Duke has steamrolled its way to the Final Four because it has one of the greatest collections of players in modern college basketball history. Yet who exactly is paying for a roster that cost millions of dollars to put together remains a gigantic mystery.
In a move that’s highly unusual for a major college program, there’s virtually no online footprint for Duke basketball’s booster collective. That’s not because the Blue Devils have somehow managed to construct a star-studded team without gobs of cash lining players’ pockets, though.
Instead, Duke is in a position to compete for its sixth national championship thanks to a group of high net worth donors who have chosen to operate in a way that makes them unique in the braggadocious world of college sports—by conducting their business from the shadows.
People involved with the operation say the group’s silence is intentional. They say their goal is to give coach Jon Scheyer the resources to compete, to support his vision and never be a distraction from the ultimate goal of winning national championships.
What little evidence there is of the group’s existence is buried deep in corporate records. In March of 2023, two weeks after Scheyer’s first season as Mike Krzyzewski’s replacement ended with a loss in the NCAA tournament’s round of 32, three Duke alumni incorporated a non-profit in Delaware. With an address listed as an office building in Arkansas, they called it “One Vision Futures Fund” and applied to do business in North Carolina, according to state records.
In its annual report for last year, there was no hiding its purpose in an era when college athletes get paid for their name, image and likeness. The form says, “Description of nature of business: Sports NIL.”
The address of OVFF, as it’s known, belongs to the office of Duke alum Jeff Fox, the CEO and founder of the investment firm Circumference Group. He’s listed on incorporating documents as one of three executive officers, along with fellow alumni Dan Levitan, co-founder of the venture capital firm Maveron, and Steve Duncker, a former partner at Goldman Sachs.
The three men are no strangers to supporting their alma mater on the hardwood. More than two decades ago, Levitan convinced the school to start the Duke Basketball Venture Capital Co-Investment Fund, which was believed to be the first VC fund supporting a single college sports team.
Given that the collective was formed after last year’s freshman class had already committed, this marks the first season when its muscle is being fully deployed. It’s no coincidence that this also marks Duke’s return to superpower status.
