Von Allmen Center Entrepreneurs: The Road to Success!
Acumen Media, a Black-Founded Corporation, was created in hopes to go hand in hand with an athlete’s name, image, and likeness (NIL) in a manner that is profitable for everyone. Formerly, athletes had no choice but to surrender their rights to profit, subsequently signing their scholarship contracts. However, The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) July 1, 2021, embraced a varying policy with NIL. This policy legally grants athletes their deserved
rights, the luxury of promoting and profiting on one’s NIL. The NIL entails the athlete’s ability to endorse and promote commercial services and products, placing a safeguard on their NCAA eligibility. That safeguard has restrictions that will continue to adapt and expand with the ever-changing world of college athletics. Nonetheless, Acumen Media will continue to evolve alongside.
Acumen’s interactive platform provides a serene way for athletes to use the NIL to their advantage: making money from content, sponsors, endorsements, social media ads, profited interactions, the ability to have an agent, and plenty more. Our platform seeks to disseminate raw, realistic, uncensored content from the athletes themselves. We want to provide an opportunity to show fans a side they never get to see with an ultimate goal to connect with the athlete on a personal level. We feel this is important because all athletes have varying stories and paths leading to who they are now. Other media outlets tend to only show an athlete as an athlete, which comes with higher expectations from avid sports fans. But what about what type of people they are in street clothes and their testimonies?
While authorizing an athlete to monetize, we’ll dig deep to uncover the person behind the uniform. Acumen Media wants to give thanks to the University of Kentucky’s Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship (VACE). Camron Brown, is a co-founder of Acumen and University of Kentucky graduate from the College of Communications. Camron worked with VACE over the years as an undergraduate stating that, “What the Von Allmen Center for Entrepreneurship did for me, as well as many of my peers, was the creation of a program where they walk you through a mini accelerator, helping someone who wants to start their own business understand what needs to be done and what it takes to start their own business overall,” Brown said. “Jabari and I took an idea we had to UK. They set us down and went over our finances, our pitch decks, investor updates, and plenty more. Overall, VACE helped us to scale our company, Acumen Media, the right way. It was a good starter for us for what we created.”
After graduating from UK and VACE's Entrepreneurs Bootcamp program, Acumen has participated in two accelerators, has received an offer for a third accelerator with capital, and has been awarded Forbes Next 1000. Acumen also has professional athletes as partners, have advisors that work for the NBA, ESPN, former NFL players, and a VC partner.
Dreams only work if you do. Camron Brown, 23, the prodigy of his family, continuously takes opportunities, turning his dreams into reality, one day at a time. Brown recently packed his bags and moved his lady, Amadi Malveaux, a UK alum, and their one-year-old son, Roman, to California, where he currently works in marketing for the Los Angeles Clippers. His developing journey hasn’t come easy, but the support and guidance of his parents, in pursuit of their child’s highest self, is what’s propelled him. Brown, surrounded by peer pressures growing up, never lacked in being true to himself. The valedictorian of his middle school class went on to be the first person in his family to obtain a high school diploma. His grit and persistence then rewarded him with a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and a minor in Political Science from the University of Kentucky. During his time in UK, his communication skills and connections opened
doors to people with similar visions and mentalities. One of those connections is Jabari Ashe.
Jabari Ashe, 23, a former walk-on to Belmont Abbey’s basketball team, was born an entrepreneur. The life-changing decision to walk away from playing basketball, switching his focus to coaching and training, expedited his natural-born talents. Adaptability, tenacity, confidence, competitiveness, a focus on the big picture, and more are traits of an entrepreneur that Ashe possesses. With the ability to rent out gyms he started his own training business, “Handles for Life.” As word continued to get around, other promising clients arose. Ashe’s training led him to coach an AAU travel league basketball team and then to coaching a middle school and a couple of high schools. Still focused on the big picture, Ashe knew his calling in sports was more generous than the opportunities he’d already taken. A key contributor to Ashe’s philosophy is former Kentucky Wildcat, Bam Adebayo, drafted in the first round of the 2017 NBA draft by the Miami Heat. Ashe looks at Bam as an older brother and role model. Whenever he needs someone to chat it up with, Bam is his go-to.
One day, Adebayo introduced Ashe to another UK student, who also happened to be a friend of Brown. Following a short conversation with Ashe, she was able to pick up on his ethos and ambition in sports. She gave Ashe Brown’s contact information, influencing him that the connection would be profitable and worthwhile. Ashe and Brown, who’ve yet to meet in person, immediately hit it off. Endless phone calls and virtual meetings between the two set the tone for
something big. When combining their networks they were able to form a long-distance team, built solely off of trust, leading to the onset of Acumen Media.
