Brandon Brown, Assistant General Manager of the NY Giants, discusses the mindset and sacrifices needed for top-tier athletic achievement during an a16z panel on sports and culture.
Insight
Brown: Team buy-in comes faster when leaders suffer with staff
“I always say the messenger has to be believable, right? If you just have these bulletin board slogans and your idea of culture, but you don't live it. Like Robin talked about, you know, living what you preach, you know, for me I view it as, I call it suffering…”
Insight
Brown: Sports teams get tenfold returns by investing in players personally
“These players in any sport, they want to know that you're invested in them as a person, not just a jersey number. You know, it's different from the, you know, the approach that was, call it, just as I said, 10, 2030 years ago, and I think you get the most back…”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Brown: Athletes disliking fantasy sports is a misconception
“I think it's a misconception that players don't like fantasy.”
Insight
Brown: Retired athletes lose access to business rooms as star power dims
“The further you get away from the field, from, for the majority of athletes the next wave will come in, and your star will start to dimmer a little bit. And as your star dims, you know, those access to those rooms, Aren't going to be as frequent.”
Opinion
Brown: Sports appeal because outcomes feature clear winners and losers
“Biggest thing for me, there's no gray area. Always like knowing at the end of the day, there's a winner, there's a loser. Hopefully on the right side of this, you know, of the outcome more than the wrong side, but to me there's no gray area at the end of the d…”
Insight
Brown: Sports communities are chosen through shared struggle, not geography
“Sports is so special when you talk about that community, that sense of community. It's different from just saying, hey, we are in this community because we just, we grew up there. We were forced to grow up here. It's, I think it's a chosen community, which is …”