Rick Horrow, CEO of Horrow Sports Ventures, joins Remy Blaire to discuss the Oklahoma City Thunder winning the NBA Championship in game 7. Additionally, Rick breaks down how NIL has affected the NBA draft.
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On the court, the Oklahoma City Thunder have arrived, capping their rise with a Game 7 win in the NBA Finals on Sunday night.
The Thunder have come a long way since moving to Oklahoma.
Kevin Durant played his rookie season in Seattle before the Thunder even existed.
While joining me to break all of this down.
For us on this Friday morning is Rick Harrow, CEO of Boro Sports Ventures.
Rick, happy Friday to you.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Well, the NBA Finals wrapped up Sunday night and the confetti rained down on the Thunder.
So take us inside the series and the Thunder's journey as a franchise and your experience in Oklahoma City.
You ask about the series.
I'll give you 32 years earlier.
This is called the maps report that Ron Norick, the then mayor, and I wrote for the city council, and what they said was if you approve referenda and build 9 facilities in a process called MAPS Metropolitan Area Project strategies, we may get a team, but you'll also get economic impact.
Of billions of dollars they passed that referendum.
That maps plan is as popular as Kleenex and Band-Aids in Oklahoma City, meaning the brand.
They've had 3 other votes that have been successful a billion dollars arena, the Sonics moved from Seattle to Oklahoma City.
The team now, by the way, the 2nd youngest roster to ever.
Win a championship after the 77 Blazers.
It's $3.5 billion net worth.
It's going to be much more than that. seven teams different in NBA last seven years winning titles.
This team is young, dynamic, representing the city, and I'm a little biased, but we're looking forward to a dynasty, ladies and gentlemen.
Yeah, and Rick, those stats are key because all those numbers do add up to a hefty sum.
So I do want to ask you about something else.
Duke with another number one overall pick in the NBA draft this week in Cooper flag.
Now this year's draft had the fewest entrants since surprisingly, 2016.
So take us through name, image and likeness and its impact on the draft.
First of all, I answer the question you didn't ask, which is, as a dukey, more first round draft picks of their starting lineup last year than ever in history, which means they decimated Duke team.
They've got to start over.
They're going to do it.
They'll win there next year.
But as far as your question, since the NCA's rules took effect, this is the lowest number of athletes eligible for the draft.
106 this year, only 32.
International players as opposed to 63 last year.
What does that mean?
It means agents are advising these folks, except for Cooper Flag and a rarefied heir of five or 6 others, they're going to make more money staying in college because of NIL.
They get the endorsements, they get the deals, they get a big payday, and the rookie contract, not so much.
For look, so look for that trend to continue.
And once the NIL is more defined, on the other hand, we may see more and more players staying in college.
Maybe good for college basketball and football, but certainly an unintended consequence.
Good for Cooper Flagg.
He's going to be one of the best players in the history of the NBA.
There's another prediction you didn't ask for.
Well, we are talking about the business of sports, so let's talk about contracts here.
Heisman winner Travis Hunter is the first non-quarterback outside the number one pick to receive his entire signing bonus immediately.
So that is a pretty sweet rookie contract, isn't it?
It's about as sweet as you can get, not just the business of sports, right, but a $1.3 trillion business of sports.
That means the numbers add a few zeros after the commas.
Travis Hunter's contract is $46.6 million deal with the Jaguars.
I guess he could buy another suit based on what he's jumping around with, but the bottom line is not the number.
The bottom line is the guar. and when rookies are basically unproven, the biggest transition now is guaranteed money.
You've got a lot of the NBA players and other players getting guarantees, but not football.
This is a watershed event because the Jaguars are all in on Travis Hunter, and that means the next agent doing the next contract is going to do the exact same thing for rookies.
OK, Rick, well, we are all out of time, but as always great to talk to you.
Thank you so much for joining us.
We look forward to next week.
Have a great weekend.
I'm going to get one of those pink jackets, and we'll see what happens.
Have a good week.