest value. We call it the value chains. So the fund itself breaks down across five different, what we call sub asset classes. So there's the sports teams themselves, which our focus would be typically on those emerging leagues. So think Syria. That's slightly underrated from a media value perspective. We're looking at sports ventures, which is growth stage technology companies, could be fan engagement tech, could be ticketing technology. We're looking at media and services businesses. We're also looking at real estate hospitality, that could be sports anchored, mixed use, that could be stadium development itself. And then we're looking at fund to funds. So established fund managers that have a track record, have their own thesis. So we've taken the asset class. We see value in all these different five buckets. And what we really believe is the true catalyst for all of the growth and evaluation is the media rights. So as media rights kind of displace and find their way downstream, we see kind of a high tide effect.
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Host
So it's interesting, like one of the leagues that truly experience explosive growth is the wnba. And that's been just extraordinary over the last two or three years. They renegotiate Their media rights pretty darn quickly here. How do the streaming services fit in here? I mean, is that going to be a source of meteorite growth do you think for a lot of these, maybe smaller leagues?
- [05:27]
Marquez Colston
Yeah, I think that's where the displacement is going to come. I think when you look at the linear broadcast networks that have traditionally been in the space, you're starting to see the Amazons and Netflixes of the world start to enter the space in a more, in a more meaningful way. Those, those media rights and those, those, those broadcast holders, the rights holders have to go somewhere else.
- [05:48]
Interviewer
I got three questions. I got to squeeze them in here. How do you react in soccer when they fall down and fake like that hurt? I want to know the truth. I literally turned it, I played hockey. I literally turned a TV off. What is Marquis Colton?
- [06:02]
Marquez Colston
Dude, it doesn't register for me.
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Interviewer
Talk about the betting. When you were playing, it was Drew Brees is going to throw to Marquis. Let's bet on it. It wasn't there, was it? Talk to the kids now about betting.
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Marquez Colston
I mean it's, it's, it's prevalent. It's everywhere and it's, it's one of those, those double edged swords. They tell you not to get involved with it, but you see it everywhere, plastered, everywhere. You know, it's, it's a, it's a touchy, it's a touchy thing. It's, it's, it's going to be in the game.
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Interviewer
Do you know anybody who's made money at it over long term?
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Marquez Colston
No. The house always wins.
- [06:33]
Interviewer
I got one final question. We get a huge response to you being on the show. I don't know much about football, but I know that Drew Brees threw the ball totally different than anybody else. And like in, almost like in cricket or in baseball, the torque, the spin on the ball I guess was like once in a generation. What was like catching that ball 20 yards outside?
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Marquez Colston
It was, it was, it was moving a lot faster than you think. But he just made the game so easy. It was just the way he saw the field. If you were able to see the field the same way as he did, he made the game so easy he would throw it away. You could be covered and still be open at the same time.
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Host
So what's next here for the fund here? What's next?
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Marquez Colston
It's really just, just continuing to, to tell the story, continuing to, to find those anchor investor partnerships and just continue to get the word out. You know, we feel like we're building something that's unique and special and cool.
- [07:32]
Interviewer
An email just came in. What do you think of the Lions this year? Are they stacked?
- [07:37]
Host
They're great.
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Marquez Colston
I think this is the year I think you'll see more parity than any other year.
- [07:45]
Interviewer
Great, Marcus. Thank you so much. Marcus Colton with us of the New Orleans Saints with all of his work with Champion.
- [07:51]
Narrator/Announcer
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