The world over – regardless of race, religion, or economic status, you’d be hard pressed to find a young person who hasn’t, at one point or another, harbored dreams of a career in professional sports. While there is no shortage of young person’s wanting to, “be like Mike”, the cold hard truth is that, for most, a lack of God-given talent, opportunity, and genetics proves an insurmountable obstacle to achieving multi-million dollar paydays, endorsement deals, and the on-field glories reserved for sports’ elite.
For Canadian-born, Jewish-raised sports media entrepreneur Jason Falovitch, though the genetic lottery balls may not have called his number to the field, he’s managed to achieve incredible success by co-creating a new lottery, The PlayLine Sports Lottery, a product which offers every sport’s fans an equal opportunity to compete and get paid like the athletes’ themselves. The product offered by Falovitch’s company PlayLine is simple – predict the stats totaled by your favorite players in that day’s games, the more correct predictions you make, the more you win – just like the lottery – except now, for the first time, you can weigh the lottery balls in your favor by applying your skill, statistical aptitudes, and sports know-how, as you look to claim PlayLine’s $1,000,000 top prize.
Aside from co-founding PlayLine, the world’s largest sports lottery, Jason Falovitch has constructed a career many would deem as far-fetched as the aforementioned dream of reaching the pinnacle of pro-sports. His career highlights play out like a, ‘SportsCenter Top 10’ and include managing, representing and touring the world with combat sporting greats Evander Holyfield, Riddick Bowe and Michael Bisping, to eradicating world hunger as the Managing Director of Muhammad Ali’s Global Village Champions Foundation, to serving as President of the ambitious and game-changing digital television network, URshow.tv, to co-launching and partnering on a 50/50 joint venture with the outspoken owner of the Dallas Mavericks, Mark Cuban. Most recently, Falovitch oversaw PlayLine’s acquisition of @NBAmemes, Instagram’s most engaged sporting community with a massive following of almost four million – proving his impact on sports and importance in sports culture goes far beyond a simple stat line or box score.
“While most of my friends we’re chasing girls, just getting out of college, or landing their first jobs – I was touring the world, and negotiating deals for one of the most famous athletes on the planet. It was trial by fire.” – Jason Falovitch
Jason Falovitch’s entry into the fast-paced world of sports management arose when he least expected it. For most getting their start in the professional sports industry, the most common position is intern or back office assistant – however for Jason, it was on a trip to Bulgaria to feed and house war-torn Syrian refugees on behalf of Muhammad Ali and CNN, where he was asked to manage the career of 5x Heavyweight Champion Boxing Great Evander Holyfield (readers note: when Ali became too sick to travel on these philanthropic missions, Holyfield became the public ambassador for the charity). At just 27 years of age, despite little managerial experience, but armed with having dealt with the likes of Muhammad Ali, Herschel Walker, Mike Tyson, and countless other celebrities as part of charitable negotiations, Jason accepted this new challenge. What followed was a world-wind three-year experience, which saw Falovitch chaperone Holyfield through over 30 countries, negotiating public appearances and TV and film deals on behalf of the former champ, and even reuniting Holyfield with Mike Tyson for their first informal encounter since the infamous ‘ear-biting’ incident during their match in 1997. “While most of my friends we’re chasing girls, just getting out of college, or landing their first jobs – I was touring the world, and negotiating deals for one of the most famous athletes on the planet. It was trial by fire”, said Falovitch. Despite a lavish lifestyle that included dinners with heads of state, and facetime with the world’s biggest stars, Falovitch harbored a desire to start a family, and returned home to his native Toronto, Canada.
“I wanted to do something that’s never been done before. I wanted to break world-records, and that’s what we did” – Jason Falovitch
Having negotiated deals with the world’s biggest brands, and armed with a vast network of celebrity friends, the much sought after Falovitch embarked on the next phase of his career, accepting the role of President of the up-start digital television network, URshow.tv. It was there, where over the next two years, Falovitch oversaw the creation of innovative and exclusive digital content, featuring the likes of Michael Rapaport, Gary Busey, Chris McDonald (Shooter McGavin from Happy Gilmour), Tyson Beckford, Vince Neil and dozens more. It was also where Jason met his current business partner, TV producer and URshow.tv Director of Programming, Aaron Avruskin. “We wanted to do something that’s never been done before. We wanted to break world-records, and that’s what we did” said Falovitch, speaking on his relationship with Avruskin, and the companies’ world record breaking $10,000,000 Hole-in-One Golf Challenge event, which was live-streamed globally. The network also produced a fight night extravaganza, featuring boxing, pro-wrestling, grappling and MMA, all one on singular event – and included such superstars as Kurt Angle, Rey Mysterio, Chael Sonnen, Quinton Rampage Jackson, commentator Jim Ross, and pound-for-pound kingpin Roy Jones Jr (who fought a fan selected by the voting public online). This was also where Falovitch first met his current business partner, now UFC Hall of Famer, Michael Bisping.
After managing the professional career of one of the world’s most famous athletes, and having produced top tier events featuring some of Hollywood’s biggest stars – Falovitch and partner Aaron Avruskin turned their attention to gaming. The Toronto-based entrepreneurs partnered with UFC Champion Michael Bisping and 2x NBA All-Star Roy Hibbert, launching PlayLine.com in the fall of 2017. It’s no surprise that the companies Sports Lottery product, which offers multiple million dollar prizes daily, grew more quickly than any company in the space before it – and attracted significant interest from athletes, media partners and investors. “We are firmly entrenched as the third largest player in the multi-billion-dollar space” proclaims Falovitch. With Draftkings and FanDuel operating as market leaders, many others have sought to make similar, yet factually incorrect claims, when comparing the user databases of competing platforms. Bolstering the companies growth endeavours, is a recently executed joint-venture between Falovitch’s PlayLine and Mark Cuban – which sees these two media forces combine to launch Leverage Game Media Inc, a firm focused on social media advertising and social asset aggregation.
For Falovitch, life is about getting better day by day. “Keep dreaming, never take no for an answer, and your hard work will pay off” instructs the media veteran. For those that understand the reality that they may never, “Be like Mike”, with hard work, grit, determination, and stick-to-itiveness, those looking to make a career in sports may want to consider chasing the dream to, “Be like Jason”.
***Jason Falovitch welcomes the opportunity to mentor those seeking advice on a career in sports, and can be reached at assistant@PlayLine.com”