This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Run a business and not thinking about podcasting? Think again. More Americans listen to podcasts, then add supported streaming music from Spotify and Pandora. And as the number one podcaster, iHeart's twice as large as the next two combined. Learn how podcasting can help your business. Call 844-844-IHEART. Another podcast from some SNL late night comedy guy. Not quite. Unhumor me with Robert Smigel and friends. Me and hilarious guests from Bob Odenkirk to David Letterman help make you funnier. This week, my guests, SNL's Mikey Day and head writer Streeter Seidel, help an acapella band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to Humor Me with Robert Smigel and friends on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care which I'll say. Yep, that's me. Clifford Taylor, the fourth. You might have seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw unfilled conversations with athletes, creators and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at Tick Tock Podcast Network on Tick Tock. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I'd put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Welcome to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. This is John O'Brien and this is the Money and Wealth Podcast episode season three on iHeartRadio and Black Effect Network. We have with us Eric Armstead, who is a NFL pro and in some ways a working living legend. And he's won the Walter Payton Man of the Year Award. He's a first round draft pick for the San Francisco 49ers. He's now with the Jacksonville Jaguars. You know him because he always rubs his belly after every good play. He's always hungry, but he's hungry not just on the field. This is a bonus episode talking about what he does off the field to expand his field of play. The investments he makes, not just the life he lives. Eric, tell us about unique and important investments you made that you think might have legacy and lineage tied to it. Yeah, thank you for the intro. And just recently, I was fortunate enough to invest in the new, just announced last week, Pro Flag Football League in partnership with Tomorrow Sports and the NFL. and although it a cool exciting opportunity and one that right now I haven really made too often This is probably the largest investment I made into a singular private equity deal to date But I'm really excited about the opportunity and where flag football is headed. You know, the times are changing and football in itself is becoming a global game. And so when I had the opportunity and I was presented the opportunity to invest into this league, which I feel very fortunate for because not everyone was brought in that early. I really began to think about this opportunity, but how years and years prior, things that I invested in and time that I spent in relationships I built really fast forwarded eight years, provided an opportunity to invest, to make this investment. And there are a number of people involved. I built a great relationship with a gentleman named Byron Dieter, who's with Bessemer Capital. And me and Byron have been friends and done business together for going on about eight years now. And just building and nurturing that relationship and trying to add value to him and his firm and, you know, just trying to be a sponge. Byron and Bessemer actually end up becoming one of the lead investment partners in this league. And so throughout the process, he was picking my brain, asking me about what I thought about flag in the future for the sport. And so that was one way I was able to learn. And then also, too, just being connected. You can look up the list of people that are players that invested into the league. And it's a very, you know, short, exclusive list, which I'm humbled to be a part of. And that was purely all about connections and relationships as well, too. Being in the right rooms, you know, adding value where opportunities were presented at the league level and partners and building relationships and going to events and being myself. and letting everyone know who I was and what I was about and what I stood for. And all that, you know, reputation and relationship building and all those things presented an opportunity years and years later that not everyone was afforded to. And so I'm really excited about this investment and where this league is headed. it really for me personally shows that I am moving the right way that when I do present myself to the world and and and meet people that something is something is sticking and it's opening up doors and knocking down barriers for me um and this investment I feel is is very much a legacy investment I have two daughters and I have a son as well but I have two daughters And the league is launching with Women's First. Wow. A big initiative. Actually, I don't know if I can say that, but I think I can. Well, you just said it. Well, I'm going to save you. We'll pivot on that. Let me ask you this question. We'll save that for the league's press release. Because I played flag football growing up. Everybody can relate to this story. This is a really cool thing that I think you've done. And I think that with the principles of this business enterprise, what they saw was somebody who was more interested in partnership conversation than party conversation. And so your focus and your integrity brought you in off the field of play to the field of business in the minds of some people who took you seriously. Without giving any confidential information, can you quickly tell the audience how this deal was structured? So it's the partners who are the backers, the financiers, the bankers. Where does it operate? And without getting into confidential information. I think this is all. How do you make the money? It's public information. Tomorrow Sports will be the operator. And there are six big firms that will lead that investment on that side. I think Bessemer, Silver Lake, and a number of others, firms that came together to, and will be the lead investors on this. So, Bessemer, everybody knows, Bessemer does investment management, family office management, things like that, private banking. And then Silver Lake is private equity, et cetera. Continue. Yep. And on the NFL side, which was awesome, you know, working with Curtis Martin and his private equity firm, Lutis, we were able to have conversations. And he had conversations with Roger Goodell and NFL that, you know, players need to be involved. And so we were able to have some players be able to invest. And I was fortunate enough that I got the call to be one of those players that had an opportunity and an allocation to invest. And I'm really excited, like I said, about the opportunity. And that goes back to, like I said, relationship building and being in the right place at the right time and showing up and presenting yourself at the right time as well, too. and creating opportunities for yourself in that space that people see you in that light. And they bring you in on those conversations. Yep. And as I love to say, if you hang around nine bro people, you'll be the 10th. What he said is basically the opposite of that. Right rooms, right places, right spaces, talking about the right things and the right mindset. And essentially what he just described was what you might call in a traditional sense, a pre-IPO environment where he was brought in to an investment. And before it became public, before it became publicly available or even available to mainstream investors, somebody selected him to be as part of the original capital stack. You can look at what capital stack means but it literally the stack of types of money that goes into a deal debt and equity And so he got a real shot at success at this And I think if anything has a shot at success it's dang on flag football. And the fact that – and Roger Goodell is just a wonderful, wonderful human being. I love that brother. I call him an honorary black man. But if the NFL is a – You know what they say about redheads, they might as well be black. okay well that's a whole nother conversation uh right roger i'm sure will appreciate that um he's a good brother um so look this has uh been great and i'm glad you uh took this time to give the people a super vitamin of a targeted deal uh who's involved what you're doing off the field to make money during the day, his salary from NFL, but building wealth in your sleep, things like this investment in flag football. Eric, thanks for being a role model and living what you say. I appreciate that and trying to keep leading the way. And you will. I'll see you on the field of play. Money and Wealth with John O'Brien is a production of the Black Effect Podcast Network. For more podcasts from the Black Effect Podcast Network, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. band with their between songs banter. Where does your group perform? We do some retirement homes. Those people are starving for banter. Listen to humor me with Robert Smigel and friends on the I heart radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. A win is a win. A win is a win. I don't care what you're saying. Yep. That's me. Clifford Taylor, the fourth. You might've seen the skits, my basketball and college football journey, or my career in sports media. Well, now I'm bringing all of that excitement to my brand new podcast, The Clifford Show. This is a place for raw, unfiltered conversations with athletes, creators, and voices that not only deserve to be heard, but celebrated. So let's get to it. Listen to The Clifford Show on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And for more behind the scenes, follow at Clifford and at TikTok Podcast Network on TikTok. Imagine an Olympics where doping is not only legal, but encouraged. It's the enhanced games. Some call it grotesque. Others say it's unleashing human potential. Either way, the podcast Superhuman documented it all, embedded in the games and with the athletes for a full year. Within probably 10 days, I put on 10 pounds. I was having trouble stopping the muscle growth. Listen to Superhuman on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, what's good, y'all? You're listening to Learn the Hard Way with your favorite therapist and host, Keir Games. This space is about black men's experiences, having honest conversations that it's really not safe to have anywhere. But you're having them with a licensed professional who knows what he's doing. How many men carry a suit or armor? It signals to the world that you're not to be played with. And just because you have the capability, that does not mean that you need to. Listen to Learn the Hard Way on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human. Thank you.
