My Dad wasn’t a sports guy. My friends were.
So I learned it from them — second grade, maybe earlier — and then I did what I do with everything I love: I got nerdy about it. High school recruiting. A dynasty league. Message boards. Subreddits. A keeper league. Regular fantasy football. I’ve been playing fantasy football since the nineties. Well over twenty years of drafting other people’s kids and calling it a hobby.
By senior year of high school I’d basically finished my credits. Two classes in the morning, and the rest of the year in a senior internship program through Warren County — I grew up in Springboro, Ohio. And I pointed every internship I could at sports.
I interned with my own high school’s athletic department, which mostly meant pulling my friends out of study hall to shoot hoops in the gym. Incredible work if you can get it.
I interned with Miami of Ohio’s athletic department, forty-five minutes from home, and got to see their extraordinary hockey program from the inside.
I interned with the Dayton Visitors Bureau. Little tangent.
I interned with the University of Dayton’s athletic department and worked a play-in game. Before tip, I was standing on the court all by myself, looking exactly as out of place as I felt, when a beautiful woman walked up and said, “You look like you need a hug.” And gave me one. That beautiful woman was Erin Andrews — who went on to become one of the most recognizable people in the entire industry.
And I interned with the Cincinnati Reds, where I built all the furniture on the party deck. It’s still there today. Which is hilarious, because I’ve built a ton of furniture for Airbnbs over the years and none of it survived. The party deck furniture? Decades. Still standing.
Here’s what the Reds taught me, though. Everybody wants to work in sports, because everybody loves sports. And since everybody wants in, they can pay you almost nothing. The only thing that really pays is ticket sales, and that’s a grind — and there’s always somebody in line behind you. You have to be truly passionate and grind and grind, and eventually you might make good money.
So at eighteen I made the call: go into business, keep sports as the love. I went to UK, started down the business school path, discovered I’m not great at math, and walked out with a communications degree. Business found me anyway.
Fast-forward to now. I talk all the time about how empowered we are — AI, Claude, all of it — and about how small a world Louisville is. My good friend Eric Payne, with Kentucky Private Lending, a hard money lending company here in town, got his undergrad at UofL in sports management. UK just hired Coach Will Stein — from Louisville, played at Louisville, grew up a UK fan his whole life. Eric grew up with him at Trinity, they played football together. And now we’ve been in contact with the athletic department about some novel ideas for NIL fundraising.
Eighteen-year-old me quit the sports business because it didn’t pay. Now, decades later, I’m working on NIL ideas for my alma mater — because of a friendship and a small city.
And it keeps going. Last week I closed with Ed Long — a renowned defensive coordinator in Louisville high school football — represented both sides, and the seller was Andre Barnett, who played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Yesterday I closed with Keith Eckloff, the head coach at Manual. Ironically, I sold Luke Hancock's house too. My friend Ryan Lemond co-hosts Kentucky Sports Radio. Mark Krebs played on my basketball team — I met Mark in college, he won a championship at UK while we were there, and today he’s number two at Morgan Stanley in the country.
And I grew up with Jake Ballard — a six-six, six-seven behemoth who played defensive end and tight end at my high school. Jake went on to play tight end at Ohio State, won a Super Bowl with the Giants over the Patriots, then went and played for the Patriots. You know what Jake does now? He’s a realtor in Columbus. We connected through sports. Now we connect through real estate too.
I wrote a while back about how music found a way into my life professionally, even when I wasn’t looking for it.
Turns out sports never left either.
I never got the job in sports. Sports just kept showing up anyway.
The hook brings you back. It always does.
📊 Yesterday’s poll: How long should it take an agent to get back to you? “Depends entirely on what it’s about” won with 40%, and “same day is fine” was right behind at 37%. Seventeen percent of you want to hear back within the hour. Only two people said 24 hours is fine. Two. The patience window is basically a day — and shrinking. Speed is the job.
Has life come full circle for you — like it has for me with music and sports?
Happy and Empowered,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Winner Realty | OffMarket.deals | Property Partner Data Company
Schedule time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind — book me here.
PS: My sister had a colonoscopy yesterday and her colon is cancer free thankfully! I’ve had many friends reach out that they are booking their’s as well! This makes me happy! Thank you!
PSS: All the properties that just hit three months on the market. Five bedroom homes under $300,000. All currently available multifamily properties. Currently available Winner Realty Offerings! And of course the best offmarket.deals!