Overtime Elite is a basketball league for high school aged kids in Atlanta where they can get paid to play basketball and go to school.
It’s run by Overtime
What is Overtime?
Overtime is a sports media company that started out as basically an instagram account that would showcase high school basketball players like Zion Williamson and Trae Young.
Now it’s a full blown media company making a docuseries with Cade Cunningham, and selling streaming rights for its football league OT7 and its basketball league.
They’ve raised over 200 million dollars and you’re going to see where a lot of that money has gone later in this video.
Some of the investors are Drake, Klay Thompson, Cam Newton, and even Jeff Bezos the richest man alive, has gotten in on this thing.
So the Overtime elite basketball league is only one of its many ventures.
Overtime Elite recruits the best high school players in the country and here’s what they offer them.
They get $100,000+ dollars a year. That’s right a 16 year olds are making $100,000 dollars a year.
They get equity in Overtime, which is really smart on the business’s part. Now graduates are incentivized to advocate for the OTE league and grow that brand.
They also set aside $100,000 dollars in the event a student doesn’t want to play professional basketball and wants to go to college.
They can also take college courses and get credits from the university of Pittsburgh. Which I think is funny because OTE league competes with the NCAA for viewership and Pitt is obviously a member of the NCAA. but I digress.
A player can also turn down the 100,000 and get college credits in the event that he wants to keep his eligibility so he can play college basketball if he wants. I don’t know why anyone would do that though. At this point you’ve kind of chosen this path and you’re getting paid.
OTE obviously provides them an education that’s supposed to be top tier 4 to 1 student to teach ratio, specialized curriculum, all that stuff. I’m sure it’s great.
They’re also taught life skills.
Financial literacy (obviously the most important to a 16-20 year old)
Social media training
Mental wellness
Advocacy in sports
I thought this was interesting the website talks about opening and closing huddles where they focus on their brotherhood/sisterhood on and off the court. Which I love the sound of. My favorite part of team sports is watching a group of people achieve something together and develop emotional bonds. Because that’s why I watch sports.
Overtime Elite has a brand new arena in Atlanta. It has three Full Size NBA courts in it. Including one show court which has sick ass lighting and can seat 1300 spectators. The athletes eat, study, and practice here. Overtime also makes money by renting this place out for events. Like the professional fighters league.
Last year was the first season of the league.
There were 27 players divided up into three teams. They played each other but they also played high school basketball teams in Georgia.
This season they’ve expanded to six teams officially in the league, but these 3 new teams are high school teams. So theoretically a team that isn’t a part of the OTE organization could be the champion of the league.
So far there have been three players that have started professional careers
Dominick Barlow has signed a two-way contract with the San Antonio spurs and their g league affiliate the Austin Spurs.
Jean Montero signed a short lived 10 day contract with the knicks during summer league. He’s now a free agent.
Emmanuel Maldonado is currently playing professionally in Puerto Rico where he is from.
You may think none of these are great stories being that none of these guys were drafted, but this was literally the first season and to have 3 players get professional experience out of 27 is a solid win.
This month November 2022 amazon prime video agreed to air 20 Overtime elite games over the next 3 seasons. I couldn’t find how much the deal was worth so if you know leave it in the comments.
I’m excited about this league. Always happy to see young people getting paid what they’re worth and being educated on how to not let themselves be taken advantage of.