MEET THE GVO TEAM
MEET THE GVO TEAM
With a team of experts boasting years of experience in sports marketing, contract negotiation, and brand development, GVO is uniquely positioned to help you navigate the NIL landscape.
Gary Charles
Gary Charles is an unheralded legend in the world of Grassroots basketball.
Hailing from Roosevelt, Long Island, Charles founded a grassroots basketball program that has produced more than 20 NBA players, helped direct the legendary ABCD Camp, and started the Fab48 Tournament, which has since evolved into the Las Vegas Big Time Tournament, originally founded by Sonny Vaccaro in 1995. Currently, Charles works as the CEO/Founder for Advancement of Blacks in Sports (ABIS), an organization that he founded to increase racial equity in collegiate and professional athletics.
After graduating high school, Charles attended the nation’s first HBCU, Cheyney University, where he encountered hall-of-fame basketball coaches John Chaney and Vivian Stringer. He then went to work on Wall Street for more than two decades.
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Still, Charles’ love for sports persisted, so he started the Long Island Panthers, a grassroots basketball program, while working as a Systems Programmer on Wall Street. The Panthers have produced dozens of NBA players, including Lamar Odom, Wally Szcerzbiak, and Joakim Noah. Charles’s work attracted the likes of former sneaker executive Sonny Vaccaro, who famously signed Michael Jordan to his first shoe deal. Then, working for adidas, Vaccaro signed the Panthers to a shoe deal, the first grassroots program to receive such an honor. Through his relationships on the high school basketball circuit, Charles was also instrumental in helping adidas discover and eventually sign future Hall of Famer Kobe Bryant.
Charles later landed the role of Associate Director of the ABCD Camp, a Camp that consistently attracted top recruits during its heyday from 1984 to 2006. Future NBA All-Stars like LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Carmelo Anthony, and James Harden all shone at the camp.
Inspired by Vaccaro, who he watched launch adidas’ first sponsored tournament, Charles started what would become The Las Vegas Big Time Tournament in 2010. The tournament has since attracted a star-studded lineup of both recruits, including Bronny James, the 2021 NBA No. 1 overall pick, Cade Cunningham, and 2022 NBA Rookie of the Year Scottie Barnes, as well as fans such as LeBron James, Dwyane Wade, Shaquille O’Neal, and former boxing champion Roy Jones.
Today, Charles is focused on diversifying the world of sports. Inspired by the very same people he looked up to as a youth, Charles’ ABIS boasts a coalition of coaches and competitors from various sports across the country. Through producing a list of top Black head coaches, teaching financial literacy to student-athletes and hosting panels, ABIS aims to make a difference.
“For over 30 years, I’ve watched the inequity that goes on in the game,” Charles said. “What we want to do is to stop some of this. ABIS wants to be the Voice for Racial Equity in Sports. We want to stop the discrimination of Black coaches, the players, Black administrators, and the vendors."
THE GVO APPROACH
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