A-Rod & Lore Launch Sports Stock Market Venture Into Crowded Market

The ability to buy and trade stocks from one’s device is more important to the marketplace than it’s ever been. Alex Rodriguez and business partner Marc Lore are trying to capitalize, foraying with their next venture into the world of sports gambling and market creation.

Rodriguez and Lore are investing in Mojo, a company that allows fans to buy and sell professional athletes in a stock market, with values rising and falling based on the athlete’s performance.

“I’ve always thought the idea of a sports stock market was the holy grail — the vision could transform sports, and fandom as a whole,” Lore said in an email to Bloomberg. “ For the concept to truly work, you need underlying principles like intrinsic value and instant liquidity.”

The aim for Mojo is to debut before the end of 2022 with football as its first sport.

The duo, who own a stake in the NBA’s Minnesota Timberwolves and WNBA’s Minnesota Lynx, have been investing in everything from sports to a nuclear fusion startup since they teamed up last year.

Mojo raised $75 million in its funding round from Joshua Kushner’s venture capital firm Thrive Capital. Kushner also owns a stake in the NBA’s Memphis Grizzlies. Tiger Capital Management, which has recently been splurging in the cryptocurrency space, was also a participant in funding Mojo.

Mojo executives are aiming to create a product that operates like Coinbase or Robinhood, giving its clients the ability to make transactions via trading app.

The recent capital raised will go toward hiring engineers, data scientists and market makers, with some saved for marketing. Co-founder and CEO Vinit Bharara said arrangements with individual state gaming commissions, regulators and the sports leagues are still in progress ahead of the company’s expected launch at the end of the year.

Bharara and Lore have previously worked together, starting trading card market The Pit and Diapers.com parent company Quidsi Inc. which were eventually sold to Topps and Amazon.com Inc., respectively. The Pit had similarities to Mojo, which was a stock market for sports trading cards that was able to establish legitimate price histories and values. The difference between the two, of course, is that there were sales of actual cards that The Pit used to calculate market value. Mojo will be relying on its own algorithm initially, until users establish the market over time.

As gambling has become the legalized and the norm in the United States sports-landscape, the creation of a stock market-style trading platform for professional athletes was almost inevitable. However, Mojo isn’t the first company to venture into the athlete stock market space.

Jock MKT, a Boston-based company that operates similarly to what Mojo has planned, is already legal in 33 states with plans for expansion after it received funding in 2021. PlayerSX, based in Canada, also offers the ability for users to invest in athletes in a stock market-style setting with values fluctuating based on performance.

Despite the success of those sports stock market companies, there is a cautionary tale as well in this marketspace.

Football Index launched in the United Kingdom in 2015 with the promise of providing a stock market for fans to buy and sell their favorite soccer players. Once financial problems arose at the company during the pandemic, the company swiftly fell apart and into administration, with many still owning now-worthless shares of players from that platform. Both the UK Gambling Commission and the Jersey Gambling Commission suspended Football Index’s license on March 11, 2021. The parent company, BetIndex, then immediately went into administration and trading ceased immediately on the platform.

Football Index’s inability to remain in the marketplace should represent a massive warning sign for anyone who is going to buy-in to Mojo’s initial offering of football players.

But perhaps Rodriguez and Lore’s celebrity status, and deep pocket books, can propel Mojo to the top of the crowded market.