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  • 8 hours ago
The League’s co-founder and commissioner, Ron Abaekobe, takes Billboard All Access inside the exclusive basketball league that blends the grit of Rucker Park with the luxury of Soho House. He details how the league redefines culture by creating a hub where music, sports, and fashion meet, featuring teams that represent lifestyle brands like Justin Bieber’s Skylark rather than traditional franchises. The episode explores the viral moment Bieber joined the bandstand to play drums during a game, the fashion-forward pre-game tunnel walk where players dress to impress, and the custom-designed court at Surgeon Studios.

Category

🎵
Music
Transcript
00:00It's hard to explain the league or compare it to something out there because really what I did
00:17was just take my favorite things whether it's Rucker Park, Drew League, NBA, SoHo House,
00:21and kind of putting all those experiences in one. It's an all-inclusive experience and the
00:26whole goal was to take a few different industries and hospitality offerings that exist and kind of
00:30putting them all together. People love what they can't have. I know I do so anytime there's a list
00:35or a line to get in I know that drives curiosity and that was the tone I wanted to set ever since
00:40season one. We're kind of just using sport as like that common denominator to bring all the brands
00:44together that don't typically do these type of partnerships but here at the league we're
00:48redefining what you know sport even means right and what sport culture is. It's created a demand
00:53for people to find out what we're doing here and it's the first league where you can do seven
00:58different things under one roof. You can actually miss a game here because there's a bar outside,
01:03there's food truck showcases outside, there's VIP sections, there's tons of stuff to do here.
01:08Really the bottom line is what the jerseys actually say which is the company that means like personnel
01:13from that company is here. Every team in the league is a brand and it's a very curated approach as well so
01:19fashion teams, hospitality groups, agriculture companies, lifestyle companies, those are the
01:24teams hence why we have LRG or Soho House, Justin Bieber's new brand Skylark has a team and so the
01:30league is starting to become that machine or platform that brands get to put their names in to be involved
01:36in and then it taps the community because players are going to play their hearts out wearing this brand
01:41name and I think that's a lot more efficient and functional than an actual billboard if you ask me
01:45because people are going to post pictures from their favorite moments and the players win because
01:50they're seen but then the brands win as well because people are posting their favorite highlights
01:54and then they're posting the scores to the games and it just puts everyone in a position to be seen
01:58in a positive cool light. Music blends into the league seamlessly because music is like the heartbeat to
02:04culture. Justin you know he was telling me about the really cool brand he's been working on
02:08Skylark and he thought the league was a perfect platform for Skylark to unveil and roll out and
02:14show up in community the league was like a seamless entry point for him to kind of roll out that
02:18brand from a cultural uh community level. Skylark actually has a soccer team as well so
02:27one Tuesday night we had a bando band outside and a lot of drums a lot of trumpets a lot of saxophones
02:34and they were right here he turns around and joins the actual bando band.
02:39He gets on the drums and goes crazy for about like five minutes.
02:54Put on a full show outside in the middle of the game.
03:01To see somebody go from playing to playing drums that was like the epitome for like an only after
03:07league moment. I listened to a lot of Playboy Cardi, I listened to a lot of Travis Scott,
03:12a lot of Tame Impala but when the Swag album dropped I instantly gravitated to that. I looked at my
03:18most listened album and Swag was up there. The album was really good really dope and shout out to Swag.
03:24Swag over everything. It's all love man it's all energy man this is all like what brotherhood looks
03:29like bro this shit is crazy. Crazy. JB where the fucking hoop? Where the fucking hoop?
03:40Top five moments at the league is such a hard question because genuinely speaking in full
03:45transparency I think I've had some of the best moments of my life here at the league. I would
03:48say week one day three which was probably one of the wildest days and energy points of the league.
03:53Week one day three day one was crazy day two was crazy day three I'm not gonna be able to explain honest
03:59it was so crazy it took us like 30 minutes to get our game started and that's because it was a full
04:03star study crowd. JB showed up to you know coach on team Skylark but we got Amber Rose, Ryan Garcia,
04:09Ty Dolla Sign, Blueface, Raven Simone, we got Kyle Massey in the building and so we look up and we got the
04:15most turnt up game and you would have swore it was like some award show or some gala. You never really
04:19know who you're gonna see here at the league and I think it starts with who the teams are. Every night
04:23it's like a new night to see who pops out. The design of the court was inspired by the shoe
04:30surgeon we are at currently surgeon studios the origin of where the league started and so we
04:34really played into the skull because that is the design language for the shoes and so as you can see
04:39on the floors here we got sculled out floors just to really push how exclusive we're designing
04:44everything and so everything is an exclusive uh curated feel and so we wanted to just extend that
04:49messaging to the basketball court as well. This place actually constantly changes during the day
04:54we teach people how to make shoes here from scratch in the daytime but then as the night goes on this
04:58turns into our back house for production so as you see here we got our meme house area everything back
05:03here this is the team behind the stream shout out meme house at the league we love everything to be
05:08outside of the normal that's why this big apple stays here during every single day it's actually our
05:13backdrop for our post game interview so after uh during a half time or after every single basketball game
05:19after every single soccer game i sit down with the player the game or the entire team in front of
05:23this big apple and it kind of became like one of the trending photo op moments that people want to
05:27be a part of because they know this is the moment where we're going to talk about the great thing they
05:31just did so this actually became one of our favorite photo ops in the entire venue
05:38so this is our pre-game tunnel walk this is like a very big part of our league right here
05:43uh this tunnel is where we're capturing players and we're capturing their outfits and we're showing what
05:47what they're wearing before the game and so most leagues people just kind of show up in their games
05:51and like in sweatpants and slippers or just real comfortable here at the league people just to
05:56impress you know they're looking forward to this hallway so they can show off what they're wearing
06:00every week at the league as we're posting the top athletes and the top plays we're also posting the
06:04top outfits for the league is all about luxury it's all about experiential so again players get the
06:11luxury and the privilege to show up and their jerseys are already hung up for them after the game players
06:16leave their jerseys we wash them for them and they come back so if you take a look here
06:20this will give you a message on who the first game is we went with the laker inspired jerseys
06:25for a team to me it's right here so shout out donnie hey donnie if you're watching this you know
06:30i'm always rooting for you and the me is first everybody man i'm with y'all hey by the way this
06:34hat look what does that say what does that say to me yes we always gang gang over here
06:41so this is our cool bar area our lounge area our exclusive moment for all guests when they get
06:46here this is the area i was telling you about you might actually miss a game here because
06:51it's a vibe there's the energy here people everywhere there's energy at the bar right now
06:55it's a little calm because we're getting ready for the night this is the calmness before the storm so
07:00everything around me is going to be surrounded by people here in the next couple hours you guys are
07:04going to see here very shortly um the league is really all about the networking and the camaraderie and
07:09this is typically where most of that takes place the shoe all behind me is actually a sneak peek
07:13uh into dom's room which we're going to go to in a second but everything we've done here uh from a
07:19shoe creation standpoint it varies whether it's uh working with bentley um a shoe we did we created
07:26and designed cars with bentley uh created a shoe for lebron james when he became the number one scorer of all
07:30time sonic the hedgehog the movie lan von uh gucci right here the list goes on so we've been able to
07:39create surgeon has been able to create some of the craziest pieces for some of the biggest brands
07:43all over the world we actually created um a list of the list so within the space you got to be on a
07:49separate list to be able to come upstairs and that's what this is there's a separate list of
07:53people who are granted vip access whether you're a direct player uh guest whether you're a team owner
07:59team captain team brand certain people get an exclusive wristband that granted access upstairs people love
08:05when there's a list to be able to do something and so i think putting that aspect to where
08:09there's a separate entry point creates more demand for like what's upstairs who's upstairs and it just
08:14kind of creates this like everlasting energy in the space and so once you're up here this is like the
08:19bird's eye view of the league these are i guess what you call the best seats in the house we have about
08:24eight suites on this side right here and then this is where we're hosting all of our clients my favorite
08:29seat in the house is actually on the court our court side seats courtside seats at the league
08:34basically means standing room on the court right now we're currently in the vault room or the locker
08:42room or a special client room this is where we bring special moments and special people to come
08:46by and elaborate on what we're doing here right now i'm here with brian bro so how do you feel
08:51running the team in the league how's the league been able to you know help impact the brand and how's
08:55the league been able to give people an opportunity to express themselves on and off the court a lot of
09:00times with sweet sweat we don't get to show how it works right we just get to talk about the product
09:04here we're getting to show how sweet sweat works with basketball putting on the players it's an
09:08active way for us to show how our company works with sports billboard it was a pleasure thank you
09:13guys for coming down to the league checking out what we've been doing for the past few seasons
09:17i know i've been wearing a lot of hats here i'm also the commissioner but i'm also a player right now
09:21i got the team behind me we got a game coming up and now it's time to get in that mode with the squad so
09:25i gotta go do it i gotta do it peace
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