Ndamukong Suh and Warren Buffett: The Bruiser and the Billionaire
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Ndamukong Suh and Warren Buffett: The Bruiser and the Billionaire
Off the Field, the Lions Star Is Befriending Business Titans as He Prepares for Post-NFL Life
By Kevin Clark
Ndamukong Suh, the Detroit Lions’ 6-foot-4, 305-pound defensive lineman, is one of the NFL’s best players. Everyone knows about his ferocity, his footwork and his ability, as New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady said last week, to “ruin a game” for an opposing offense.
Less known about Suh is his carefully collected network of business titans, a Rolodex that could rival many in the sports world—or the business world, for that matter. He is the NFL’s secret finance nerd.
Warren Buffett and a handful of other business moguls have become a trusted group of mentors to Suh, who signed a five-year deal worth over $60 million when he entered the NFL in 2010 and is expected to land a massive new deal before next season. (Despite his love of business deals, Suh said he is leaving that contract to his agent.)
Suh routinely meets with Buffett, restaurant investor Junior Bridgeman and former TD Ameritrade CEO Joe Moglia, who is now the head football coach at Coastal Carolina, among several others. This off-season, Suh met with former NBA star Magic Johnson (“I took 10 pages of notes,” Suh said) and retired Hall of Fame quarterback Roger Staubach, both successful businessmen themselves.
“I’m just glad he’s not running against me for a board spot,” said Buffett, chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway. “Everyone tries to hustle sports stars. I think he knows I’m not trying to take him; I’m not trying to get involved in his finances.”
Suh’s objective is to get advice on the balance between business and his playing career. Despite being only 27, he has been positioning himself for his post-football life for years.
“Everyone says, ‘Wait til your football career is over.’ Or the biggest saying is always ‘Life after football,’ ” Suh said. “But as an athlete, someone who is bright enough and understands how to compartmentalize, and has time management from already having two jobs at once—playing football and going to class and getting good grades-—you can have 70 to 90% of the focus on your ultimate job but at the same time slowly build to what you are going to be one day.”
The time management is crucial. On Tuesdays—Suh’s off day during a normal NFL week—he focuses on conference calls with advisers. “I don’t watch TV; I don’t play videogames,” he said. “I like reading contracts. I like just looking at business deals.”
In a scene not often seen in the NFL, Suh discussed a complicated contract he recently studied. One company needed a piece of land for a deal but didn’t have the liquidity, so it added another group of partners to get the deal done. The deal was made more complicated by a finder’s fee and time constraints for when the land would sell at its lowest price. This is the sort of thing that gets the NFL’s most fearsome defensive tackle excited.
“I just want to understand it,” Suh said.
Suh said that his business mentors have taught him generally the same lesson: be patient. So far, he has invested in condominiums and restaurant deals in Nebraska.
Suh first met Buffett briefly at a game during Suh’s college career at Nebraska. (Berkshire Hathaway is based in Omaha.) Tom Osborne, the former Nebraska coach and athletic director, later connected them further.
At first, Suh wasn’t optimistic about getting much time with Buffett. “He is, really, one of the busiest people in the world,” Suh said. “I’ve seen the prices at charity auctions for a dinner with him—I’d understand if he respectfully said he didn’t have time.” But their initial meetings were productive. After that, they were in regular contact. Buffett took Suh to a Berkshire shareholder meeting in 2013.
Buffett said that Suh, whom he calls “enormously popular,” has rightly taken advantage of his stature as a sports star to get his foot in the door with business leaders. “If you’ve been a football star at Nebraska, a lot of people say hello to you,” Buffett said.
Moglia, who was working with Nebraska’s staff in preparation for his coaching career while Suh was there, said that Suh has shown a maturity with his money. Upon arrival in the NFL, Moglia said, Suh visited him in Omaha and showed him his budget. He was impressed.
“His life skills are rare,” said Moglia, pointing out that even high draft picks can leave the NFL with little money due to poor investments and wasteful spending. “He was very sensitive; he didn’t want to take his money and invest it in something he didn’t understand.”
That is where his mentors come in. Suh wants to understand how they work, as he eventually wants to have a career combining venture-capital funding and owning businesses. And that is going to take a while. “I want to understand [Buffett] as a person, not a stock tip or the next thing he’s getting involved in,” Suh said. “I want to understand what made him successful.”
Suh, who calls being a billionaire “a far star” he wants to shoot for, said game-planning for an NFL team is advantageous in business. He said that his construction-management degree, which featured plenty of engineering classes, created an ability to problem-solve. “I look at a business deal and say, ‘How do we break through this? How do we look forward and solve this?” he said. “We do the same thing when we look at an offense. We digest it and break it down until you find the holes in it and expose it.”
Buffett said that Suh “wants to be exposed to different things” until he finds out exactly what field he’ll focus on. That is why shareholder meetings and the many different types of conferences that Suh attends are valuable. Suh’s best memory was an arm-wrestling match between Buffett and Suh at an event.
At his Michigan home, Suh has a letter, written by Buffett:
“I, Ndamukong Suh, hereby release Warren Buffett from any claims for physical injury that I may suffer in the arm wrestling contest…”
I was reading a piece ESPN did on Tyron Smith LT Cowgirls. It said that 78% of NFL players that retired were bankrupt within 2 years.
That's uncalled for. I admit to not being the sharpest tool in the toolbox but what happened to self preservation? I just don't understand the 5 cent decisions?
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11-26-2014, 07:51 AM
Ndamukong Suh and Warren Buffett: The Bruiser and the Billionaire
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