Stories
Stories
Wheel Change
Re: Paris Wallace (MBA 2007); By: Julia HannaTopics: Sports-CyclingEntrepreneurship-GeneralDemographics-DiversityInnovation-Innovation Leadership
Wheel Change
Re: Paris Wallace (MBA 2007); By: Julia HannaTopics: Sports-CyclingEntrepreneurship-GeneralDemographics-DiversityInnovation-Innovation Leadership
Wheel Change
Above: National Cycling League founder Paris Wallace: branching off in a new direction for professional sports. (Photo by Josh Ritchie)
A serial entrepreneur, Paris Wallace (MBA 2007/MPA 2008) is founder of Ovia Health and Good Start Genetics. But he started his first business—an online store selling bike parts and accessories—at age 16. With his launch this year of the National Cycling League (NCL), Wallace has come full circle. In April, Miami’s iconic Ocean Drive hosted the first of four 2023 NCL Cup races between the NCL’s Denver Disruptors and Miami Nights, as well as eight private teams—all competing for a year-end purse of $1 million. An NCL competition lasts under two hours; racers navigate a tight, fast course of about one mile, with men and women contributing equally to a team’s total point score based on who wins each lap. “Seeing 60 riders flying past you at 30 miles per hour, just a few inches apart—it is such a rush,” says Wallace, a longtime cycling enthusiast.
The NCL, which closed a $7.5 million seed round last December, is the first professional sports league to be majority-minority owned. “For people under 40, the most popular US sports league is e-gaming,” Wallace explains. “Young people are looking for communities and sports that are faster and action-packed that also connect with their values.” The NCL Cup’s concluding race took place on August 20 at the Porsche Experience Center Atlanta. “I didn’t think I’d be working 80- to 100-hour weeks so soon after exiting my last company,” Wallace says. “But the time was ripe to do something totally new.”
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