A Father Dumped Millions Into His Son’s High School Football Team – Then It Backfired

Eric Obrokta pumped millions of dollars into The First Academy in Orlando, Florida, to turn it into a high school football powerhouse to benefit his son, but the scheme fell apart soon after it created a juggernaut.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal reported on the bizarre situation, which began two years ago in Orlando, Florida. The Journal interviewed numerous people connected to Obrokta’s academy for a story that depicts what went into the expensive operation, how it stood, and why it failed.

In 2024, Obrokta began funding “Central Florida’s #1 Private Christian School’s” football team to reach the likes of their other sports programs. This led to an influx of elite-athletes transferring into the high school, new uniforms, upper-echelon football technology, and hundreds of thousands of dollars in contracts for coaches. Despite this, all of the entrepreneur’s charity to the school blew up in his face.

To improve the team, Obrokta put up the funding for $300,000 that would go to coaches, nearly $100,000 in tuition for the athletes, $135,000 in travel expenses, and $50,000 worth of upgrades to technology. The total costs eventually reached millions of dollars.

TFA hired a new coach, Jeff Conaway, to a contract worth $230,000, all donated by Obrokta. After going 6-4, Obrokta was not satisfied, telling Conaway he wanted to “flip the script.”

TFA then hired Steven Moffett, a former quarterback for the University of Central Florida, worked with a non-contact 7-on-7 football team that high-tier high school football players would participate in during the offseason, giving him a leg-up in recruiting for the private school. Moffett was given a $70,000 contract.

TFA also convinced at least 25 high school students to transfer to the private school, set up a $75,000 trip to Nashville for TFA to play and beat Nashville’s prestigious football high school, Lipscomb Academy, purchased a $50,000 technology system for the program, and a went on a $60,000 summer road trip for the players to meet college coaches.

Obrokta also paid for many of the athletes’ tuition. The teenagers were struggling in classes, so TFA began admitting the players into the “hybrid-homeschool program” that was much cheaper for Obrokta to fund everyone.

With the improvements, The First Academy (TFA) began recruiting high school athletes from across the country to build a super team in Central Florida.

None of this went unnoticed, however. The Florida High School Athletic Association (FHSAA) received complaints about how the school was operating. After investigating the situation, they discovered at least ten students were participating in summer football activities without being properly registered at the school and one who did not submit the correct paper work.

The FHSAA suspended every regular season win of its 2024 season, eliminating the team from playoff contention. TFA was also suspended for the 2025 playoffs.

Obrokta was not born with money. He explained that at 40, he was only earning $45,000 as a supervisor for a janitorial service company. From 2012-2022, he co-founded NPSG Global which was bringing in “hundreds of millions in annual revenue” according to the Journal. After spending over 300 days a year away from his family, he returned home and wanted his son to have whatever he wanted. 

“I wanted to feed whatever passion he had,” Obrotka told the paper.

That passion happened to be football, a sport that Florida specifically thrives in breeding athletes, but not TFA. Instead of being away from his son once more, he settled on turning the private Christian school his son attended into a juggernaut to help him play at a high level of college football.

But even before the FHSAA came knocking, Obrokta saw his scheme negatively affecting the main reason behind why he started it in the first place — his own son. TFA players told the Journal that Obrokta’s son was often teased that he would only play due to his father’s bank account. As the scheme continued, most of the athletes on the team became too talented for Obrokta’s son to compete for serious playing time.

“He loved him as a father, but hated being his son when it came to football,” the Journal wrote of the father-son relationship.

This was the moment it ended for Obrokta. He stopped giving money to the school, leading to a 5-5 season. His son transferred out of state to play for another team. What Obrokta thought would be a life-changing and perfect father-son moment ended in flames.

“Me being so close to the program created challenges for my son and we thought it would be best to start fresh,” he said.