It started as this and I think this is really when you and I met was in that passion phase. Sort of being a friend to a viable business and a career. I’ve always been attracted to sports and sports business. I’ve always tried to consume as much as I could on that side, but it was always a passion piece for me. It was my interest and it was never my career or anything I did entrepreneurial. It was always on the sale side of things.
My family owned a car dealership, then I evolved into selling insurance. I took a chance on myself when I walked through a CrossFit [indecipherable 20:10] door and then the chance I took was starting a clothing business.
That just quickly evolved into meeting Mat Fraser and then it’s so funny the first thing I ever did with Mat, you probably were somewhat indirectly involved with, which was NFS Sports, NutriForce at the time. He had gotten an offer from them. He’s like, “Hey, can you look at this?”
That’s how I started being an agent. It literally was like, “Hey, my wife’s a lawyer. If I can ever do anything to help. I love you dearly, so I just want to protect you.” I have a business mind, like sales and sales. In a lot of ways it’s like, “You got a value. Try to hold it. Whatever.”
The relationship I had with Mat was the platform that allowed this to become what it is. In a unique time where nobody really had agents, I had a unique opportunity from what I was doing to be able to do things and not look at it from a business perspective, truly was doing it because I cared.
Mat was a unique opportunity in that perspective. Mat just trusted me as a human and had no interest in having an agent in his life because his family were professional. His mom and dad were professional ice skaters.
They had a poor experience with an agent, so it was like, “Hey, I don’t want an agent. I want a friend. Can you just watch out for me?” Fast forward today, he’s a massive business unit that has a ton going on. I’m so proud of the evolution, not only from a business perspective but him and how he’s become a businessman.
That was how it started. From there, people took notice too how he was accepting and then doing some business that I was a part of. He’s been a huge salesman. The nice part — Pat, Mat, and Brent, and I talked about this last night — is there’s a uniqueness in our business climate from an influencer perspective where they’re all buying into this rising tide scenario. They help each other out.
Quite frankly, no matter what anybody says, ground zero. I’m not in Brent. They’re not only competitive on the floor, they are off in a lot of ways from a business perspective. If you want clothing in a shoe deal, there’s a few options. They don’t sign everybody in the free world. That’s a very elite thing that happens for an endorsement perspective.
Mat basically just told anybody that asked him, “Hey, how do you handle your business? You should just start there, O’Keeffe.” That’s how a lot of clients came my way.
One thing I’m proud of is that a lot of the evolution of our business, mine on the athlete management side, was truly just by his trust in me and then those other people then accepting that and trusting me, not me running around selling people and doing business with me. That is really the evolution of it. It’s a cool, really awesome piece of what we now do at Loud And Live sports and it’s evolving.
We’re looking at opportunities to be in other places doing it, maybe other sports down the line, but now we got our hands full with what we do with these kids now. They become like really cool business units like brands. Man, I’m so proud because I look at you and you give me this flash of like…
I remember sitting in the swamp with you doing the contract signing with Mat with the rhinos. Just a piece of history with Mat and the evolution. It’s come so far, it’s been such a cool ride.