Getty Image / Cooper Neill
Professional athletes are more creative than ever when it comes to making money. Whether it’s taking endorsement money via cryptocurrency like Saquon Barkley or deferring salary well down the road like Shohei Ohtani did, they’re always looking for different ways to achieve their financial and on-field goals.
Enter Denver Broncos linebacker Baron Browning. He’s offering fans a unique way to get a share of his earnings on his next contract for the price of a couple of cups of coffee.
Browning, in conjunction with Vestible Inc, is selling shares of his future earnings at $10 a share. They are selling 100,000 shares, which will raise $1 million. In return, shareholders are entitled to a collective 1% of his future on-field earnings.
A viral TikTok outlined the unique business plan. Take a look.
Browning is in the final year of his 4-year $4.7 million rookie deal. The 25-year-old out of Ohio State should be in line for a big raise, whether that comes in the final weeks of this offseason or after next year.
After playing as a box linebacker during his college career and his first year with Denver after being taken in the third round of the 2021 NFL Draft, he moved to outside linebacker. There, he’s blossomed as an edge rusher as he learns the finer points of the position.
In the last two years, Browning has 9.5 sacks in 24 games, a pretty impressive. total considering the position change. He graded out well last year overall, and was solid against the run.
The league loves to pay pass-rushers. You don’t even have to a be a bona fide superstar to get big money as an edge rusher. It’s not unreasonable that Browning could get a long-term deal that pays him well over $10 million a year.
Does that math work out? According to the Seattle Times, investors will get monthly dividend checks and the ability to trade their shares on Vestible’s trading platform.
I am not a mathematician, but it seems unlikely that you’d earn back you original investment. My back-of-the-paper math says that Browning would have to earn over $100,000,000 on the field for investors to make their money back on dividends.
This isn’t the first time an athlete has tried something similar to this. Former Florida State quarterback and Buffalo Bills first-round pick EJ Manuel did something similar with the company Fantex in 2014. That proved to be a pretty big bust. Maybe he was just ahead of his time, though.