After calling it a career within team facilities, former New York Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum still wanted to be involved in the game.
Tannenbaum joined ESPN as a front office insider in 2019 after serving as the Miami Dolphins’ executive vice president of football operations.
That same year, he founded The 33rd Team, which brings in-depth analysis, expert insights and reaction to the latest news from around the league.
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Tannenbaum’s venture has been utilized by NFL teams to find people to fill roles and design custom solutions to help teams’ specific goals, and The 33rd Team has taken another step in its efforts.
The 33rd Team announced Tuesday a Series B funding round with notable investors including Gary Vaynerchuk, Silver Falcon Capital (the family office of former NASCAR CEO Brian France) and John Low.
“To have iconic names and people like Gary Vee, it’s the ultimate form of validation, and we’re incredibly appreciative of them and all our investors who are backing us,” Tannenbaum said in a recent interview with FOX Business. “It’s great to have their trust and confidence and everybody in the organization works hard to validate their trust.”
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They’ve also added some of the top football minds to their cap table, including NFL alum Justin Pugh and former NFL head coach Matt Patricia.
The announcement highlights The 33rd Team’s pivot from a media-focused organization to a cutting-edge football analytics and technology provider. The company served as a consultant for Tannenbaum’s former Jets last year.
The 33rd Team combines decades of NFL front-office expertise with an extensive industry network to rigorously identify, assess and vet elite talent for today’s football organizations. It also uses Zenith, a next-gen data and analytics platform, to deliver results, which several NFL teams use.
“We’ve been working hard to look at differentiated data and technology to service the football ecosystem, and over the last couple of years, just looking and observing and researching the environment,” Tannenbaum said. “We thought there was a great opportunity to try to bring and do insights based on actual player movement. We’re excited about what we’re building, and we’re very encouraged by the early adoption that some teams have already used our product and bought it.”
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