As a former professional athlete and sports marketing veteran, Chase Garrett knows the ins and outs of the endorsement market.
After years racing motocross and supercross, Garrett transitioned to the other side of the negotiating table, heading up Red Bull’s massive athlete marketing department.
While at Red Bull, Garrett had unrivaled access to athlete sponsorship deals, learning exactly what works and doesn’t work for these professionals and the brands trying to represent them.
“I realized it was a very difficult world for new brands to enter, it’s very intimidating,” he said of sports endorsements. “I wanted to create a marketplace to drive more participation, so we can bring more brands to connect with a deeper level of athletes.”
So, after six years at Red Bull, Garrett set off on his own to develop a solution that made the sports sponsorship arena more accessible for athletes and brands alike.
After a year developing the new marketplace, Garrett launched Denver-based Icon Source in fall 2019.
The mobile application and AI technology pairs athletes and brands based on social audience demographics, giving companies the ability to search for athletes based on schedule, demographics, sports and personal interests.
Each athlete on the platform, there are nearly 600 currently, can create a profile that includes their current location and sponsors, hometown and interests outside of sports.
That personal interest piece is a key driver in marketing success, Garrett said.
“That’s really what a brand needs to discover quickly if they’re going to invest in an individual,” he said.
On the brand side, companies can search using all of the previously mentioned filters and engage with the athlete directly within Icon Source.
Once both parties have agreed to work together, the platform provides a contract template to serve as a guide for the agreement.
“When we bring a brand that has no experience working in sports to an agent, it’s as flushed out as possible. It’s about 70 percent of the way there,” Garrett said about contracts.
Since launching in September, Garrett said Icon Source has engaged athletes and brands from across disciplines to finalize sports marketing opportunities. Locally, Olympic gold medalist snowboarder Red Gerard has closed a handful of deals on the platform, Garrett said.
As they continue expanding capabilities, Garrett sees a huge opportunity for Icon Source in collegiate name and image likeness deals. Currently, collegiate athletes can’t profit off of their name and likeness without risking their eligibility, though the NCAA is in advanced discussions about changes to that rule.
When they do make the switch, Icon Source will be ready with a solution to help these student-athletes protect themselves during contract negotiations.
“We think we have the solution for all college athletes to earn money off of their name off our platform,” he said. “We’ve built a specific portal to facilitate that when it’s ready.”
The three-person Icon Source team has already raised seed round funding from professional athletes, including Denver Nuggets’ center Mason Plumlee, and is eyeing a Series A round led by an institutional investor later this year.
“Sports and sports marketing have operated the exact same way since the existence of the business model that drives it. And that’s because it’s a relationships business,” Garrett said. “We came in to disrupt the space, not to cut out people that have relationships, but to empower them with a tool to drive more participation.”
