Partners and other companies that contributed to the event included Nike, which hosted the opening session of the workshop; RXR, a real estate company that Pugh told NFL.com talked to attendees and took them to the site of a $7 billion superskyscraper; and Core Club, which set up a network.
The New York Stock Exchange hosted many meetings with industry leaders, as well as a player happy hour in the NYSE dome. Pugh’s alma mater, Syracuse, provided a real business education and laid the groundwork for the pitch at the offices of hi-tech company Ramp, where teams of participants had four hours to build a pitch before presenting to a panel of judges made up of various CEOs.
On top of the educational aspect and the ability to put faces to important names at the top of the business, the core of the workshop was about players learning from players, both bouncing ideas off their peers in the league and learning from those who have come before.
“[It’s] three days of learning about life in business. How to improve your network,” Pugh said of the experience. “What are some tips and tricks to increase the network you have and the conversations you have, getting a mentor — how to go about getting one — and really learning to add tools to your toolbox from the greats who have done it before you. We’re learning from the titans of business, but we’re also learning from the titans of the NFL.”
In the coming years, Perlman’s goal is for BizWeek to provide an even deeper dive, allowing players to learn about the many paths they can take while still looking for something that fuels them with the same passion that football does.
“My hope is that they get a kind of extended experience, but they can also go deeper into some of these issues,” Perlman said. “Because now BizWeek gives you an overview of everything that’s out there, and I think our hope is, OK, BizWeek is 201 — not just 101 — and now you get to pick a topic and go deep.
As for the future of attendees, both Pugh and Perlman acknowledge that BizWeek is only a springboard—albeit an important one.
Both players touched on taking the lessons and connections they formed at the summit and putting them into practice, whether it’s going on an internship somewhere in the offseason, shadowing a general manager or simply keeping a line open.
“BizWeek is what you make of it,” Pugh said. “It’s the people you meet, it’s the hands you shake, it’s the follow up you keep going.”
Pugh, who emphasized the importance of preparing for retirement long before it arrives, added, “The transition starts the day you put the pads on, not the day you take them off.”