Former MLB star Alex Rodriguez and his business partner, former Walmart executive Marc Lore, have officially ventured into the sports futures industry by investing in Mojo, a platform that is hoping to become a “sports stock market” that will allow fans to invest in individual players’ careers and buy and sell their holdings at prices based on players’ performance.
The company is slated to launch towards the end of 2022, with American football being its initial investment avenue. Negotiations with sports leagues and gaming commissions are said to be ongoing. As far as an interface, they are believed to be taking inspiration from user-friendly gaming and trading apps such as Coinbase and FanDuel.
Aside from Rodriguez’s investment, Mojo has also raised upwards of $75 million in additional capital, primarily from Tiger Global Management and Thrive Capital. These resources are believed to be allocated to the expansion of their staff of data scientists and developers.
The three-time American League MVP will not have a hand in the day-to-day operations, but a project such as this has reportedly long been in the sights of both Rodriguez and Lore–after news of the investment broke, Lore said in an interview with Bloomberg that a Wall Street-esque sports business was the “holy grail.”
Some have raised concerns about the company’s similarities to Football Index, a defunct British bookmaker that allowed users to trade digital shares of soccer players’ careers and earn dividends at rates according to their on-field success.
Football Index is currently embroiled in sanctions after being stripped of its gaming license, and according to reports, users have lost a total of about $118 million thus far.
This move marks the latest in a slew of sports business-related investments for Rodriguez and Lore. In Feb. 2021, they filed for an initial public offering valued at $500 million through Rodriguez’s special purpose acquisition company known as Slam Corp. The duo also went on to purchase the Minnesota Timberwolves of the National Basketball Association just two months later.
