Former Ole Miss Tight End Richie Gebbia's Mission to Keep Athletes From Going Broke

From the football field to finance, Gebbia has lived in both worlds while working with athletes to help players build beyond the next contract.

Richie Gebbia | Courtesy of Richie Gebbia

College athletes have never had more ways to make money. NIL deals, revenue sharing, social media partnerships and personal brands have turned teenagers into business entities before some have even played their first full season.

Former Ole Miss Rebels tight end Richie Gebbia has seen the world from both sides. Before he became Co-CEO of Muriel Siebert & Co, he went from playing college in Oxford, Mississippi, in the late 1980s, to straight into his family’s finance business. 

"My dad lived and breathed the markets for as long as I can remember," Gebbia said. "In our house, talking finance was as common as talking sports."

Richie Gebbia | Courtesy of Richie Gebbia

Years later, Gebbia would coach two of his own sons through college football as quarterbacks, splitting his time between Wall Street and the sidelines.

That combination of athletes and finance now sits at the center of Gebbia Sports, the athlete-focused arm of Gebbia Media. The division handles everything from NIL monetization, wealth management and financial education, working to make sure players don’t just get paid, but actually understand what to do with their money.

Gebbia has seen athletes earn life-changing fortunes and still run into trouble.

"A lot of these guys become corporations overnight with the money they're making," he said. "And a lot of them have very short careers."

With the average NFL career lasting just 3.3 years, and the NBA at roughly four and a half, he’s not wrong. That math is exactly what Gebbia drills into his clients:  "Let's make believe this is going to end tomorrow," he said. “And let's be in a position where, if it does, we're where we want to be."

Portland Trail Blazers guard Jrue Holiday has been an outlier to the average player, playing in the NBA for 17 seasons. He's worked on financial plans with Gebbia. | Troy Wayrynen-Imagn Images

The business itself came together around 2018, when Gebbia began formalizing the guidance he had long provided to athletes who were already clients of the family firm. "I knew all the best trainers and resources for an athlete, and I was around the best financial guys," he explained. "So I just put the peanut butter and jelly sandwich together."

Gebbia and his team have worked with Pittsburgh Steelers star DK Metcalf. | Barry Reeger-Imagn Images

In the NIL era, that sandwich keeps getting bigger. Gebbia's team has built game plans for NBA veterans like Jrue Holiday and Markieff Morris, as well as NFL star DK Metcalf, and recently took one college athlete from a $300,000 deal to nearly $1 million in a single year.

"These kids are smarter than people give them credit for," Gebbia said. "They're building their own brands, cutting out the middleman and keeping what they earn. My job is just to make sure it's still there when the game's over."