Venture Stories

On this episode, Erik is joined by Deepen Parikh (@deepenparikh), partner at Courtside Ventures.Deepen explains how Courtside Ventures came to be and the thesis behind the fund. He breaks down the four areas where Courtside invests — all of which involve sports. Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, is one of Courtside’s LPs, and Deepen at one time worked for a family office that was looking to purchase a pro sports team — so Deepen knows a lot about the space.Erik asks whether sports can really be a venture backable business and where the opportunities are to be in on the ground floor of a new sport and sports league, like UFC, competitive gaming, or drone racing. Deepen shares a number of interesting insights on the economics of professional sports and talks about the idea that “non-helmet sports generate bigger personalities.”Deepen also talks about some of the transformations we can expect in the sporting world in the next decades, some of his requests for products in the space, and how people wi