The NFL’s Richest RB: The (Untold) History of Austin Ekeler

Who is Austin Ekeler? yeah you're probably not going to like me I got to break a tackle bro Run come on come on bro come on run run was there a moment that you realize like hey I'm pretty good at this thing um actually never um play do you remember the first significant amount of money you made outside of a game check yeah I mean my what does the pie chart of the business of Austin Eckler look like right now but we're definitely looking like approaching seven figures but this is this is not this is not a small project I put money here that didn't work out I really up that I learned from it who whoa whoa let's let's back up there this is a really deep topic that I think should get more light today I'm joined by NFL running back Austin Eckler now Austin's story of going from undrafted out of a division 2 school to becoming one of the most exciting Playmakers in the NFL has been well documented but what hasn't been as well covered is what he's doing off the field just this year Austin was named to Forbes 30 under 30 list and during his 7-year NFL career he's quietly amassed in 8f figure portfolio complete with real estate developments startup Investments and even the launch of his very own app experience and since almost eight out of every 10 NFL players faces serious Financial hardships after retirement the most out of any sport I wanted to learn from Austin what the smartest athletes are doing with their money to avoid going bankrupt how are they spending it what mistakes are they making and what does the future of athletes monetizing their brand even look like I hope you enjoy this conversation digging into the business behind star running back Austin Eckler but first consider this just because you don't have an NFL salary to invest into a startup that doesn't mean you can at least invest into a better pair of underwear I actually know for a fact that if you're watching this right now you probably have an old worn out pair of cotton underwear sitting at the bottom of your drawer that you never wear unless you have no other choice but I'm here to tell you there is a better way to live what you should do is throw that pair out and invest into something you actually look forward to wearing I've recently been sporting chill boys bamboo box AB Bree and let me tell you I've never felt anything softer down there plus they never ride up chafe or get stuck if you know what I mean and since you made it this far chillboy is giving you 15% off your first order with code tw15 just go to chillboy decom or click the top Link in the description and use code tw15 for 15% off your first order now here's my conversation with Austin Eckler I'm first curious about how somebody ends up in Eaton Colorado I Austin Describes His Rugged Childhood was doing some research and looking on Google Images there's not much to eat in Colorado I don't know a lot of people from that part of the state much less eaten how how do you end up there I know it's not your decision but what led your family there yeah good old eat in Colorado actually a lot of good times in eat in Colorado um at the time I was there it was a one stop light town I hear that I now have two stop lights I haven't been back in a while cuzz my mom moved out of that area um but yeah we ended up there my mom got married to this guy and he was big country guy and so that was out in the plains of Colorado and so that's how we ended up in eat in Colorado and then my mom taught at the school there so she was a teacher and I would just go in with her to uh to work and then go to school what is there to do out there what what does a kid do in eat in Colorado so one thing you learn when you live in uh the the ranch life what like I wasn't like my closest neighbor was like a mile away like I lived 26 miles outside of Eaton if you look at eaten it's like oh there's people there we'll go out to where there's no people that's where I lived um and so what that teaches you is how to do a lot with a little so I had my little brother who was 7 years younger than than me but we'd always be out hitting golf balls around the field like we had like a bunch of open land around us uh we go play with the dogs we ride horses um we go like um we go like shoot way shotguns and stuff like that we go shoot like blue rocks and throw them and stuff like that so we had a good time out in uh out in Eaton Colorado we made it work how much was Sports a part of that whole mix growing up like you spend a lot of time you know Youth Baseball it's hard for me to imagine there's like a lot of organized youth youth sporting events in in an area like that maybe there is look no actually Eden was a big Sports School uh or Sports town I should say there was a lot of support from the community there and for us my mom M side she was really into sports she played Sports in uh college she played basketball um at UCS is like Colorado so like Colorado Springs College um so she was into traditional Sports my her husband at the time um was into like you know rodeoing so bull riding you know Team Roping things like that uh so we got exposure to both sides but for the most part for when we were able to walk we were playing soccer or te- ball or you know basketball ball and so my mom kept us active in the Sports World while Austin reflects fondly on his childhood now his mom shares a slightly different version of event describing how Austin and his younger brother hated the early and long hours they spent tending to horses cows and chickens even in the middle of winter but it wasn't all bad because Austin learned one very important life skill I'm curious what Early Relationship with Money your relationship was to money growing up you mentioned that part of your motivation to continue playing sports was so that you could get into school but like even as a kid like how you know how did your family talk about money how did you think about money it seems like you're pretty entrepreneurial focused early on but yeah you reflect back what what that was like for you the only reason I was entrepreneurial focused is because my mom's ex-husband now he had his own fencing company and he graduated high school he didn't go to college or anything like that he had his own fencing company they did well um he had like a there's a crew of like four to five of us depending on on the time of the year um and he was out there building growing doing his own thing and so I was around that type of energy and so for me I was like okay like I've been around that like I have that within inside of me now because I've been around that type of environment and now I want to do it for myself but I want to go and go to college learn a little bit more about business and kind of see where I can Implement myself and so there was there wasn't really any talks of like money or how to manage it my mom um after the divorce is like I mean it's paycheck to paycheck that's what it is my mom's working two jobs you know after she got support she's coming to my college games she would be a teacher and then on the weekend she would work as a as a waitress um and so she' work at a restaurant and so like straight hustle like it wasn't like we had excess money or anything like that we did not we had enough to get by absolutely and get a few opportunities here and there but it was more so hey you just get what you need and then you continue to push forward so that was that was my relationship with money it wasn't really anything beyond that now this type of upbringing meant football was often an afterthought for Austin especially since it never seemed like Football as a "Plan B" playing past high school would be an option for was there a moment that you realized like hey I'm pretty good I know you grew up you know you're still not a very tall guy and so there were probably like certain measurables that you had in your mind of like oh I got to get here to play at a certain level was there a moment at one of these camps where you're like oh like maybe I'm pretty good at this thing um actually never um so when you go to a camp there's like 300 people there um there's a ton of running backs and you know you can tell the coaches have like their favorites so they'll have people that they're like watching cuz they'll be walking around with them um and they're they're still part of the camp but they have like this special treatment and they okay like that guy must be pretty good or recruit or something like that I was never one of those guys um I was never one that like pulled out pulled to the side and asked like hey can we'd love to know a b about you or anything like that I was kind of like one of those guys that was just there basically paying the check for those people you know I was there I was another Camp body I was there to try to get better at football um so for me I didn't really I didn't really think of anything of it just because that was all I knew I didn't I didn't I was wasn't expecting anything I wasn't going to get a scholarship I was going to get better at football and and try something new and being around you know some college people and uh kind of see how that atmosphere is like um and so yeah that was never something that ever stood out for me anyway did that upset you at all I can imagine for a lot of kids myself included I was never upset when a coach didn't pay particular attention to me cuz I'm like I'm not very good at whatever it is I'm doing I imagine there was some some belief inside of you where you're like you know what like they should be paying attention to me like were you pissed off about that yeah so so for me I was I was not really even thinking about like the NFL I didn't think about playing sports professionally at all for me I wanted to get a scholarship but to really pay for my education um and I was like I W I grew up watching bll riding and bass fishing like that's what I was watching growing up um and I wanted to get into school to get into business so I start getting into my entrepreneurial career wanted to get into some real estate want to start getting down going down that path and for me when it came to sports like that was great I I was going to put everything I could into it to help myself get a scholarship pay for college because I knew my mom she end up getting divorced single teacher she's not going to be able to for college you know how college is um so I'm like okay how can I help myself in that category well let's continue to play sports and so I was really just focused on what I had at the at hand which was my high school career at that time and really trying to lock in and just do the best I can to maybe end up somewhere um and then for me them not coming to talk to me or not coming to say anything about me it it started to I really started to recognize I guess after my senior year um because during my senior year I had like 2300 rushing yards 43 touchdowns um but I was still 5'8 um 186 lbs so I'm not a very big guy I'm at a really tiny school but the thing is they they weren't able to measure like my mentality my heart and when I put something in when I what I've learned in my atmosphere is when you do something we're are going all in like we are everything like that's everything and I'm talking about when I'm building fence when we build fence we're not just out here just casually we're running from post to post pounding post into the ground clipping fence and if you're not you're going to hear about it and it's the same thing when you're on a football field or on your basketball court so when you grow up in that atmosphere that's kind of all you've known my work ethic is a little bit different than uh some of my peers so that's what has helped me continue to push forward and it's something you can't measure so I don't blame them for not coming to me and saying hey Austin like oh you got all these amazing measurables I didn't have the most amazing measurables but they couldn't measure What Separates Me the most out of anybody Austin ended up playing on Varsity all four years at Why Austin Wasn't an NFL Fan Eaton despite only being 5'5 his freshman year and 5'8 by the time he graduated and even though he finished his high school career having rushed for 5,232 yards 70 touchdowns and averaging over N9 yards per carry he graduated in 2013 as a zero star recruit with almost no interest from any division one schools in fact his only offers came from four division 2 Programs three of which wanted him to switch to defense or sign as an athlete however there was one school that believed in him as a running back now Austin had never heard of Western Colorado University before packing his 2001 Chevy Silverado and driving there the day he graduated high school but still the second he joined the 2- wi program it was clear that he was going to be the best player on the team if not in the entire conference but the NFL still wasn't on his radar in fact Austin wasn't even a fan of the NFL until 2015 growing up you mentioned going to these Nebraska camps it doesn't sound like you're much of an NFL fan was there a player that you rooted for idolized a team that you rooted for were you pretty not involved with the NFL until until later in your career yeah I wasn't involved with the NFL until after my junior year my head coach comes to me Jaz Baines he's still there at Western he's like hey man you got some Scouts looking at you you might have an opportunity to play in the league man I'm like what the heck you mean play what do you mean play in the league you know for me I'm like that's so that's so like taboo like I've never I've never seen a scout on campus before like at Western Colorado there's not been one person that's gone in the NFL besides myself so this is like so foreign to me and then I started looking in the NFL a little bit more I was like okay this might be an opportunity for me um but regardless if it is or not I want to make sure that I have something set up for myself in the education use my Ed using my education and I did I had an offer for Noble energy it was oil and gas company I was going to go work as land man and then start house hacking on the side and getting into real estate so that was plan a um and then plan B came up and I was like oh that doesn't seem too bad and so I actually uh went down that road instead talk about this house hacking thing I'm curious so as a college student I don't think I was thinking about house haing when I was 18 19 20 years old what did what did that come on your radar Yeah man so like for me I go back to even my my freshman year when I was like 18 and I had a like I would consume a ton of like motivational like entreprene manship content like I was just into that and I would come up with like my own quotes and post on Facebook when Facebook was big um this like before Instagram is really a thing um and so I'm like posting all this stuff about hey continue to push yourself and all of that and I start learning more about you know creating you know passive passive you know you can take that for what it's worth income streams for yourself to continue to build wealth and so I'm looking and I'm learning about real estate I'm okay well yeah you can get into real estate as a side hustle can't get to it right right now full-time cuz I don't have enough Capital up front so I'm like okay what can I get into that can give me Capital up front well that was going to be working in the energy business for myself and then transferring that Capital over into real estate and so that's where I really started to get the itch of the entrepreneurial side it was like okay how can I build something for myself that will last a long time and then also be able to provide for me over the over the years and it wasn't just real estate like I tried a bunch of things like I was going to start a show it's called Uh jna angling it was going to be a fishing show with one of my best friends at the time um I thought about doing personal training I thought about all of these other things I was like ah like it relies on too many other people and so let me just try to make something that's something I can establish myself before I start getting into those Realms but even though he originally considered football to be his plan be that order quickly changed I imagine coming out of "Delusional" Self-Belief Western Colorado a school where nobody's ever been drafted from before you know were there people for you there where you're like hey Austin this NFL thing is like it's a real thing or were you you know were you doubting them when they were saying that I'm just curious of how you kept convincing yourself of the possibility of some of these things where like there is belief and then there's realism and sometimes don't those things don't always don't always blend together yeah absolutely no that's that's that's very true you know like here's an example if if you're just getting into weightlifting and you go into the gym and you put 315 on the bench bar and you think you're going to go in there and do some reps you're going to get crushed right that's an exaggerated you know example but that's kind of the same thing like going through college I had been let's go back any further going to high school I'm building myself up have a great High School career you know and have you know bunch of St success in in high school don't get any really big opportunities but still have the mindset still have the the want to to go out there and continue to better myself get an opportunity in college I go into there into Western Colorado start from as a freshman build myself up become a team captain as a freshman I live in the weight room I live in the library I'm learning I'm putting myself forward I'm continuing to be a better better leader every single year I'm building up my capabilities for the next opportunity that's to come I don't know if it's going to be in football I think it's going to be out in real estate in that market and building up my entrepreneur self but at the same time I'm building up my capabilities so it doesn't mean that it only can go in One Direction I can go in a lot of different directions so for myself I was never questioning myself um I did question if if the result was going to turn out one way or another I don't know if I'm going to make it but I know in my heart I'm in a place where I could be in a position where I'm going to put everything in and I think this is something that's feasible for myself because of what I've been through and what I've built up to and so now I'm here going into prod day and stuff like that and I'm I'm ready to go I've done the techniques I've done the Reps I put it in Pro Day boom go crush it what's the next step well now let's trying to see if we can get on a team get on the team immerse myself in I block out everything else this is a huge opportunity I'm going to put everything in my ounce of my energy to make sure that I put everything on the table so at the end of the day there was nothing else I could have done and so that's how I've approached it hey there's an opportunity that comes if you're built if you built yourself up to be able to obtain that next one it'll present itself if you have it it's probably not going to PR present itself once Austin realized that the NFL was a real Is Austin a "Try-Hard?" possibility he shifted his entire Focus to making the league he even dropped out of college before his final semester so that he could move to Denver to train with other athletes in his draft class but come springtime no team was willing to take a flyer on a 5'8 division 2 running back so Austin signed a 3year 1.66 million deal as an undrafted free agent with the Los Angeles Chargers but still nothing was guaranteed besides his $5,000 signing bonus especially since he was entering 2017 training camp as six on the depth chart but if you've learned anything by now it should be that Austin wasn't about to be deterred I'm curious once you get to the NFL I love the story of you being a a six Stringer Anthony Lynn not knowing your name uh did you find that and you also tell a story about how your favorite stat is your rookie year you led the NFL in tackles on punt returns was there a moment where you're like your enthusiasm do you think it rubs people the wrong way sometimes I know that might be like an interesting question but you're like such an intense guy I'll use the term try hard and I don't mean it as a pejorative but do you think there was a moment in the NFL where some guys are like this guy's trying like too hard in practice and you're out there just trying to make the team but I just wonder how that enthusiasm meshes at different levels I've definitely been um I've been labeled as yeah as intense try hard for sure direct cuz I I don't I don't I don't I'm not bsing like I'm cutting to the chase I'm trying to get stuff done I'm trying to I'm trying to go in this D I'm trying to go forward and I I don't really have a lot of tolerance for a lot of other BS around me um that's because I'm on a mission U look I have this one life I'm going to try to maximize it in the way that I see as fulfilling to myself and so I don't really have a lot of tolerance for anything outside of that and if you're not on that mission or helping me in that mission it's it's tough for me to keep you around and that's just where I'm at that's where my life's at that's where I'm that's where I'm trying to go cuz I'm trying to continue like I said increase my capabilities make that impact so people probably yeah probably get rubbed the wrong way because I think I'm super intense and maybe taking it way too seriously because it's like to me I'm not just playing football like yeah I playing the NFL this is not just football this is a whole lifestyle this is the whole trajectory of my of my future this is you know my longevity for my family this is so much more than just playing a game and so if you just take it like oh I'm just playing a game hanging out having fun woo yeah you're probably not going to like me because that's not how I take this this is the I ain't just playing a game out here this a just this is not a game this is this is a whole flipping mentality this is the whole mindset this is the whole lifestyle that I'm trying to put in in Direction and move forward I want to pull this business thread a little bit so you get in the NFL you get your first check you know you're you're on the the rookie minimum you're an undrafted guy you're making far less than than most of the other guys on your team when do you first feel comfortable who whoa let's back up there cuz about I think I think what is it like it's like 65% of The League is on minimum so let's you know most guys are making minimum so that's you just don't hear about that cuz what do you hear about no one wants to hear about oh we got another guy making minimum right they want to see the 50 million they want to see you know the $20 million deals you know so anyway but go ahead yeah no I appreciate that I mean I I think it goes I've gotten to know Kurt bener quite a bit and he uh you know he's he's a testament to one of these guys where it's like you know some things just didn't break his way and he didn't get his shot but he's also in the league for longer than 2.8 years which is the average for most guys and that's an accomplishment and of course he opens himself up to having a lot of guys talk back at him where it's like his only regular season stat is one kneel down so it's negative one rushing yard but it's like to be in that position in the first place is more than most people can say and you're right most guys in the league are on the league minimum anyway on the league minimum anyway so you you get to the you know you're on the league minimum it's not as much money as some How Austin Spent His First Paycheck of the guys on your team when do you first feel comfortable to spend that money because I'm sure maybe explain the moment that Che kit and I'm sure it's more money than you ever had before and then you strike me as a guy that was calculated with how he spent it but what did you had planned for that money and when did you feel comfortable actually spending it yeah absolutely well I mean just in this short conversation of you you know learning more about me you you probably can tell where I put my money um I want straight to real estate man like what what do I know what have I learned what have I made connections in what I was trying to what was I trying to go to Real Estate that's what I was trying to go because where was my mind at it never left my mind I never left the entrepreneurial journey of me trying to build something that's going to last longer than myself and provide for myself and so immediately I mean it was after the first year I let all that money accumulate cuz I didn't know what I wanted to do right during season I wanted to get some more opportunities but then started right after that year deploying it into real estate and then also got a financial team to help me start putting together a portfolio that can last over the long term and get me through um this rookie year basically cuz I didn't know what was going to come beyond that didn't know I was going to be in the NFL but it was what I have right now so hey we have these resources help me in this short term kind of be conservative with it um and then we can try to you know maybe move it around you know after I'm done playing so that's it didn't take long did not take long but that's because I already had a plan of what I wanted to start investing and getting myself into when it came to Capital okay sure so you sit on it for a year is the first P are you buying a house is it a condo development like what is that so I didn't have a car so I used to Uber to to practice um I gave my truck to my little brother who had just gotten into High School so I didn't have a car so I'm I'm Uber into the facility well first of all they have a shuttle so the shuttle was great but when I made the team there was no more shuttle from like the hotel so ID get at Uber for like the first it was like really for the first month and then I finally played a few games and got a few game checks and then went and bought a car so that was my first ever purchase was a car and then pretty much after that it was just like you know my apartment rent was my biggest expense after that and then um I bought a I bought a PC uh that was like 5 grand it was like a decked out One gaming PC I was big into like streaming and stuff like that so I started ta it in that world a little bit more too so those are like my first big bigger purchases I guess at this point how are you planning for your money you talked about you told the financial team to be conservative with the money you have are you thinking this is going to be a 2.8 year career for me like I'm going to be kind of an average guy I have to plan accordingly or are you projecting out you you have the self-belief that you're like Hey look I think I can do this for 7even years that probably means I'm going to make x amount of money I'm going to plan like that like how are you how are you proportioning your money your first couple years I had I had no idea I had no idea what to expect um I didn't I mean think of it I went to division 2 school no never gone to the NFL from there I made it on an NFL team I'm finally on NFL team I'm doing Special Teams I start to have success on special teams so I'm starting to see like okay like maybe I can have a little stickiness here here uh finally started putting me in on offense started scoring touchdowns all right seems like I I can I can belong I belong here like I got I have some some Rhythm that's being built here with with myself and adding value and that's when I was like okay like this is going to be something that's probably going to get me through you know the next couple years I'll probably have an opportunity but in the in the time you don't think about that even like right now I'm not thinking about next year I'm thinking about right now I got cuz as you know NFL players are judged on our previous season right I know not only to the fans and to the fantasy and the sports betters but to ownership right and the GMS as well what did you do for me last year because that's what I want to pay you on and that's what you can get you could have three terrible year Years Ball out in your fourth year and go get paid you know a new Max contract you know so timing is everything so for me it's one year at a time um and I don't I don't know I'm just here I'm going through I'm going through Camp I'm going through years and I'm starting to stack them everything Capital starting to stack up now Austin ended up earning every penny of his 4year $24.5 million contract extension with the Chargers in fact thanks to the bonuses built into his contract he actually made an extra million dollars on top of that and as he became the highest earning division to running back in NFL history he began to think of ways he could supplement his onfield income but he learned he'd have to be patient yeah was I trying to supplement you know my income by bu real estate into using that but it wasn't Austin's First Endorsement Deal even about that it was about is there an opportunity to buy I wasn't buying based off of how much money I want to earn it's really hard to go down that route because obviously you want to earn as much as you possibly can't well do you have the capital to do that do you have the deals to do that like you have to have you can you I'm just not just going out buying random stuff out here you know you're going to lose money at the end of the day if you go do that like you got to actually find deals you have to have people that F can find deals if it's a deal why is it a deal it's probably broken down or it's probably some you know weird zoning that you can't do something you know about it like there's something some reason that it's a deal you know it's rare when you can find deals like hey maybe there's an older person they need to liquidate now those come around every once a while about some stuff like that most of my deals have been flips we got to we got to update these things um so we can go in there and buy them cheap so I I started getting um into a relationship with a house flipper um and they were we were building ourselves up they were building them up when I mean build myself up I'm building up Capital he's out here already in in my area he was flipping homes and I went to him I had a relationship with him I was like look would love to buy any multif family homes that you flip in this area um like I want I want you to cut me a deal but anyone that you flip in there I'll buy from you and so we did that and that's how I got my first 30 units um and so my first 30 units came from directly from this guy he gave me a deal I was a immediate buy for him boom so he knew he was going to make money he already had it you know planned out I'm going to make money from all of these different places uh and then you know did that for that took over a few years this isn't quick things these don't get flipped overnight um wanted to scale bigger actually became a partner with that guy his name's Matt and we went and bought a mass forclosure out in Missouri and it was 65 homes and they all needed flipped so we're out here Mass flipping we're keeping some we're 1031 and some into bigger ones um we're selling some off so it's just the Strategic play of of working the real estate game do you remember the first significant amount of money you made outside of a game check whether it be brand deal endorsement house flipping do you remember a moment like that yeah I mean my it's been a it's been kind of a a transcending kind of I guess progression so to speak where like my first ever uh brand deal was for 2500 bucks I did a meet and greet at Bob's furniture out in Orange County so uh that was that was my first ever uh first ever endorsement deal shout out to Bob's furniture for um you know securing me my first ever endorsement I think three people showed up to that thing by the way no one knew who the heck I was one of them was my mother so let tell you that right there um was that your first from was that was that undrafted rookie Austin Eckler yeah that was undrafted rookie Austin Eckler people don't know who the heck this guy is before I even scored a touchdown before I had like the celebration you know all of that before I'm on your fantasy that was back um way back in the day but then as I I started to have success started to get um attention from more Brands I was actually more passionate about and made some longer term um commitments with and then also right obviously the capital starts going up with that as well what does the pie chart of the business of Austin Eckler look like right now oo pie chart of the Pie Chart of the Business of Austin Ekeler business of Austin Eckler so I would say about 40% of my portfolio is in real estate 50% would be in kind of more Structured Products um mutual funds um you know S&P stuff like that some just straight up Structured Products um and then there's like this sliver of like the other last 10% that goes into uh like all my entrepreneur Journey like projects like my app experience Foundation you know pro athlete Ventures when we had that going on games uh my streaming like all these other things that I'm doing out here on the side like kind of like going back to my college days when I was doing right the the fishing show and the weight like all those things is kind of like the 10% sliver of my my portfolio and so the goal is to live off of the 90% And then you know have some fun um with this this last 10% while I'm still out here young and have a lot of energy now you might have caught that Austin just mentioned an app called experience and this is important because while it may only take Losing 6 Figures Building an App up less than 10% of his entire portfolio it's also these types of projects that turn professional athletes from millionaires into billionaires and even though I had done a ton of research on this guy I'd heard very little about this project in particular until now quick story experience is a fan engagement app where we're taking fan engagement not not just like getting a shout out or anything but you can actually become a part of the Journey of a player like if you wanted to have be someone that I actually recognized I know you can go tap into experience and one of the one of the engagements that we're bringing out is called fan mail and so with fan mail it's a it's Unique it's a unique play off of just the signing and memorabilia Play Because signing memorabilia has been so old like such an Old Market um hasn't really evolved in ever you know um there was like an nft type of you know thing for a short spurt but I'm like okay how can I get these people that have all these jerseys access to actually get their stuff signed I do a signing usually once year or you got to like see me on the sideline at training camp or maybe like you know scream at me at a game and it's like probably not very good odds cuz I'm locked in trying to go do my job and so with fan mail you can actually send in items from a list it's like jerseys cards posters things like that um to whoever's offering it and if they're offering it we'll get it facilitated for you and then we'll also get it sent back to you so it's a new feature we're going to be starting out with my team with Washington for now um not bringing it out to anyone else yet until we get some um some just testing done with it but going to get a new opportunity for people to get their stuff signed is this I was listening to an interview you did with graham Stefan and and you mentioned the moment you realize that you could buy your own game Jersey for something like 300 bucks and then you could essentially sell it for four that like is there a line from that realization to this feature on experience well I think just like I have a box of all my game jerseys and I just love to go back and just like look at them um well I don't go back and like pull them out but like I see the Box over there and there's so much like history in that box and I know in the future when my name's not as relevant there still be history in those jerseys and so I wanted to have those jerseys for who knows what opportunity in the future whether it's you know a business partner or a friend that I meet um I'll be able to send those out to people that I you know that I feel are are worthy of giving me giving them a jersey and hopefully I can continue to to push up that value but it's something that I can hold true to my heart that is a real I guess symbol of hey like I appreciate you here's a game Jersey that I went through Blood Sweat and Tears you know yeah tell me a bit about that production process how long have has experience been in the work and what kind of capital has gone into it oh yeah um so we've been working on it for about 3 years now so a lot of capital's gone into I don't know the exact number because we had a ride off so we made a pivot um and in the tech space if you make a pivot and you have some cost you can actually write those off so we write we wrote off like 80% of like a six figure check that was that had gone into this so it kind of skews the numbers how much has gone in um but we're definitely looking like approaching seven figures but uh this is this is not this is not a small project um we try to change the game with what we're doing over here with the experience so it's been a significant amount of time energy teams I've basically been the CEO of this thing for the past few years um have had people hired fired switch management switch development um taught me so much um kind of going back to what my first mission was that we talked about was increasing my capabilities football I've kind of encompassed that I know how to be a professional football player now I'm starting to learn how to be a business owner um out here and and be able to you know move and pivot and build in the tech space in particular so it's been one of the most fulfilling things in the last decade for myself as you look back Austin's Biggest Investment Mistake I I'm curious if there are more examples of places that you put your money that didn't work out I I it interesting your story and I think there's a really good story here to tell but I don't think it's as good of a story if there aren't times where you're like I put money here that didn't work out I really [ __ ] up and I learned from it so are there any moments like that where you look back and you're like ah that one kind of Bit Me Oh you actually with that question you actually kind of prompted like the the best piece of advice I think I could give to especially earlier Founders um and that's in invest in your money like yes if I've invested in like a prop bet company over here or in a media company over there and maybe it'll turn out maybe it won't you know my best investment prior to this day is liquid death that I got in look that's like the water company if you know who they are um some workouts the other ones maybe not I messed a lamp company one time definitely did not work out um so some just things I had connections to but here's the thing those ones I'm always like yeah hopefully it find it pans out and I hope it does well but the ones that I've never regretted even if I've lost money is the things that I was in control of or things that I was involved in like when I invested money where I was in that space I might have lost thousands of dollars but it was something that now I feel like that I paid thousands of dollars to learn that lesson you know or on the flip side you're involved in it you can now learn but now it it benefits you if you do well and you have the Insight of how it's doing how is it doing you know you're working on it so especially early on I would continue just to use that if you're going to look for invest Investments and actually put de deploy money if there's something that you're involved in or maybe have a side hustle and want to get involved in or someone else's side hustle I would definitely recommend getting yourself involved to some capacity you might not be the expert but you might be able to be advisor you know and come in at some capacity with some capital and you want to have some type of role um but being able to beat on the inside of the company when you're in your investment especially early on I think is so valuable because you learned so many different lessons U and even just how to even evaluate a company like you can go invest in others I didn't know anything think about investing in these other companies I'm investing in them now knowing what I know now I'm like okay now I would take a different approach I would ask different questions because I've bid on the inside of one now to date Austin Eckler has made $27.2 million playing football the most any Why Austin Never Has to Work Again division 2 running back has ever earned in the NFL but it's the money he's going to make that I find far more impressive let's say conservatively Austin has saved half of his career earnings or around $13 million so far if he never makes another Penny from endorsements or the NFL and just averages an 8% return on his money every year he'll make over $1 million per year for the rest of his life not bad for a kid from Eaton Colorado a special thanks to Austin for sitting down with me make sure to subscribe so you don't miss another one of these Sports business interviews and I'll see you guys in the next video w [Music]