Do You Want To Pay NCAA Athletes? Now You Can (Sort Of).

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The general consensus whether a person falls in favor of “please save amateurism” or “pay the players right now” is that college sports are changing. It’s not a matter of if the collegiate model will be altered to ultimately allow athletes to profit off the endless truckloads of cash that sports like football and basketball bring in, but when.

That when could be coming sooner than expected, at least if one startup has anything to say about it.

FanAngel started as the brainchild of Shawn Fojtik, a long-time Chicago Bears fan who was emotionally invested in the contract talks between Brian Urlacher and the team. When Urlacher was given a lowball offer, he walked away from the game.

“The fans lost a chance to keep the star,” Fojtik said. “The team lost a leader. And of course Brian lost a chance to play. No one won with that deal. I thought to myself, why isn’t there a platform that allows the fans to be heard, to have a seat at the table and to make a difference?”

That set the wheels in motion for Fojtik’s startup, which is, in a sense, a Kickstarter for athletes. Rather than raise money for a particular venture or tangible thing, money is raised by fans for performance. It could be as simple as “Win the Super Bowl” or “Re-sign with the team.” If those incentives aren’t met, the money goes back to the fans.

What makes this interesting from a collegiate sports perspective is that FanAngel is allowing fans to pledge money towards those athletes as well. There could be a pool for a national championship, a Heisman Trophy, first team all-conference, a conference title, making an All-America team, or any other benchmark – individual or team-oriented – that fans come together and agree on.

The FanAngel partners have met with the NCAA, and conversations were as positive as they could be. There’s nothing the NCAA can do about it technically, as the money doesn’t go to the players until after their eligibility expires. The pledges are essentially placed in escrow or a sort of trust with a major global bank until the athlete can accept it.

“We want to be sure there’s no offer of that money or any acceptance until after their eligibility is complete or should have been complete, whatever is longest,” Fojtik said. “That’s when we get to stand in front of NCAA critic and say, ‘This has been going on for decades. Do you think the weeks after a Heisman Trophy winner leaves the NCAA in their junior year, and they announce a deal with Nike or Snickers or Gatorade or with GM that it’s just done?’ All of those institutions were reserving money for that guy or gal months or years beforehand. They pay him after his eligibility is complete. We’re doing the same exact thing, except we’re letting the fan to do it, we’re allowing the fan to do it in real time, and we’re allowing the fan to do it in public.”

This isn’t going to stop boosters. This isn’t going to stop bag men. And Fotjik isn’t claiming it will. The reason the NCAA hasn’t been as reticent to take conversations with FanAngel is likely because this stuff is above board and public – and fully within the rules of the the association. The NCAA might not like it because it flies in the face of amateurism, but so does a player holding a trophy *Presented By VIZIO* after making the Allstate Good Hands™ Play Of The Game.

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These guys are being exploited. We all know that at this point whether we’re actively trying to ignore it or not. This is being proven in the court system in the O’Bannon and Kessler cases. ESPN’s Jay Bilas has made it his mission somewhat to prove the ridiculousness of the amateur model, whether he’s posting pictures of jerseys at a school’s online teamshop with a player’s name on it or giving speeches in a town hall setting to defend his perspective.

“We’re given the choice between a system where there are backroom deals,” Fotjik said, “and they’re private and there’s coaches and donors working together, and oh by the way, institutions are making billions on the backs of unpaid athletes, or a system where we do have at least an overt attempt at transparency and we are publishing this in real time as news. And we’re allowing folks to get compensated for the value of their work. I think the other system is something you’d expect in North Korea. You’d say this is a human rights issue, for crying out loud. I don’t use the word honor. I don’t want to pretend like we’re pious or anything like that. But we have transparency on our side, we have free press on our side, and we have free market economics.”

FanAngel isn’t pious. The company will also be making money off the backs of these athletes. That’s the American way. That’s the very nature of sports. On pledges there’s a four percent payment processing fee per account funding transaction, and FanAngel takes a five percent cut on all successful pledges. They’re a business, after all. So they’re in this to get paid, otherwise the startup would fail.

The rest of the money goes to the athletes, with 10 percent going to an Angel Fund, which includes money for graduate scholarships, Wounded Warrior and other non-profits.

But if this allows fans to feel like they have a vested interest in the game, maybe it’s not such a bad thing. Fans put in their $10 to do a bracket pool and cheer for their brackets. They put up $100 for a fantasy league so they can root on individual players. Green Bay fans paid $250 to own a piece of paper that says they own a “share” in the Packers that gives no actual return on investment.

So why wouldn’t some fans offer up $20 apiece for their team to win it all? If it happens, they can find a way to claim some credit for their favorite team’s success. It might sound crazy, but so is being a fan in the first place. And someday when the model has finally changed, and college stars are able to make the money they rightfully deserve, the old model might seem downright insane.

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