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Zone In

By: J.P. Morgan Wealth Management
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  • Summary

  • New York Giants linebacker Kayvon Thibodeaux and UCLA quarterback Chase Griffin team up with Sam Palmer from J.P. Morgan Wealth Management for a six-episode podcast series on name, image and likeness (NIL), personal branding, generational wealth and more. Follow us as we discuss some of your favorite student athletes’ financial journeys and navigation through this space. New episodes dropping weekly.
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Episodes
  • Building Generational Wealth

    Building Generational Wealth
    Jun 23 2023
    Looking back, and ahead, at both NIL and the Zone In Podcast In this episode, Zone In hosts Kayvon Thibodeaux and Chase Griffin are joined by Sam Palmer of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management to look back on the first season of the podcast, review highlights and pull out some of the important themes that have come up in their discussions of NIL for student athletes. The three begin the conversation by talking about the fact that NIL is such an open opportunity for student athletes. As Kayvon says, “the best part about NIL was that there wasn’t a blueprint. When it started, a lot of these young men and women, it was their first time being in the marketing world. So even, including myself, being able to kind of write your own blueprint and kind of give yourself your own path, you know, it's been beautiful.” Chase and Sam agree and add that this “no blueprint” atmosphere puts added importance on storytelling and authenticity in athletes’ partnerships with brands. Sam recalls Gianna’s story of coming out and “really leaning into her LGBT persona,” and how Jordan has embraced being herself as a Black woman. Sam says both these athletes demonstrate “the importance of authenticity and bringing your full self to these partnerships.” Next, Chase, Kayvon and Sam talk about how NIL has changed the dynamic of sports in college. They agree that it has started to create more equity for student athletes, but there is still more to come. “I think NIL is really the first of a lot of dominoes that look at the equity imbalances in sports, especially collegiate sports,” Chase says. He recalls that when the NIL decision was first made by the Supreme Court, Justice Brett Kavanaugh talked about NIL as an equity issue. “It really is the first domino in a long road that is sort of inevitable, which is revenue share,” Chase adds. Common threads When discussing the guests who have been on Zone In this season, Chase, Kayvon and Sam point out that many of them talked about the importance of building healthy financial habits. Some of the guests, such as Jordan and Gianna, said they had learned smart financial habits from their parents. For others, it was important to seek out information, such as this podcast. Chase describes NIL as “a chance to practice.” “Even if you weren't raised with those values and habits around you, it’s better to learn that while you’re in college, especially if you’re on scholarship, than to have to learn that with your first million dollar check,” says Chase. Other common threads the hosts noticed was that each guest is an intense competitor, as most athletes are, and they had lots of confidence and discipline. Those characteristics drove them to seek information about NIL and to educate themselves. They had the discipline to keep learning and treat NIL and making partnerships professionally. Many guest athletes talked about the importance of mentors, and Kayvon brings up his mentor and business partner, Travelle Gaines, who was a guest on the podcast recently. “Having Travelle around has just been so powerful because he’s been able to give me wisdom that I couldn't get anywhere else.” Chase is self-represented, but he says that he is only able to do that because of the mentorship of his father, who has worked in the space. But he says he will seek out guidance from many sources, including peers. “I always try to find groups of people who are my age that are doing similar things, and it doesn't even have to be athletes,” he says. “It’s always important to have mentors, have people who’ve already done it, but I think it’s equally important to have people around you who are gonna be able to help you along the way, who you’ll also be able to help.” Looking outward Chase, Kayvon and Sam talk next about the influence that athletes have through their NIL partnerships. Athletes can inspire others not only through their athletic feats, but also by creating an image of someone with good financial habits, strong morals and positive priorities. “One of the most important things about Jordan is, she not only inspires young gymnasts, young Black gymnasts, but she inspires young Black women and probably just young women everywhere,” Chase says. The hosts close the episode by circling back to this idea of influence when they summarize the purpose behind the Zone In podcast. “It’s to bring the community together,” says Kayvon. “And it’s to help the youth and the upcoming entrepreneurs, the upcoming students, upcoming athletes, understand the power that they have in financial health, personal brand building and the power of NIL.” Link to the full transcript here.
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    30 mins
  • Creating Your Own Team

    Creating Your Own Team
    Jun 16 2023
    Two NIL Experts Talk Strategy and Resources to Empower Athletes at Any Level In this episode of Zone In, two former college athletes that have now found themselves on the other side of the playing field join hosts Kayvon Thibodeaux and Chase Griffin. Travelle Gaines is Kayvon’s mentor, longtime friend and business partner, coordinating his name, image and likeness deals. And Michelle Meyer is the founder of the NIL Network, a hub of information for anyone involved in the NIL industry. They’re joined by Sam Palmer of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management, who provides insights and resources to help listeners build healthy financial habits of their own. Travelle opens the episode describing how he played Division I baseball in college, but was equally focused on academics. He became a college strength coach then moved home to Louisiana to be around his family and opened a gym. His relationship with Kayvon began as a training relationship and turned into a business partnership around NIL deals. Michelle was also an athlete, playing volleyball collegiately at UC Santa Barbara and then professionally in Denmark. Returning to the states, she coached at both the University of Hawaii and Pepperdine University as well as with USA Volleyball. She says her interest in NIL was sparked with the O’Bannon decision in 2014, which ruled that the NCAA's practice to ban payments to student athletes violated antitrust laws. “I was coaching beach volleyball at the University of Hawaii and I thought, man, my athletes would love to take advantage of their own name, image and likeness,” Michelle recalls. “And I don't think necessarily they would have done it through social media endorsements. But even the opportunities for entrepreneurship and running camps and clinics and really using their own name would have been so powerful for them on the islands.” By 2020, she was starting to work on the NIL Network, realizing that NIL deals were coming to college and not enough people were paying attention to the trend. Helping athletes leverage their NIL Michelle describes how the NIL Network operates as a resource aggregator for athletes at all levels who are interested in exploring the space. She collects resources including news articles, podcasts, databases and more. “I've found about 400 new service providers that are working in the space and partnering directly with athletes across [about] 10 different sub-industries with marketplaces and agencies and advisors,” she explains. “And so it's a place where athletes can go and filter through and find support to help them monetize their [NIL]. So it is mostly just for autonomous independent athletes to get on there and do their research and figure out, you know, how to make this space work for them.” Meanwhile, Travelle says his partnership with Kayvon grew organically from their training relationship. “We had an interesting strategy. I sat down with Kayvon. He's very authentic. And I felt that he has to be real. He has to be him. He did not want to do anything that's going to have a negative effect on the Black community,” said Travelle. “So whether it was fast food, whether it was soda…we were not able to promote that.” Kayvon ultimately turned down two six-figure deals because they didn’t match his values or his strategy. He says building the trusting relationship with Travelle was key. “I think it starts with just not being afraid, right? When I say afraid, we scare ourselves into not asking questions or being too prideful to tell someone that we didn't know,” says Kayvon. He recalls that every time he came into Travelle’s gym, he would have a new question or idea to bounce around. And the two grew their successful strategy from there. Leveraging resources and strategies Travelle, Michelle, Chase and Kayvon all agree that being strategic and connecting to resources like the NIL Network and formal or informal advisors are key to empowering athletes at any level to monetize their brand. Sam adds some practical advice for listeners: “Creating a strategic plan is difficult and it's not natural to us,” he notes. “There is this concept of present bias where it's hard for us to plan for things that are far away in the future and that we're not emotionally connected to. One way to get around it is to reward yourself for good behavior. For example, in college, every time I paid off $200 for my credit card that I allowed myself to buy lunch from the nicer cafeteria. You have to figure out what that reward is for you. But we all need help in creating that strategic plan.” Full Transcript Located Here.
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    24 mins
  • How a Strong Financial Base Set Olympic Gymnast Jordan Chiles Up for Success

    How a Strong Financial Base Set Olympic Gymnast Jordan Chiles Up for Success
    Jun 7 2023

    In the fourth episode of Zone In, hosts Chase Griffin and Kayvon Thibodeaux are joined by Jordan Chiles, an Olympic gymnastics medalist who’s also a UCLA athlete. The three discuss how a strong foundation of financial literacy can start with family at home and set an athlete up for future success.

    Jordan has been a member of the U.S. Women's National Team in gymnastics since 2013. She moved to Texas when she was 18 to start her Olympic journey with Simone Biles and her coaches at World Champions Center. Since then, she’s become a UCLA Bruin, and today she goes back and forth between the international side of gymnastics and college gymnastics. About getting to work with Simone, Jordan says, “Honestly, it's just been an amazing experience having somebody that you've always looked up to being so close to you who encourages you… it’s just an exciting feeling.”

    Finding her financial footing

    As someone who straddles two worlds – elite college sports and Olympic-level pro sports – Jordan has had a unique opportunity to see the marketing and financial angles from two perspectives. She says she’s done deals from both angles, and each offers benefits. On the pro side, she says, bigger deals are possible. But she does about half of her deals on the college side. “Honestly, I feel like it's been pretty good knowing that I have UCLA gymnastics behind my back, you know, obviously helping me with deals and their interviews and everything that kind of comes along with being a student athlete,” she tells Chase and Kayvon.

    From the beginning, she says, she’s worked hard to be financially savvy and prudent. “And then obviously, just being able to kind of look back on the financial things and making sure that time management is okay and controlling how you want to set your goals,” she explains. “And that's what I've learned, just being an elite athlete and also a pro athlete. I basically work three jobs at this point, and understanding that a young age definitely makes me put a perspective in place: Okay, by the time I'm 25, what am I going to do? By the time I'm 30, what am I going to do?”

    Family influence

    In terms of managing her money, Jordan says her parents have been her guides. “My family is very business oriented,” she says. “My mom is a property manager/owner, and so for her to learn that at a young age, she obviously taught my family like, okay, this is what you have to do in order to succeed bigger than what we've done as your parents. And so keeping that in mind, my dad actually taught me about the whole savings situation because he told me, you know what, I wish I did this at your age, so I'm going to teach you how to do it now.”

    Jordan says she took her dad’s advice to heart and started saving when she first started earning money from endorsements and other deals. “And so I basically was like, okay, I'm going to follow that,” she recalls. “So I take a percentage of whatever I get from a contract or whatever, put it in my savings, and just keep doing that because you obviously can live off of your savings if you know how to put your savings together the right way.”

    Jordan says family support has been essential to her journey. “I'm all about support,” she tells Chase and Kayvon. “My sisters are in my circle, my mom's my social media manager, my dad's my security guard.” She feels the same connection with non-related members of her management team, and says her agent is like a second mom. “This is really cool because she can understand maybe what I'm going through that day or really push on me [and say], ‘Okay, I know you're going through a tough time, but let's try to figure this out with the whole deal situation.’”

    As for the future, Jordan says she’s going to see what comes. One aspiration she’s always had is to be a real estate agent. “But obviously, I'm just going to see where life takes me,” she says. “Whether it's teaching kids how to do flips or giving advice to kids in the hospitals or giving back to charities or just helping out foundations or even doing podcasts. I just want to be able to say when I leave the earth, I was able to leave an impact in every single area that I know I'm dedicated to.”

    Full transcript here

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    29 mins
Economics
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