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Nick Ralston

@nickralston22

9K
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2160
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Founder @ AthleteOS
Operating Partner for Athletes & Sports Agencies
Dallas Cowboys Football Player → $1B+ deals at Jerry Jones-backed PE firm
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They hate us because they ain’t us… #WeDemBoyz #DallasCowboys #CowboysNation #Underdog taken in AT&T Stadium by @nickralston22
78
5 years ago
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The Paradigm Shift Episode 58 ✨ Live from the @dallascowboys locker room with my partner in crime the handsome sandwich 🥪 eating @davidmeltzer and this young stallion @nickralston22. We talk not seeking approval and Nick dives in on the commonalities between the @nfl and Real estate 🚀. We talk the Rocky movies and the impact they’ve had on each of us 🥊. Nick illustrates jumping right into the fire and facilitating being uncomfortable for massive growth 💪🏻. For more daily CLS gems 💎 text 9176343796, Ya dig 🎯 by @nickralston22
148
4 years ago
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Three truths from Mike Tyson today: 1. You gotta be him before you become him 2. Adversity makes the strong stronger and the weak weaker 3. GREATNESS is turning your DELUSIONS into REALITY Get your mind right! by @nickralston22
0
6 days ago
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If you are trying to build something great, change the world, or build a better version of yourself: falling down is inevitable. Failure is part of the game. There’s always noise from the critics outside of the arena, but the only thing that matters is staying in the game and never quitting. The path to greatness is full of blood, sweat, tears, mud, and setbacks. Stay locked in and continue to pound the rock day in and day out. Don’t take no for an answer! by @nickralston22
18
8 days ago
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I broke my facemask three times in preseason because I was the hammer on every single rep. I was an undrafted rookie fullback fighting for a roster spot on the Dallas Cowboys. All I have ever known how to do is run through walls, break barriers, and laying the wood every time I was on the field. Here is the battle nobody saw after the game… I sat at my locker in extreme pain, with stingers, numbness, and doubts creeping in. Teammates and coaches were telling me I balled out, but I was sitting at that locker thinking: how am I going to survive this every single week? It’s only the second pre season game. The only way through was pushing past the doubt, preparing for every single rep, and telling myself: just figure it out one rep at a time. Business and entrepreneurship are continuous torture and disappointment. It is brutally hard. Nobody is doing it for you, nobody is coming to save you, and nobody hands you a win. Betting on yourself requires a violent, relentless energy to knock down doors and run right through doubt, negativity, and competition. In football, business, and life, you are either the hammer or the nail. The real test is choosing to enforce your will on the competition instead of letting them enforce theirs on you. It is 100% on you to be the hammer. And in this game, I was definitely the hammer… 🔨💪🏻 taken in State Farm Stadium by @nickralston22
47
15 days ago
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The Grove is elite. I’ve seen two of the biggest sports brands up close. The Dallas Cowboys and Jordan. The great sports owner / franchise and the greatest player of all time. The brands are similar yet so different. Both world class and a life style. The Cowboys are hype, entertainment, and sizzle. Wildcatters. Jordan is culture and swagger. Winning at the highest level. Thank you @heirjordan13 for the invite! taken in Grove Xlll by @nickralston22
3
17 days ago
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I don't know how much this truck weighs. I didn't care. I pulled it anyway. That's how I've done everything. When something looks impossible, I stop asking whether it can be done and I just do it. Look at the odds. A fullback with one scholarship offer. Undrafted in 2020 after COVID canceled my pro day. Signed by the Dallas Cowboys the next year anyway, after eight months of training alone. Play in four games my first season. Cut on the second day of training camp in year two, then hired into private equity by one of Jerry Jones' business partners with zero experience. Three years at Blue Star Innovation Partners, working on $1 billion in transactions. Every one of those came down to one thing. I don't stop. Being around the Jones family and the Cowboys showed me there's no ceiling on what a person can build. So I stopped putting one on myself. Most of the limits you're carrying right now, you put there. Push past what you think is possible. Get obsessed with getting better every day, and get obsessed with doing the thing everybody says can't be done. And if you're across from me, gooooood luck buddy. I'm not stopping. by @nickralston22
5
19 days ago
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I was in NYC meeting with a $50B fintech that's been trying to partner with one of the biggest stars in the NBA. They couldn't get past the gatekeepers. The only thing on the table was a brand deal: pay the athlete, get a post, move on. Here's what an athlete should do instead: → Make the brand the title sponsor of an athlete-hosted dinner and event series → Fill the room with founders, VCs, PE firms, family offices, allocators, athletes and entertainers → Use the partnership to reach their executives, their board and the investors on their cap table The brand gets the audience it wants. The athlete gets a network no Instagram post can buy. Brands aren't just checks. They're leverage. This is how you build an investment platform: a community of investors, founders and funds. That's where the best deal flow comes from, and it's how you raise scaled capital. But it takes a team: logistics, planning, relationship management. It's impossible for an athlete to do it alone. That's why we're building AthleteOS, to build businesses and platforms around athletes. So that's what I'm doing. I'm building out this dinner and event series in cities across the U.S. and around the world. We'll start with 10 markets. If you're interested in attending, shoot me a DM. taken in New York, N.Y. by @nickralston22
8
21 days ago
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In the locker room, I saw guys making $2M to $50M a year who couldn't get into one high quality deal. They didn't lack money. They lacked access to real alternative investments and to people they could trust. Most athletes have never been taught how to: → Diligence a deal → Read a pro forma → Understand a fee structure → Spot the risks I saw real estate deals with huge upfront acquisition fees and sponsors taking 50% of the profits with no preferred return. I saw venture deals where other investors held 3x liquidation preferences ahead of them. Most of those are probably underwater or have gone to zero. Meanwhile, the families and institutions getting the best deals have what athletes don't: a deep network, an investment committee and experts in every industry to diligence each opportunity. Often, they simply partner with other families who already know that industry because they own and operate businesses in it. Athletes are rarely connected directly to family offices, founders or deals. They're usually middlemen, and every layer adds fees and less information on the opportunity. Athletes get rich fast. Nobody builds the investment infrastructure around them. That's part of what we're building at AthleteOS... and bringing athletes into our family office and institutional rolodex! by @nickralston22
0
23 days ago
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Every person who has ever played in the NFL could fit inside Soldier Field twice, with several thousand seats to spare. Soldier Field is the NFL's smallest stadium, with 61,500 seats. Only about 26,000 people have ever played in the league. That puts into perspective how rare it is to reach that arena. I was out of football for over a year and trained alone after COVID cancelled my pro day, then the following season fought my way onto the Dallas Cowboys roster as an undrafted fullback. The harsh reality is that the arena does not last. It didn't for me. Most athletes spend their entire careers surviving that first arena then walk away without a playbook for life after sports. The daily structure vanishes and physical grit alone does not translate into success in life or business. Teddy Roosevelt had it right. The credit belongs to the man actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood. I reached the top of the world in football. When I was cut from the NFL, my goal was the exact same in business: reach the elite class of founders, operators and investors and learn directly from them. On the investing side at Blue Star Innovation Partners, I evaluated and worked on thousands of deals, buying founder-led companies for tens to hundreds of millions. Watching those founders build from the investor seat felt like being in the luxury suite watching someone else in the arena. I told myself I had to get out of the investing seat and get into the arena as an entrepreneur. Now I am taking everything I learned to build businesses and enable athletes to become entrepreneurs, and compete at the highest level in business the same way they compete on the field. Operating capability is only part of the equation. The true firepower comes from the rolodex and institutional access. We bring a network across of corporations and institutional allocators, family offices, and funds that manage trillions in capital and supercharge global partnerships, deal flow, access to capital, and business development. If you are a current or former athlete, founder, investor, or actively building in the business of sports, media, and entertainment, hit me up! by @nickralston22
5
24 days ago
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Being @_4dak would be great. But I wanted to be Jerry. I was a practice squad fullback. I was never going to land a million-dollar brand deal. But I had something most people never get: access. The NFL shield, the Cowboys star and a locker room full of people the world wants to meet. The Cowboys cut me. Then I got hired at Blue Star Innovation Partners, an investment firm backed by the Jones family, inside Cowboys HQ. It was a three-minute walk from the locker room. Same building. Different seat at the table. I used Blue Star as a platform to gain expertise in investing and operating and build relationships with billionaires, fund managers, sports team owners, family offices, executives, and founders. Every athlete has that access while they're playing. Most never turn it into ownership or use it to their advantage. Michael Jordan did it. Magic Johnson did it. Athletes becoming owners is only getting started. That's the playbook we're building at AthleteOS. taken in Dallas, Texas by @nickralston22
7
25 days ago
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Pro athletes are businesses doing $500K to $50M in revenue. Most of them don't have a LinkedIn. A website. A CRM. A newsletter. Or an operating team. Any other business that size would have all of it. Athletes are expected to figure it out alone while playing a full-time sport. That's why I'm building AthleteOS, the operating partner for athlete business. I'm taking the private equity operating team approach and partnering with athletes to provide what a nine figure business needs: → Media & Brand: full content operations across YouTube, socials, LinkedIn, your newsletter and website. → Sales & Business Development: GTM strategy, brand deals, speaking, communities, international partnerships, and growth for the businesses you own or are building.
 → Investment & Advisory: deal flow, family offices, PE and VC, co-investment and SPVs, industry rotational program, board placement and advisory roles → Technology & AI: AI automation, custom CRM, websites and AI apps
and agents. → Operations & Finance: internal operations and accounting, expense management, run alongside your advisors. → Estate & Philanthropy: estate and trust planning, foundation strategies, and community and charity events. Take one service or all six. Every athlete is different, so every engagement is built around your goals, your businesses and where you are in your career. Behind it is a bench of operators who've built and exited billion-dollar businesses, plus 1,000+ family office relationships. I went from the bottom of the Cowboys roster to straight into PE and $1B+ in deals at Blue Star Innovation Partners. The access you have while you're playing is the most valuable asset you'll ever hold. Most athletes never turn it into a business. That's why we're building AthleteOS to enable the full potential of what an athlete can achieve off the field or court and in the community. We're limiting our initial cohort to 10 athletes. Former teammates and athletes, hit me up to learn more. #AthleteOS #SportsBusiness #AthleteBrand #NFL #NIL #FamilyOffice #PrivateEquity taken in Dallas, Texas by @nickralston22
16
a month ago
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