SPORTS BUILDS HEALTHIER AND MORE INCLUSIVE COMMUNITIES! In Episode 23 “The Poser of Sports for Good on the Shining Brightly Podcast Show, I welcome my long-time friend Roy Kessel, founder of the Sports Philanthropy Network. In the era of name, image and likeness for college athletes and professional athlete contract in the 6,7 or 8 figure millions there are valuable lessons to be learned about GIVING BACK.  It takes knowledge, financial literacy and in some cases nonprofit board and foundation governance. The Sports Philanthropy Network’s mission is to assist athletes, coaches, teams, leagues and other sports organizations harness the power of sports to do great things in their communities. If you love sports or want to be inspired by how sports shape our communities, come listen then share this show.

Mentioned Resources:

https://sportsphilanthropynetwork.org/

https://charity.pledgeit.org/SPNFanDraftChallenge

About the guest:

Roy is the Founder of the Sports Philanthropy Network. Having spent over 25 years in the sports business world, Roy has a variety of experience including serving as an NFL agent, Chairing the Chicago Bar Association Sports Law Committee, as well as running celebrity and charity golf events for organizations like the Tournament of Roses and the NFL Coaches Association.  Roy is a graduate of the University of Wisconsin in Finance and Marketing and received his JD from the Northwestern University Pritzker School of Law.  Roy also taught at Northwestern University in their graduate sports management program and has served on numerous nonprofit boards.

About the Host:

Howard Brown is a best-selling author, award-winning international speaker, Silicon Valley entrepreneur, interfaith peacemaker, and a two-time stage IV cancer survivor. He is also a sought-after speaker and consultant for corporate businesses, nonprofits, congregations, and community groups. Howard has co-founded two social networks that were the first to connect religious communities around the world. He is a nationally known patient advocate and “cancer whisperer” to many families. Howard, his wife Lisa, and daughter Emily currently reside in Michigan, and his happy place is on the basketball court.

Website

Http://www.shiningbrightly.com

Social Media

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/howard.brown.36

LinkedIn - https://wwwlinkedin.com/in/howardsbrown

Instagram - @howard.brown.36

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Aloha. It's Howard Brown. This is the Shining

Brightly podcast show. Got another great one for you. And

I'm really excited. Long Time over 20 year friend, Roy Kessel

from the sports philanthropy network is here and in the

house. Roy, how you doing?

I'm doing great. Thanks for having me, Howard.

Oh, man, it's boy, Roy and I have travelled the

world together. And we have a love of sports and love of

community service together. It's we've got a lot of history and I

love him like a brother. So I'm glad you could be on the show.

Let me tell you a little bit about Roy. Roy is the founder of

the sports philanthropy network. He spent over 25 years in the

sports business world and a variety of experiences including

serving as an NFL agent, chairing the Chicago Bar

Association Sports Law Committee, as well as running

celebrity and charity golf events for different

organisations, including the Tournament of Roses and the NFL

coaches association. Roy is a graduate of the University of

Wisconsin, they don't call them badger Roy for no reason. And he

has a finance and marketing degree, as well as his JD from

Northwestern Pritzker School of Law, right taught at the

Northwestern University in graduate Sports Management

Programme, and has been on numerous nonprofit boards,

including and leadership cabinet where we met over 20 years ago.

And so Roy, the founder of the sportsman, three sports

philanthropy network, well, that's the bio Roy, tell us a

little bit more about you and something that that folks don't

know about you. Like you're a scratch golfer, almost,

I wish I was has gone the wrong direction. But

thanks for having me on the show. I love I love the work

that you're doing. And your story is so inspirational. You

know, we see it across the country. So congratulations on

everything that you're doing to create that hope and possibility

for people. For my end, what what people don't know, they may

not know that. My parents are from South Africa. I was born in

Israel and grew up in Madison, as you said, badger Roy, and

then I have a younger sister Sharon, that's developmentally

disabled. That's been a huge impact on on my life and on so

many people in the Madison community.

It's awesome. So I will tell you, I'm wearing the

old sports brain shirt today, gift from you to me about

concussions and all the stuff that you've been involved with

over the years. But I want to dig in a little bit sports

philanthropy network, building stronger, healthier, more

inclusive communities through sports. Listen, I have to tell

you sports for good, it hits me right in the heart, I love it.

You know me, I find my happy place on the basketball court

played two hours today hit the three still playing at age 57.

And it helped me you know, get back get my self esteem, my

mental and physical toughness through cancer diagnosis. So I

love it, you and I share that love for sports. So how did this

all kind of come about sports philanthropy network?

Well, having been in the sports business world for 25

years, one of the things that I saw was the passion that so many

of these athletes have for their own communities, they really

want to give back. And unfortunately, they're not given

the tools and the support to really make a difference.

They're kind of conditioned, that they're good for being

celebrities, right? But not much else. Right? What are they told

they're told they're good for, for things when they're not

playing sports, signing autographs for people, taking

photos with people playing in golf outings or going to

fundraising dinners, and they're sort of conditioned to believe

that's the way you give back to the community. And it's really a

disservice to these individuals, they have reached the highest

levels of sports, right highest level of college sports, pro

sports, they want to do something more substantial, but

they need a little bit of support and some more training

and resources to be able to do that. And so the genesis of

sports philanthropy network was when I started running the

celebrity golf outings and got a chance to interact with these

athletes on a more direct level, not on a fan level, but more on

a peer level, where I could talk to them while they were

participating in these events and really learn about what

inspired them what they cared about what they wanted to do.

And so when we started sports philanthropy network, the idea

was, how can we support this ecosystem of the world of sports

philanthropy? How can we build a pipeline of philanthropy that

gives back and is a in a sense a distribution mechanism for

education, training, professional development, for

sports, nonprofits, and that kind of touches on two levels?

One I'm on the side of the youth that are involved in these

programmes where we can run things like financial literacy,

STEM education, leadership, anti bullying, anti drug programmes,

and then the other for the staff and the organisation itself,

where it would be things in the nature of fundraising culture,

social media, border director training, things of that nature,

to help them make a greater impact.

I really love it because, you know, teaching

these athletes and we're gonna get into NIHL in a little bit,

especially I just saw the movie air and the Air Jordan Brand

being developed by Nike and, and they had O'Bannon case that

started this off, but I was recently at the cologuard

classic put on by exact science out of Wisconsin, that does the

cancer testing for colorectal cancer. And they put on a whole

golf tournaments a senior store, and they have celebrities. And I

have to tell you, I got to just hang out whether hitting golf

balls, Bryce Butler, from the Dallas Cowboys, Golden Tate,

formerly of the Seahawks, lions, I think even the Giants Jimmy

Rollins, ex Philly, and Dodger, and then Reggie Bush, you know,

it just these guys, I really, you know, they take their

valuable time to actually come and play and raise funds for,

you know, a cause like colon cancer. And I love that the

lesson that it teaches, and that the heart that they show, they

were really deeply impacted. They were listening to our

stories. They were empathetic, they were grateful. And I love

that. And again, not all athletes that but some of that

is a learned response. And so tell me about like, you got,

like so many things going right. Tell people your travel

schedule, just in the last, you know, opening up this year,

January, February, March, where have you been?

Yeah, the travel schedule to start the year first

quarter is pretty hectic, there's coaching conventions

for, for baseball, for football for soccer, each of which have

over 10,000 people in coaches attending and so that's kind of

the first half of January. And then you get into the The PGA

Show in Orlando in the Senior Bowl in mobiele. And the Pro

Bowl and East West Shrine game in Vegas, and Super Bowl week is

just wall to wall. With programmes that we run and the

broadcasting we do the NFL, we're fortunate to have a great

relationship with them and get media credentials to host

broadcasts on radio row at the Super Bowl. And so we had over

40 guests on our show during the week after the Superbowl, and

you know, former athletes, current athletes, sports agents,

media people, it's a it's a great environment. And you know,

and after that we had a chance to be at the NBA All Star

events, the NFL owners meetings, it's conference basketball

tournaments, and men's and women's Final Four, and we're

just getting ready to go out to the NFL Draft. So the first

three or four months of the year are pretty crazy. But what's

been really gratifying is as we go around the country, we host

opportunities to bring people together from the sports

business world in the sport philanthropy world. And there's

so much interest in engaging with the work we're doing, as

you said, to build stronger, healthier and more inclusive

communities. And so we just got back from the Black Sports

Business Symposium in Atlanta and Mercedes Benz stadium. And

we had the night before that event. 120 people show up at the

Omni Hotel overlooking the park their beautiful setting on a

great night. But Atlanta is an incredible community. And so

we're really excited that this year, we're finally able to be

out of COVID completely and be launching our chapters. And so

we've gotten a dozen chapters in their early stages, and we

anticipate having 30 active chapters by the end of next

year.

I your schedule is is a blizzard. And I have to

tell you, I was listening a little bit on radio row. That's

a great honour. And it just shows the relationship and the

credibility that you and Kayla and the sports philanthropy team

has built with the professional leagues and the college leagues

and the individual players and coaches, trainers, sports

agents, I mean, it's it's really connective tissue there to build

these diverse communities and people are are jumping at the

chance 120 people that come to see in Atlanta, I just want to

give you an applause there. But so people in my audience that

may be listening, how do they get involved?

Well, it's really easy. One of the things that we

tell people is there's so many opportunities to be involved. We

really just need to hear from you what you're interested in.

One of the great benefits of the chapters is we now have

opportunities for people to engage in their local markets.

I think for certain people, it was a bit overwhelming to try to

look at how can I get involved in a national or international

organisation. Now with the chapters, we're getting enormous

response of people that want to be planning events running what

we call our organisational showcase, which brings together

between 15 and 20 nonprofits in a market and kind of creates an

event to expose them to the business community through the

Chambers of Commerce and the business networking groups so

that these nonprofits can meet business leaders in the

community can find and identify potential new donors, new board

members. And this event is what we use as our kickoff in most of

the new markets. Because it's a great way when we're building

our leadership council to be able to get people involved. So

how can you get involved? You can take a look at the site you

can email me you can email Kayla Beretta was our EVP and has been

with this from the beginning. And you can jump in and look at

how can we be part of a Chapter How can you be an ambassador and

ambassadors really, are people that want to help? You don't

have to work in sports, you don't have to work for a sports

team. You don't have to be an athlete. What do you care about?

Tell us what causes you're passionate about and we can help

identify ways for you to support our efforts as they relate to

those causes.

It's just beautiful. One of the programmes

Roy that I want to hear more about is that this financial

literacy programme at the Super Bowl, very interesting what

you're doing there, explain explain how that works.

Yeah, that was, Kayla took the lead on that and

did an amazing job pulling that event together. We had a dozen

athletes. Speaking that day. That was a Monday of Super Bowl

week at Tolleson High School, just west of Phoenix. Its title

one school 98% of the kids in the school, getting free and

reduced hot lunch. So it's a school were definitely in an

underserved market. And as these athletes came in, they sat and

told their stories of how financial literacy or lack of

financial literacy had impacted their lives, right, including

people who had been literally homeless who had been on the

street and had turned their lives around. And one of the

things that the all of the athletes talked about is how

little This is covered in anybody school. Right? Even my

kids that went to high end, public high school here in the

Chicago suburbs, they never had financial literacy training or

programme. So kids either get that at home, or they don't,

because the schools really aren't doing it. The colleges

aren't doing it. So Superbowl week we hosted an event there

500 Kids, that were seniors in the auditorium, the athletes

were there. It went about two hours. And one of the big

comments we got afterwards from the athletes was how well

behaved the kids were, they weren't playing on their phones,

they weren't talking. They were really engaged with listening,

they asked incredible questions. These are athletes that speak

all over the country very frequently. And they said this

was one of the best groups that they had had ever seen. And one

of the things that we're really fortunate about is the number of

athletes that support the work we're doing, because they came

in, none of them are getting paid to speak. None of them are

getting paid to come and fly in. We had some people that flew in

just for the day, we had others that were there for Super Bowl

week. But as the event went on, we brought in Little Caesars to

partner with us to provide lunch for the kids. So that was a

great opportunity. And you know, right there from, you know, from

Michigan. So a great connection there. But they really jumped on

it quickly once they found out about the event. And we're

looking at doing additional events with them. But one of the

unique factors afterwards was the athletes who were the ones

serving the pizza to the kids.

So that's beautiful.

They're dishing out pizza. And then we created

posters and flyers for each of the kids to have signed by the

athletes and they stayed around for another hour and a half

after they spoke and serve the pizza to the kids spoke to the

kids sign things for the kids and really just gave them an

opportunity to engage in interact. So it's a really

fantastic programme, something we're looking to replicate in

more markets on an ongoing basis. And one of the reasons

for having chapters is we want to be able to do that type of

programme regularly and not only at a Super Bowl,

right? So I mean, yeah, there's lots of lots of

high schools that if you have your chapters to facilatate

those programmes. I'm really taken ROI because I know Charles

Barkley says he's not a role model, although he is. It's

really nice to see that the athletes taking that seriously

owning their responsibility. And and doing that sounds like that

programme worked out, you know, just tremendously. Another

programme I want to feature is that you launched something

called the sports philanthropy Academy. What please share with

what's going on and give us an update what's going on with the

academy?

Yeah, the idea for sports only out there P Academy

came about because as we talked to a lot of people who had

launched sports nonprofits, what we've found is more than it in

other nonprofits, the people that started these cared about

the, the youth in the community cared about the sport, but may

not have any background in running a business may not have

any background in running a nonprofit may never have served

on a nonprofit board. And so what we were hearing was, these

individuals know how to run a soccer practice, right? They

bring the balls, the cones, they run the drills, the kids are

super engaged, and then they realise like, Hey, this is going

to take a lot more time, a lot more money, a lot more manpower

than, than we anticipated. And so they look around and they

say, how can we make a difference here? And so what we

found is they needed more training, they needed more

support to be able to do that. When somebody starts a

nonprofit, they don't realise the regulatory hurdles, the

compliance issues that are there. The governance

requirements for the board of directors, right, a lot of

people, you know, you and I have been in fantasy football leagues

together, right? So you start a new nonprofit, you put your arms

out and who do you grab, you grab your basketball buddies,

you grab your softball team, you grab your fantasy football

league, and then after a year, you're like, Oh, this is so

frustrating, I thought these guys were really going to help

me Well, that's not necessarily the best way to identify board

members. And that's just one example. So when I had a chance

to speak in Buffalo, through a programme that was funded by the

Ralph Wilson Foundation, called Project play of Western New

York, they brought in 80 organisations to speak. And I

asked everybody how many had had business training. And it was

two or three, and how many of them had gone to school for

Nonprofit Management, and it was another couple. And how many of

you are here because you love kids, and you love sports,

right? And everybody's hands go up,

And so we really want to be able to facilitate

right.

that training, what we see too often is a proverbial giving the

organization's of fish instead of teaching them to fish. So a

Major League franchise told us they fund 200 organisations for

about a million dollars. So if you do the quick math has $5,000

per organisation, which is not enough to be a Sustaining Gift

is certainly not a transformational level gift. And

then every year, that orcs got to go back and ask for that

$5,000. If you do the rough math, it's probably a losing

proposition. Because between the time spent from the Major League

club, and the nonprofit organisation, and the compliance

and the reporting and everything that goes into it, it probably

isn't even creating any value. So how can we take some of that

funding that is already identified for these nonprofits,

run sports philanthropy Academy programming, let's say for

example, in that community four times a year for those 200

organisations and teach them how to get more effective, how to

build capacity, how to grow their organisation, so they can

make a greater impact, just running rough numbers, we

estimate that that return on that programme is getting to be

a minimum of 20 to one on whatever is invested into it.

Right, right. No, I hear you. And I love that

because you're, you're teaching them, you know how to fish. And

then they can they can do that. And not everybody is versed on

the compliance and the nonprofit and the tax deductions and all

that stuff as well. I want to switch topics now because I want

your take on name image and likeness. Alright, young people

in college are being thrown a whole bunch of money at them

without any training, as you said their financial literacy.

And I think this makes sports philanthropy and what you do

actually, it takes you to a whole nother level. Well, what's

your take on how this is working out? It's you know, the train

has already left the station. What What's your take on name,

image and licence in the college ranks?

Yeah, it's really interesting, right? And so we're

coming up on two years that this has been in existence, legally,

right. It's been in existence for 20 plus years where it's

been going on under the table and behind the scenes, so I

think it's fantastic. stuff that is out in the open, I think the

open market is the right way for this to work. We launched an

initiative last summer called NIHL, for good to work with

these NIHL agencies and influencers, on how they can use

their name, image and likeness to help their community but also

recognise that this is something that can help themselves as they

want to build up their own brand, because nothing is going

to build your own brand, like giving back. So when people see

that you're speaking for a cause, right? whether, you know,

you look at what you've been able to do with shining brightly

and put yourself in that centre of attention, right, that gives

you a great platform. So these athletes that already have the

stage from their sport, can really use it for good. So that

was the underpinning of NIL for good, but in the big marketplace

of NIL, the struggle that we're seeing right now is that a lot

of what is being paid for has nothing to do with name, image

and likeness and has everything to do with I want you as a

player to come to Michigan instead of going to Ohio State,

or I want you to come to Georgia, instead of going to

Alabama, right or USC and UCLA, pick your schools, it doesn't

matter. A lot of the payments are not as much for the player

to name image and likeness, because most of them, frankly,

don't have a lot of value, true name, image likeness value. They

have value as an athlete for that team. And so the struggle

right now is how do we structure things. And there's legislation

pending in a number of states and federal legislation, about

disallowing the model where many of the NFL collectives have set

themselves up as nonprofit entities to be able to take

donations. And they're looking at it very closely because the

physician is paying a player is not really a charitable

endeavour, not really a tax deductible endeavour. So the

ones that have set it up properly, have looked at it and

said, we can take deductions, we can play, we can pay players to

go and do charitable work. That's okay. Right. So if we go,

we can pay them to go and pack food baskets, or go and visit a

children's hospital. We can pay them to do things of that

nature. But most of the payments, especially the big

payments that you're seeing, don't fit that.

Right. It's it's an interesting world here and

also, right, there's tax consequences that they may or

may not be able to deal with. And this sometimes it's a lot of

money thrown at these young people. And, you know, how do

they manage that financial literacy that you spoke about

before? Well, listen, you're doing so much. I want to put you

in the shining bright the spotlight. I'm putting on my

shades right now, Roy, because it's so bright,

I didn't get any shades.

Put we can get you some shades. That's easyon some

dark shades, there you go. All right, so we are shining

brightly together. So I want you to take us home, I want you to

do a couple things. I want you to tell people how they can get

involved. I want you to tell people how they can actually

donate to support your efforts. And potentially, if you want to

offer him a Super Bowl pen, so go.

Great. Well, again, Howard, I really appreciate the

opportunity to be on here. In terms of donations. Easy to find

right at the top of our page sports philanthropy network that

org there's a tonne of information, a lot of resources

on events going on an incredible organisations, we have

organisational spotlights, on most of the professional

franchises, we're doing series now on the colleges as well. So

right on the top of the front page, you can keep an eye on our

upcoming events, we're going to have those posted on an ongoing

basis. So you can join in right there. We'd love to have you

more active as an ambassador, or as part of the leadership

council for one of our chapters. You can see that there as well.

Our ambassadors are the lifeblood of the organisation

and you're going to meet an amazing group of people around

the country and around the world that are active with us and

you're going to be part of Ambassador only events and

trainings and opportunities on a monthly basis. So we'd love to

have you do that Howard mentioned our Super Bowl pin. We

launched our collectible pins with our character sporty sporty

as our mascot you can see in my background and in sporty is

spelled with an E at the end because sports are for everyone.

Not with a why because no kid should have to ask why they

can't play sports.

It's just awesome. So I want to tell you that it's

truly amazing. So everyone out there, you know go put 100

Dollars donation and become an ambassador for the sports

philanthropy network. If you love sports, you've got to love

what this organisation is doing, and providing the education

resources and the connective resources. All using sports for

good. It's a beautiful thing ROI, absolute pleasure to, to

have you. Our friendship will go on and I just want to see sports

philanthropy network, you know, be that household name that

you're building and keep doing the good work that you're doing.

I appreciate it, and found in my heart right now. So for those of

you listening or watching, you can get a hold of me at

shiningbrightly.com another great episode on the podcast

here with Roy Kellel, the sports philanthropy network and

sportsphilanthropy.org. Come find me come interact, come get

involved. Donate, we love you take care of shining brightly.

It does make the world a better place. It does. We become a

positive change. When you lift yourself up. You lift up others

we come this force multiplier for good and positive change in

the world. Thank you Roy loved having you.