Dec 10, 2021 · 1h 19m · startup-ideas
Buying the X Games with Olympic Icon Apolo Ohno | Where It Happens
0:00 / 0:00
▶ Watch on YouTube →
gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
Hosts Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg sit down with eight-time Olympic medalist Apolo Ohno to pitch a decentralized acquisition of the X Games while exploring deep insights on mental resilience, identity transitions, and escaping the burnout of modern hustle culture.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. Greg holds 19.2% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
Greg as informed peer 4.7 Guest teaching 3.5 Guest disagreement 0.4 Greg pushing back 0.7
speaking balance: gold is Greg, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 44:40 Apolo confronts naive assumptions about athlete IP rights
Apolo directly pushes back against the hosts' simplified assumption that Olympic athletes can monetize their own highlights via Web3, explaining the harsh legal reality of institutional control.
Hardest push from Greg ▶ 1:05:35 Greg challenges Apolo's over-scheduled calendarGreg directly confronts Apolo about scheduling four concurrent Art Basel dinners, bluntly telling him that humans are meant to have one dinner.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 43:50 Apolo reveals the complex layer of Olympic rights ownershipApolo breaks down why his attempted Olympic NFT museum stalled, listing the maze of rights held by the IOC, Getty Images, individual sponsors, and governing bodies.
Greg holds their own ▶ 9:48 Greg articulates Web3 token mechanics and athlete touring modelGreg demonstrates deep domain fluency in community architecture by laying out a tactical Web3 roadmap with airdropped governance tokens and touring events for extreme sports athletes.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | Greg as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | Greg pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Queen's Gambit Effect and Cultural Mainstreaming | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Co-hosts Sahil Bloom and Greg Isenberg open the episode casually discussing the cultural impact of 'The Queen's Gambit' on mainstream chess popularity. The dynamic is fully collaborative and conversational without any conflict. | |
| Revitalizing the X Games Through Narrative Storytelling | 5 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Sahil details his pitch to acquire the X Games IP from ESPN for $50 million, drawing parallels to Formula 1's resurgence through 'Drive to Survive'. Greg engages constructively, validating the cultural storytelling thesis. | |
| Web3 Architecture, DAO Ownership, and Athlete Equity | 6 | 0 | 0 | 1 | Greg introduces Web3 mechanisms, suggesting fan governance tokens, touring formats, and DAO ownership structure for the X Games. The hosts build on each other's ideas before introducing Apolo Ohno. | |
| Art Basel Miami, Gatekeeping, and Web3 Communities | 5 | 2 | 1 | 2 | Apolo Ohno joins the table to discuss Art Basel parties, prompting a conversation on exclusive guest-list culture versus open Web3 token-gating. Greg criticizes artificial exclusivity while Apolo notes that social sorting is a natural human tendency. | |
| Status Signaling, Kindness, and Shared Values | 4 | 3 | 1 | 0 | Apolo elaborates on how humans remain status-signaling creatures regardless of technological shifts. Sahil and Greg enthusiastically concur, emphasizing baseline kindness and shared values. | |
| Pitching the X Games DAO and Reimagining Sports Media | 5 | 4 | 1 | 0 | Sahil pitches the X Games DAO concept directly to Apolo, who validates the concept but provides counter-insight from mainstream sports broadcast deals like NBC's Olympic strategy. Apolo suggests bypassing traditional rights buyers to fund top digital creators directly. | |
| Fan-Controlled Economies and Direct Athlete Monetization | 6 | 3 | 0 | 1 | Greg highlights how younger sports fans want active agency rather than passive consumption, citing emerging interactive sports models. Apolo reinforces this by sharing his upcoming meeting with a fan-controlled community sports startup. | |
| Reforming the Olympics, Mental Health, and Commercial Pressures | 3 | 7 | 1 | 1 | Asked how he would reform the Olympic Games, Apolo provides deep institutional insight into the USOPC business model, athlete mental health, and the public controversy surrounding Simone Biles. He explains how commercial medal-feedback loops constrain radical system redesigns. | |
| Athlete Identity Crisis and the Olympic NFT Museum Concept | 4 | 8 | 2 | 1 | When Sahil suggests Olympic athletes could easily mint gold medal NFTs, Apolo schools the hosts on the legal gridlock of Olympic IP rights involving the IOC, Getty Images, USOPC, and commercial sponsors. He details his own attempt to build an Olympic NFT museum that hit severe regulatory friction. | |
| Unsung Olympic Stories and the Struggles of Life After Sports | 4 | 7 | 0 | 0 | Apolo recounts powerful behind-the-scenes stories of former champions struggling with depression and addiction after their athletic careers end. Sahil and Greg listen intently, sharing complementary reflections on post-career identity loss. | |
| Life Pivots, Familial Pressure, and Vulnerability | 4 | 5 | 0 | 0 | Apolo reflects on his book 'Hard Pivot' and the psychological toll of parental expectations and fear of failure during his youth. Sahil connects this to his own vulnerable phone call with his father upon ending his collegiate baseball career. | |
| The Mind's Prison and Burnout in the Great Online Game | 5 | 4 | 0 | 1 | Apolo describes internal negative self-talk as the mind's prison, while Greg connects this psychological dynamic to 24/7 hyper-financialized Web3 burnout. The dialogue remains empathetic and aligned. | |
| Escaping Internal Poverty and the Hamster Wheel of Success | 4 | 7 | 1 | 0 | Apolo delivers a passionate thesis on the danger of achieving massive external abundance while trapped in 'severe internal poverty'. He warns crypto traders against turning into modern hamsters on an endless treadmill. | |
| Overcoming FOPO and Embracing Authentic Living | 6 | 3 | 0 | 2 | Greg challenges Apolo on his packed Art Basel dinner schedule, asserting that true freedom is refusing FOPO (fear of other people's opinions). Greg recounts wearing a local deli shirt to a Fashion Week party as an example of authentic living. | |
| Shifting from Endless Grinding to Creative Rest and Guest Farewell | 5 | 3 | 0 | 1 | The hosts and Apolo wrap up with reflections on shifting from nonstop grinding to focused creative sprints balanced with adequate rest. The conversation concludes warmly as Apolo shares where to find his work. | |
| Episode Debrief and Key Insights from Apolo Ohno | 5 | 0 | 0 | 0 | In the post-interview debrief, Greg and Sahil summarize their core takeaways regarding athlete transition psychology, intentional rest, and their continued enthusiasm for the X Games acquisition idea. |
Statements from this episode (15)
Isenberg: Web3-native sports leagues and DAO buyouts are more likely than legacy adoption
“I believe that we're probably, like, number three and number two are more likely to happen.”
Isenberg: Founders do not need Art Basel and should just build
“That's my take is that there's so much noise out there, and that there's, like, I see people on Twitter saying, like, oh, I need to be at Art Basel. I need to be at Art Basel. It's like, you don't actually. Like, you might have a really good time at Art Basel,…”
Bloom: Exclusive event guest lists contradict the ethos of Web3
“It's also web, like, crypto and web, like, it's, I, personally, I think of it as, like, open access, meritocracy, borderless, anyone can do it. A kid on the streets in India has the same access to that Discord channel as a kid growing up in Greenwich going to …”
Apolo Ohno: Humans are still driven by basic Neanderthal ego desires
“Because humans are still operating in the same kind of Neanderthal, like, ego-based, still chasing the same thing. And I think we like to hide behind this idea that we're here for maybe a greater purpose and cause. And I do believe that is the case, like, if y…”
Bloom: ESPN dropped X Games asking price to $50M
“Last year, they basically tried, publicly said they were trying to sell it, and so initially, they said it would cost a hundred million dollars to buy it, No one wanted it. They came down and they basically said they would take a fifty million dollar offer for…”
Bloom plans to form DAO to buy the X Games
“I want to create a DAO. You read my mind. I want to create a DAO to buy the X Games. You buy all the IP of the X Games and basically completely reimagine the X Games for a Web three and crypto enabled world.”
Ohno: NBC should have hired creators over investing in Snapchat
“And I thought it was like, well, why would they just give the money to a public company versus going directly to the creators themselves? The top, top 50 creators in the world, right? Speak different languages and saying, we're going to give you all access rig…”
Bloom: Mad Realities is the first NFT-governed reality dating show
“One of the women from it, who I actually went to high school with incidentally, has started this company called Mad Realities, which is the first NFT reality dating show. And so, anyone, you and I can go buy an NFT for a rose, and then we can vote on the outco…”
Ohno: The Olympics will never become decentralized or fan-controlled
“I mean, it's never gonna happen for the Olympics, right? That's such a centralized, controlled entity.”
Ohno: USOPC operates on a loop of medals driving sponsorship revenue
“As a business, like if you take the USOC, the USOPC, the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, their business model is to generate medals which then in turn attract sponsors so that they can continue their jobs and have trickle-down effect to supply …”
Apolo Ohno: Esports will probably become an Olympic sport
“Like, esports will probably become an Olympic sport at some point.”
Apolo Ohno: Olympic athletes do not own rights to their competition moments
“The challenge that we had that I ran into very quickly was that the athletes actually don't own the rights. To their own shit.”
Isenberg predicts widespread burnout across Web3 and crypto culture
“I think that, you know, there's gonna be a burnout. I predict a burnout and I'm already starting to see some individuals that are just, they're taking it too far.”
Ohno: 24/7 crypto traders live no better than 18-hour shift workers
“If you're a trader in crypto, and it requires you to be so glued to your devices all the time, and if you can't disengage for periods, you're actually no better off than the guy who's working 18 hour shifts. Like, you're exactly the same. Your number on the sc…”
Ohno: Web3 culture creates toxic FOMO by signaling non-participants are inferior
“We do buy into the external signaling of society telling us what we should have, what you should be doing, which DAO you should be participating in, which new token launch you should have, which new game you should be participating in, which new play to earn, …”