NIL (name, image, and likeness) transformed college athletics, with high profile football, gymnastics, and basketball stars cashing in big from brands since the NCAA rules changed in 2021.
But the NIL landscape isn’t created equal. It is hard for athletes at smaller schools — or those playing sports with smaller fan bases — to benefit from NIL opportunities.
Atlanta-based entrepreneur Melissa Seigler saw an opportunity to transform how fans and athletes think about NIL. She started Stashlete last year as a FinTech startup for “modern fundraising.”
The startup is built on top of Mogl and Opendorse, two big NIL compliance and deal software companies. Fans come in and create an account, selecting their favorite university teams. They chose how much they want to give, no matter how big or small that amount is. That flexibility allows the average fan to support their favorite teams on a level that is comfortable for them.
That is a very different model than what is available right now, since most big collegiate teams raise funds through NIL Collectives. Providing funds through Stashlete allows users to create a “portfolio of giving,” supporting different teams, be it the women’s basketball team at Howard or the baseball team at USC.
During the platform’s beta release over the summer, Stashlete started working with Seigler’s alma mater University of South Carolina, before expanding to work with NIL Collectives at places like the University of Massachusetts and Kansas State University. To date, Seigler said there are 42 schools on the platform.
With the launch of its Version Two, out today, Stashlete is expanding into a “direct to athlete” model. That benefits athletes who aren’t playing highly-viewed sports like basketball, gymnastics, or football.
“We want to fill this space and give equitable sharing to every single sport at every single school,” Seigler added. “Athletes get to benefit from a direct fan. And I think that’s kind of the beauty, they haven’t really been able to do that before. Fans get to pay it forward in a really seamless way.”
BEYOND THE COLLEGIATE SPACE
The platform is personal for Seigler. She grew up playing club volleyball, which is expensive for parents season after season. She saw how her parents not only supported her, but helped her teammates travel to out-of-town tournaments.
Seigler sees Stashlete as a platform that enables fans to “pay it forward” and support amateur athletes.
There are well over 1,000 schools with sports programs in the US and Canada, making it an area ripe for fintech innovation. But Seigler sees an opportunity to expand Stashlete to be a “modern fundraising” platform far beyond collegiate courts.
High school sports cost thousands of dollars each season per athlete, which can be prohibitive for many families. And there are high fees associated with participating in Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, and other school-run organizations.
“The NIL space isn’t’ the be all end all for us,” Seigler told Hypepotamus.
To date, Stashlete has scaled with outside funding from an angel investor and will start testing out use cases outside of NIL next month.
