From football to finance: How Wale Ogunleye made his Next Play

In 2012, even as he began studying at The George Washington University School of Business, Adewale Ogunleye wasn’t yet sure if he was completely done playing in the NFL.?

“But I did know that the end was eminently close and it was time for me to get serious about the Xs and Os when it comes to my finances,” he told LinkedIn News. “I knew all the playbooks and the defenses and the offenses for the last 11 years, but when it came to my own finances, I think [I was] relying on too many people to give me their opinions and their advice.”

Fast forward a decade, MBA in hand, and “Wale” is now the one sharing his advice with others. The former athlete has gone from football to finance, now serving as the head of the sports and entertainment client segment at UBS, the financial services giant.?

That means his work revolves around organizing a team of financial advisors to cater specifically to the financial needs of athletes and entertainers, needs he once had himself.

“I went back to get my MBA because I didn't understand my own finances. I realized that the industry has done a poor job of pouring into our entertainers, our athletes, and getting them to understand the power that they have with the money that they've made on the field or on the stage.”?

In an interview with Next Play, LinkedIn News’ athlete-focused video series, Wale explains what his role at UBS entails and what he’s doing to help diversify the next generation of finance industry professionals.

If you haven't already, check out the episode in the video above and follow Wale Ogunleye on LinkedIn, here .

The Starting Five

Each edition of this newsletter will share five sports trends, stories or figures on LinkedIn that are worth following. Check out this week's Starting Five below.

375 million reasons to retire

Tom Brady may still be an NFL quarterback, but he’s already got his next play set up.?

During Fox Corporation’s earnings call on Tuesday morning, CEO Lachlan Murdoch announced the company signed Brady to a deal that will see the seven-time Super Bowl winner become lead analyst for Fox’s NFL coverage. That is, whenever Brady decides to retire.?

Hours after the conference call, New York Post media reporter Andrew Marchand broke the details of that deal: Over the course of a 10-year contract, Brady is set to make $375 million, which is more than the estimated $333 million he’s made in salary (i.e., not including endorsements) during the whole of his NFL career.

To see how people are reacting to the news on LinkedIn, read, “Fox gives Brady 375m reasons to retire.”

Pressure, from a different perspective

There’s the usual way that we tend to think about pressure, as a negative and heavy feeling. Then there’s an alternative way to view pressure, as an indicator that a chance to have our best moment is coming.

In an interview with LinkedIn News in Australia, F1 driver Daniel Ricciardo underlined the importance of the latter idea, describing how it helps shift his perspective during key moments.?

He told LinkedIn News senior editor Cayla Dengate, “The pressure’s an opportunity for me to show off… If I feel the pressure’s starting to weigh on me and I’m putting too much emphasis on it and therefore weighing myself down, I’ll kind of turn it and be like, ‘actually this is a chance for me to go just show off what I’ve got.’”??

Check out the video in this section of the newsletter to watch the full interview with Ricciardo, in which he also discusses leadership and diversity in F1.?

Another kick for Kevin Durant

Last week, Kevin Durant and Rich Kleiman’s Thirty Five Ventures announced a minority stake in Gotham FC, the New Jersey-based National Women’s Soccer League club. Gotham is now the second soccer club Durant has invested in, with the basketball star having purchased a 5% stake in Major League Soccer’s Philadelphia Union in 2020, a deal which included an option to purchase another 5% stake in the “near future.”

Since Durant co-founded Thirty Five Ventures with Kleiman, the NBA player’s closest business partner and former Roc Nation Sports executive, the company says it’s invested in over 80 companies.?

“This is a big moment for Thirty Five Ventures as we continue to grow our business and our investments in women's sports,” Kleiman wrote on LinkedIn .

To follow Kevin Durant on LinkedIn, click here .?

Back to school

While most professional athletes go from college to the big leagues, JR Smith did the same, but backwards.

At the start of the 2021-22 academic year, the two-time NBA champion enrolled at North Carolina A&T State University and joined the school’s golf team. Last month, he was named A&T’s academic athlete of the year, having scored a 4.0 during the spring semester.

Winning the award is yet another landmark moment in what has been a truly unique athletic career. In 2004, Smith skipped college to enter the NBA draft straight out of St. Benedict’s Prep in Newark, N.J. In 2016 and 2020, he won NBA titles alongside LeBron James, with the Cleveland Cavaliers and the Los Angeles Lakers respectively.?

In October, he finished his first tournament as a collegiate golfer. Now, he’s gearing up for his sophomore season with the North Carolina A&T Aggies.?

In political crosshairs?

As the WNBA tipped off its 16th season this past weekend, fans may have noticed something different about the surface the players were competing on.?

Each hardcourt across the league features a decal that bears the initials of Britney Griner, one of the league’s biggest stars, and her number, 42.?

But Griner herself wasn’t present.

Since February, as war in Ukraine rages, Griner has been detained in Russia, where she was arrested at an airport on drug-related charges. Earlier this month, the State Department classified Griner as “wrongfully detained,” which means the department will now officially seek to negotiate her release.

To learn more about how this case began, read, “WNBA star arrested in Russia ” on LinkedIn.

On Deck

The upcoming edition of Next Play will feature Nadia Nadim , a soccer player for the Danish national team and Racing Louisville FC of the National Women’s Soccer League.?

Earlier this year, Nadia made headlines aplenty after she officially became a surgeon in Denmark. That means she’d successfully balanced studying medicine and playing soccer in multiple countries, across multiple continents, over the past decade.

But it’s the tragedy-to-triumph nature of Nadim’s story that was most remarkable, as if her accomplishments weren’t impressive enough. The 34-year-old athlete only settled in Denmark after her family fled Afghanistan, following the murder of her father at the hands of the Taliban.

Subscribe to this newsletter, and you’ll get a notification once the edition focusing on Nadia Nadim’s interview with LinkedIn News is published.

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