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New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner has struck an agreement with sports player agency VaynerSports — founded by AJ Vaynerchuk in 2016.
The company’s Twitter account welcomed Gardner to the “family” publicly on June 15.
If the Vaynerchuk name sounds familiar, you’re probably thinking of AJ’s older brother Gary Vaynerchuk, who co-founded VaynerMedia with AJ in 2009. Gary is also a diehard Jets fan who has not been shy about his goal to one day purchase the franchise from Woody Johnson.
According to Investor Mint, Gary Vaynerchuk’s net worth was around $160 million in September of 2019, but it is believed to be higher in the present day. Still, he has a long way to go in owning the Jets.
Why Did Jets CB Sauce Gardner Sign With VaynerSports?
Jets teammate and mentor D.J. Reed Jr. is a known client of VaynerSports — not to mention other NFL stars like Aidan Hutchinson, Kirk Cousins and Leonard Williams among others.
If Reed wasn’t enough to convince Gardner to join, former Cincinnati teammate and Atlanta Falcons quarterback Desmond Ridder is also a client of VaynerSports.
Not only that but VaynerSports has also been praised by athletes for their ingenuity and wisdom in the investing world. For example, they gifted clients free cryptocurrency with instructions on how to set up a crypto wallet in 2021 — a big hit with athletes — rather than “traditional swag bags” with more generic items.
Lastly, VaynerSports has already pushed into the gaming industry as well, an area Gardner seemingly has interest in considering his 94K following on Twitch.
Any one of these reasons could have persuaded him to make the switch, if not all of them.
How Does Sauce Gardner’s Agency Update Impact the Jets?
Although Gardner’s signing with VaynerSports doesn’t impact the Jets at this very moment, it could someday. Considering his first-round status and Defensive Rookie of the Year award in 2022, it won’t be long before the young cornerback looks to get paid.
Now, it will be VaynerSports negotiating that deal when the time comes.
Is that a bad thing for Gang Green? At this point, it’s hard to say. Gary Vaynerchuk’s allegiances clearly lie with the Jets, but his younger brother AJ handles the sports agency business.
You’d have to think Vaynerchuk’s involvement only increases the likelihood of Gardner being a Jet for life, however, considering his brother has dreams of owning the franchise in the future.
After the news, Gary Vaynerchuk took to Twitter, voicing: “Massive news out of @vaynersports land … we have signed DROY @iamSauceGardner.. we are excited to get to work … congrats @ajv & team and I’m sure you all can imagine how excited I am about this 💚💚💚💚💚.”
In a live video stream on top of the tweet, Gary added that “we are cooking with sauce now.”
Aside from the NFL, VaynerSports has clients in the MLB, MMA, college athletics and the gaming industry. Their website also notes that they will soon enter the basketball world.
“There was a white space in the sports agency world we saw develop,” AJ Vaynerchuk told The Hustle while detailing what VaynerSports has to offer in 2020. “The vast majority of agencies focus on contracts. There’s another (smaller) group that does marketing and off-field endeavors. A few agencies try to bridge those two but — in my opinion — nobody was doing it well.”
“I’d say VaynerSports is differentiated because we bring together those three prongs: contracts, marketing and investing,” the visionary sports agent concluded at the time. Now, they also have one of the best young talents in the NFL as a client.
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