Kobe Bryant Excelled In Business Turning $6 Million into $200 Million with BodyArmor

The late Kobe Bryant, 41, didn’t just excel on the basketball court, he also achieved major successes in business.  An investment from six years ago proved to be a huge windfall for the late NBA star Kobe Bryant. In 2014, Bryant bought a 10% share of sports drink BodyArmor. Coca-Cola just purchased a minority investment in BodyArmor.

Bryant’s initial investment of $6 million turned into $200 million with the soft drink giant’s investment.

In contrast to the many cases of former professional athletes going broke in retirement, today’s crop of African American athletes is increasingly business-savvy as both entrepreneurs and investors.

In 2016, Bryant launched a $100 million venture capital fund with entrepreneur and investor Jeff Stibel. The funding was reserved for technology, media, and data startups.

Establishing the VC fund was a real move into the financial world for Bryant. Stibel said the partnership was not about having Bryant act as a famous frontman or endorser for companies that are funded.

“The most important thing I enjoy now is helping others be successful. I enjoy doing that much much more, that’s something that lasts forever, and hope they do that for the next generation,” said Bryant at the time.

Black Enterprise contributor Jared Brown, who helped coordinate a $25 million initiative at the United Negro College Fund (UNCF), said about Bryant’s fund, “Bryant is uniquely positioned to change systemic perceptions and transform how people of color navigate in the venture capitalist community. Considering that 87% of venture capitalists are white and only 4% identifies as African American and Latino, his willingness to invest in black-owned firms could propel other venture capitalists to follow suit.”

Other black athletes and celebrities have similarly stepped into the venture capital space. Recently, life insurance startup, Ethos announced an $11.5M financing round led by Sequoia Capital, to make obtaining life insurance accessible and simple for everyone. Other investors in the round included a very star-studded cast. Among the list are Stanford University; Arrive, a subsidiary of Roc Nation; Robert Downey Jr.’s Downey Ventures; Kevin Durant’s Durant Co.; Will Smith’s Smith Family Circle; and a credit facility from Silicon Valley Bank.

—Sequoia Blodgett contributed to this report. 

This story was updated and originally posted in August 2018.

 

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Georgia death row inmate whose appeal dragged on dies in prison

A man on Georgia’s death row since 1991 had won a stay of execution from the U.S. Supreme Court just over two years ago. Unfortunately, he could not survive the wait to have his conviction overturned and died in prison last week.

The lawyers for Keith “Bo” Tharpe had been trying to win his freedom for years, after a white juror from his trial made several racist remarks to those lawyers in interviews. But Tharpe died last Friday at age 61, likely from complications from cancer, according to one of the groups fighting his case.

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Marcia Widder, one of the lawyers helping Tharpe’s appeal for the Georgia Resource Center, called the refusal by several higher courts to consider the inflammatory comments by the juror “a stain on the judicial system,” according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Tharpe died at the Georgia Diagnostic and Classification Prison in Butts County, the paper reported.

Tharpe had been convicted and sentenced to death for the killing of his sister-in-law, Jacquelin Freeman, according to the Journal-Constitution. But in a signed affidavit seven years later juror Barney Gattie spoke to Tharpe’s lawyers and made multiple racist remarks, using a racial slur in one instance.

“After studying the Bible, I have wondered if Black people even have souls, ” Gattie was recorded as saying, according to the Journal-Constitution at the time. He added that he voted to sentence Tharpe to death because he “wasn’t in the ‘good’ Black folks category,” as the victim had been in his mind. Gattie reportedly backed off that statement later.

Gattie is also deceased.

On the night of September 26, 2017, the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 to grant Tharpe a stay of execution, according to the Journal-Constitution. His lethal injection had been scheduled for 7 p.m. local time that evening; he had already eaten what was to have been his last meal. The admissions by the white juror were the determining factor in the court returning the case to the lower courts.

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But a three-judge panel of the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in 2018 that it would not hear his appeal, declining to retroactively apply the standard the Supreme Court used to grant the stay based on the juror’s seeming racial animus. The Supreme Court last year refused to hear Tharpe’s subsequent appeal.

The post Georgia death row inmate whose appeal dragged on dies in prison appeared first on TheGrio.

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Gigi Bryant, 13, killed with father Kobe in helicopter crash

Kobe Bryant’s Instagram page is filled with photos of his four children, all daughters. The one in the pictures most often wearing basketball gear, playing ball or watching a game at courtside with her father, was the second-oldest, Gianna, nicknamed Gigi, 13 years old and a budding star in her own age group.

Gigi Bryant died along with her father and three others, including the pilot, in Sunday’s helicopter crash in southern California. Her life was well-chronicled by Kobe Bryant in recent months – including in a glimpse of her at a game last December, in an animated conversation with her father that became a popular social media meme.

In an IG post from last May, Bryant wished Gigi a happy birthday, alongside photos of her in her basketball uniform, and in a winter cap and a University of Connecticut jacket. She has been nicknamed by some observers “Little Mamba” and “Mamba Jr.,” and had shown enough talent already that a future at Connecticut, one of the marquee college basketball programs in America, was far from out of the question.

Reports have said that Gigi and Kobe Bryant, one of her teammates and a parent, were taking the helicopter to one of their team’s practices.

Late in 2019, Bryant told the hosts of a podcast hosted by former NBA players Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson, why he was showing up at NBA games with Gigi more often.

“Before Gigi got into basketball I hardly watched it, but now that she’s gotten into basketball, we watch every night,” Bryant said, according to People magazine.

“We just had so much fun because it was the first time I was seeing the game through her eyes,” Bryant continued on the podcast. “It wasn’t me sitting there, you know, as an athlete or a player or something like that, and you know it’s like about me, and I don’t like that. It was her, she was having such a good time.”

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Shaquille O’Neal ‘sick right now’ over Kobe Bryant’s death

Shaquille O’Neal has reacted to the shocking death of his NBA legend Kobe Bryant and daughter Gianna Maria Onore.

O’Neal responded to the passing of his former 41-year-old teammate and 13-year-old daughter. He paid to the father and died who died Sunday in a helicopter crash. Officials stated that nine people were on board and no survivors.

“ There’s no words to express the pain Im going through with this tragedy of loosing my neice Gigi & my brother @kobebryant I love u and u will be missed. My condolences goes out to the Bryant family and the families of the other passengers on board. IM SICK RIGHT NOW,” he tweeted.

There’s no words to express the pain Im going through with this tragedy of loosing my neice Gigi & my brother @kobebryant I love u and u will be missed. My condolences goes out to the Bryant family and the families of the other passengers on board. IM SICK RIGHT NOW pic.twitter.com/pigHywq3c1

— SHAQ (@SHAQ) January 26, 2020

READ MORE BREAKING NEWS: Kobe Bryant dies in helicopter crash

O’Neal and Bryant won three championships together from 2000 to 2002 as teammates on the Los Angeles Lakers. Overall, they went to the NBA Finals four times.  Shaq was traded to the Miami Heat in 2004 over tensions with Bryant but the two icons mended their relationships in later years.

O’Neal was just many offering their condolences in the shocking aftermath of Bryant’s death. TMZ was the first to report that the Black Mamba died in a crash earlier today. Details are still forthcoming but Bryant, his daughter, and seven others were on board a private helicopter caught fire and then crashed. ESPN reported that Bryant had been on his way to take Gianna to a basketball game. He’d been coaching his middle daughter.

The way Kobe speaks about Gigi he was so proud of her. pic.twitter.com/Mm2kBTd2lT

— 𝐲𝐚𝐲𝐚 𝐨𝐟 𝐜𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐫𝐚 (@beameupscottys) January 26, 2020

 

READ MORE Shocked world mourns Kobe Bryant’s death, celebrates his expansive life

The Staples Center immediately became a memorial site for the fallen icon who spent all 20 years of his career as a Laker. Fans gathered to remembered the G.O.A.T. who won the franchise five NBA championships and was on the all-time scorer’s list. The small forward retired in 2016, scoring an impressive 60 points during his last game against the Utah Jazz. In tribute, the Lakers retired both his number 8 and 24 jerseys.

Bryant is survived by his wife, Vanessa and three daughters, Natalia and Bianca and newborn Capri and his parents.

The post Shaquille O’Neal ‘sick right now’ over Kobe Bryant’s death appeared first on TheGrio.

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Everyone Is Reeling From the Shocking Death of NBA Star Kobe Bryant

As news broke about the tragic and untimely death of NBA icon Kobe Bryant in a helicopter crash in California on Sunday, an outpouring of condolences flooded social media platforms as fans, celebrities, athletes and coaches around the world reacted in shock and disbelief.

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