- Evolution Development Group, Inc. (EVO for short) is a new sports management company whose focus is both on managing and investing in those athletes.
- Andretti Autosport's Michael Andretti and IndyCar driver Alexander Rossi are on EVO's advisory board to help identify young racing talent.
- EVO will, like other sports management companies, earns its revenue by taking a percentage of the athlete’s earnings.
Most professional athletes don’t manage their own affairs away from the playing field. Personal services contracts, sponsorships, and the like are normally managed by sports management companies.
Like the companies that manage celebrities, these firms make their return on investment through a percentage of the celebrities' or athletes' earnings. Most professional race car drivers today have such arrangements. While the driver is off racing, the management company takes care of the off-track sponsorships, personal service deals, and appearances.
It’s a little different for younger drivers. Young drivers taking their first laps into professional motorsports typically manage their own careers, or leave it to the parents. It’s not until they begin to move up the ranks in racing that an agent is hired, or they get the attention of an agency.
EVO is out to break that mold.
Evolution Development Group, Inc. (EVO for short) is a new sports management company whose focus isn’t just managing its athletes but also investing in those athletes. And EVO gives the average sports fan or investor a chance to get a piece of an athlete’s earnings.
The company was founded by John Norman whose son Ryan races.
“We were new to this racing model,” John Norman said. “We didn’t grow up in it. So, I’m sitting here as a businessman, entrepreneur in general, having a different look at things.
“I just was watching all these drivers, whether it was in IndyCar or Indy Lights, or even in the lower Road to Indy, Mazda stuff. I was watching these very talented people, drivers that were having to stop their climb to IndyCar and sometimes fall off because of the lack of funding.”
Norman founded EVO two years ago with the mission of doing more than just managing an athlete’s business affairs. The company wants to help its young athletes with coaching, physical fitness, nutrition, and mental health.
“The things that the very well-to-do drivers have access to, but people making their way to that level don't have,” Norman said.
Though originally designed for racers, the concept started to get the attention of others.
“As I started branching out talking to other people,” says Norman, “they said, ‘You know, John, this is the same problem in all individual sports.’”
“This is the same problem in golf,” he said. “And this is the same problem in MMA. These guys are struggling to compete, and they have the talent, but they don't have the money. So, we decided to turn this company to not just the racing side of things. Now we have golf, motor racing, and MMA or combat sports as we call it.”
EVO will, like other sports management companies, earns its revenue by taking a percentage of the athlete’s earnings. There is a twist, however. EVO offers the average fan an opportunity to invest in the company and earn a portion of what the athletes—and the company—earn.
This fan-funded management model caught the attention of Andretti Autosport, which has partnered with EVO to help with its own driver selection program. Michael Andretti is part of EVO’s advisory board. One of Andretti’s drivers went a step further.
Alexander Rossi has made it into the top level of his chosen motorsport, the NTT IndyCar Series. He recently became a partner with EVO.
“My role with EVO is to try and help identify talent, identify young drivers that have the potential to succeed in the sport and to make it worthwhile for people to invest in and be a part of their program,” he said. “It’s exciting for me to kind of, this is my first step, if you will, in terms of, of giving back to the sport and I’m excited for the journey and helping guys get to the top level of motorsports.”
What may have attracted Rossi to EVO is his own experience as a young driver moving up the ladder.
“My journey to get from go-karting to race in Europe, to Formula 1, and then back to the States to racing Indy car was all through an investment program that my father created,” Rossi said, “There was a group of investors…that became kind of family and became a part of the journey and became a part of the highs and lows of of my career.”
The investment program created by Rossi’s dad Pieter helped his son and almost mirrors what EVO does.
“We build a business model specifically for that driver to take that driver from where they are, wherever the families come to us,” the elder Rossi said. “And we put together a program for them and take them to the top. EVO is different. It widens the net, It’s raising a larger pool of funds from the general public, it’s going after winners that they can reinvest in to get them over the line.
“So if you take a driver that’s in go-karting or USF 2000 or Indy Lights or somewhere at that level, that is just needing that extra little push, or they need the funding to get them there… the cream can rise to the top. So the talent doesn’t slip under the rug that didn’t necessarily get the shot.”
Pieter has also signed on as an advisor after being approached by John Norman in 2019 at Mid-Ohio. Dad will help Norman on the business side, while Alexander will help attract the young talent. Pieter has no doubt EVO will succeed.
“I think it’s important that investors know that it’s investing in winners across all platforms,” he said.
“You don’t have to be uber wealthy or somebody that’s going to drop millions of dollars into one driver or this or that,” he added. “You can actually buy shares that have reasonable amount, a very small amount and be a part of something very unique that’s never been done before.”
EVO will began expanding into the lower ranks in other motorsport in the very near future including NASCAR and the NHRA, though nothing is firmed up yet. And being an investor driven company, Norman said there will be no secrets.
“These drivers and golfers, and everybody will be EVO athletes,” he said. “So we can disclose, and we plan on disclosing, a full transparency on what their earnings were and how much they won from the golf tour and so on.
“It’s really interesting...golf, is a unique sport that you can be the 50th best on the PGA Tour, and still have made two and a half million dollars in a year. “
And it might even draw fans to other sports.
“You might pay attention now to the golf tournament on Sunday afternoon, if you know that there’s an EVO athlete or several in the top 20 of the tournament. Now all of a sudden you’re going to be paying attention to that,” Norman said. “It’s going to make it more exciting for you as a fan and as an investor to watch these other sports.”
Investors will have access to behind the scenes of things such as EVO athletes training and developing. In the end, Norman wants to develop a relationship with the EVO investors.
“This is about creating a community and having people be proud to be part of EVO,” he said. And they’re going to tell their friends and family, ‘Hey, this is great. I’ve got access to, do you see what so-and-so ate for breakfast last night? Can you believe he ate all those calories,’ things like that. And they can share in their world. It brings them closer into the sport that they really, really love.”
Norman hopes that EVO will allow sports investing to become available to more people.
“The way that we built this is, it used to be that you had to be very wealthy or connected to invest in an athlete,” Norman said. “And everybody knows that was just the way it is. You don’t get offered to invest in (IndyCar driver) Scott Dixon or somebody like that just out of the blue. We built EVO so it’s accessible to the average fan.”
The minimum investment is $150.
“So the person who just absolutely loves the sport and doesn’t have thousands and thousands of dollars, for $150, they can be part of this team,” Norman said. “They can say just as the guy that put in $50,000 in EVO, ‘Hey, I'm also helping that athlete.’
“We liked the fact that we brought this down to the masses and we made it affordable for everybody.”
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