A Kentucky founder is launching a new venture specifically focused on University of Louisville athletics.
502Circle is an independent collective for UofL, focused on helping student-athletes and local businesses with name, Image and Likeness (NIL) transactions. It comes from Marc Spiegel, also the founder of Lexington, Kentucky-based Rubicon Technologies LLC.
NIL refers to the ability of student-athletes to profit from the use of their name, image and likeness. This was prohibited until recently.
On March 9, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear officially signed legislation that allowed student-athletes to receive compensation for use of their NIL. This made law the executive order Beshear signed in June 2021, following the U.S. Supreme Court ruling against the NCAA’s rules limiting educational benefits for college players. Beshear was the first governor to sign such an order.
The quick turnaround of these regulations made the world of NIL the proverbial “wild west,” and athletes, universities, attorneys and now collectives like 502Circle, are trying to make sense of the process.
Spiegel, 502Circle’s founder and managing member, said the mission of the platform is to bring value to student-athletes and the fans and businesses that want to support them.
“Part of the challenge, and it's one that honestly was very exciting for me, is how do we take that terminology, but put some guardrails behind it?” Spiegel said in an interview with Business First. “Put some technology and processes behind it to make it more of a normal business practice than kind of this ad hoc amalgamation of ideas and rules.”
Rubicon Technologies is poised to be traded on the public markets within the next several months. Rubicon is a software company that provides smart waste and recycling solutions to businesses and governments worldwide.
In his founding role there, he works with corporate development and with its mergers and acquisitions group.
Though he is based in Atlanta, Spiegel is originally from Louisville and is a two-time graduate of UofL. Up until a few months ago, Spiegel said he had never heard of a collective, but he started realizing that many schools had one — but not his alma mater.
Spiegel defines the term collective as an independent businesses that is designed to facilitate NIL deals for student athletes in the program, but isn't affiliated with the university.
No outside investors were involved in the funding of 502Circle. Spiegel has funded it all himself. He didn't say specifically how much had been invested so far but noted he anticipates it to be six figures this year. He doesn’t have plans for outside investors at this point. Businesses that want to get involved and support can email partner@502circle.com
The product will be a subscription-based service and will create revenue primarily through that. Spiegel doesn’t have a specific dollar amount for a revenue goal.
The 502Circle product is set to launch Aug. 29. Within the next few months, Spiegel said the company will announce the names of individuals involved on the advisory board and as employees.
Spiegel said the company is taking a tech-driven approach to limit the amount of overhead. He said other NIL collectives that have formed typically employ between two and four people, and he doesn’t expect 502Circle to be much different from that. But he hopes the employee base will grow and scale with the product.
502Circle is an independent organization that isn’t affiliated with the university or its athletic department. It’s designed to facilitate NIL deals for current student-athletes in the program. Universities can’t be a party to these types of transactions.
Spiegel said another key part of the work is making sure deals are compliant with state and NCAA guidelines.
Student-athletes use the platform by creating a profile and showing they are open to NIL transactions. Supporters of the program and businesses similarly use the platform to contribute and fund deals. All offers happen through the platform, and the money for the deal’s completion is deposited into the athlete’s bank account. Companies can select athletes based on what they're looking for by filtering through age, gender, sport, number of followers and the like.
I asked Spiegel if this product would provide a type of guardrail for the new and fairly young concept of NIL. He said he didn’t want to say 502Circle was the guardrails, but instead it was closer to a self-driving car.
“Use technology to make it safer and replicable,” he said.
