Walter Tchougoue is an MBA & MS of Sports Management Candidate at UMass Amherst. Walter’s already had an illustrious background in the world of sports business having worked with Under Armor, Morgan Stanley, Must Love Sports, Blue Wire Podcasts, Wassermann, the NBA, Thirty Five Ventures, CSM Sport & Entertainment, & currently serves as a grad research assistant at the Laboratory for Inclusion & Diversity in Sport at the Mark H. McCormack Dept. of Sport Management. Walt is an avid fan & savant of sports, particularly basketball, is extremely well-acclimated in the field of sports business, & is a hilarious & authentic guy. Connect with Walter & follow his career/ personal journey at: Instagram: https://instagram.com/walt.tt?utm_medium=copy_link Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/waltertchougoue/ OUTLINE: - 0:00 Intro - 1:22 How Walter has used curiosity, ambition, & networking as his recipe for continuously finding opportunities within the business world since a young age - 3:43 Walt’s studies, being born in Cameroon, speaking French, & his parents pushing for him to go the traditional path (i.e. being a doctor or lawyer) - 6:45 Walter’s thoughts on Wasserman & Under Armour after interning at both; Fro consumer of a product to working with the business behind that same product - 9:07 Walt’s role with Wasserman as a “brands & properties intern” working on the AT&T brand retainer account - 12:23 Walt’s participation in the “Must Love Sports (MLS)” Program that was started by Raleigh Anne Grey - Panels & projects with major sports brands - 13:40 When Jay Williams spoke to MLS - 18:04 How the brands & partnerships space has evolved in today’s digitally connected world - 20:00 People are more multidimensional now - 20:35 Walt’s Brand Ambassadorship with 35 Ventures (KD’s venture capital firm with arms in media, tech, sports, & more), what Kevin Durant & his agent Rich Kleiman are doing in the industry - 26:06 DMV & PG County area NBA talent - 27:16 Fandom of players not only for their skill but for their personality in today’s world; panel at Wassermann talking about getting away from the notion of looking at athletes as machines & people without emotions & experiences - 31:03 Movement towards appreciation for authenticity & letting people be themselves - 31:29 Rich Kleiman’s story & journey as business mogul - 33:30 Future growth for the sports industry around: betting, memorabilia, & awareness of business opportunities & back-end roles - 34:00 How sports helped Alec grow as a person - 35:40 Leveraging unpaid internships - Depends on finances but for him it wasn’t about the $ but about fun & learning - 38:06 Importance of enjoying the process, prioritizing purpose and intrinsic motivation over solely profit & extrinsic gain - 40:22 NBA Future Sales Stars Program Experience - 42:10 How Walt balances all these internships - 43:20 Do you have to hustle more than your counterparts if you’re a minority in the space? - 44:45 Nepotism in the industry - 45:20 “The Victory Machine” — most feared GMs in NBA = the self-made club; didn’t make it through nepotism but instead by hard work - 46:45 Importance of having a driving force behind why we do things, it’s bigger than ourselves - 48:15 Walt’s Bluewire internship - 51:00 What’s AJ Vaynerchuck (Gary Vee’s brother) like as opposed to his brother Gary V? - 53:45 “People will accept nostalgia if you make it contemporary & cool” - 55:00 What Kobe’s future as a business mogul would’ve been — an eclipse of his basketball career; plans to go head2head with Nike before passing away - 58:20 The Mamba Mentality, how things learned on the field/ court can be carried into other contexts of life (family, school, work, etc.) - Kobe approached life with the same intensity everywhere - basketball - business - family - going to war - but also having self-love & self-respect - competition but with love - 1:00:00 “greatness has a cost” - 1:00:48 How Walter got the Under Armour internship, testing Embiid prototypes - 1:06:22 Imposter Syndrome - 1:07:13 What it was like for him being an HR intern at Under Armor - 1:09:35 The Power of Networking - How curiosity & open-mindedness lead to opened doors - 1:11:23 Rapid fire basketball questions - 1:20:50 Was the NBA bubble ring easier or tougher to achieve? - 1:25:39 Wrap-up - 1:27:08 outro Podcast info: - Podcast website: https://smartalecshow.com - RSS feed: feed:https://feeds.simplecast.com/ngBH2BfM - Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/634MOIW582k2STgC06Rvl9?si=Zr4Fmx2nR6mqaeWNpFCfQQ&dl_branch=1 - Apple podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-smart-alec-show/id1577614268 - Amazon Music & Audible: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/96993c84-1664-4a67-921d-9b731fbdca99 Connect with Alec on Social: - Linktree to all platforms: https://linktr.ee/smartalec Recorded in February 2021