
Dan Kennedy — Breaking Down MLS' Expansion Strategy & Building Up a Commercial Real Estate Empire
The Game PlanShow Notes
This episode of The Game Plan features Dan Kennedy, former Major League Soccer goalkeeper turned real estate investor.
Dan is now Managing Partner at Driven Capital Partners in Long Beach, CA where he focuses on commercial real estate development and property management, working with other professional athletes to help them generate a passive income that will pay off well beyond the prime of their career.
We start this episode by exploring the evolution of Major League Soccer and the role that rapid league expansion has played over the years. Dan shares his perspective as a player in the pivotal years of MLS, including tense moments as a member of the executive board of the MLS Player’s Association.
Dan also talks about his transition from a career as a professional soccer player into a business professional, and the role business school played in helping him find his way in life beyond the pitch. We discuss his front office role with the LA Galaxy, and why he ultimately decided to change things up and pursue a career in commercial real estate development.
Listeners won’t want to miss Dan’s candid point of view on what every professional athlete should be doing with their money (that most aren’t doing today). Special thanks to Tim’s former colleague Andrew Hayes for making the introduction to our guest.
Be sure to follow Dan on Twitter and Instagram (@1DanKennedy) to keep up with everything he is doing today, as well as his investment group’s website: https://www.drivencap.com.
If there is a guest you’d like to see join us on a future episode of The Game Plan please follow and reach out to co-hosts Jay Kapoor (@JayKapoorNYC) and Tim Katt (@Tim_Katt) on Twitter!
Follow The Game Plan on Twitter (@thegameplanshow) and Instagram (@gameplanshow) for show news & updates, as well as bonus content!
More from The Game Plan
Human beings have been collecting non-utilitarian items for millennia. It just so happens that with the advent of the digital age, we're now able to collect items from around the world and display them digitally for fellow collectors all over the world to admire as well. Add to this Digital Collectibles, like NFTs, and you've got a space ripe for tech innovation.
If you listen to this show regularly, you know that the shifting interest of athletes from endorsement to ownership is something we talk about a lot. Well, it turns out that in the last few years, athletes aren’t the only ones that are thinking about how to get ownership in the brands, companies and financial institutions they help build as early adopters, micro-influencers, or simply as customers.
In many ways, Bennie Fowler's story is the epitome of resilience and exactly the kind of journey we love sharing onThe Game Plan every week. Bennie had tremendous success in college at Michigan State and like many of his fellow players, expected to hear his name called during the NFL Draft. Unfortunately, that announcement never came.
Podcasting and social audio as a viable business has seen explosive growth in the past decade, the last few years especially. With Spotify having spent over $1Bn to acquire both tech and talent, apps like Clubhouse raising at multi-billion valuations, and even platforms like Twitter launching their own social audio Spaces, we felt this topic deserved a deeper dive.
In this week's episode of The Game Plan, we venture into the wild, wild west of the internet: Digital collectibles, NFTs and Web3. What does it mean for athletes, how is it changing how athletes think about their personal brands and ability to monetize their work on and off the field, and who the key stakeholders in this new tokenized world are and will be.