GET
SPONSORED.

The athlete sponsorship market is broken for everyone below the top 1%. Over 500,000 college athletes now have NIL rights — the legal ability to earn money from their name, image, and likeness — yet the vast majority have never signed a single deal. The reason is simple: the infrastructure to connect everyday athletes with brands doesn't exist at scale.

The outdoor creator economy faces the same problem from the other direction. Brands in climbing, skiing, mountain biking, and trail running have significant marketing budgets but no efficient way to find authentic athletes whose audiences actually trust them.

Sponsored solves both sides simultaneously. We are building the direct marketplace that connects college athletes and outdoor creators with brands — cutting out agents, reducing costs by 80%+, and creating a platform that makes sponsorship deals accessible at every level.

We are seeking $350,000 in pre-seed funding to complete product development, execute our go-to-market strategy, and achieve our first-year targets of 2,000 paying athlete subscribers and 150 active brand partners. This runway gives us 18 months to reach meaningful revenue and position for a Seed round.

Sponsored operates at the intersection of three high-growth markets: the NIL economy, the outdoor recreation industry, and the creator economy. Each is large independently — together, they represent an enormous, largely untapped opportunity.

Our Serviceable Addressable Market (SAM) is defined as the segment of athletes and brands reachable through a direct digital marketplace in the US. This narrows to ~500,000 college athletes, ~2.1 million outdoor creators, and ~14,000 relevant brands actively spending on sponsorships.

The market timing for Sponsored is exceptional. NIL legislation is expanding, outdoor recreation participation reached record highs post-pandemic, and the creator economy has normalized brand partnerships for audiences under 35. The infrastructure gap we are addressing has never been larger — nor more obviously solvable.

Sponsored is a two-sided marketplace with three core product layers: a profile and discovery engine, a direct messaging and deal management system, and — most importantly — Bill, an AI agent assigned to every athlete account.

The sponsorship technology space has several players, but none targeting this precise intersection of NIL + outdoor athletes + AI-powered matching. Here is how we compare:

Our positioning is deliberate. By focusing on the underserved segments — niche sport athletes, outdoor creators, and non-D1 college athletes — we avoid direct head-to-head competition with well-funded incumbents while addressing a larger, faster-growing slice of the market.

Sponsored operates on a freemium SaaS model with three primary revenue streams. The pricing structure is intentionally asymmetric — brands access the platform free to reduce acquisition friction, while athletes pay a flat annual subscription. This drives rapid brand-side growth, which in turn is the primary value proposition for athlete subscribers.

The following projections are built on conservative assumptions: a 2% annual penetration of the total eligible athlete market, brand growth proportional to athlete supply, and no viral growth events. They represent a floor, not a ceiling.

We are raising $350,000 in pre-seed capital to fund 18 months of runway — taking Sponsored from a functional prototype to a revenue-generating marketplace with proven product-market fit. This round positions us to raise a $2–3M Seed round in Q1 2028 based on demonstrated traction.

The defensibility of Sponsored compounds over time through four reinforcing moats:

• Data Network Effect: Every deal closed trains Bill to make better matches. The more data Sponsored has, the smarter the AI gets, and the more value athletes receive — creating a widening gap versus any new entrant.
• Brand Switching Costs: Once a brand has built a roster of athlete relationships through Sponsored, migrating those relationships to a new platform is painful. Retention rates on the brand side are expected to exceed 80% annually.
• University Partnership Lock-In: When Sponsored becomes the official NIL platform for an athletic department, it gains access to the entire incoming athlete class every year — a recurring acquisition channel with near-zero marginal cost.
• Community & Trust: Athletes who land deals through Sponsored become evangelists. Word-of-mouth in tight-knit sports communities (climbing gyms, running clubs, athletic departments) is extraordinarily effective and essentially free.

Four structural forces have converged in 2026 to make this the ideal moment to build Sponsored:

• NIL is 5 years old and still broken. The 2021 NCAA rule change created the right but not the infrastructure. 88% of eligible athletes still have zero deals. The urgency to fix this is growing — not shrinking.
• Outdoor recreation is at an all-time high. Post-pandemic participation in hiking, climbing, skiing, and cycling reached record levels and has not retreated. Brands in these categories are actively growing their ambassador budgets.
• AI has made personalization affordable. Building an AI agent for every single athlete would have cost millions two years ago. The Claude API makes it a line item. This is a once-in-a-decade infrastructure shift.
• Gen Z athletes expect digital-first everything. A 20-year-old college athlete in 2026 will not work with a phone-based agent. They expect an app. They expect AI. They expect it to work like the other software they use daily.