The platform ensures compliance with NCAA, state, and professional athlete regulations across all deals.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\nBlake Lawrence launched Opendorse \u2014 now the leading NIL marketplace \u2014 from his Nebraska dorm room with cofounder Adi Kunalic, nearly a decade before most people even knew what \u201cNIL\u201d meant.<\/p>\n
Today, the platform supports more than 100,000 athletes and has facilitated close to a billion dollars in name, image, and likeness transactions \u2014 a scale once unimaginable.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn North America, only about 5,000 pro athletes earn money through endorsements,\u201d Lawrence tells Entrepreneur<\/i>. This includes everything from social media promotions to commercials and billboards.<\/p>\n
\u201cOpendorse stepped in to give those athletes one platform to manage everything: who\u2019s paying them, what they\u2019re getting paid for, their deliverables, contracts, tax documents and compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n
Opendorse began in 2012 as a tool Lawrence built to help his former Nebraska football teammate, Prince Amukamara, manage endorsements after he reached the NFL. Lawrence and cofounder Adi Kunalic created an app to automate the process and, essentially, \u201chelp him get paid to tweet.\u201d<\/p>\n
It didn\u2019t take long for reality to set in.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen we onboarded Prince, I immediately got a call from his agent asking what we were doing,\u201d Lawrence says. \u201cI told him we were getting Prince paid to tweet, and he shut it down fast: \u2018You can\u2019t do that \u2014 that\u2019s my client.’\u201d<\/p>\n
So Lawrence added an agent workflow. Then payments hit Amukamara\u2019s account, and his financial manager called next, demanding documentation. After that, the NFLPA reached out. One by one, every stakeholder had a say.<\/p>\n
At the time, it was exhausting. Looking back, Lawrence sees it differently.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe were getting our asses kicked left and right by rules and policy changes early on,\u201d he says. \u201cWe had to constantly tweak and adjust just to survive. I wouldn\u2019t wish it on my worst enemy \u2014 but I wouldn\u2019t trade it for anything.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related: \u201cYou Have to Grow Up Fast\u201d: How This College Athlete Became a CEO Before Turning 18<\/b><\/p>\nHalf a million athletes. One very complicated marketplace.<\/h2>\n
When NIL entered college sports in 2021, Opendorse quickly shifted its focus to younger, less experienced athletes who needed more support \u2014 and represented a far larger market. There are roughly 500,000 college athletes, making the space 10 times bigger than the pro market.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you add college athletes, the scale changes dramatically,\u201d Lawrence says. \u201cBut that size also brings added complexity.\u201d<\/p>\n
The platform functions the same for college and pro athletes, but the key difference is compliance. NCAA athletes face strict rules around what they can and can\u2019t endorse \u2014 no tobacco, alcohol or betting brands, for example. And every deal must be disclosed and approved. These regulations are enforced at both the state and national levels through NCAA policies overseen by the College Sports Commission.<\/p>\n
That is far from the only complexity involved with this multi-level marketplace, however.<\/p>\n
Serial entrepreneur and self-described \u2018industrial athlete\u2019 Steve Denton joined Opendorse a few years in to help scale the business. He had no sports background beyond being a fan. Still, having lived through the early internet era as a businessman, he immediately saw parallels between that moment and the rise of NIL in college sports.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrom a monetization standpoint, the internet did around $400 million in ad sales in its third year,\u201d Denton says. \u201cNIL? $800 million. I\u2019m not saying it\u2019s the same thing, I\u2019m just saying it\u2019s off to a great start.\u201d<\/p>\n
When Denton met the cofounders, he saw a winning team with a good business and a lot of potential that just needed some help getting to the next level.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m terrible at zero to $5 million,\u201d Denton laughs. \u201cBut if you need to go from $5 million to $100, that\u2019s where I\u2019m comfortable.\u201d<\/p>\n
The biggest thing that stood out to Denton was the ridiculous TAM (total addressable market).<\/p>\n
\u201cI saw a platform that was moving hundreds of millions of dollars of payments, and was keeping 175,000 kids compliant,\u201d he remarks. \u201cI don\u2019t know the last time you tried to get a hold of an 18-year-old for negotiations, but this certainly makes it a lot easier.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related: The Cavinder Twins and Raising Cane\u2019s Owner & Founder Reveal the Secret Sauce of Success<\/b><\/p>\nA war on two fronts<\/h2>\n
Opendorse operates on two fronts: the brand side and the athlete side.<\/p>\n
On the brand side, the first challenge is helping companies figure out which athletes to work with. Denton calls Opendorse\u2019s matching technology a \u201cfish finder\u201d \u2014 it surfaces the right athletes based on a brand\u2019s audience, goals, budget, and safety guidelines.<\/p>\n
Once a brand decides to move forward, Opendorse handles everything: sending offers, delivering contracts, outlining deliverables, managing taxes, securing approvals, ensuring the athlete completes the work and handling all NCAA and school reporting.<\/p>\n
Since college athletes are balancing classes, practices, and games, they\u2019re not full-time creators. Opendorse\u2019s technology makes the whole process simple and manageable for them.<\/p>\n
On the athlete side, Lawrence and his team focus on getting athletes onto the platform \u2014 a process that often involves on-campus visits and hands-on onboarding. These sessions walk athletes through downloading the app, setting up their profiles and learning how to present themselves professionally.<\/p>\n
Lawrence compares it to building a r\u00e9sum\u00e9: why should a brand choose you out of hundreds of athletes on your campus? Schools play a role, too, overseeing deals to ensure compliance.<\/p>\n
Plus, it\u2019s a massive boon to participating schools.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf you\u2019re the first school in your conference to partner with Opendorse, you gain a real recruiting edge \u2014 you can tell prospects you\u2019re the only program in the market with a top-tier NIL marketplace,\u201d Lawrence says. \u201cSchools need a partner like Opendorse to give athletes a simple, compliant way to access NIL deals, and that\u2019s how we build the supply side of the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n
Related: He\u2019s Helping College Athletes Navigate a Multi-Billion-Dollar Industry \u2014 But His Top Money Tip Can Help Anybody Grow Substantial Wealth<\/b><\/p>\nMoguls and machetes<\/h2>\n
Lawrence and Denton complement each other well \u2014 one coming from the athlete world, the other from entrepreneurship.<\/p>\n
\u201cBlake has forgotten more about NIL than I could ever know,\u201d Denton says. \u201cI didn\u2019t appreciate the complexity of it when I first joined.\u201d<\/p>\n
Lawrence feels the same way, calling Denton a mentor.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs an entrepreneur, even with a cofounder, it\u2019s like you\u2019re in the jungle with a machete,\u201d he says. \u201cYou\u2019re hacking away, and at least someone\u2019s next to you, but they don\u2019t know where you\u2019re going either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Denton, he says, is the seasoned guide \u2014 helping navigate the dense forest of compliance and regulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t say enough about what it means to have somebody who\u2019s done it before and can help us take those steps,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
By the end of the decade, Opendorse aims to move $10 billion to college athletes. But day to day, the team isn\u2019t fixated on the finish line \u2014 they\u2019re focused on execution.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe want to do really great work every day,\u201d Denton says. \u201cWe have to, because the college economy has changed so much in just the last year. You\u2019ve got the House settlement, salary caps, a third-party entity defining fair market value, and the people who made the rules now trying to rewrite them. Congress is being lobbied, payment companies want in \u2014 the entire ecosystem is shifting at once.\u201d<\/p>\n
Because of this, resilience is critical.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like skiing moguls,\u201d Denton adds. \u201cYou need a strong core and flexible knees. And we\u2019re definitely hitting some moguls right now.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Entrepreneur This article is part of the America’s Favorite Mom & Pop Shops series. Read more stories Key Takeaways Opendorse simplifies NIL deals, supporting 100,000+ athletes and nearly $1B in transactions. The platform ensures compliance with NCAA, state, and professional athlete regulations across all deals. Blake Lawrence launched Opendorse \u2014 now the leading NIL marketplace<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":46609,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[32],"class_list":{"0":"post-46608","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-make-money","8":"tag-featured"},"yoast_head":"\n
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