"I was thinking about my exit even when I entered the league." -- --Jamal Mashburn

Jamal “Monster Mash” Mashburn (university of Kentucky) is a retired American professional basketball player who earned $75 million over his NBA career. Mashburn was a prolific scorer in his 12 seasons in the league, with a career scoring average of 19.1 points per game. Since retiring from basketball, Mashburn has worked for ESPN as an analyst and launched a number of successful business ventures including 34 Outback Steakhouse franchises, 37 Papa John’s franchises, and two car dealerships across the state of Kentucky; one Toyota, one Lexus dealership and a real estate group in Kentucky!

Mashburn most recently invested in LevelEleven (video below), a Sales Motivation App From Salesforce.com

This is what #GWOP is about, starting business, creating jobs and making people lives bettter.

According to ESPN,

Allen Iverson earned over $200 million in his NBA career and is broke and in debt.

Antoine Walker (university of Kentucky) earned over $110 million in his 12 year NBA career and is broke and in debt.

Moral of the story: Don’t gamble. Save your money and start a business (not a record label). Be a entrepreneur.

LA Lakers: The NBA’s Most Valuable Franchise

By GWOP

January 25, 2012

Jerry Buss

5 Comments

LA Lakers' Owner Jerry Buss pictured above with Derek Fisher and Kobe Bryant

The LA Lakers are the most valuable franchise in the NBA. According to Forbes: “Blockbuster television deals and a new collective bargaining agreement have lifted the value of the average NBA team to a record $393 million, up 6.5% over last year. No team has benefited more from the explosion in TV money than the Los Angeles Lakers, who have unseated the New York Knicks as the league’s most valuable franchise. The Lakers struck gold last year with a new 20-year television deal with Time Warner Cable worth an average of $200 million annually beginning with the 2012–13 season. The agreement drives the value of the Lakers up an NBA-high 40% to $900 million. Read More

LA Dodgers owe $555 million, Most indebted Baseball team in history

By GWOP

November 17, 2011

GWOP

1 Comment

Spotted: Forbes
Whom ever buys the Los Angeles Dodgers in a bankruptcy court-led sale from Frank McCourt will have a stack of IOUs to deal with.

The baseball team and its related entities now owe $555 million, according to people familiar with the finances.

McCourt securitized a large portion of the team’s ticket revenue in two trusts for which there is $390 million of debt attached. Annual principal and interest payments on the debt is around $32 million a year, meaning in 2010 the team, which gets the ticket revenue after the debt payments, would have received $70 million of the $102 million the Dodgers pulled in from ticket sales. For 2011, as attendance fell 17%, the team would have only received about $50 million.

The Dodgers also have borrowed $55 million from Major League Baseball’s credit facility and have used $80 million of debtor-in-possession financing from the league. On top of that, McCourt borrowed $30 million from Fox so he could meet payroll this past season. And the team is not off the hook from paying into MLB’s revenue-sharing system, which cost the Dodgers over $30 million in 2010.

All of these liabilities make the Dodgers, which forbes valued at $800 million in March, the most indebted team in baseball history.