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Does driving (a paddleboard) without a license warrant a permanent criminal record?

As the ice is melting on nearby Cedar Lake in Minneapolis, my not-so-distant memories turn to swimming, canoeing, kayaking and paddleboarding in the calm and pristine water. But I also have other darker memories of this lake.

On July 12, 2014, a greyish overcast early morning with no one else on the lake, my son, daughter-in-law, and I were enjoying a relaxing paddleboard excursion. Our serene paddling was suddenly interrupted by the sound of a motor as a boat came through the channel and headed our way.

The Love for the Chiefs, the Love for the City!

Once again, the Kansas City Chiefs are Super Bowl bound! The Chiefs won the AFC Championship by beating the Buffalo Bills on January 26th. They will be facing the Philadelphia Eagles during Superbowl LIX. This is a historic matchup as Super Bowl LIX marks the second time in three years the Chiefs and the Eagles face each other. It is safe to say that Kansas City (and its surrounding areas) are proud of the Chiefs!

This past holiday season, the Chiefs and Kansas City reached a whole new level – being the stars of a Hallmark Christmas movie. There were multiple cameos, many locations throughout Kansas City, and the spirit of Chiefsmas all wrapped into an hour-and-a-half movie. Kansas City has been booming with pride. The city is welcoming visitors at record levels as Visit KC (the region’s primary destination sales and marketing organization) deploys its “From the Heart” campaign to engage and drive more than 28 million visitors.

The 2024 Paralympic Games

“I will not be participating at the Paralympics. I will be competing.”

-Hunter Woodhall, Paralympic Gold Medalist in the Men’s 400M T62 Category

The 2024 Paris Olympics were a highlight of this past summer, with 30.6 million viewers tuning in across all NBC platforms, making it the most-streamed Olympics. Among many other highlights, Noah Lyles (USA) and Letsile Tebogo (Botswana) battled it out for the title of World’s Fastest Man, Katie Ledecky’s (USA) swimming prowess made her the most-decorated female American Olympian across all sports, Yusuf Dikeҫ (Turkey) stunned viewers with his nonchalant silver medal shot, and Cindy Ngamba won the Refugee Olympic Team their first ever medal with a bronze in Women’s Middleweight Boxing. My favorite event this year, by far, was the men’s 1500M. Cole Hocker and Yared Nuguse (USA) pulled off a huge upset and absolutely smoked Josh Kerr and Jakob Ingebrigtsen! Watch it here.

With all the excitement surrounding the Olympics this year, people were understandably disappointed when the Closing Ceremony wrapped up. A common sentiment I heard was, “Well, what do I do now?” I wanted to yell from the rooftops, “It’s not over yet!”

Fall, Football, and Figuring it Out.

I love September. When the calendar flips to September, it means a lot of things to a lot of people - it’s the arrival of Fall (Fall is the best season, by the way), students begrudgingly returning to school to the delight of their parents, and for a lot of Americans, its marks the return of their favorite sport, FOOTBALL.

About 72% of Americans identify as football fans, that’s more than 241 million people. Football is big business. The NFL generated roughly $20 billion of revenue in 2023 and during the Super Bowl, companies paid $7 million per 30-second commercial. College Football TV rights alone accounted for roughly $4 billion in 2023. That doesn’t include College Football’s merchandise, ticket sales, sponsorships, or any NIL deals, including the recent deal with EA Sports to use the Name Image and Likeness of current College Football players in their new videogame, “creatively” named (in a generic way my trademark colleagues would hate) “College Football 25.” Football is America’s favorite sport, but its also becoming the favorite business of many Americans too.

A Post for National Pickleball Day (August 8, 2024)!

As frequent entreVIEW readers know, I am among the legions of people who became pickleball enthusiasts over the last several years, many of us (present company included) spurred on by the global pandemic. The statistics show that pickleball remains the fastest growing sport in the US, with about 50 million people in the US having played in the last 12 months, an explosive annual growth rate (over 85% in 2022). Contrary to popular perception, the average age of these players is 35 years old.

Recognizing Athletic Innovation at the Olympics

In just about a month’s time, the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad, also known as the 2024 Summer Olympics, will begin in Paris, France. From July 26th through August 11th, about 10,500 athletes from 206 different countries will compete for medals in 329 events over 32 sports. The Olympics have been of great interest to me since my early childhood, grabbing my attention every four years growing up and now every two years (ever since the Winter Olympics shifted in 1994 to offset the Summer and Winter Games every two years).

Full disclosure, I own a complete set of videotapes of the 1992 Barcelona Olympics that I forced my dad to record for me while I was away working at summer camp, so my love for the Olympics, like a lot of other interests of mine, could easily be labeled an obsession. For me, every event is appointment viewing, from the crowning of the Fastest Man Alive in the 100 Meter Sprint, to the repechage races in the Lightweight Women’s Doubles Sculls, to the Preliminary Round Handball match between Hungary and Denmark (set your calendar for August 2nd).

Kansas City Celebrating Women’s History Month

As many of you know, March is Women’s History Month. It seems very fitting that the CPKC Stadium opened its doors for its first home match on March 16, 2024. The Stadium is the first privately financed stadium purpose-built exclusively for a professional women’s soccer team, the Kansas City Current. The Current were founded in December 2020 as Kansas City’s National Women’s Soccer League team and are owned by Angie Long, Chris Long and our very own Brittany Mahomes, wife to three-time Super Bowl winner and Quarterback of the Kansas City Chiefs, Patrick Mahomes.

The Economic Impact of a Perennial Winner

On Sunday, February 11th, all of Kansas City celebrated as the Kansas City Chiefs found victory in Super Bowl 58.

As a lifelong Chiefs fan, the last few years have been beyond anything I ever could have imagined. When I was growing up, the Chiefs did not compete for championships. The team had a seemingly never-ending conveyor belt of quarterbacks, none of whom could lead the Chiefs far into the playoffs.

What's the Catch?

As fall starts, so does collegiate sports. I recently sat down to watch one of the numerous Saturday college football games and heard the announcers discussing all the money this year’s collegiates were making through their recently sanctioned ability to use their name, image, and likeness (NIL).

This led me to thinking about how these young entrepreneurs are rapidly building their brands and generating income, but at what cost?

A recent article published by ESPN discussed an NIL deal involving current Chicago Bears rookie Gervon Dexter. Dexter signed an NIL deal with Big League Advance Fund in 2022 while attending the University of Florida. Dexter’s deal provided for Dexter to receive a one-time payment from BLA of $436,485 in 2022 in exchange for 15% of Dexter’s pre-tax NFL earnings for 25 years. For Dexter, this means paying BLA an estimated $1.008 million based on his present NFL contract terms ($6.72M over four years).

It’s that time of the year again – when the Kansas City Office celebrates the Chiefs going to The Big Game!

As the Chiefs prepare to face off against the Philadelphia Eagles, it is important to note what an event like this means to the host city, the city of Glendale, Arizona. Every year, thousands of people travel to the lucky city that will hold the championship, generating millions of dollars in revenue for businesses and local governments. The game is also seen as an opportunity to showcase a city’s culture and attractions, resulting in increased tourism.

FIFA World Cup

As some of you may know, in a past life, I was lucky enough to play soccer professionally. Some of my fondest memories as a child were waking up super early on Saturday morning to watch Serie A (the Italian league) and the English Premier League with my dad. He would always urge and push me to watch his favorite players so my game would grow into that of his favorite players. To be frank, Dad and I have vastly different views on how the beautiful game should be played and we would bicker about how my favorite players were much better than his favorite players – a topic that is still argued to this day (he is a Messi fan, and I am a Ronaldo fan).

Pickleball Just Keeps Getting Bigger

Frequent readers of my entreVIEW posts (a small but loyal group, no doubt) may recall that earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic, at a time before vaccination had become widely available, I wrote this post about my budding enthusiasm for Pickleball. My post detailed how Pickleball had become widely recognized as a perfect “pandemic pastime” and was showing explosive growth as the fastest growing sport in the US. I also detailed some Pickleball-related entrepreneurial ventures.

While I have become a true Pickleball enthusiast and continue to play regularly (having taught at least 50 Pickleball virgins to play), I couldn’t have anticipated that Pickleball was going to rapidly become such big business! I recently saw this article, which details a whole bunch of ways that my new favorite sport (my old favorites are still volleyball and slalom waterskiing) is becoming big business. There are dozens of new companies selling paddles and accessories, hundreds of venues opening around the country, technologists developing software to facilitate Pickleball enthusiasm (court finders, scoring assistants, and even “Tinder-like” apps designed to help you find Pickleball playing partners), along with tournaments and professional Pickleball.

The Dog Days of Summer

The “Dog Days” of summer are from July 3 to August 11 each year. They’re usually the hottest and most unbearable days of the season. We often hear about the "Dog Days" of Summer, but few know the meaning of the expression.

The phrase can be traced back to ancient Greece and has its roots in astrology. It is a reference to the heliacal rising of the star system Sirius (known colloquially as the "Dog Star"), which Hellenistic astrology connected with heat, drought, sudden thunderstorms, lethargy, fever, mad dogs, and bad luck. The term “the dog days of summer” is now taken to describe the hottest, most uncomfortable part of summer in the Northern Hemisphere.

Crowdfunding the Entrepreneurial Spirit!

Author: Patricia Garrigner-Strickland

We had a bit of a snowy winter here in Kansas City and after every storm, I had at least one teenage boy ring my doorbell and ask to shovel off my driveway (for a price). On a recent trip to the grocery store, I encountered a group of Girl Scouts selling cookies (I bought three boxes of Thin Mints and ate an entire sleeve on my way home). A new client, a photographer and graphic designer, is looking to expand her business to include art shows and more event bookings. Another client is looking to develop an interactive video game based on martial arts instruction.

The Innovation of America’s Pastime – Reviewing the Patents of Baseball

Author: Tucker Griffith

The annual rite of spring known as Opening Day is upon us. Today's game between the Boston Red Sox and New York Yankees officially started the 146th season of professional baseball. While there have been many rule changes and innovations to the game of baseball over the last century and a half, including recent changes such as the universal designated hitter introduced for the first time this season, the use of a wireless communication device between catcher and pitcher, and the introduction of a pitch clock for next season, the basic rules of the game have remained relatively unchanged since the 1800s. At its heart, the game of baseball is about hitting a ball with a bat and catching that ball with a glove. It is easy to assume that the design of these basic components of the game have likewise been unchanged since the purported inception of baseball in 1839. However, enterprising individuals, often motivated by a desire to improve performance or safety, developed groundbreaking innovations in equipment that became the standard for the game of baseball over time, and are presently as ubiquitous as peanuts, crackerjacks, and the 7th inning stretch. This post explores some of the patented inventions that have advanced the game of baseball, and some that never quite caught on.

Has Crypto Had its Big Moment?

Author: Andrew Potter 

You saw it right? The color changing QR code bouncing around your TV screen for a 60 second “big game” ad (I don’t want to get sued any more than my fellow author). This “clever” ad was from the cryptocurrency exchange company Coinbase. The commercial reportedly cost Coinbase nearly $14 million in addition to the millions in free giveaways the company was offering to new app users. Despite the steep cost, it seemed to be worth it as the company’s website crashed due to the large volume of visitors. Talk about buzz! This ad was one of four ads dedicated to cryptocurrency during the Superbowl.

Has cryptocurrency and the blockchain had its watershed moment? Its hard to say for certain but it certainly seems like there is significant momentum.

“Game”-Changing Impact on Small Businesses

With “The Big Game” (sorry, but I don’t want to get a cease and desist letter from the NFL because of this post) now in the rearview mirror, many small businesses – some of which are in industries most negatively affected by COVID-19 – may have just received a much-needed boost.

Take, for example, the economic impact on small businesses in the County of Los Angeles and the City of Inglewood – the host of said game. Prior to the big game, the host committee hired Micronomics Economic Research and Consulting to analyze the potential economic impact of the game in the Los Angeles region. The consulting firm’s 60-page report, published in October 2021, forecasted that, based on conservative estimates of visitors, hotel rates and daytime spending, the game at SoFi Stadium would bring in approximately $234 – 477 million in economic benefits to the LA region, and would result in the creation of approximately 2,200 – 4,700 new jobs in the LA region. Unsurprisingly, the transportation, hotels and motels, personal care services, and full and limited-service restaurants industries were expected to receive most of these economic gains. The consulting firm also predicted that Los Angeles county would realize many qualitative benefits, including national and global exposure that would affect economic activity in the short and long-term.

Of course, the actual economic impact of the game on the Los Angeles region is still to be determined, and likely won’t be determined for several weeks. However, these pre-game estimates predicted a significant positive impact on small businesses in the region, many of which were in the throes of significant pandemic hardship.

As another example of the positive impact of the game on small businesses, the NFL and its partners made efforts to inspire positive change in communities surrounding Los Angeles through charity and community service events. For example, the Business Connect Program, the NFL’s diversity initiative, identified and supported 225 regional minority, woman, LGBTQ+, and veteran-owned businesses (26 of which were in Inglewood) through professional development, networking, and contract opportunities and beyond.

Additionally, in connection with the game, QuickBooks and Mailchimp teamed up with the Los Angeles Rams to provide three small business with a $25,000 grant and free one-year subscriptions to QuickBooks Online and Mailchimp. The three small businesses selected for such grants were Glow + Flow Beauty Supply, South LA Cafe and Burn Cycling, each based around the city of Inglewood. During the game, QuickBooks and Mailchimp also unveiled a 30-second add dedicated to celebrating entrepreneurial spirit and inspiring new entrepreneurs watching the game.

Of course, not only the Los Angeles region was positively impacted. Although more difficult to quantify, it’s likely the Cincinnati region – home to runner-up Cincinnati Bengals – also saw significant economic benefits from the big game, through additional spending, foot traffic and publicity to the region caused by the big game.

Whether or not you were happy with the results (and/or commercials) of the big game, I think we can all be happy for the many small businesses that received a game-changing impact as result of it.

What Can an Entrepreneur Learn from the Olympics?

There’s been a lot written about how nobody is watching the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. (Yes, I know they are happening now in 2021 because of the COVID pandemic, but they are still calling them the 2020 games.) Well, that hasn’t been the case in my household. We’ve enjoyed watching all sorts of competition so far, especially volleyball (a family favorite), swimming, and, of course, St. Paul’s own, Suni Lee, the first Hmong-American Olympian, who won the gold medal in the Olympic women’s gymnastics all-around!

In any event, seeing a blog post on my “to do” list for this week in the middle of my Olympic binging led me to search for interesting Olympic entrepreneurial tidbits. What I found was quite a bit of content, including this article about Olympic athletes who are thriving as entrepreneurs. While many of the individuals listed had later success in sports-related businesses, their successes also included perfume, coffee, and the well-known George Foreman grill. 

There are also many articles about lessons that entrepreneurs can learn from the habits of Olympic athletes (in articles like this one, this one, and, more recently, this one or this one).  Let me summarize some of the common (and relatively obvious) takeaways, since you may not have time to read them all:

• It takes a team to be successful—don’t try and do it all yourself.
• Follow your passion—trying to build a business is a challenge in itself, but growing a business in something you are not passionate about is even more difficult!
• It takes hard work to be successful and you should be preparing to succeed from the very start.
• Stay focused on the long goal—ye
  ars of training lead to Olympic success; it doesn’t happen overnight. Of course, you can always take the advice of Mark Spitz, the most successful American Olympic swimmer of all time—with 7 gold medals, all in world record time, at the 1972 Munich Olympics—until a guy named Michael Phelps hit the pool. Spitz’s take? “I’m not concerned with tomorrow, but with what goes on today.”
• Flexibility is key—learn to roll with the punches because nothing goes as planned (remember all those hours training to culminate in Tokyo in the summer of 2020?).

The Kids are Alright

As Lori Wiese-Parks — my fellow entreVIEW blogger and Lathrop GPM colleague — so eloquently recounted in her June 29 post, now, for the first time, student-athletes will be allowed to profit from endorsement deals using their own name, image, and likeness. 

Already, in less than a month, we have seen a slew of local and national endorsement deals — some notable, others less so. With more than 400,000 NCAA athletes now on the market, it is clear we are only scratching the surface, but, since you are here, take a look at some of the early deals of the brand new “NIL Era” in NCAA sports: 

The Big Box Brands

Trey Knox and PetSmart: On July 1, Trey Knox, an Arkansas Razorbacks wide receiver, signed a promotional partnership deal with PetsSmart. With his Siberian Husky, the 6’5” wideout, who has 12,900 followers on Instagram, will promote PetSmart through coordinated social media posts and behind-the-scenes videos. Knox played in 11 games for the Razorbacks last year, starting six and recording seven catches — proof that you don’t have to be a superstar to get a superstar deal. Sometimes all you need is an incredibly photogenic dog and a bit of initiative. 

Haley and Hanna Cavinder and Boost Mobile: Another deal from day one of the NIL era: by way of a billboard in Times Square, Boost Mobile announced their partnership with the Cavinder sisters, all-conference twin guards at Fresno State. It is yet to be seen how the Cavinder sisters fit into the plans of Boost Mobile, the wireless telecommunication subsidiary of Dish Network, but with the twins’ more than four million followers on social media, it is clear Boost Mobile will have to fight for the Cavinder sisters’ time.

NCAA Athletes May Get an Entrepreneurial Boon

For more than a century, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has sought to protect amateurism in college sports by preventing student athletes from being compensated for or otherwise profiting from their collegiate sports participation. Student athletes have been largely prohibited from receiving any compensation or benefits for playing college sports except for the direct educational benefits associated with the cost of attendance — scholarships, books, room and board, and, more recently, limited stipends for living expenses that could include travel costs. The ability of the NCAA to enforce these rules changed on Monday, June 21, when the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously ruled that restrictions under consideration in the case constituted an unlawful restraint of trade (Alston vs. NCAA). 

The Alston decision addressed only the NCAA rules limiting the benefits schools can provide to student athletes. What specifically will change as a result of this decision is as yet unknown, but we will likely see some creativity among schools scrambling to enhance offerings to attract top athletes. Examples of previously prohibited benefits that may now be available include paid internships and graduate school scholarships, broader definition of what constitutes living expenses for stipends, and the removal of caps on disability insurance for injured athletes. NCAA rules that were not at issue in this case, but which are the subject of a separate antitrust lawsuit (House vs. NCAA), are the rules prohibiting student athletes from the commercial exploitation of their name, image, and likeness (NIL) rights. 

Every person has NIL rights under legal theories of the “right of privacy” and the “right of publicity.” It is the right of each individual to prevent others from using his/her name, image, or likeness for commercial purposes, and at the same time to profit from his/her own exploitation of such rights. While it seems that every other aspect of the multi-billion dollar college sports industry has been exploited for commercial purposes, the NCAA has adhered to a strict prohibition of the rights of student athletes, even entrepreneurial ones, to profit from their own identities. Years of public pressure on the NCAA to relax its rules on this issue have been unsuccessful in bringing about any meaningful change by the NCAA, and now it may have lost its ability to control the issue.