By Jeff Barker, The Baltimore Sun
7:55 p.m. EST, February 25, 2014
Longtime NFL cornerback Phillip Buchanon is creating a board game to teach money management and other life skills to kids. Arizona Cardinals long snapper Mike Leach and his wife, Julie, are developing a product to help parents toilet train their toddlers. Pittsburgh Steelers receiver Plaxico Burress has introduced a line of colorful, luxury socks.
The budding entrepreneurs just need a little coaching — and not the sort involving the shriek of whistles — to assist them with such things as marketing, branding and contracts.
This Sunday, the group will join a dozen other current and former National Football League players — including Ravens' wide receiver Torrey Smith— at a four-day conference in Baltimore on getting started in consumer products sales. While the NFL has held "boot camps" on broadcasting and other topics, this is its first focusing on product pitches, and it's the first hosted by Baltimore.
The conference isn't designed only for players — such as Burress —who have already started businesses. The Burress collection includes fancy socks with names like "The Bold Stripe," "the Yacht Club" and the "the Paisley Park," each selling for $24 a pair.
"I'm hoping he brings socks for all of the (conference) participants," said former defensive back Troy Vincent, an executive with NFL Player Engagement, which provides off-the-field resources — such as the seminars — for current and former players.
The activities — to be held at an Inner Harbor hotel and at the Under Armour campus — are also for players, such as the Ravens' Smith, who merely hope to enhance their business acumen with an eye on their post-NFL lives.
"I've always been interested in business," said Smith, a criminal justice major who graduated from the University of Maryland in 2010 and has interned with U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings of Baltimore. "I'm not sure what I want to do when football is over with. The more you learn, the better. You're only one play away."
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