Sports Storytelling And Investing With Jai Khanna Of Victory Ventures

Investing and storytelling are two vastly different industries, but Jai Khanna made them work together flawlessly. He joins Scott Kelly to share about his winning strategies behind Victory Media, a platform focused on evergreen sports stories, and Victory Ventures, an investment firm dedicated to founder-led consumer brands. He explains their approaches to telling athlete stories beyond the field and making brand endorsements more authentic. Learn how to take the reins of media distribution and achieve long-term stability in your ventures.

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Sports Storytelling And Investing With Jai Khanna Of Victory Ventures

I was excited to have this interview with a friend I’ve known for several years, Jai Khanna. He’s a veteran media executive, producer, and entrepreneur. He’s the founder of Victory Ventures, an investment firm and incubation platform partnering with celebrities and athletes to launch and scale consumer-facing brands. He has vast experience. He spent 22 years as a talent manager and producer at Brillstein Entertainment. He led, built, and collaborated with A-list talent across film, television, sports, and culture.

During that time, he helped change and achieve careers, package products, and work closely with athletes and artists to extend their influence beyond content into durable businesses. At Victory Ventures, Jai is applying that experience to identifying, backing, and building high-growth consumer brands alongside founders, creators, and strategic partners. His work sits at the intersection of storytelling and disciplined investing with a focus on brands that have authentic voices, cultural relevance, and long-term stability.

I encourage you, as you tune in to this, to understand this is a person who has filmed great episodes that you can find on all streaming networks. He’s constantly in Variety magazine, but now he’s taken the skills as a talented executive and producer in the entertainment field, and not only creating great content, but creating great brands and investing in those great athletes and entertainment-based brands. Tune in. I’ll come back with my outtakes and key points soon.

I’m excited to bring on a friend I’ve known for a while, who launched his new fund, Jai Khanna of Victory Ventures. Welcome, Jai.

Thanks, Scott. Good to be with you. I appreciate you having me.

Jai’s Prolific Background In Film And Entertainment

Before we get into that, you’ve got a prolific background in the film and entertainment industry. Maybe share a bit of your background before you decided to launch Victory Ventures.

I’ve been in the entertainment media space for probably the past 25-plus years, mostly as a talent manager for 22 years at a firm called Brillstein. It used to be called Brillstein-Grey, now Brillstein Entertainment Partners. That’s been my foundation. I was there for 21-plus years. That informs a lot of my background, my resources, and my thinking.

It’s a talent management firm at its core, representing A-list talent, curating content, and helping map out strategy, plans, and long-term goals for clients. To the credit of the company, they have an immense track record. I am fortunate to be a part of that. That informs my world. I deal a lot at the intersection with talent, very intimately with more specifically actors and athletes, and then also a lot of content creation that we’ve done for a long time.

The Origin Story Of Victory Media

Let’s talk about the content creation. You’re involved in two intersections of things I’m a big fan of, which are sports and entertainment. You launched Victory Media. You’ve been featuring some of the most prolific athletes in the history of sports. Share a little bit more about what you have done there.

We’re always looking at what’s happening in the marketplace. That informs. I’ve come from a traditional content curation mindset of scripted TV shows and films, and around a lot of A-list stars and all different genres and comedy. Come COVID, I had hit the marketplace and the strikes, the actors’ strike and the writers’ strike that hit in 2021. That forced us to pivot a little bit into our skill set of storytelling.

What is the audience looking for? What are the buyers looking for? Sports came to us as something that’s not going anywhere. It’s a unifier in sports. Amongst all the noise, we can admittedly say, and I’m a part of it, there’s a lot to watch out there. We’re probably still scrolling endlessly, and we still can’t find something to watch. Sport, in particular, which I love, is not a new concept, but it has risen out of everything here a little bit over the past couple of years.

With all the noise out there, maybe in the world, politics, race, and everything, here’s a unifier. Sports stories are something that we went all in on. We talked to all the buyers and streamers and said, “This is what our audience wants. This is what they’re gravitating towards. A husband and a wife can sit down and watch together. They can watch with their kids.” It checked off a lot of boxes. We went all in, but again, that pulls a lot of our resources on. You still have to tell a great story. I’m the audience for all this stuff.

We say sports, not about the sport. These are all human interest stories. Sports are there as the backdrop, but something that we can relate to. That’s where we went all in. Maybe it’s where I’m at in life, too. These stories all have great themes to them, inspiring, overcoming obstacles, chasing your dreams, and all these things that pertain to everybody. That’s where we shifted and pivoted to doing that. We’ve been doing that very well in the last several years. We’ll hop into it, but that started to give us a lot more access, not just with actors with whom I already had that access, but with athletes.

The Good, The Bad, And The Future Of Media Entertainment

You have been in the media entertainment space for a long time. You’ve seen a lot of changes. Maybe give us your perspective on where you see the distribution of media, from going to the theaters to watching streaming to watching TikTok. Where do you see the industry? What’s the good, bad, and the future?

We all talk about this. I’ve gotten a little bit clearer about it and a little bit more simplistic. Content isn’t going anywhere. We say this. Whether people are going to watch content now, how they watch is going to keep evolving. All that is a little bit out of our hands in terms of whether you go to the movie theater. I’m guilty of it. I couldn’t tell you when I went to the movie theater last because our home systems are so good now. We can sit at home. We can upgrade those.

Here comes social media. Every person essentially has their own channel. You can curate your own channel. You can create and launch your own channel on YouTube and all that. It’s a little overwhelming. All the dust will settle. The more interesting, the more compelling content, people, and influencers, those guys will rise to the top. It’s a little bit of the Wild West. For our purposes and our business, it isn’t going anywhere. You still have to tell great stories. It still has to be premium-level content.

That’s the world that we live in. It’s the only world I know. We don’t create content for YouTube necessarily. I appreciate that it’s a platform for everybody. We want to hit home runs. Our goal is to get as many eyeballs on what we’re doing, whether it’s a scripted or a documentary. It’s going to be interesting. You’re seeing some consolidation, with Warner Bros., Netflix, Skydance, and Paramount. That’s changing the guard.

I’ve been around a long time to see this. Amazon did it with MGM. I don’t think anyone’s talking about that anymore. It came and went. Amazon acquired MGM, which was a big move. It’s fine. I don’t necessarily subscribe to all the doom and gloom of what’s going on here. It raises the bar for us in terms of what we’re doing. We hear this from all the buyers and our partners. We challenge the content creators. What’s unique about it? What is different? What is compelling about it?

I don’t have a crystal ball, but this is what we do. We’re not going anywhere. We’re having to adapt, to be honest with you, but it’s fascinating to me. Essentially, social media gave everyone their own channel. I’m not sure if everyone warrants their own channel, but it gave everyone a channel. They’re curating their own form of content. It is interesting and tricky. We’ll see how it evolves. I could probably ask you the same. As a parent, kids are watching YouTube. I’m not sure most people are watching streamers.

It’s interesting. In my home, we had eight TVs, 90 inches all the way down to the 75-inch TVs in each of my boys’ rooms. They would have the TV off and be sitting there on their phone constantly, watching it on their phone. As an older person, I was flabbergasted. We have this beautiful screen, this whole surround sound, and you’re watching on your phone.

That’s the challenging part and a little bit discouraging. You can’t get too down the rabbit hole, but the quality of what we want to output, we expect it to live on a larger screen. Ultimately, someone’s watching on a phone. It breaks your heart a little bit in terms of people don’t realize when that scene or the whole crew behind it, and how well it was lit, or things like that. We’ll see. I think it’ll come back around. We talk about watching it amongst others, and watching it in an environment. That is very experiential. We keep talking a lot about that. It’s going to have to be special for all of us to have to go out to the movie theater.

Telling Authentic Stories Of Athletes

It’s got to be worth it. I want to touch on the venture side in a couple of minutes, but I want to spend a few more minutes on the success on the media side. You talk about content and your relationship with athletes and entertainers. Talk about how you’re getting this content. How are you getting these great stories? Maybe share some of the stories that you’ve put out that have been great.

A lot of it’s from our network, which is nice to be at a certain place in career with the business changing, people working remotely, some newcomers coming in, and agencies merging. A lot of us who’ve been around for a long time did our work in terms of all the relationships that we needed to foster at that time. I’m sure you did as well, all the breakfast, lunch, and drinks, which we don’t want to be doing anymore. All the stuff that we did for twenty-plus years to build a great network, that’s the network now. All of my friends, to their credit, are doing very well and are high-profile. They are managers who run streaming networks.

It’s nice. It’s interesting. I would say COVID, to come back to that, when people weren’t able to meet and introduce themselves, the network became this interesting access of information amongst people that we liked and trusted and said, “Here’s what I got. I know you. Here’s what we’re thinking about. What do you think?” That’s half of it. It’s taken some time to get to that place. A lot of it’s about trust. It’s cliché. We always say everyone is a producer everywhere. Everyone’s got a script. Everyone’s got a deck and all these things like that.

Where we sit uniquely, we’re in the trenches. I’ve been in LA. My partners have all been in LA. This is where we are. We do meet, sit there, go into the offices, and do all that. The information, the access, is still here. It is unique. The stories and things that have come, honestly, are a little bit of a changing of the times. With sports, athletes recognize their voice is valuable. That’s changed a lot. If you think, we go back to athletes like Jordan and guys who didn’t have social media, and the impact that they made. This generation is not even this next, but ongoing for a while. These athletes recognize they have a powerful platform and voice.

Athletes are very unique because of how authentic they are as opposed to actors. We don’t all know actors well. We see them play a role. It’s a matter of, “How much are they going to share with us or not?” Athletes, in particular, are authentic to a fault because we see them play. We see their emotions. We’re all a part of that moment in the history of sports, too, of something that resonates with us.

What’s happened, to the credit of athletes, and a way for them to connect with their fan base even further, is that there are stories that these guys want to tell. These guys want to open up a lot more about what happened during that moment, or something that happened in their work or on their team. What we always say is we’re interested in those stories of what happened off the field. What happened off the court? You and I can watch highlights all day long on YouTube. All the highlights are there of all these guys as pros.

What became very interesting was that there was a bigger interest, and it goes into what we’re talking about, even why they’re creating brands of this authenticity with their fan base and wanting them to connect with their audience. That’s where there’s a lot of incoming calls, honestly, which we get from agents, athletes, and others about wanting to tell their stories. Our job is to back a little bit more. What’s worthwhile? Why now? There’s a little bit of joking. It’s not hard to get an athlete on a Zoom because there’s a little bit of an ego thing here, too. Everyone wants to tell their story, which is fair enough.

Our job is a little bit on the other half of it to counterbalance. What’s going to be an interesting story? What are we learning? Why now? All these things that we talk about. That’s what’s been great, by the way. There have been stories that have come back a while back, of some moment in sports history, which we all grew up with. We want to tell that story, and it brings out a certain emotion in us. We don’t necessarily have to get those incoming calls. There’s not even a lot of outreach. These stories are out there. It’s been a lot of fun. You and I could chat about sports. Sports have changed a lot.

It doesn’t have to be about the A-list guys, Jordan, Kobe, Tom Brady, and the Goats. Sports include telling some stories about sports, crime that’s happening, women’s sports, sports culture, and sports fashion. That’s what’s been great. ESPN has been handling the space extremely well for years. It opened up outside, and everyone wanted to do what they were doing at that moment. It was a niche of sports fans. We’ve gotten a lot.

We’re doing one right now with the Seattle Seahawks team. As an example, the story came to us. It’s a beautiful, inspiring story about when the team was going to move. This happened in the ‘90s. It’s a story that we didn’t know about. Someone had brought it. There was such an uproar amongst the fans in Seattle as a city to want to keep their team there. That to us scratched the surface of it speaks to other things going on, but all these teams would relocate. I’m from Oakland. The Oakland Raiders are gone. The Oakland A’s are gone. These are teams I grew up with.

You know that firsthand.

Just to share with you how we’re looking at things, not just what happened in a moment in time in Seattle, but that story is about sports, how important it is to people who live there, and how important it was to be able to stop that move. It’s a pretty amazing story, but also, it hit us on all the teams relocating, this and that, and how much it affects stories you’ll have with your son on a team that you grew up with, which isn’t there anymore, or these jerseys that we all wear of a team.

There are things that we’re doing. We’ve got some A-list athletes that we’re profiling, which I can’t quite talk about yet. Those are stories about not just their on-field accomplishments. What are they doing off the field? There are a lot of people who don’t know. It tells a story there that people can learn from a lot, but also people who are huge fans of these athletes to get re-engaged and reconnected.

I’m not sure if I’m answering your question, but getting these stories, we talk about it constantly right now. There are things that we’re looking at. We’re looking at some books and some stories that some journalists have written, and that help create an outline for a series or a doc. Sometimes, one athlete or one subject doesn’t warrant an entire film. Maybe it’s one episode of a series of things. These are things we’re working through and challenging ourselves with, and how the industry is changing a little bit, which we’ll get into, but the short attention span, too.

A Different Approach To Endorsements At Victory Ventures

Let’s talk about the next piece, Victory Ventures. You mentioned on social media, and I decided to jump on it right away, that you are going to take all your experience from the management side and the content creation side and launch Victory Ventures. Share a little bit about the rationale, the thesis, and the idea behind that.

We’ve been doing this for a while. We’ve been doing it quietly. As a manager, this has been going on for a while in our business. When you’re a talent manager, you sit very closely aligned with talent. You have those intimate conversations. You’re mapping out strategy and long-term goals. What do you want to be doing? This goes way back. Honestly, we’ve gotten to a point of including more athletes because of our access to all the sports content.

I am hearing this as well with brands. There’s an ongoing challenge with brands. Advertising is tricky. How do they get their brands out there? The collaboration with celebrities, talent, athletes, and influencers is not a new model. The audience is very sophisticated. They know when a celebrity is on as an endorser, as opposed to someone who’s a genuine owner, founder, roll up your sleeves. You take the risk.

That’s our value add of knowing the ones that are actually going to do the work because there are a lot who talk about it. They have a lot who want to do it, but they’re not wired that way. You would think the A-list of the A-list say they want to do it. Maybe this is not what keeps them going. It’s a pain in the ass. There are things that they’re not going to end up as opposed to others truly admiring. You see it. It pays off because they’re doing the work. They crave it. They’re in the trenches. They’re in the weeds on how to get a business off the ground.

It became clearer the more access we have. We sit in a very unique spot. When you’re a content creator, you’re dealing with talent in an intimate way. We’re dealing with them, to be honest with you, outside of all the noise. I’m not having to deal with their reps, their advisors, and people like that in a way, which we will eventually. There’s a unique spot to hear authentically. What does someone want to do? What are they willing to do? How much are they willing to invest? What is their roadmap? What support do these guys need?

We’re hit over the head with a little bit of it. We don’t sit as outsiders. It’s harder for outsiders. You hope someone curates all this. If it’s you as an investor or others, you hope it’s curated. Here comes a deck, and we’re raising X amount. We sit in a very early stage. The things that we want to invest in, we genuinely feel like there’s been a lot of work done. There’s been a lot of assessment to have a lot of confidence that this is worthwhile, that we see an exit here on this.

That’s what started this. We’re seeing it a lot in the wellness space, on the beauty space, the alcohol space, that lane of what clients are doing. Where we do sit, and we are humble in the sense that we do take things slower, we’re more strategic. There is a little bit of an impression. There’s so much out there. There’s a lot of noise. Every A-list actor has their vodka brand or their tequila brand. We get it. The consumers are smart. That will start to settle down.

We’ve been good at saying, “Let’s roll up our sleeves with a few folks.” The intel we’re getting is very interesting. It’s valuable. It’s prior to it getting out there. I’m much more sensitive to this. It’s prior to getting out there, where it does get a little convoluted. There’s more noise. There are more voices in there. We’re sensitive. How can we continue with our thesis without the noise and the hype? For us, it’s a business. It’s not a hobby.

When you’re investing with these brands, whether it be athletes, actors, or some combination, are there particular industries that you are focusing on or industries you’re staying away from?

Not necessarily. We’re looking at something, for example, with Snoop Dogg. He has an ice cream brand that he’s working on and launching. He’s been very successful at it. It came to us from one of our partners. It’s been around for maybe a year or two and is doing well. You wouldn’t think that would be an organic connection. We’re not staying away from anything. It is the talent. What are they willing to do? How much are they championing this? How organic is it to them and their lifestyle? How much are they willing for it to be a genuine part?

I didn’t know this. The ice cream folks all know. He’s a huge connoisseur. You don’t rule out. The talent can have a lot of different interests. It doesn’t have to be just vodka. It doesn’t have to be just the main. They could be launching something. I don’t think there’s anything to stay away from. That would be short-sighted on our part. It’s looking at what checks off the boxes. Even if it’s an actress, she’s launching some haircare line or some product there, you look at the fact that an A-list premium actress, you would think that space is okay. It’s completely saturated.

You take a step back. You see someone. It’s their first entry into this. They’ve never done this before. There’s something about it. It’s very new, fresh, and authentic. If she had done a handful of other ones previously, it’s not that interesting. You see that she’s invested a lot of her own money into it. There are other aspects of it, being environmentally and all these other things that people will now obviously take into consideration.

Our job goes back to vet. The industry is not going to stay clear of. We’re not going to jump off hype. There is stuff that’s great out there. I’m sure it works. You got The Rock, Ryan Reynolds, Kevin Hart, and all these people who do great stuff. Those guys are off to the races. We’re much more sophisticated. Let’s look at the talent as an owner and as a founder. Is this someone who’s going to roll up their sleeves?

Separating Brand Endorsement From Business Ownership

As you mentioned, there are a lot of celebrities putting their name on brands. Some of them are doing it for the paycheck, and some are doing it because they’re building something that’s their own. What other aspects of the business do you, as an investor, look at outside of the celebrity and the product they are trying to promote? As an investor, you want to get a return of your capital and return on your capital. What other things do you look at in the rest of the team? Do you help build the team around it? Do they come in with a team?

It’s all the above. That’s what I was going to say. That’s a big key component. We don’t come in at the seed level of it. There are our partners, others, people that we will introduce some of the talent to, and the athletes, to help get this off the ground and create that team. I’m with you. We’re not wired that way. It’s a very calculated risk. We’ll see a lot of other investors already in. We’ll see them circling. It’s a great endorsement. For us, we know what we don’t know. If there’s some momentum building and there’s tangible, we don’t have a crystal ball.

Again, we don’t go off hype. It’s not what this could be. That’s not a business model. The team is interesting, the traction is interesting, their own personal investment, it’s been interesting to check off these boxes. It’s a very easy way for us to look at because some brands will come to them and have them white-label all day long. That’s something which we’ve seen a lot. That’s fine. It’s at no cost. You give the talent a percentage, a big fee. If it fails, it fails. It’s no harm to anybody. We’re in tune with maybe what has happened.

From the consumer side of it, we look at it from that side of it, not just as investors, but as consumers. It gives me a lot of confidence when I see other investors in it, when I see someone already starting to map out sales and distribution, and they’re already in certain stores, or look at these X number of investors that are already in. I can’t get too specific on certain ones. As soon as you see a list and names, and you’re like, “Check,” and then you see that person themselves, which is what we want to see, we want to see them invest themselves.

It’s not just their name. We want them to put some skin in the game, as everybody says. I like that. You will see a lot more talent doing that or has been doing that. That has raised the bar from others who are like, “I’m not going to. Hire me and use my name. That has a value to it,” as opposed to others who are like, “I’m going to put in X millions of dollars to get this off.” You could probably speak to that, too. I like that. It sounds right to me. The hype and the Hollywoodness of it’s over. People know stars and everything, but it’s not so enamored anymore. How long are you going to hang with this?

That was always the case, too. You see a client. They’re along with a product for six months, and they’re gone. The audience would say, “What happened?” She got paid for an endorsement deal. That’s what we’re trying to separate, endorsement into ownership. All the endorsement stuff is still happening out there. You’re seeing influencers who will endorse anything. Celebs, you get paid enough, you’ll endorse it. That’s not our lane. That answers your question. It’s been looking at the teams. Also, they’re talking about exit, which is important for us. It’s not, “We’ll keep you posted.”

Creating An Evergreen Library Of Sports Content

It’s important. I tell people all the time, getting the money in is the easy part. Taking the money out is always the more challenging part. You always have to look at the exit in mind. A lot of our audience are investors in venture capital. They are high-net-worth individuals, family offices, wealth managers, and the like. Let’s talk to them for a minute. You have Victory Media. You’ve gotten a lot of investors to participate in that. Maybe share about who the makeup is, not by name. Who would be another ideal investor? We’ll jump to the venture side.

The Victory Media sports side of it has been great. We’ve been very fortunate. I sit at a certain place where there’s a quality to an investor now. Maybe when we’re younger, we represent and work with people, and you have to swallow certain things. Being at a stage, it is a quality investor. All jokes aside, what’s been fun, and I’ll profile, which I’m being selfish about, is that you want people who love sports. That’s been a lot of fun for us to work with those who genuinely love sports.

If you’re going to invest in any of our businesses in movie and entertainment, there has to be an emotion. The ROIs are there. People can make money in other businesses, and we get it. Our strategies are very risk-averse. We’re not reinventing anything. We have everything all mapped out, the ROIs, and things like that. We check off all the boxes in that sense. The investors that we currently have in Victory Media and that we’re out with another round are the ones that recognize the importance of sports, of wanting to tell these stories.

Our goal, very simply, we don’t speak of them as sports docs content. These are assets. We’re essentially creating a library of sports content and sports of all things, compared to any other genre, so it’s evergreen. These stories will endure. These sports stories are not necessarily one-and-done. That’s what our investors have liked. We’re going to create all these assets in a library. This library is going to have a valuation.

Here comes Apple, going to say, “We want this on our platform. We’re going to grab your library.” It’s a very clear roadmap. Again, we’re not reinventing, but that’s our home run play here. The investor profile, we do a lot of high net worth. We deal with family offices. The play is more long-term because when we output content and what comes back in, we probably do a handful of sports docs a year.

For this next year, we’ll probably do about 8 to 10 in a year. One will be a home run. One will break even. One won’t work. It’s a portfolio, but the investors that we have, who I am a big fan of, are genuinely sports fans. It’s a lot of fun when we have these conversations. It’s not just investing. Investing is easy, and we’ll handle that, but we can also talk about ideas and concepts in sports. We’ve attracted investors who want to cherry-pick certain stories. We try not to make that the case because you want to create an engine here. We’re working at a very high level.

I would say to the investors who have similar interests as us, we’re hitting all the major sports. We’re not doing too much of the niche story. We’re doing NFL, NBA, MLB, hockey, soccer, and F1. That’s it. There are a lot of great stories around other things, such as cricket, lacrosse, and pickleball. We have to push back. There’s no audience for that in terms of sales, necessarily. We’ve had investors who have made smaller investments or something larger, but we want them to be excited about that. This is a library that we’re creating. Any of these streamers is not going anywhere.

On the venture capital side of it, with the brand investment, are these the same investors? Are they a different group of investors? What does that makeup look like?

No, those investors are not the same. There are a couple who took an interest. These are traditional investors who would want to come in and invest in a certain company. I’m sorry. I’ll take a step back. At least in our role, we do invest in these. We play some smaller investments, so it’s a little bit more accessible. That means our role in these companies as a VC is somewhere past it, which at the start, is okay for us. We’re fine with it. We have eyes on it. We have trusted people on it.

We want to be a part of the upside of this. It’s a little bit of that mentality from investors, “Let’s get our hands in these.” We’ve created smart teams around it. We’ve checked off the boxes. The other thing is that it depends on the size of the investment. If it’s a smaller investment, we’re fine with it. If it’s larger, you warrant some seats. You warrant some voting rights, but it’s been completely different. It’s not just about sports. This is about brands and advertising.

This is a whole different space. We’re saying, “We’re going to bring an A-list actress. We’re going to bring an athlete to the table who’s doing something or a musician who’s doing something. Let’s check off the boxes. Is this a ride that we want to be a part of?” To emphasize, we made our check sizes intentionally smaller, maybe if that’s good for newer investors, just the accessibility of it. We represent a very unique entry point into these. We’ll have those conversations on these larger check sizes, but there’s no issue of raising, to be honest with you, with these types of names and brands. These guys are off to the races.

We have a small window that shows these. I’m not sure if I sent you a couple of things. Maybe they’re open for a month, and they get filled up. It’s a little bit trying to find, ideally, people who get it. We move fairly quickly. It’s a smaller risk type of investment. In success, we’ll evolve into something bigger and much fancier, but to your point, we also curate content. That helps us get access to a lot of this information.

Why Choose Victory Media And Victory Ventures Right Now

I like to close with this question to everybody. For people tuning in who are considering investing in either Victory Media or Victory Ventures, I’ll ask you from both sides. Why Victory Media and why now? Why Victory Ventures and why now?

For Victory Media on the sports side of it, why now? Sports content is the unifier if you’re going to invest in the content. That’s a first. Someone has to be interested in our space. If you’re going to invest in content of all things to invest into, whether it’s a feature film, a television show, or other things like this, I would strongly encourage and there’s enough information out there that with sports, sports is the one thing that is rising to the surface.

It is the unifier. It’s crossing all different lines and boundaries. We’re in a space of curating sports content, which will support where our industry is going. You’ll see everyone chasing sports rights. Everyone wants to be a team owner. That stuff is all in our world. We deal with team owners who want to shine a light on their teams. We’re curating content for them. Why now? That’s all it is. It’s a very interesting time in the zeitgeist of content.

There’s so much stuff out there. There are so many different voices, styles, platforms, and mediums, but there’s one common thing that we gravitate towards. The one thing that you can’t binge, the one thing you can’t record, is sports. That’s what I would say. We’re uniquely structured as being intentionally lean, as opposed to some other companies. There’s room for all of us. We’re not adversarial in our business. We do a lot with our competitors.

Why us now? We’re a very unique entry point of doing the last 2 to 3 years without any conflicts of interest, without any issues. In due time and success, as we get larger, the investments in the company get more complicated. I would say now is a good time, if someone’s interested and happy to walk them through what that looks like, the ROIs and structures, how we do stuff, how we look at projects, what triggers, and what has to be checked off in terms of a green light.

On the fun side of it, we sit in a unique place of authenticity. There’s a part, as I led with, of the celebrities and athletes. Our job is to come to the investor after doing a lot of this homework, of doing that due diligence. There are firms and people doing it very well who invest in these companies. Some sit on the outside, and there are some that sit on the inside. They all have great, unique track records.

What we’re saying is we sit very uniquely on the inside. It’s an interesting space that, to be honest with you, I take for granted, because we’re in the trenches. We’re just doing our job. Here I am on set with somebody, an A-list athlete, talking about some brand or some product that he loves, that he’s going to go do this. That’s what started to hit us. We’re waking up a little bit. With that information, I would come back to our team, saying, “X Hall of Famer, we’re doing a great story with him.

This information is valuable, just as intel is valuable. There’s a little bit of why us. It’s interesting. I go back to being a content creator. If you’re a traditional fund, you sit on the outside. You curate this. Because of our trust and our track record, we sit with them in a very intimate space, talking about other interests, other things that these guys want to be doing. That’s what we can bring back. “We’ve done the homework.”

I’m going to share someone like Snoop as an example, because of X, Y, and Z, not because it’s Snoop, not because it’s hype, and not because it’s anything. There’s a reason why we think this is going to have legs. That intel is not going to go anywhere because there are relationships. We’re going to keep fostering this content. We’re going to keep creating. We’re going to hear things from everybody. All we’ve done here is say, “How do we now start to share this intel with others, you, and all this stuff, too?”

I am happy to have this interest. That’s where we started to share this a little bit. We’ve shared it already with our core friends, family, and network. Everyone has done well. That’s what prompted us to say, “Let’s open this up a little bit.” It’s for people who maybe are not seeing this information or this deal flow. We’re happy to start to include them in our network.

Get In Touch With Jai

Where can people learn more about Victory Media and Victory Ventures and get in contact with you?

Our website, or more than anything, on my LinkedIn is where I’m active. It’s the most engaging. Our network is there. Our clients and investors are also on that platform. It’s become very effective.

Any final thoughts you want to share with our audience?

No, I’m good. I appreciate this. We’ll keep talking.

My pleasure.

This is all work in progress. I appreciate your interest. I’m going to rope you into a few of these things, too.

I am looking forward to it. Everyone tuning in, make sure you like, comment, follow this show, and check out what Jai is up to. Jai, thanks for being on the show. I appreciate it.

Thanks, brother. I’ll talk to you soon.

Take care.

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Discussion Wrap-up And Closing Words

Welcome back. The one thing that I was in agreement with when I was speaking to Jai from Victory Ventures is that sports content is a unifier. It’s evergreen in the marketplace. I love watching stories about great athletes and great people who have overcome and excelled. His strategy is to create this library of sports assets with a clear roadmap for valuation acquisition by streamers. He’s had significant luck in doing that.

From the production standpoint, he’s targeting investors that are high-net-worth individuals, family offices that recognize the importance of sports, and have an interest in a long-term play. He’s been focusing on the major sports such as the NFL, NBA, MLB, hockey, soccer, and F1 that have a larger audience for sales. In order to be considered an investment, the talent must be genuine, and the owner or the founder, and the brand should be engaged, not just an endorser.

What Jai has done is that he has taken the great work he’s done working with these athletes and celebrities. He started with great content. He’s helping them take their name, their brand, and their awareness to create their opportunities to invest in the brands that they start. The one thing that was intriguing, and we talked about this at length, is that a lot of celebrities and athletes simply put their name on a product. They’re not actively involved.

Jai’s philosophy is to be with those talents that are genuine. They’re an owner and the founder of the brand. These founders should prepare to invest their own money and put some skin in the game as a signal of commitment. What I hope you get from this interview and when you reach out to Jai on social, reach out to him on his website, and find his content on Netflix and other streaming networks, you’re going to see someone who is taking his vast experience and talent.

He is creating great, enduring products and content with these celebrities and athletes, and extending one step further by helping these celebrities and athletes build investable brands with companies where they’re not simply an endorser, but they’re a founder, and they have skin in the game. I encourage you to tune in to this show. Share it with your friends, like, comment, share, and follow us on all streaming networks. I’ll see you next time.

Important Links

• Victory Ventures
• Jai Khanna on LinkedIn