Roger Ehrenberg | Investing in Sports, 10x Funds, Traits of Top Founders, Current Seed Stage Market, Investing in Detroit
The Peel with Turner Novak
Turner Novak
4.6 • 11 Ratings
🗓️ 6 November 2025
⏱️ 91 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Roger Ehrenberg is the Co-founder of Game Changers Ventures and IA Ventures.
We talk about the current Seed stage venture environment, what he learned investing in sports teams, how COVID changed sports, what he’s investing in today, characteristics of the top founders, advice for emerging managers, and his real estate and consumer brand projects in Detroit.
Thank you to Michael Kim, Jon Oberheide, Jesse Beyroutey, James Fitzgerald, Dan Feder, Sarah Smith, Marc Weisser, and Charles Hudson for help brainstorming topics for the conversation.
Thank you to Hanover Park for supporting this episode. Upgrade to an AI-native fund admin at https://www.hanoverpark.com/Turner
Timestamps:
3:45 Current Seed stage market
7:17 Starting Game Changers to invest in sports
12:25 Investing in the Miami Marlins
16:45 Investment opportunities in sports
18:21 Tomorrow Golf League
23:54 Investing in sports teams
25:50 Business models in sports
27:12 Importance of real estate development, gambling
32:53 How COVID changed sports
38:41 Clippers experimenting with cheap tickets & concessions
41:51 Opportunities monetizing super fans
46:51 Sports as an investable venture asset
53:24 Great founders find big TAMs
56:31 The desire to win
58:09 Sending letters to break into Wall Street from Michigan
1:02:38 Raising IA Ventures Fund 1 in 2009
1:07:58 Advice for emerging managers
1:13:18 The Trade Desk’s three bridge rounds
1:18:03 Lessons on recycling capital
1:20:16 What it’s like working with your kids
1:24:53 Brand Detroit
1:29:14 Being world class at multiple disciplines
Referenced
Game Changers Ventures: https://gamechangers.vc
IA Ventures: https://www.iaventures.com
Eberg Capital: https://www.ebergcapital.com
TGL Golf: https://tglgolf.com
Brand Detroit: https://www.branddetroit.com
Follow Roger
Twitter: https://x.com/infoarbitrage
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rehrenberg
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | I feel like we're in the, to use the sports metaphor, |
| 0:06.0 | the early innings of this notion of the centricity of fandom |
| 0:12.0 | and having businesses spring from that, |
| 0:17.0 | that of course ultimately are in service of sports teams, |
| 0:21.6 | media companies, and entertainment. |
| 0:25.6 | But, man, and this comes back to the very first question you posed about, |
| 0:31.6 | some people say this is the worst time and the generation proceed. |
| 0:36.6 | And I'm like, no, no, no, you've got it wrong. |
| 0:39.3 | Just everybody wants to back the next AI dot, dot, dot, |
| 0:44.3 | and I'm much more focused on, you do that. |
| 0:48.3 | Give me this pool of technology from which to draw, |
| 0:52.3 | and my founders are going to help build incredible applications |
| 0:55.9 | that make teams' relationship with fans, fans' relationship with the teams, and fans' relationships |
| 1:03.4 | with other fans, that much better. |
| 1:08.5 | Welcome to the Peel. I'm your host, Attorney Novak, founder of Banana Capital. |
| 1:12.6 | Today's guest is Roger Aaron Bird. |
| 1:14.6 | You might know Roger from starting IAVentures in 2009, an early stage venture capital firm |
| 1:18.6 | that proceeded to return numerous 10x funds to his investors. |
| 1:22.6 | This went so well that he retired in 2021, starting his own family office to invest in sports. This also |
| 1:28.7 | went so well that he was compelled to get back into the game starting Game Changers |
| 1:33.0 | Ventures to invest in the technology behind sports, media, and entertainment. |
| 1:36.8 | I see such a massive opportunity in pre-seed and seed, just not in the areas that most of venture dollars are currently flowing to. |
... |
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