The end to Jeb Terry’s NFL career was like the final NFL days many of us experienced.
After three productive seasons (2004-06) with the Bucs who picked him in the fifth round of the 2004 Draft, Terry signed with the 49ers in 2008. However, his injuries persisted, and he knew it was time to move to his next career.
“I loved being a professional athlete,” Terry was quoted recently in the Sports Business Journal. “I just loved competing. I still miss it every single day. But my performance started to wane a little bit. I was serviceable but I wasn’t hitting my marks.”
Terry returned to his collegiate alma mater UNC in Chapel Hill and earned an MBA in Finance in 2011.
Thirteen years and several successful business ventures later, Terry and his innovative Cosm technology company negotiated a partnership with the league office this week to show prime time game telecasts before thousands of fans at their own Cosm sites beginning this season.
Cosm has an ambitious plan to build dozens of state-of-the-art venues around the globe where fans can enjoy live sports and innovative entertainment on 87-foot wrap-around screens that have 12k resolution. The company has its own on-location production teams that also have access to network camera angles.
“We’re not trying to replace the game day experience,” Terry told the Los Angeles Times this week during a live showing of a World Series game at a Cosm site. “There nothing like going to the actual game itself. But for those fans who can’t get there, we can give them another offering where they can still do the things they love. That’s the core of what we’re doing.”
Cosm currently operates in Los Angeles (near So Fi Stadium where the Rams and Chargers play) and Dallas. Terry expects to be operating in Atlanta by next year. He and his business partners have raised $250 million and plan to expand globally, adding 10 new locations annually.
“The marker of our success in five years’” says Terry, “is if I’m in London, China, New York or Columbus, Ohio and I mention Cosm, they know what it is. One of the things we like to say is ‘We are the venue of now, not the venue of tomorrow.’ When Cosm becomes synonymous with this shared-reality experience, that’s a win for us.”
Jeb Terry, a 43-year old Texas native, has had many wins so far in his young business career.
We at NFL Alumni wish our brother much success and many pleasant, shared-reality experiences everywhere he operates.
