UP CLOSE WITH RYAN

My Favorites:

Professional Sports Teams: Dallas Cowboys, Seattle Seahawks, Toronto Blue Jays, Baltimore Orioles, Dallas Mavericks, Dallas Stars, Orlando City SC

Athletes: Luka Doncic, Dirk Nowitzki, Steve Nash, Vince Carter, Chris Johnson, Tim Tebow, Andre Rison, Wayne Chrebet, Brady Anderson, Bo Bichette, Alexander Ovechkin, Pavel Bure, Connor McDavid

Entrepreneurs: Mark Cuban, Elon Musk, P Diddy, Gary Vaynerchuk

Colleges: University of Central Florida, Notre Dame

Food: Beef Noodle Soup, Hot Garlic Chicken Wings, Blue Crabs, Blue Cheese Stuffed Filet, Sushi and Crawfish

TV Shows: Entourage, SportsCenter, and Shark Tank

Singers: Michael Buble, Shawn Mendes, Justin Timberlake, Zac Brown Band, Robin Thicke, John Mayer, Jason Derulo

Actors: Vince Vaughn, Matthew McConaughey, Jon Favreau

Actresses: Vanessa Marcil, Jennifer Garner, Lauren Conrad

Superheros: Batman and Spiderman

Hobbies: Playing with my Golden Retriever Maverick, buying and taking care of plants, longboarding, flag football, golf, tennis, biking, working out, running, collecting sports memorabilia, sports cards and vintage t-shirts.

Cities to Visit: Islamorada, Santa Monica, Seattle, Las Vegas, Dallas, New York City and Chicago

Movies: Swingers, Made, Rudy, Step Brothers, Invincible, Wedding Crashers, Ghosts of Girlfriends Past, Wolf of Wall Street

Number: 83, my football and baseball number. I collect things with “83” on it.

Favorite Color: Purple

Ultimate Goal: To be known as one of the most influential figures in sports marketing and to own a professional sports franchise.

 

Ryan’s entrepreneurial roots started very young in New Jersey. To earn some extra cash as a kid, he shoveled snow in the winters, raked leaves in the fall, delivered newspapers and sang Christmas carols door-to-door during the holidays. Being actively involved in sports all his life, he had dreams of pursuing a career in baseball, which fell through due to a knee injury. At Spruce Creek High School, he was also among the top wide receivers in Central Florida. Ryan also earned an I.F.P.A. Certified Personal Trainer degree and has been always believed in the positive effects of having sports and fitness in your life.

In 1998, while attending the University of Central Florida, he started CollegeInvestors.com, a site teaching college students about investing, offering career advice, a section for students to post their resumes and other fun college stuff. The site was voted to the Top 100 sites for college students by U Magazine. He was hired as the “Webmaster” for StockDr.com, Inc., an Orlando-based money management company and nationally syndicated investment radio show, where he worked for three years.

This is when he decided to take the next step into entrepreneurial freedom. Since then, Ryan has started four successful Internet companies. Totka.com Website Services, a website development company and TornadoPromotions.com, Inc., an Internet marketing consulting firm based out of Orlando, Florida.

His company has helped hundreds of corporations with search engine optimization, website development, domain name registration, website hosting, and achieving maximum success on the web. He has implemented successful marketing strategies for many well known companies such as American Express, Overture, EliteJets, Insurance.com, PriceLine.com, LowerMyBills.com and more.

Another company Ryan co-founded in May of 2006 was EliteJets, which provides corporate executives, celebrities and luxury travelers private jet charter services to destinations all across the globe.

Other web ventures include TornadoEntertainment.com, a site promoting top athletes such as Lebron James, Torry Holt, Daunte Culpepper, Carmelo Anthony and many other top athletes and entertainers. They have also co-founded MusicFreedom.com with JC Chasez of *NSYNC, a popular music site promoting unsigned musical talent.

Real estate has been another passion for Ryan. He has started two real estate information sites, Orlando-Developments.com, a site featuring luxury communities in the Orlando area and CondoBoom.net, which displays the latest preconstruction, new and condo conversions throughout the state of Florida.

While understanding that networking is the key to any successful business, in May of 2006, Ryan created RedCarpetMonday®, an exclusive Invitation-Only business network for Central Florida’s top business owners, professionals, senior level executives and entrepreneurs. The live events are designed for professionals to relax, socialize and share business ideas. The website is a networking community for members to interact and build business relationships. All the event details, dates, times and locations are at RedCarpetMonday.com.

As years went by, he found his true passion in combining sports, business and the Internet. Being involved in sports all his life as a fan and a player, he has a vast knowledge of the marketing and business of sports, looking for the most creative ways to promote and book athletes for appearances. He founded AthletePromotions, one of the top athlete booking / sports marketing agencies in the country, specializing in booking sports celebrities for corporate appearances, speaking engagements, endorsements and more.

Along the way, Ryan and his team have booked many world class sports celebrities, such as Mark Cuban, Magic Johnson, Terrell Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Tim Tebow, Nick Anderson, Thurman Thomas, Mike Ditka, Mike Tyson, Joe Theismann, William ‘The Fridge’ Perry, Josh Hamilton, Steve Garvey, Dennis Rodman and many more. Being a loyal UCF supporter, in the fall of 2007, Ryan created KevinSmithforHeisman.com, a site helping UCF running back Kevin Smith get nationwide Heisman respect.

He also built, markets and manages the official websites for Allen Iverson, Terrell Owens, Brendon Ayanbadejo, Clinton Portis, Marcellus Wiley, Kenny ‘The Jet” Smith, Danny White, Ray Lankford, Spud Webb, Thurman Thomas, Dan Hampton, Dan Fouts, Brady Anderson, Thomas “Hitman” Hearns and others.

Being an Orlando resident and die hard Magic fan, in 2011, Ryan started a grass roots campaign called StayDwight.com, a fan community to help keep Dwight Howard secure in Orlando. With the departure of Shaq years ago and what we have seen happen in Cleveland with LeBron, he thought it was a must to help rally the community to show Dwight he means to the city of Orlando and keep the economy and local businesses going strong for years to come. Check out some of the campaign headlines receiving national exposure from ESPN, Yahoo! Sports, CBSSports, NBCSports, AOL SportingNews, the Orlando Sentinel and NBA.com

With a strong passion for baseball, one day Ryan would like to own a minor league baseball team and implement sports marketing tactics, like his childhood idol Mark Cuban founder of Broadcast.com, owner of the Dallas Mavericks and HDNet. When it’s all said and done, Ryan would like to be known as one of the most influential faces in the sports marketing industry.

His other hobbies include traveling to NYC, Chicago and Las Vegas, collecting sports memorabilia and vintage sports t-shirts, eating sushi, playing fantasy football, flag football, golf, tennis, biking and coming up with new business ideas. Ryan actively follows the business ideas of Mark Cuban and Gary Vaynerchuk, and enjoys listening to the music of John Mayer, Jason Mraz, Robin Thicke, Jason Derulo and Michael Buble.

 

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Ryan’s Latest Blogs

How Creating a Vision Board Can Manifest Everything You Want In Your Life

How Creating a Vision Board Can Manifest Everything You Want In Your Life

Have you made your vision board yet? It’s such a fun, simple project for any age when looking to accomplish goals in your life….and it definitely works.  Doesn’t matter if you are 5 or 55, it’s never too late to visualize what you want for the future. Although you can make one at any time of the year, most people like fresh starts and the beginning of the year is a great time to make yours...

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Why The Sports Card Market is the Real Deal for Investing

Why The Sports Card Market is the Real Deal for Investing

August 23, 2020 By Ryan Totka | Blog Most of us grew up collecting baseball cards. We spent all of our money on cards at flea markets, card shows and the corner stores. We couldn’t wait for the day when the new Beckett price guide arrived in our mail box to see if our cards went up…or down  For us 40 year olds, as years went by we entered the “real world “ with college and actual...

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Growing Up a Die Hard Sports Fan Led to My Entrepreneurial Destiny

Growing Up a Die Hard Sports Fan Led to My Entrepreneurial Destiny

I believe certain things are in our DNA, especially what we were destined to do. I grew up in Woodbridge, New Jersey where I was basically born with a baseball in my hand. Here is a picture to prove it. At the age of 5, I went to kindergarten with an NFL lunchbox and when the teacher said to bring in a photo of someone we loved, I brought in a 1982 Danny White Topps football card. Around this...

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