Athlete Reserve Is Taking A Local Approach to NIL

As predicted the Name, Likeness, and Image (NIL) marketplace is ever-evolving. Less than a year in and we’ve already seen the likes of Barstool Sports and Booster Clubs have run into compliance roadblocks.

A lot of attention is on the big money and the big schools as we all get acclimated to the NIL-era. However, after my conversation with Morgan Frazier in December, taking a more local approach might be the way to create NIL equity.

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Below is a conversation with Athlete Reserve founder Hunter Solano. He and I were both members of the 2022 Winter Cohort of the Builders + Backers Idea Accelerator program.

Solano describes Athlete Reserve as an engagement platform that connects college athletes with sponsorship opportunities through local businesses through an algorithm. As athletes and businesses create a profile, the algorithm suggests matches for NIL deals that range from social media posts, meet and greets, and more. I spoke with Solano last month about his plans for NIL in the heartland.

Note: Parts of this interview have been edited for brevity

Erica L. Ayala: Tell me a little bit about what drew you to this idea and how you started framing it for the Builders + Backers

Hunter Solano: I’ve always been this creative engine coming up with a bunch of different ideas, and always trying out a small piece of these different ideas. When I saw the news of the NIL policy change last July, I was like, ‘This is a great opportunity for athletes to now make money.”

One of my favorite YouTubers, Ryan Trahan, years ago posted a video. He was a cross country runner at Texas A&M and he couldn’t continue his YouTube channel and be on the cross country team simultaneously. When I saw this breaking news about the NIL stuff, I immediately thought, ‘Well, I can now help people just like him connect, make money, continue doing what they love, or find new opportunities to do something they may enjoy doing.’

ELA: Let’s talk a little bit more about you. What is your background in either sports or sports business?

HS: I did football track powerlifting cross country, I did basketball and soccer. I did everything. So I enjoyed sports, I enjoy participating. But it wasn’t very good. So the business side of it. Really, I just have a background and I have a business degree. So that’s my background, like business understanding. I was able to apply it to my general knowledge of sports, and here we are.

ELA: Let’s get back to your business Athlete Reserve. Now, this is something where you’re essentially matching athletes with different companies that could utilize a student athlete or someone in the sports space to help promote their business. So as you are getting into NIL, which again, is something that’s very new, what were some of the things that you found that are very standard for what people are doing in NIL? And then what are some things that Athlete Reserve is doing differently than some of the other NIL companies and kind of brokers that you see out there?

HS: One is that athletes have a lot of people reaching out to them or larger athletes do more popular, they have businesses reaching out to them just like an influencer online would like someone on TikTok with a bunch of followers. And they’re asking them to maybe post something on their social media for a brand deal.

Another level is sports agents. There’s agents out there representing athletes going around acquiring brand deals for them, handling the business side of their brand.

And then finally, we introduced platforms such as mine, and some competitors out there. And what I’ve seen being done is platforms who connect college athletes, mostly at law larger schools, the more popular schools to larger brand deals like a NikeNKE
or an Adidas or something. And sometimes these brands even have deals with the university already.

I saw a gap where sometimes smaller universities, in smaller cities, the smaller moms and pops, these people are being left out the underdogs I kind of refer to it as I’ve always been kind of like an underdog myself. So I can relate to that. I’ve also been a small owner, so I can relate to that. And I wanted to bridge that gap.

I’m starting in Tulsa, but it’s going to expand city to city and hopefully just keep growing.

ELA: Fantastic. So you said you’re working here in Tulsa, can you give us like just an overview of what are some of the businesses or brands that you’re working with? What type of athletes do you see them looking for?

HS: Brands I’ve had conversations with include coffee shops, a juicery, a local photographer, and a gym owner. And what they’re looking for is mostly social media engagements where they would work with the athlete to come up with some kind of marketing campaign, I would help them in this process, where the athlete is posting about a promotion the businesses having or just endorsing the brand in general saying, ‘Hey, I go to this juicery or I go to this coffee shop. The goal of that would be to send more traffic or more eyes to their website, or hopefully more dollars into their business.

ELA: On average, what are you seeing as far as the offers that these businesses are making to the athletes either their time commitment for any particular campaign or monetarily? What are what are these types of social media promos worth right now?

HS: So in general, I think they are worth a lot of money. But it depends a lot on social media following. So that’s kind of where the price variances come into play. But businesses can put in on my platform, whatever budget, they’re comfortable spending on an athlete for whatever the campaign is, I give them complete flexibility in that. And the athlete can either choose to accept or decline that. But it really ranges anywhere from $100 to $500.

In the Tulsa market, at least. And there may be a few outliers, maybe an athlete has over 10,000 followers online and that is a big component of this whole thing. And in terms of time commitment, social media is a very quick thing, but like a post on social media, but if it’s an in person engagement, anywhere from an hour to two hours, and they could get paid a couple 100 bucks for whatever that appearance is.

SportsbusinessjournalTapping local businesses: A tool to create equity for college athletes

ELA: What what does this look like on on your end? Are you able to take a percentage of the deal? How do you collect revenue?

HS: Yes. So as of now, I make money by charging the businesses a small fee to use my service to match them to the athlete. Neither party, the athlete nor the business has access to my member directory or my database of athletes and businesses. So I’m that middleman that connects them based on some software, I have to link the two. So the businesses are charged a small percentage of whatever they would pay the athlete for that deal. But the athlete keeps 100% of whatever the business is offering. So that’s kind of my model right now.

ELA: We’ve just completed our accelerator program. What are some of your reflections on how athlete reserve has grown? And what are your hopes and what are what is the focus for maybe you know, the next big thing for athletes reserve?

HS: I’m an entrepreneur, just by nature, I’ve started a few smaller businesses. And a lot of times I’ll get distracted, or I’ll lose focus of what my goal is, with whatever that project is. But through Builders + Backers, having someone walk me through and take baby steps with the experiment was great.

So what’s next? That’s a great question. I’m still trying to figure that out. I’m still kind of experimenting. Honestly, I have lots of signups from both businesses and athletes. But as I continue growing that I want to see more interactions occur between the businesses sponsoring the athlete. So, I want to continue experimenting on that front. But also, I am looking at other accelerator programs that may be a fit for someone in the early stages of a business startup.

I’m also trying to grow a team and that’s going to be especially important as I try to expand to other cities. Waco, Texas is on my on my next phase of my next rollout phase.

Hunter Solano is the founder of Athlete Reserve, which connects college athletes with local opportunities for marketing and monetization. He has a business degree from Baylor University and is pursuing an MBA at the University of Texas at Dallas.

Learn more about Athlete Reserve by visiting AthleteReserve.com.