The NBA basketball league is big business. And right in the middle there are more and more German players. The currently most prominent active is Dennis Schröder. Culturally, he’s almost an American – also because he’s played with superstars like LeBron James. In the OMR podcast, Schröder tells what he learned from James, how he invests his NBA millions and why he bought his former team in Braunschweig.
“I was more into skating when I was eleven or twelve, and I played a little basketball on the side. Liviu Călin then discovered me in the park in Braunschweig. I started playing in a club when I was 14,” says Dennis Schröder in the OMR podcast. So his career didn’t start as planned at all. Perhaps that is also the reason why he is so grateful to his discoverer Călin and the city of Braunschweig to this day. But more on that later. Schröder’s rise in basketball was rapid as a result. He briefly played second division, then two years first division with Braunschweig. “I was then invited to the Hoop Summit in Portland. The twelve best young players from the rest of the world play against the twelve best young players from the USA,” said Schröder. “I trained well and played well. That’s when I knew I was going to the NBA.”
A little later, Dennis Schröder was selected by the Atlanta Hawks as the 17th player in the 2013 NBA Draft, where he matured into a well-known NBA great over the next five years and made it to the semi-finals of the championship. “I had good veterans who showed me the city and, above all, how to become a professional basketball player,” says Schröder. Since 2018, however, things have gotten a little more restless around him. Atlanta transferred him to the Oklahoma City Thunder that year, to the LA Lakers in 2020, to the Boston Celtics in 2021 and to the Houston Rockets last season. Where he will play next season is currently still open. “But there are still five to seven years in the NBA,” says Dennis Schröder.
Learn from the big ones
Dennis Schröder has grown up in the USA. Hip-hop culture in Atlanta, country life in Oklahoma, stars in LA, he took it all with him. Of course, in the OMR podcast, Philipp also explicitly asks about LeBron James, the king of the NBA. “He enjoys every moment, is very, very young at heart. But when it comes to basketball, he’s one of the hardest workers,” says Schröder. “I got into the hall two hours before the start of the first practice session. LeBron was already sweating and training by then.” James always has a team around him that takes care of his various needs. Schröder is now on the road with five to ten people: physiotherapist, basketball coach, cameraman, his brother as his right hand. NBA professionals are players, entrepreneurs, and companies all rolled into one.
Nevertheless, Dennis Schröder currently wants to be an athlete above all. He uses social media rather irregularly still over two million fans on Instagram. There are 185,000 on YouTube. “I always have phases. Instagram is good for pushing your own stuff,” he says. “I use it when I feel like it. I don’t want to make any money with it.” Overall, he discovered the personal brand game that so many NBA players play perfectly today: “Marketing didn’t interest me at first. I only started doing it five to six years after I started in the NBA.” To this day, he usually comes to the games completely black. Other stars turn every way into the hall into a fashion show to like on Instagram channels LeagueFits (844.000 Follower) and thus land in the pop culture world.
Braunschweig give something back
When it comes to Dennis Schröder the entrepreneur, he gets modest. Accompanied by experts, he invests his money in real estate and crypto. He also looks for sponsorships extremely carefully. After nine years with Nike, his shoe partner is now Puma. “It just fits: Puma is from Germany, they make fashion,” says Schröder. After all, he’s not that completely uninterested in fashion. He runs the fashion label together with childhood friends who have accompanied him to this day „Flex Gang“soon he also wants to launch his own perfume and a joint collection with About You is also in the starting blocks.
Probably Dennis Schröder’s biggest entrepreneurial project is his home club. Since 2020 he has been the sole shareholder of Basketball Löwen Braunschweig, which plays in the first Bundesliga. And as the owner of the club, he has big plans. “The organization has been around for 40 years, but we want to make something special out of it,” says Schröder. “We want to play at the top level, in Germany and at some point also in Europe.”
The focus is on youth development in Braunschweig itself and on getting new sponsors from the area interested in the project. “I want it to make economic sense and not have to keep putting money into it privately. We’re trying to build a kind of FC Bayern organization. Why shouldn’t we be one of the biggest clubs in the next few years? ”Schröder wants to return to his heart club as a player by the age of 35 at the latest – then players and entrepreneurs will really come together in one place.
You can hear how he assesses the development of basketball in Germany overall, which NBA organization has impressed him the most and what he calculates for the upcoming European Championships with the German team in the current OMR podcast.
A little hint: Philipp’s friend and VC investor Jan Sessenhausen is also a guest this time. He’s a huge NBA fan and expert.
All topics of the OMR podcast with NBA star Dennis Schröder at a glance:
- How did Dennis Schröder go from recreational basketball player to NBA star? (00:04:00)
- Role Model LeBron James and NBA Players as Personal Brands (00:14:00)
- The close connection to Braunschweig and his home club (00:26:30)
- This is how Dennis Schröder takes care of his body (00:34:00)
- That’s what he does with his money (00:39:00)
- His Life as an NBA Basketball Player (00:44:30)