Over the previous two years, corporations working within the nascent cryptocurrency area, reminiscent of Coinbase
COIN,
Block (né Square)
SQ,
and the now-bankrupt FTX, have inked sponsorship offers with quite a lot of high athletes, usually paying them in firm shares, or in crypto itself.
That didn’t work out nicely for a few of these athletes, together with future NFL hall-of-famer Tom Brady. Now, a gaggle of sporting luminaries is placing their cash into one thing a bit much less flashy.
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow, Boston Celtics ahead Blake Griffin, Milwaukee Bucks ahead Khris Middleton, New York Islanders ahead Anders Lee and Toronto Blue Jays pitcher Kevin Gausman are among the many professional athletes who lately bought a 104-acre corn and soy farm in Iowa.
See additionally: Tom Brady has made $512 million as an NFL player and inked a $375 million analyst contract with Fox Sports
The acquisition was made via funding car Patricof Co. The plan is to lease the land to farmers in hopes of a single-digit-percentage annual return — with 24 athletes in complete a part of the acquisition, in response to FrontOfficeSports.
Patricof Co. didn’t reveal how a lot it spent on the farm, however mentioned will probably be shopping for extra farms as investments for the athletes. “The $5 million was the first capital call in what will be a pool of capital to acquire multiple farms,” in response to Peter Drummond of BerlinRosen, a agency that handles PR and communications for Patricof.
See additionally: Usain Bolt is missing millions from his investment portfolio, his manager says
“I think of it as a really smart recession hedge for people who are learning to invest for the long term,” Mark Patricof, the funding platform’s founder and CEO, mentioned in a statement. “It provides really significant downside protection and the opportunity to create a long-term investment strategy that fits the profile of somebody who’s young and can continue to make a lot of money and wants to be conservative with their investment strategy.”
Stability is what attracted Middleton to farm investing, the three-time NBA All-Star mentioned in the identical assertion.
“As a pro athlete, I’m pitched countless investment ideas and ‘opportunities’ all the time,” Middleton mentioned. “When it came to this specific deal that Patricof brought to me, I was attracted to it because of how different it was. Why farms? But when I looked at the history of returns, especially how U.S. farms have performed over the last 30 years, including during bad times in the economy, the stability is what stood out.”
“I’m always thinking about the long term when it comes to my wealth and how I can provide for my family after I retire. And this deal is a long-term deal,” he added. “That’s why I wanted to be part of it.”
In addition to being world-class rivals of their major fields of endeavor, athletes are more and more discovering success in enterprise. MarketWatch has chronicled how athletes like Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Serena Williams have ballooned their sporting fortunes through their rosters of multimillion-dollar ventures.
Read on: Athletes like Tom Brady and Odell Beckham took crypto as compensation. As of now, that’s backfiring.