Andrew Petcash of Profluence Sports recently joined the Athlete’s Obseshion podcast to talk about NIL’s impact on NCAA sports, and how athletes are now empowered to become their own entrepreneurs.
Andrew is an expert in brand building as an athlete due to his own experience as an NCAA basketball player for Boston University. While at Boston University, Andrew began to build his brand, but did it in the shadows to avoid NCAA scrutiny. Now that athletes are able to monetize their NIL, he thinks that they need to take advantage of the spotlight on them as marketers.
“It’s something athletes don’t always realize, but they’re always in the spotlight whether they know it or not, whether they’re the starting player or they’re on the bench…people are paying attention. And the more you can market yourself, the more people gravitate towards you as well.”
He also went on to further explain that athletes, despite their busy schedule that can be filled with practices, games, workouts, and classes, can still be entrepreneurs. He even went on to add that the athletes who do add entrepreneurship to their resume can have an edge over other athletes.
“I think that’s one of the pieces where people don’t realize is, if there’s two kids with equal talent and a collective is gonna maybe go well, this kid has a greater entrepreneurial feel. He’s better at speaking to the public. He has more social media followers. We’d rather him just cuz then we can market the rest of it better. So…athletes are kind of almost now forced at a younger age to become a little entrepreneurial. And it’s not so much building a company, but it is building your brand.”
Andrew then spoke about where he thinks the direction of NIL is headed, and he thinks that it is going to be heavily ingrained in Web3.
“You talk to some of the smartest people that have been in Web1 orWeb2. And a lot of them are coming to build companies not only in Web3, but SportsxWeb3. So..I think that’s the next real path and I think the agency mode’s gonna be transformed by it. I think just anything athletes do interaction wise between sponsors or between fans is gonna be more on the blockchain or in some way.”
For athletes looking to break into or learn more about Web3, Andrew recommends the first place to start is research, and to then get in on the action.
“And at the end of the day you can listen, read, watch what however much you want, but you need to, you need to get some skin in the game. You need to get some action. So I would recommend, you know, buy an NFT or get some crypto or you know, look at some daos and just get in a discord. I think the more you also actively engage, the better you get. Like for basketball, I could go shoot a thousand shots a day. But if I’m not getting those shots in a game, I’m not practicing at live speed, it’s not as helpful.”
You can listen to the complete podcast episode on Spotify, and connect and interact with athletes at go.obsesh.com.