DeAndre Hopkins is a free agent, so he enrolled in finance classes instead of chasing a contract. Shaq turned down a check from Reebok and asked for equity, then became the second-largest shareholder in a $42 billion company. Snoop Dogg isn't just a name on Swansea City's paperwork, he's out closing the shirt deals himself. Welcome back to The Closeout. Let's get into it.

A thousand catches. 13,295 yards. 85 touchdowns. Three first-team All-Pro selections and five Pro Bowls across thirteen seasons. $140 million in career earnings, and DeAndre Hopkins is a free agent this offseason. Instead of running a "sign me" tour, he enrolled in finance classes at Clemson.

The portfolio says he's been circling this for years. In 2019 he put money into Beyond Meat before the IPO, when a plant-based meat company still read as a fad to most people. He was in Liquid Death's $67 million round in 2024, a brand now valued at $1.4 billion that went from a few million in retail sales to $333 million a year. He holds a stake in OLIPOP, the prebiotic soda maker that raised $188 million in December at the front of a category it helped invent. He's invested in Whatnot, the live-commerce platform he backed early, now one of the most valuable companies in the space. There are a few more hiding behind the curtain that we'll save for a later issue.

Nobody hands you a crash course in this when you turn pro. Hopkins said it plainly: "It really didn't dawn on me that you need to learn and educate yourself before you go out and just give your money away for investment."

The investments are the start, not the summit. Hopkins wants to own a venture fund one day, maybe a team stake.

He's also one of a growing number of athletes using LinkedIn to broadcast the business. Kyle Van Noy, two Super Bowl rings, writes a newsletter called "One More Shot." Kyle Kuzma posts deal takes. Chris Paul lists himself as "Entrepreneur, Philanthropist, Athlete" before he lists twelve All-Star nods. Tracy McGrady runs his profile as a Bills minority owner. Jalen Brunson posted through a Finals MVP season. The younger ones see it too: Spurs rookie Dylan Harper joined and went straight to work on the platform, and Fernando Mendoza, the Raiders' No. 1 pick in the 2026 draft, turned a bit into a LinkedIn partnership and then pulled the "Open to Work" banner off his profile photo the day he got drafted.

LinkedIn says athlete accounts are up 31% since 2021. Athletes figured out their business is better broadcast where business happens. Sunday is for the tape. Monday is for the cap table.

He's 34 and remains unsigned. He's also more prepared for life after football than he's ever been.

Tom Brady owns half of CardVault, the sports card retailer he co-founded in 2024. Every store is profitable, revenue is up 400% year over year, and he talks to his co-founder daily. He used his own connections to fix the company's Pokémon card allocation. Forty stores by 2028 is the target.

Muhsin Muhammad II, a former NFL receiver, co-founded the private equity firm now buying a controlling stake in BARCODE. I wrote about BARCODE in Issue #4, when it was valued around $30 million and Wemby had just taken his one careful equity swing on a cap table with Carmelo and Jeter. Kyle Kuzma co-founded it in 2021. Wemby stays on as a shareholder. A retired athlete's fund is buying the company two athletes built.

Derek Jeter signed on as investor, board advisor, and brand ambassador for ALUM, a luxury hospitality company building private clubs in college towns, starting with a 116,000-square-foot development in Tuscaloosa. His own words: "I wanted to be part of building it, not just attached to it."

Flo Rida took an equity stake in Beyond Juicery + Eatery, a 50-store fast-casual chain, in a deal the company calls multimillion-dollar. He's funding it with part of an $82.6 million jury award from a prior Celsius contract dispute, turning a legal win into capital.

50 Cent's G-Unit Film & Television, which runs its own 985,000-square-foot studio in Shreveport, signed on to executive produce a TV adaptation of the video game Payday. Not a cameo. His own production company is doing business.

Reebok offered Shaquille O'Neal a payout for his name. He turned it down and told Jamie Salter to put the money into the company instead.

That single decision made him the second-largest individual shareholder in Authentic Brands Group, the licensing giant behind Reebok, Eddie Bauer, and the estates of Elvis Presley and Marilyn Monroe. ABG does $42 billion in annual retail revenue. Salter's own words on how the arrangement works: guys like Shaq, David Beckham, and Kevin Hart aren't licensing deals, they're fifty-fifty joint ventures. "You're not going to tell Shaq what to do, and Shaq's not going to tell us what to do either."

He's not a passive name on the sheet. O'Neal holds the title President of Basketball at Reebok, and he's the reason the brand bet on the WNBA before it was an obvious play. Salter has said O'Neal pushed for Angel Reese to get paid double, then triple what she'd asked for, before she had a single WNBA game to her name. Reese's deal is now credited with resetting how the league's biggest names get compensated.

Then there's the part that's just his. In 2025, O'Neal founded DUNKMAN, his own professional dunking league: 24 competitors, a $500,000 championship purse, headlined by three-time Slam Dunk champion Mac McClung.

He turned down a check and asked for a piece instead. Everything since has been built on that one answer.

AG1 takes the front of Swansea City's shirt this season, the supplement brand's first football deal anywhere. The interesting part isn't the logo. It's who closed it. Swansea's ownership group includes Luka Modrić, Martha Stewart, and Snoop Dogg, who fronted the announcement himself. The club's CEO credited "the hard work put in by our ownership group" and pointed at the league's financial rules as the reason revenue matters. Snoop isn't a name on the letterhead. He's out working the commercial side.

Hanna and Haley Cavinder sit down to talk launching wellness brand GoTo and tequila brand Azucar, how NIL sparked their shift from athletes to co-founders, and investing every dollar of their NIL earnings since 2021 instead of spending it. Same Front Office Sports team behind Issue #7's Colston interview. Worth it for the reminder that the shift isn't just a men's-sports story.

LinkedIn is now where athletes announce their deals and equity plays. What's the trend you're watching that nobody's covering yet? Hit reply, I want to know your thoughts.