The worlds of professional sports and entrepreneurship are colliding this summer in Park City, Utah, where elite NFL athletes will meet with proven operators and vetted founders for three days of deal-making, relationship-building, and business development.
Athletes First, the premier NFL representation and marketing agency that represents more than 325 NFL players, including Dak Prescott, Fred Warner, Micah Parsons, Jordan Love, and Justin Herbert, has partnered with Entrepreneur Media to launch “The Summit,” an invite-only gathering taking place June 15-17 at The Lodge at Blue Sky, Auberge Collection. The event represents a new approach to connecting athletes with the business community — one that treats professional athletes as the entrepreneurs and investors they’re increasingly becoming.
“A growing number of our agency’s athletes are thinking like founders and investors, and looking for the right environments to learn, build relationships, and develop real business opportunities to create generational wealth,” said Matt Shulman, Head of Properties at Athletes First.
The three-day experience will feature curated programming designed specifically for this unique intersection of sports and business. Attendees can expect immersive experiences, including a Navy SEAL-led training challenge, a private casino night, and live tapings of Entrepreneur Media’s premier business podcasts. The event will also include premium wellness and hospitality experiences, all designed to create an environment where ideas, partnerships, and new business ventures can take shape.
The Summit reflects a broader shift in how professional athletes approach their careers and post-playing futures. Today’s athletes understand that true generational wealth comes through business ownership and strategic investments, not just playing contracts and endorsement deals.
Meanwhile, today’s CEOs understand the unique power of partnering with or even cofounding new ventures with athletes.
“The right partnership can change everything,” says Bill Shaw, President of Entrepreneur Media. “Sports figures have a unique ability to unite people across all backgrounds and industries, which makes them incredibly powerful partners.”
The partnership potential is what makes The Summit different from typical networking events. Rather than treating athletes as endorsement opportunities or passive investors, the event positions them as active business partners who bring unique value to entrepreneurial ventures.
“We believe the relationships formed over these three days have the potential to create company-altering, even industry-altering partnerships,” Shaw adds.
The Business Case for Athlete Partnerships
For entrepreneurs and investors, partnering with professional athletes offers unique advantages beyond their celebrity status. Athletes bring built-in audiences, proven work ethics, competitive mindsets, and often, significant personal capital to invest.
Most importantly, they offer something that traditional business partners often can’t: the ability to unite people across demographic and cultural lines. In an increasingly fragmented business landscape, that unifying power can be invaluable for building brands and scaling companies.
The Summit’s curated approach ensures that these partnerships are strategic rather than opportunistic. By bringing together athletes who are serious about business with operators and investors who understand the unique value athletes bring, the event creates conditions for meaningful, long-term collaborations.
As the line between sports and business continues to disappear, The Summit represents the future of how these worlds will intersect — not as separate industries that occasionally cross paths, but as integrated ecosystems where athletes, entrepreneurs, and investors work together to build the next generation of successful companies.
The worlds of professional sports and entrepreneurship are colliding this summer in Park City, Utah, where elite NFL athletes will meet with proven operators and vetted founders for three days of deal-making, relationship-building, and business development.
Athletes First, the premier NFL representation and marketing agency that represents more than 325 NFL players, including Dak Prescott, Fred Warner, Micah Parsons, Jordan Love, and Justin Herbert, has partnered with Entrepreneur Media to launch “The Summit,” an invite-only gathering taking place June 15-17 at The Lodge at Blue Sky, Auberge Collection. The event represents a new approach to connecting athletes with the business community — one that treats professional athletes as the entrepreneurs and investors they’re increasingly becoming.
“A growing number of our agency’s athletes are thinking like founders and investors, and looking for the right environments to learn, build relationships, and develop real business opportunities to create generational wealth,” said Matt Shulman, Head of Properties at Athletes First.
