EXCLUSIVE: Gary Vee On SlamBall Investment And Growth Ahead: 'Lot Of Opportunities To Be The Future Of Sports At Scale'

 

SlamBall, a sport that combines elements of basketball and football with trampolines, was launched in 2000 and enjoyed a brief period of success. Fans who have been clamoring for its return have finally had their wish granted.

Among the backers of the revival of SlamBall, betting on the sport’s future success, is serial entrepreneur Gary Vee, who has also bought into sports like 3-on-3 basketball (BIG3) and the fast-growing pickleball.

Vee shared with Benzinga why he invested in SlamBall and what’s ahead.

Investing In SlamBall: The investors in a recent Series A for SlamBall include Roger Ehrenberg’s IA Sports Venture, Eberg Capital, David Blitzer, David Adelman, Michael Rubin, Gary Vee, Blake Griffin, Tom Penn, Kevin Nagle, Accelerate Sports and more.

Several of the investors are owners or co-owners of other sports teams, like Vee.

When asked why he invested in SlamBall, Vee told Benzinga it has to do with his love of the National Football League’s New York Jets, a team he hopes to own one day.

“Because I get to train for owning the New York Jets one day and that’s a big focus of mine,” Vee said. “Plus, I just love sports and entertainment and escapism. I think all of these sports including my esports team have a lot of opportunities to be the future of sports at scale.”

SlamBall CEO and co-founder Mason Gordon called the list of investors “a world class group” that “see the vision of this,” as reported by CNN.

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Slam Ball Comes Back After Going Viral: SlamBall was launched in 2000 and is positioned for a comeback in 2023, armed with a two-year television rights deal with ESPN, a unit of The Walt Disney Company DIS.

A hashtag of #BringBackSlamBall received over 200 million views on social media according to ESPN, which could have played into the sports network’s decision to grab the rights.

“SlamBall is special because it’s a brand that has lived on in social media in a really powerful way. It’s almost become like this mythical thing with younger demographics,” Gordon said.

What is it that Vee thinks could make SlamBall more successful decades later? It could be a combination of a built-up cult following over the years, increased interest in old video clips, and the ability to market to a new audience.

“Yes to all, all of those things are correct,” Vee told Benzinga. “General understanding is that it’s high entertainment value and that always does well.”

The 2023 revival of SlamBall went up against a match of Team USA’s Women’s soccer team competing in the World Cup, which may have been unfortunate. SlamBall saw an initial viewership of 213,000 in its welcome-back premiere.

Vee said he was happy with the ratings, but the sport needs to maintain and grow those numbers.

“We’ll continue to promote. We’ll continue to innovate.”

Growing SlamBall: The founders of SlamBall and the investors aren’t just hoping to bring SlamBall back to its previous state. Instead, there is a hope to expand the sport beyond what it accomplished decades ago, a move that could give it lasting power.

In a highly competitive market for sports viewership and sports rights, Vee acknowledged the difficulty of capturing viewers and also the accomplishment of already getting ESPN on board.

“Distribution and awareness is a huge factor. I’m very passionate about the evolution of that,” Vee told Benzinga.

He added that social media could play a much larger role in the growth of SlamBall, one of the key elements that helped bring the sport back.

“That all plays into my belief that the media landscape changing creates arbitrage and opportunity and those are things we’ll focus on.”

The relaunch kicked off with eight teams playing against each other in July and August in Las Vegas.

Long-term plans for SlamBall include more tournaments in the United States and in international markets. Future expansion could also include launching SlamBall teams as franchises, tied to cities, similar to other professional sports, as reported by The Athletic.

Ehrenberg called SlamBall a “multibillion-dollar opportunity.” Ehrenberg also used the term “entertainmentification of sports” to describe the opportunity for SlamBall with the combination of live sports, social media and sports betting.

“SlamBall sits at the intersection of literally all of these trends,” Ehrenberg said. “It’s like literally made for TikTok and Insta reels. It’s all about the moments.”

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Photo: Gary Vee, Shutterstock and Wikimedia