Kobe Bryant is a name that people will not easily forget. His fantastic skills on the basketball court alongside his memorable personality makes his passing that much more difficult to comprehend. With that being said, Kobe never gave up throughout his entire life. This led to a ton of success not only on the court but in business as well.
What Business Does Kobe Bryant Own? Bryant owns, or owned, a number of different things. Most notably he had created his own investment company, he had a television show and put together a short film that won numerous awards. Not to mention his creation of Mamba Sports Academy. These are just a handful of the things that he had ownership of.
Let’s dive a little deeper into these things and find out what exactly they are.
Kobe Bryant’s Companies
The first company to cover here is called Kobe Inc. This is a corporation that Bryant himself created with the goal of growing other brands in the sports industry. They were known for making different types of investments and after a short while Kobe saw a ridiculous amount of money coming his way. The other company that he had was called Bryant-Stibel. This was a venture capital company that he was able to create alongside Jeff Stibel. Stibel was Bryant’s business partner at the time so it just made sense to work together. This group’s entire goal was to dive into multiple categories including gaming, media and technology. In fact, they were able to get $100 million in funding pretty quickly.
Mamba Sports Academy
The Mamba Sports Academy was something that Kobe created alongside Chad Faulker and it was arguably one of his most successful projects. They were able to create a couple of facilities in different states that would hold a number of different purposes. For one, the facilities were able to hold workouts for NBA and WNBA players alike. Secondly, he was able to create an entire basketball league there and coach his daughter’s AAU squad. These buildings had so many different reasons for success but none of that ever got to Bryant. In fact, his partner Faulker said that everybody was welcome in that facility. That Kobe was able to bring so many different people together in a way that he never thought possible. These facilities were far more than just a basketball court or a gym, they were a community of individuals that were brought together by basketball itself. Since his passing, the name of these facilities has been changed due to Kobe’s family asking for it. Faulkner didn’t have any issue with it at all and understood the pain that it was causing them. It is now known as the Sports Academy but this wasn’t a decision that was made in vain. In fact, Faulkner had to defend the decision to change the name after NBA players thought he wasn’t honoring the late superstar. Nevertheless, Kobe’s legacy will live on throughout that facility forever, regardless of a simple name change. Without him, none of this would have been even remotely possible.
Short Film And Television
A lot of you have probably heard about this already but Kobe Bryant was hit with numerous awards for his creation of Dear Basketball. Dear Basketball is a short film that he created back in 2018. He was the first African-American to ever win the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. Kobe was also the first ever former professional athlete to win an Academy Award at all and yet he overcame tremendous odds to do so. Not only that, but Dear Basketball picked up a Sports Emmy Award on top of the Annie Award for Best Animated Short Subject. I think it’s pretty safe to say that this entire project ended up being a success, and a very big one at that. Moving on now, we have to cover his very own television show called Detail. Detail, like Dear Basketball, grew rapidly in popularity. Kobe wrote, produced and hosted the series for multiple seasons. You were able to watch them on either ESPN or ESPN+ if you wanted too. These shows let Kobe dive deeper into the sport of basketball and give you in-depth knowledge of games that we all have watched as fans. It’s not every day that you get to see a former basketball player of his caliber sit down and talk to you through the screen about recent games. Kobe himself said that he always wanted to pick players who he thought would have some issues in future games. Whether it was matchup problems or poor play, he just wanted to dive a bit deeper into them and what he personally would have done differently. Bryant also admitted that he didn’t just want to cover all of these big 40 plus point games because then he would only be looking at the good and not helping other players fix their mistakes. Finally, he said that the entire show is without a script. Meaning he sits down and analyses everything in real time. He doesn’t watch and go think about what he wants to say. This is all in the moment and in depth.
Other Ownerships
The first thing that we are going to cover in this section has to be his book, The Mamba Mentality: How I Play. The book features a wonderful introduction made by none other than Phil Jackson and even has some words from his former teammate, Pau Gasol. This entire book reminds fans who read it about Bryant’s past and career. He had another book that he was working on with Paulo Coelho which would have been focused at inspiring younger and underprivileged children, but the book was canceled shortly after his death. Coelho said that it was impossible to finish it knowing what had happened. Kobe also created his very own production company that was called Granity Studios. Granity Studios did a number of different things, but focused primarily on novels and other television shows. Since we are on the topic of novels, Granity Studios released several young adult novels that were produced by Bryant. Legacy and the Queen, Epoca and The Wizenard Series: Training Camp all under Kobe’s name.