After a career as an educator, successfully starting and selling two tech companies, and later heading up the digital talent division at William Morris Endeavor, Dan Porter currently serves as the co-founder and CEO of Overtime, a sports media company focused on the next generation of sports fans.
What started out as a grassroots collection of social channels turned into a massive network of sports content with an audience of over 50 million followers and two professional leagues—Overtime Elite (basketball) and OT7 (football).
The leagues are built around top young athletes, and offer a new, alternative path to the pros whereby athletes can get paid to play and simultaneously receive an education that includes traditional academics, as well as subjects geared towards economic empowerment and money management.
“We’re looking to be a business and we’re looking to build a product that audiences love, but we’re also looking to serve the athletes themselves whether that’s directly educating them, educating them about NIL, financial literacy, or anything else like that,” explains Porter.
Attracted by Porter’s new business model which also offers a guaranteed salary, insurance, and scholarship funds—Overtime Elite has signed some of the top basketball talent in the US in just under two years. With the OT7 football league set to kick off during the summer of 2023, fans can expect to see a similar, high-level of competition.
While starting two leagues from scratch might have seemed like a risk to some, for Dan, it was a natural evolution after solidifying his audience. Once the brand and following were secured, he had the tools in place to tell stories and generate interest in the leagues and players.
After a massive funding round in 2022 led by Morgan Stanley and Liberty Media, but which also included investment from the likes of Jeff Bezos, Kevin Durant, and rapper Drake, there’s a lot more on the way from Overtime. In the meantime, you can catch Overtime Elite’s basketball games on Amazon Prime and across the brand’s collection of social channels (OTE).
