A couple years ago, I wrote a blog on the first Annual Summit of the Professional Athletes Franchise Initiative (PAFI). Fox Rothschild had become a charter member of that initiative, which seeks “To advocate the value of the franchise industry to the professional athlete community while at the same time advocate the value of the athlete community to the franchising industry.” This organization presents exciting and unique opportunities for the franchise industry and professional athletes.
So – a couple updates. PAFI is now an official affiliate of the International Franchise Association, much like VetFran and some of the other initiatives of the IFA.
In addition, the IFA teamed up with the NFL and, last April, held a franchising “Boot Camp” to further educate athletes who are thinking about franchising as a second career.
This year’s summit was held on July 14-16 and, once again, focused on building bridges between franchisors and professional athletes and on providing a course of education for the athletes. One of the new highlights of the summit were the athletes who returned as summit alumni to talk about their start in franchising. The panel included Eric King (Happy’s Pizza franchisee and former NFL player) and Leigh Bodden (Retro Fitness franchisee and former NFL player). This was very inspirational to the new attendees and encouraging for me to see the mission of PAFI starting to come true.
For more information, see www.thePAFI.org.