The National Football League Players Association, the union that represents players in the league, announced it's forming a new accelerator focused on sports-centric startups called The OneTeam Collective. The catch? In addition to potential funding, the group will use players’ public presence as investment capital.
And the accelerator is based right here in D.C.
"Being in D.C. enables companies to learn from the top-to-bottom operations of the NFLPA, NFL Players Inc., and ACE Media, our content and production arm," Ahmad Nassar, president of NFL Players Inc., the union's licensing and marketing arm, told DC Inno. "Via our founding partners, the OneTeam Collective maintains additional presences in Silicon Valley, Seattle, Boston, and New York City. The ability to leverage strengths across multiple geographic locations is important for us and the companies we hope to work with."
The OneTeam Collective will share the image rights of football players in exchange for equity in startups operating in the sporting realm. Typically, a company has to dish out a significant sum of money to use NFL players' images on their websites, commercials and other promotional materials. The group's proposed arrangement would give startups a chance to use them without breaking the bank.
“The idea here is that younger companies would be able to tap into that same value without having to put up that same cash,” Nassar told Bloomberg. NFL Players Inc. earns about $160 million annually, and it could choose to invest some of that money in the new companies, as well, or make players available for product research, development or advice.
The OneTeam Collective's founding partners include the Harvard iLab, Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers LLC, Madrona Venture Group LLC, Intel Corp., LeadDog Marketing Group and Sports Innovation Lab. Intel, KPCB and Madrona are all potentially providing funding to the accelerator.
And it's looking for ventures touching every aspect of the sports industry, ranging from data and performance analytics to fantasy sports and virtual reality games. The first pitch competition for startups looking to be included in The OneTeam Collective will be in February in Houston.
Sam Sabin contributed to this report. Image used via CC BY-SA 2.0 — credit Keith Allison
