Villanova University redshirt freshman quarterback Tanner Maddocks is turning his attention to the offseason after his team made a run to the Football Championship Subdivision playoffs last week. But this offseason figures to be different than others as Maddocks readies to launch his sports tech startup, Athlete Squared, inspired by his own experiences as a high school athlete.
Prior to joining the team at Villanova, which ended its season after falling in the FCS quarterfinals, Maddocks, 19, was a quarterback at Fleetwood High Schooloutside of Reading. During that time, in lieu of a personal trainer or coach, Maddocks would watch videos of NFL quarterbacks on YouTube like Joe Burrow of the Cincinnati Bengals, Patrick Mahomes of the Kansas City Chiefs, and Josh Allen of the Buffalo Bills.
Near Reading, options for trainers and coaches were limited, particularly for those willing to train for quarterbacking, and even less so within a reasonable budget.
Maddocks' platform, Athlete Squared, looks to make training and coaching more accessible and affordable while also solving another hurdle he's faced as a college athlete, namely the difficulty in earning an income while studying and playing on a Division I team.
The platform, which is currently in beta testing and will launch officially as an app in May, allows college athletes to make training content for younger kids to learn from. Kids can pay to watch training videos athletes have created and replicate the sessions on their own time.
"You're creating content that you wish your younger self had," said Maddocks, a public relations and advertising major at Villanova and a member of the class of 2026.
Maddocks sees ample runway for such a platform. Some other teammates and fellow Villanova University athletes he knows train kids from the area following practice, but has found it to be time consuming and difficult to schedule. That's where Athlete Squared comes in.
Rather than the hours one might have to funnel into in-person training, Maddocks said that in test runs, that time can be dramatically slashed. Content production takes about two hours per month between training and editing.
From there athletes can set their prices and pull in income through a subscription model. Athlete Squared will take a 20% commission from each video.
"It's really just monetizing yourself in the most efficient way possible," said Maddocks.
His goal is to have $1 million in revenue in the company's first year. The team behind the platform, which includes a fellow Villanova student and two others,are looking to raise a $350,000 seed round beginning in February. Maddocks said the funds would give the company about 18 months of runway. The startup has been bootstrapped thus far. Their goal is to begin bringing athletes onto the platform in January and to run additional tests so they have metrics to present to investors.
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Athlete Squared already has a big audience, having amassed nearly 32,000 followers on Instagram. In the last month, Maddocks said the account has reached 600,000 people, a 77% month-over-month increase. It also has a large mailing list of about 7,000 college athletes, with plans to grow to 19,000 ahead of launching. Maddocks said that he has had conversations with influencers that either previously or currently play college sports that are interested in making training content on the platform.
In time, he wants to expand beyond college athlete training and broaden its overall offerings. The plans is to launch with a football focus before branching into basketball and lacrosse in June, followed by other sports thereafter.
"First we want to build a moat around college athlete training, then we want to branch out," Maddocks said.
Branching out means creating a platform that allows college athletes the ability to further leverage name, image and likeness, or NIL, options. Within the platform, Athlete Squared will link directly to players' sponsorships like merchandise or product deals. Athlete Squared also plans to launch a podcast next year about NIL, training and the life of a college athlete.
"My goal is I want to run the training industry," Maddocks said. "I think that's just my nature, number one as a quarterback but also as an athlete in general. I'm very competitive. If I'm going to do something, I want to do it to the best of my ability. I want to be the best at it."
