NFL Great Richard Sherman's New Venture Is Scoring With Former Players And Silicon Valley Investors

During Richard Sherman's NFL career, he was a bold, tough tackling lock-down corner who could make any wide receiver's afternoon miserable. However, Sherman always had an intellectual side, which made many of his post-game incredibly enlightening. With that in mind, Sherman's newest venture with former 49ers teammate Sheldon Day and team performance therapist Tom Zheng makes perfect sense.

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The three men founded the Player's Company, which is an online investing platform that provides accredited investors and professional athletes with investment education and investment offerings. The partnership between Day and Sherman seems almost destined from the start. Both men graduated from very good universities, with Sherman having attended Stanford and Davis going to Notre Dame. They were both interested in investing.

When Day discovered that a group of Golden State Warriors players were actively investing in and around Silicon Valley, he realized NFL players could do the same thing.  This led to discussions between Day, Sherman, and Tom Zheng, a former 49ers therapist they both respected very highly. That is how the Player's Company was born, but for the partners, the company's mission is even bigger than money.

According to Worldmetric.org, the average NFL career is only 3.3 years. It's rare for players to last seven years like Sheldon Day or ten years as Sherman did, and all too many players are not financially prepared for the end. Another big issue for NFL players is that their contracts are not fully guaranteed, which gives their team easy leverage to force players into taking an unwanted pay cut or cutting them entirely.

Sherman, Day, and Zheng, who is the Players Company CEO, view the platform as a way to proactively give players and other would-be accredited investors guidance on how to save, invest, and prepare for the future.  They realize that many former athletes want to do it, but are held back by a lack of knowledge.  Zheng told Forbes Magazine, "Unfortunately if you don’t have a safe space or people you can trust, things can get weird pretty quick."

The Players Company offers a full suite of educational and learning resources for members. Being able to grasp concepts like the difference between regular shares and preferred shares or how to read a capitalization table are essential aspects of due diligence for prospective investors. The Players Company also carefully sources its offerings from venture capital funds and venture capitalists with strong track records.

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At its inception in 2019, only former NFL players could invest with the Players Company but it has since cast a wider net to include former professional athletes of any sport and accredited investors. Thanks to a new partnership, the Players Company will now bring real estate offerings to its estimated 1,200 members. The Players Company has joined forces with mogul Club, a real estate investing platform that invests in single-family rental properties.

Mogul Club and the Players Company are working together to start a fund consisting of $5 million in equity and $15 million in financing to purchase a portfolio of single-family rentals across a variety of sunbelt markets including Atlanta, GA, Charlotte, NC, Dallas, TX, Houston, and Nashville, TN. This will give the Players Company investors another option in terms of wealth building.

The Players Company also sets up many of its offerings with a liquidation option that allows members to sell their stakes in individual offerings after only one year. That's a marked contrast to many private funds which can have multi-year lock-in periods. The way Zheng, Day, and Sherman see it, this is all part of creating an investor-friendly environment for their clients.

Zheng told Forbes, "At the end of the day, it’s all a choice (for members)." He also stressed the Players Company’s commitment to service by saying, "Our biggest thing is empowerment. We just want to help you make educated decisions for the most part and answer any ancillary questions. You’re not obligated to invest in any of the offerings we have, and you’re free to peruse them and kick the tires if you wish."

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