Obsesh is Building a Scalable Solution to the Worlds’ Gigantic Problem for niche Athletes

The pain that top athletes experience is real.

But it’s not the pain you imagine from your sore muscles. It’s financial stress. The lack of economic opportunities that afford athletes to compete, live, train, and achieve their best self is killing a generation.

2020 has been an unprecedented year with our lifetime’s largest health pandemic causing the cancellation of everything. For many startups and entrepreneurs, it not only killed their idea – it crushed even the biggest market winners.

For Obsesh, it was an opportunity to accelerate our ideas into products with a solution that could make a meaningful difference in the lives of so many and eliminate a gigantic pain point faster.

 

Yesterday’s model doesn’t work for 99% of Niche Athletes.

For more than 30+ years, niche athletes have had to rely on chasing brand endorsements, podium wins, and side hustles to have an income that affords them the training, travel, and costs of competing. This hasn’t been easy and its gut wrenching to see top athletes experience the stress of finding supplemental income. As a result, thousands of top athletes struggle to afford the cost of living and competing; and forced to find new careers outside of sports.

We’ve all seen it, experienced it, ‘been there’ – as they say. A neighbor, roommate, sister, brother, yourself, teammate, your child, you name it…. the story always ends the same. Time to get a (said with air quotes…) a real ‘job’.

Did you know?

By the numbers, less than 100 top athletes, including big four sports US league players, can make a consistent living and maximize their commercial value. The key ingredients only land with the 1% and takes a village including a business team, talent agent, technology resources, league salaries, and brands that support them. For the rest? They are left on their own to put themselves in the race. Product endorsements don’t pay the bills.

“How is it I can be the top ranked pro cliff diver in the world, risking my life daily at the edge of extreme conditions, and I can’t afford to pay my bills or even the cost of competing?”

Pro Cliff Diver – Redbull Athlete, Ellie Smart

 

But that’s not all. It’s Not working for young sports consumers either.

Today’s sports market is broken. There’s no unifying platform to empower the fan to level up or support their idols. The result? Feeling disconnected from real sports culture and the ability to achieve their own potential.

 

Gen Z Sports Consumer Mindset: Today’s teams and Leagues Come & Go. Athletes never expire.

Working with top athletes and a built-in user pipeline of millions, we surfaced two critical issues causing frustration and fallout in the consumer marketplace today. More than 90% report needing easy access to their idols and strategies to obtain tailored experiences to level up their own obsessions.

Consumers want access to:

• Gain new skills

• Learn tips and techniques

• Get pro feedback

• Connect with ‘legit’ athletes for gear advice, how-to, and training

 

we made it our obsession to solve this problem.

The sports market wasn’t designed to maximize opportunities for individual athletes, it was designed to maximize revenue for leagues, teams, and properties. Social media networks weren’t built for the sports fanatic or quality athlete either. Today’s marketplace has a high degree of friction and inefficiency everywhere. If we can solve the problem for both sides of the market, everyone can win. What we are really doing is productizing talent in a way that’s built for athletes, scales, and gives them tech, tools, and resources to plug & play. Every decision we make in developing our solution is about simplicity and removing the friction for both sides of the market. It’s exciting to see how our pilots throughout 2020 have delivered strong evidence we are moving in the right direction. Our mission is to help every niche athlete make money using the talent, skills and expertise they have – and live on their own terms. 2021 will be an ever better year as we work quickly to onboard all 140 athletes and more than 12 million devoted fanatics. I’m proud of our engineering and product design team for their work to deliver a ‘minimum lovable product’ and keep the solution aimed at our early go-gets.

Tracy Benson, Obsesh CEO & Cofounder

 

Obsesh. Level up Your obsessions.

A real-time sports platform and online marketplace connecting fanatics to top athletes.

A new way for fans to interact with top athletes and their obsessions. Take a quick look and we’ll be coming out of invite-only beta shortly so you can level up too.