Everything You Need To Know About Opendorse and It’s NIL Operations

When NIL went live, many wondered how it would operate at scale with thousands of athletes and brands wanting to do deals.

Would only the top 1% of college football and basketball players have NIL opportunities?

What about the other 99% of college athletes?

That’s where Opendorse enters the conversation.

They recently raised $20M to continue developing their all-in-one NIL platform.

I did a deep dive in to Opendorse so you don’t have to.

logo of opendorse

What is Opendorse?

At its core, Opendorse is a NIL technology company that helps athletes and their support group to build and monetize their brand value.

Their platform is based around getting athletes deals and assisting organizations, agents, athletic departments, and brands in this effort.

For example, let’s say a women’s soccer player at Nebraska has a following of 75,000 on Tik Tok. So she signs up for Opendorse to find a brand she can do a promoted post for.

A clothing brand looking for a woman collegiate athlete with a following of over 50,000 finds her by filtering on Opendorse.

They exchange messages, set the price, design the campaign, and sign the contract all within Opendorse.

After this is complete, it all gets tracked for compliance and both parties have access to the analytics behind the promoted post.

Opendorse started in pro sports and have been working downstream as the NIL legislature adapts.

They claim to have:

But where did it all start?

The Beginning of Opendorse

Opendorse was co-founded by CEO Blake Lawrence and President Adi Kunalic in 2012.

Both are former University of Nebraska football players with the vision of helping all athletes profit off their name, image, and likeness (NIL).

You may be wondering how they came up with the name.

Based on their name and logo, I would have assumed it was just a variation of “Open-Doors”- but that’s besides the point.

Today, they have over 50 employees and including a bunch of household names that regularly make guest appearances.

I mentioned that Opendorse is trying to be the all-in-one NIL platform, here’s how they’re planning to do it.

The Different Products Offered by Opendorse

Opendorse Deals

This is Opendorse’s main product – the NIL marketplace.

As an athlete (or agent of one), you have everything you need to connect with brands and book NIL deals.

opendorse athlete signing deal

On the flip side, brands and fans have all the tools they need to search for athletes they want to use in a campaign.

There’s negotiation and messaging tools to make sure it’s a fair deal for both parties.

opendorse messaging tool

The marketplace is where the fun happens.

But it’s the other 3 products that support the infrastructure of the growing NIL industry.

Opendorse Monitor

When college athletes sign NIL deals they are required to report it through the compliance office at their institution.

This is where Opendorse Monitor comes in to play.

It simplifies the process for compliance leaders who are given a customizable dashboard to define, review and flag NIL activities. 

compliance dashboard opendorse image

Deals done through Opendorse are automatically tracked. External deals are able to be manually submitted by the athlete or their agent.

This product is where the competition between INFLCR stems from. They are competing for clients (the schools) in the compliance area.

Opendorse Social

To sign large NIL deals you need a social media presence. To grow your social media following you need some tools.

This is what Opendorse Social provides for athletes, brands, and institutions.

Here are some of the main features:

Being able to share content is great. But that’s something you can do through Dropbox or Google Drive.

What separates this product is the ability for a brand to create the post and then send it to the athlete for them to upload.

nil deal opendorse image

It simplifies NIL deals for all the parties involved. The athlete saves time and the brand gets the post exactly how they want it.

Opendorse Ready

NIL is still in its early stages and changing by the day. Education remains a top priority, especially for collegiate institutions.

Opendorse Ready is their education solution for athletes, agents, coaches, institutions, and brands.

It offers custom NIL assessments, consultation sessions, and a bunch of other resources.

According to their website – 1,000+ college teams, athletic departments, and conferences use Opendorse to support their student-athletes and alumni.

So How Does Opendorse Make Money?

Opendorse makes money in a few different ways:

Both go hand-in-hand. More market place deals for athletes = more schools interested in their other packages.

How Can Athletes Utilize Opendorse in the NIL era?

The marketplace (Opendorse Deals) is where you’ll spend most of your time as an athlete or agent.

From there you have the ability to plug in your school, social media profiles, and look at some NIL deals that might interest you.

If your institution has purchased any of Opendorse’s other products you’ll have an array of tools you can use.

As you grow your social media, you’ll start signing more brand deals, and be able to automatically report them to compliance.

Opendorse is currently available for pro and college athletes, along with high school athletes in states NIL is allowed (such as California).

How Do Institutions Make Use of Opendorse?

The main use of Opendorse’s B2B products are to help relevant parties educate, track deals, save time, and access analytics to make better decisions.

It all ties back to the marketplace.

If athletes and brands aren’t doing deals the other products are less valuable. They were designed to make the marketplace more appealing and flawless.

As more brands and athletes join Opendorse, the network effect will provide exponential growth.

Conclusion:

Opendorse has created a sticky product that is helping athletes sign deals, while enabling brands to find the right ones.

Institutions sit in the middle of this and have access to tools that will optimize and track it.

Their main competitor is INFLCR, but even they play in somewhat of a different market.

Opendorse has built its product around the marketplace and helping all parties involved with NIL deals.

They have taken an aggressive stance and have no plans of slowing down.

It has paid off up to this point and will continue to especially if NIL remains a free market and moves further downstream.

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