461: NFL Extravaganza: BuyTheBroncos DOA! (with Sean O'Brien)

Brian Nichols 0:25

Instead of focusing on winning arguments, we're teaching the basic fundamentals of sales and marketing and how we can use them to win in the world of politics teaching you how to meet people where they're at on the issues. They are about. Welcome to The Brian Nichols Show. Wow, happy Tuesday there, folks, Brian Nichols here on The Brian Nichols Show. And thank you for joining us on of course another fun filled episode and this is an episode I'm particularly excited about because we're gonna be talking some football and I'm a big football fan and you guys know my cross to bear I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. But today, are we talking to somebody who's not Dallas Cowboys? Fans matter of fact, they're a Broncos fan. They're trying to buy the Broncos Sean O'Brien welcome here to The Brian Nichols Show. doing quite well and honestly I feel I'm do a little better than I deserve. I made the move out here to the Midwest. I'm a little bit closer to Denver. So I'm in your area, but I'm actually right outside of Indy. So out from the northeast, I'm feeling great. How are you? How are things over in your neck of the woods.

Sean O'Brien 1:23

If we're able to be successful collectively, you can wear your Broncos jerseys on the outside for your cowboys.

Brian Nichols 1:31

I'll take that for what it's worth. Absolutely. But hey, I think you actually are maybe selling yourself a little short because you have a really cool idea here and that is to take a decentralized autonomous organization using cryptocurrency and going out of your way to try a by a billion in this case $4 billion NFL team. How cool is that? Shawn, let's start things off here. Number one, introduce yourself to the audience because this is a fantastic way to start things off. And number two, how did you get to the position where you're helping Lena Dow to possibly buy the Denver Broncos

Sean O'Brien 2:07

question first part I know quick background myself. So I despite the long hair and Shaggy look. I have a JD MBA worked in the tech company for over a decade the legal department like two years ago stepped away from that life to start a couple of small businesses with my wife and things are going great. So I consider myself a recovering type A personality trying to chill out in the life in that respect. Dancer second question of how do we get here? Through failure to be honest, you know we had this idea for a while and being there we live in the Midwest and our Broncos fans we knew that that the Broncos after Pat bones acid we knew the Broncos were going for sale eventually based on kind of a the lay of the land and we had looked at a couple of other opportunities kind of honed our craft I guess for lack of a better term and and you know the last few weeks made our efforts public made ourselves known and are currently building up a team and will be going live with a number of the deltoid mechanisms here soon.

Brian Nichols 3:19

Wow. That's so cool. I also I mean, I was mentioned this beforehand. Not only are you in the process of looking at buying the Denver Broncos, but also the Broncos are having some pretty exciting things happening. He's got Russell Wilson from the Seattle Seahawks. So you have a quarterback for the future right so you can build around that. That's good. Say those piggy banks they're gonna have to keep on getting bigger but uh, it's exciting because we talked about this beforehand. We are seeing an opportunity now for anyone really to get involved and in this case, by an NFL team, and we were talking beforehand, too. There was an I forget the specifics, but I know there's a group of folks who also formed a doubt and they're trying to buy a copy of the US Constitution. And you see that this this mentality of almost crowdsourcing, but utilizing the newer technologies that are out there, now all sudden it becomes a lot easier. So let's start off by the very basics here for the audience. Because I know a lot of us we're not all crypto and blockchain experts so what is a Dow and how are we going to be able to use this to possibly buy the Denver Broncos

Sean O'Brien 4:26

folks utilize different analogies to kind of explain it best to do in a quick, succinct way. So essentially a Dow is you know, it's built on the blockchain. It's transparent. It's built using what are called smart contracts. And it's a way for people across the board from all walks of life to pool their resources or their efforts together to accomplish a goal or a task or to manage, you know, some sort of asset. And so what we've done is we've set up a system wherein people from all across the globe if they so desire can participate in the DAO as a member of a dowel and technically illegal member of a cooperative. We've established a legal cooperative to house this. And as a member of the legal cooperative, the big thing about that is that you have the ability to not only vote on decisions that the cooperative makes the down payment, or you also can participate in is further it's a well being. And by doing that, it's a little bit getting a little nuancing into the weeds, but it allows for folks to engage with the doubt slash cooperative and if the dowel slash cooperative turns a profit, they are able to potentially reap benefits financial benefits based on their what's called patronage. And so with a doubt not to get too deep into the weeds with it now the net net is folks from all over the world can come together to raise funds to acquire the Denver Broncos. And then through that they will have voting rights, participatory rights and all sorts of other benefits that flow from it for everything ranging from you know, discounts to games to merge to gamification within the Dow and things of that nature. And and so people have an actual skin in the game and ownership in the team. And also if the team turns a profit, they will potentially be able to receive a dividend based on what the downsides

Brian Nichols 6:28

and what's like look at an NFL team are those sound investments? Well, I have my original statement was I'm a Cowboys fan and back in night 1989 At the tender age of 46 years old, Jerry Jones bought the Dallas Cowboys for $140 million. Now, Shawn, if you had to guess what do you think the Dallas Cowboys are worth?

Sean O'Brien 6:57

Or put up their list every year? I'm going to put them somewhere in the $5 billion range

Brian Nichols 7:03

even more so $6.5 billion as of the most recent Forbes listing so

Sean O'Brien 7:13

most valuable teams in the world.

Brian Nichols 7:16

I think that's a pretty darn good return on investment though. And think about what we're creating here and what this is gonna in terms of an opportunity really open up the doors for and you mentioned this it can be any fan, anybody can really get involved. And now not only have a real vested interest in the team because they actually have ownership in the team. But to your point, now they have the opportunity to get that return on that investment. So you're not just sitting there every single Sunday or Monday night and watching your team either win or lose but now you're actually having a vested stake in the team's overall success be that on the field but also off the field. That's pretty cool.

Sean O'Brien 7:56

Yeah. The fans are the lifeblood of the team. The fans are the folks who fill the stadiums are the ones who sit outside and tailgate before the games. You know, they're the ones who wear the jerseys, you know, to the grocery store. You know, they're the ones who got the signed jerseys behind them on their wall when they go to sleep at night. You know, I mean, it's no secret that the fans are the ones who make the team tick. And we believe that it's time for that to be recognized within the league structure. And, you know, I think that another big benefit of that is that you know, players also I think, to some extent, have a lot to gain from this sort of business model because the fans are inherently going to treat the players better, I think because you know, fans love the players and fans, you know, have an emotional attachment that I think sometimes is left by the wayside when it is simply run purely from an economics perspective as a business. And so, you know, having that level of engagement just makes sense. And we think that it's coming. And so we say why not us, right, it's going to happen, that, you know, finally the technology has caught up with the concept, right? It's kind of you know, it sounds dumb, but it's, you know, it's like space exploration right now. Right? The technology is finally caught up with the idea that there can be commercial flights into space, and that's why it's happening. The reason that we're trying to do this is that the technology is finally caught up with the idea of true fan ownership, true fan participation and true fan Venters benefit when it comes to non felting.

Brian Nichols 9:38

So let's go and you mentioned them the players I'm curious about the players aspect, he actually had a former player for the Broncos Russell Okun he's really big into cryptocurrency and I'm, I'm kind of wondering, and I'm not sure this might actually go into some rules in the NFL so please enlighten me if this is the case. But we see a lot of players talk about well, there's all this white ownership in the NFL and maybe we deserve the opportunity to get involved and own some opportunities. Some owns some teams this get the chance for players to almost own the teams that they are in turn getting paid from

Sean O'Brien 10:13

the NFL constitution and bylaws section nine one D allows for players to own part of the team. If they play for that team. It requires executive committee approval. But yeah, in theory, the Bronco player for on the part of the Denver Broncos if we're able to pull this off, wow, that that's the short answer. The long answer is you're exactly right. You know, the NFL has great market penetration the United States there's no question about it. Nine out of the top 10 You know programs in terms of viewership on any given year are going to be NFL games. However, they are struggling with the youth and they're struggling with, you know, their international marketplace. And we think that this is a killer way for them to gain a ton of goodwill but also engage those folks on the level they've never been engaged in before.

Brian Nichols 11:03

Yeah, well if you're somebody overseas, and maybe you're a wayward fan, right, like maybe you're in the United Kingdom, and maybe just maybe the Broncos will come and play overseas once ever, and if that's the case, right? If that's the case, you may be like, Okay, I'm a Broncos fan versus Hey, I'm a Broncos fan in the United Kingdom, and I can actually have a vested ownership in this team. Exactly. Yeah. You become the Broncos owner that's now creating an opportunity not just and I think we think about his fans in the United States exclusively, but now we're creating almost a global opportunity for people to have a vested interest in the professional sports team.

Sean O'Brien 11:44

Nothing against the Cowboys. The Broncos will become the globe's favorite NFL team overnight.

Brian Nichols 11:51

Yeah, literally and Okay, let's talk about the feasibility of this right because this sounds great and I'm excited. And then I look at the price tag. I know David pepper pepper just bought the Carolina Panthers there for just shy of what was it like 3.5 billion or something like that? And I think I saw projection. Well, yeah. Well, the projections for the Broncos though I hate to tell you I'm sure you're aware. I saw that it was ballpark $4 billion. That's billion with a B folks. So that's that's a lot of money. Shawn elephant in the room. Right? How do you see this actually becoming reality? Will it become reality? And if not, what's your goal from this otherwise?

Sean O'Brien 12:35

Reality aspect? And then the second what's the goal because the goal is really important. But in terms of the, the financial aspect, you know, $4 million, with a BA is nothing, you know, to to set aside and we know that that's a lot of money at the same time in terms of global finance and liquidity. That's not that much money on any given day. You know, a an IPO for I always joke and I feel for like a new age catheter to raise that amount of money on the stock exchange. And so when you look at you mentioned, you know, Constitution doubt there are dads out there that have successfully raised a lot of money in a short period of time. There are Dallas, non sports related Dallas, bit doubt is one that comes to mind. I think they're they've raised 1.9 billion plus they have 2.5 billion already invested. So they have raised billions of dollars successfully responsibly and transparently. So we know it can be done in terms of the scalability on the downside. The question is, can it be done in the sports arena? And I think the answer is pretty easily. Oh, these is not a writer. I think it's definitely doable and viable. The question just becomes, whether we're able to get the word out effectively, inform people and, and manage the, you know, kind of the messaging so that folks understand what this is all about. We want people to come in speculatively, we don't want people to come in thinking that this is a get rich quick scheme, because there's none of those things. In fact, we're proceeding with a lot of caution on that front to make sure that when things do happen, people are informed, aware, and you know, very much in favor of what they're participated in and it's not just, you know, it's not just a you know, like, you know, blood in the water kind of feeding frenzy sort of thing right um, to answer your second question of now, I forgot

Brian Nichols 14:27

a second question the feasibility so like if for example, it doesn't happen right. What would what would at least eat? Yeah, the Gobi

Sean O'Brien 14:38

is successful and an operation. You know what? I'm six feet under, you know, we're building this in a way that we want this to be successful to the Broncos, we want it to last. And we want it to be something that operates you know, obviously with adjustments as time goes on, but operates successfully, or the Denver Broncos, the betterment of Broncos country, you know into the next generation. And that's why we're, we that's why we have a whole team of legal folks. We have a whole team of accountants, we have a whole team of dads we have really built up a group of people to look at this from every angle when it comes to the infrastructure and the and you know, the viability of it to withstand kind of, you know, kind of the long term. You know, the long term hits that it might take even financial hits, and so we have some backdrop textiles for that. To answer your question in terms of goals as a doubt. You know, honestly, one of the other things that we really hope happens is that people in just the kind of general world, not the web three part of life, but just the general world start to see hey, you know what, if a dowel can do this with the Denver Broncos, there are so many applications of a doubt that doesn't take a nonprofit. It doesn't take a government agency. It doesn't take any of these other kind of machinations of governing bodies that can be lethargic, they can be costly. They can really be one sided, etc. but rather it's a group truly of people collectively united for a single purpose or multiple purposes, but typically a single purpose can come together and make something happen. And so something as simple as, you know, folks owning their own apartment complex rather than having a landlord you could doubt that you can put that into doubt you could have governance principles, not have an HOA and people would actually have a tangible asset but they don't collectively. And I think that sort of happened some degree. But if I'm being honest, that sort of thing is not as sexy as what we're trying to do. Yeah, terms of getting the word out collectively across the globe. And so that's our hope is that it spreads the word outside of what we're focused on here with our kind of myopic view. But in general, people really start to clueing, like, again, Dallas have a lot of utility in the real world. Let's see what we can do with this because there are people way smarter than me who are going to make Dallas do amazing things.

Brian Nichols 17:00

The tech now and I think you talked about this before the technology now being to the point where it's meeting the ideas and that's the part that was missing before and now that we're there. I mean, I'm in technology sales I get it like we've seen technology over the past five years just exponentially get exploding and the next five years what's next five months gonna be honestly so let me let me ask you this because I mean, while I'm sure us on this side of the conversation, have been enjoying everything you're talking about and bring to the table. I'm sure there's gonna be 31 or so individuals who are leading other NFL teams who are like, huh, this is interesting. What do you think the feedbacks gonna be Shawn from NFL ownership.

Sean O'Brien 17:47

So, I will if I can on premises with premise with a couple of things because we know we're facing those headwinds. We have a few tailwinds. First off. Gratefully, the governor of Colorado is very tech savvy and very much on board with the movement towards

Brian Nichols 18:10

cryptocurrency Jared Polis, right? Yes,

Sean O'Brien 18:13

exactly. He made his money off of tech. He in the House of Representatives. He was the first person I believe, to accept Bitcoin as a method of supporting his candidacy. He founded and co chaired the blockchain Caucus in the House burned Linux and I think this summer, Colorado is poised to be the first state to accept Bitcoin as a method of paying your taxes on top. And so he is I can't say that he is supporting us in the sense of, you know, rooting for us, but he has definitely been very much instrumental in giving some very positive praise. And we're very grateful for that. On top of that, Colorado has a cooperative law as I mentioned at the outset, the way we're legally cooperative, that is ideal, we think the preeminent version of a cooperative law to make this sort of thing happen. In addition to those two things, the other kind of tailwind is that while it is unfortunate that Mr. Bolen has passed, the Broncos are typically in a state sale. And that is different from a traditional sale of an NFL team where it's a living person or living, you know, group represented by an entity selling the team. The state sale has legal obligation to some extent to sell to the highest bidder and so some of the control that the NFL typically yields or wields rather in these sorts of scenarios has been taken away through this estate sale process or will be taken away through the sale process review those as being tailwinds among amongst amongst others, but to answer your question more directly, we think that when it comes to the NFL, the constitution and bylaws they are they'll have some limitations. However, those limitations are very specific, essentially, not to get too deep into the weeds but there's a I think it's a 293 page document or something like that. So there's a lot in there but the net that is the NFL limits ownership to five different buckets are five groups. You're either an individual, you are an association, you're a corporation, a partnership, or what they call an other entity. So we are a legal cooperative. And so we are not one of these first five, we are the other entity and when you look at the limitations, specifically within the constitution and bylaws of the NFL, when they say things like, for example limited partnerships are limited to 25 partners or less. Again, that applies specifically to limited partnerships. So all the constraints that they've applied, are specific to limited partnerships, corporations, and LLCs, of which we are neither of those three things. And so we are in the default of section I think is 3.5 of just a new owner or a you know, a transfer of ownership. And so that's our perspective. On how we would approach it. Now that being said, your question is more to the opinion of the 30 owners and the other of the other organizations having me do this, we think that their initial, you know, you know, reaction will be one of skepticism and that's fair. We think that's reasonable, but we know that they're smart, pretty savvy business folks who have done well for themselves in this in this world in that respect, and they will ultimately see that benefit for themselves in adopting this business model at some point either in a small degree or whatever capacity they deem fit. Because again, what we're bringing to the table is not only fan engagement at a level that's never existed, we're bringing youth and we're bringing an international marketplace. Those last two things The NFL has struggled with for years and years and years. It's no secret and so we think that ultimately they will view this as, at the very least a step forward from a goodwill perspective, but also financially, a huge boon for the league and for each individual team.

Brian Nichols 22:06

Wow. Well, we are at the tail end of the conversation, Shawn, so no, no, no, that's that's that people like to hear me not talk so that's a good thing. Oh, no, I promise you I get the emails um, but with that being said, How about this because I'm a sales guy at heart and I always have to have the call to action. So folks, they're interested in being a Broncos owner or if they are a Broncos fan, they say hey, maybe I should get a return on the investment. How can they get involved What's the action items on their end?

Sean O'Brien 22:36

So we are intentionally proceeding slowly and so right now we are not live in terms of raising funds that will happen here soon, but we wanted to again familiarize and mature the idea in the marketplace so more sustainably. Follow us on our socials by the Broncos it's that simple. By the Broncos on Twitter by the Broncos on Discord or our website you can sign up to receive emails. We will not spam you we will send you only pertinent you know information that is germane to when things go live which will be here shortly. And if you have questions we will answer those so yeah, by the Broncos on Twitter and discord.

Brian Nichols 23:15

Wow. Alright folks, well, you have your call to action. Shawn, this has been a fantastic conversation and obviously, we're gonna make it easy for folks as much as we can at least please, all we're gonna do folks is all you have to do is hit the little artwork in your show notes. It'll bring you to today's episode where you can find Shawn's bio all the links, plus the entire transcript of today's episode. But yes, this is an exciting, exciting new adventure that we're going to be able to go on I think all of us together seeing as technology grows and what new opportunities is going to open up not just for buying the Denver Broncos but yes, so many other areas in in life in in it's exciting because it is the beginning is amenable Sean O'Brien thank you for joining us on the show today folks, please do us a favor. If you enjoy the episode. Please share the episode with family and friends. And when you do make sure you tell him that Brian Nichols sent you but that being said that was Brian Nichols signing off. You're on The Brian Nichols Show first Sean O'Brien from by the Broncos. We'll see you tomorrow.