Case Study: OneTeam Collective

March 5, 2018

This story complements the March 5, 2018, edition of RaugustReports.

Licensors, licensees, and retailers have been launching incubator, accelerator, and crowdfunding-based innovation programs in an effort to find new ideas that could succeed at retail and that might not have been discovered through traditional means. Here’s a closer look at one accelerator program, the OneTeam Collective, founded by the NFL Players Association along with seven investment, consulting, marketing, and technology partners in December 2016.

How It Works

The OneTeam Collective program is open to any company with a connection to the sports industry, as long as it aligns with the initiative’s mission of improving the lives of professional and amateur athletes and sports fans. “We’re looking for innovative concepts, but that could go from food to wearables,” says Steve Scebelo, NFLPA’s VP licensing and business development. “A lot of the applicants are in the tech or data space, but there are no limits.”

Aside from consumer products, companies—typically early-stage start-ups—have submitted ventures tied to content and new media, fan engagement, athletic performance and nutrition, data analytics, gaming, virtual and augmented reality, and more. There is no cap on the number of companies that can apply, and applications are assessed on a rolling basis.

The OneTeam Collective board, which includes representatives from all of the founding partners, evaluates the submissions and responds within 30 days. Prospective companies that make it through the first round of the process by attracting interest from one or more founding partners participate in a follow-up meeting. If that goes well, they have the opportunity to participate in Pitch Days that occur throughout the year. Companies that successfully pass through each filter and survive further due diligence receive an offer; those that do not can reapply.

Companies that become part of the OneTeam Collective portfolio receive a range of support, including equity in their company. Each deal is different, but an investment stake is part of all agreements. Winning ideas also gain access to the league’s 2,000-plus players, including licensing rights to athletes’ images, voices, data, and signatures. “We always want it to tie back to the athletes,” says Scebelo. “It’s not just about the IP, it could be an endorsement or active employment with the company.” An eight-athlete advisory board is also part of the selection and development process.

In the case of a licensing deal, the minimum guarantee is waived, which is a benefit since applicants often cannot afford the guarantee for the licensing rights they need, at least initially. The rest of the agreement is negotiated like any licensing deal would be.

In addition to licensing rights and funding, portfolio companies benefit from the expertise of the NFLPA and its athletes and partners; R&D assistance; access to assets; workspace at the NFLPA office in Washington, D.C.; and marketing and product development support. “With the equity we have, it behooves us to help our portfolio companies however we can,” Scebelo notes.

Year One Results

In its first year, the program received applications from 400 companies, with four making it through the process and becoming part of the OneTeam Collective portfolio. Approximately 30% of the 400 were looking for some form of licensing rights, according to a rough estimate by Ricky Medina, the NFLPA’s senior manager of licensing and business development. The rest were looking for athletes to serve as endorsers or employees, to invest, to provide data, or to participate in some other way.

The four portfolio companies from the first year of the program were Whoop, a maker of wearables that collect training and performance data from athletes; StatMuse, a voice app through which fans can access NFL stats, with the information delivered by a favorite player; Rep the Squad, a jersey-rental subscription program; and Campus Lore, a media company focused on collegiate sports, with former collegiate/current NFL players featured in programming. Collectively these four companies received more than $5 million in investment.

Whoop’s device collects player data and analyzes it so the athletes can improve their performance; the collected data could then be licensed to broadcasters or print publications. For example, a broadcaster could, during its pre-game analysis, show how the athletes had slept the night before. Whoop decided to apply for the OneTeam Collective program when it discovered that the NFLPA controlled access to the player sensor data it needed. “Part of what they were looking for was ways to commercialize that data,” says Will Ahmed, founder and CEO. “Our main pitch was that our product could make athletes healthier and wealthier.”

Whoop’s product exemplifies one of the goals of OneTeam Collective, namely to find innovative and forward-thinking concepts. “It’s unique because it’s focused on data,” Ahmed explains. “This is the first deal in the history of sports that allows the athlete to commercialize sports data. It sets the tone for what could happen in the future.”

Pitching to OneTeam Collective involved scientific validation and due diligence about the company’s financial health. “I was impressed with the process,” Ahmed says. As a result of becoming a portfolio company, Whoop was able to distribute its device to all current NFL players. “That’s a major right,” he adds. The company also has been able to learn from the athletes and has developed relationships with certain top players.

Being part of the OneTeam Collective has also opened doors to other areas of sports licensing. “We’re having conversations with every other sports league and union now,” Ahmed says. “Our relationship with the NFLPA has validated Whoop along a number of verticals, and one is pro sports.”

For StatMuse, group licensing rights were essential given the nature of the product, while the ability to participate in NFL events has been a boon to marketing. “OneTeam’s expertise and guidance have been invaluable, especially for a technology company like ours that is on the forefront of artificial intelligence and combining AI with sports talent,” says Eli Dawson, co-founder and CEO.

“The NFLPA was StatMuse’s first access to talent and our first licensing deal, so we learned a lot from OneTeam about how to work with athletes and agents, which helped us in negotiating our subsequent licensing deals,” he adds. “The partnership also validated our vision of incorporating star talent in our proprietary technology and gave us a path to expanding our authentic-voices portfolio in sports beyond football.” The company has expanded its voice roster to include broadcasters such as Scott Van Pelt and Joe Buck, for example.

Second Annual Pitch Day

The Collective hosts events and competitions throughout the year, such as at trade shows and universities, to promote the project to potential investors, potential applicants, and NFLPA athletes. It hosts an annual Pitch Day in the days prior to the Super Bowl each year, attended by prospective investors and NFL athletes, including those with a current interest in investing and those who want to learn more about the Collective.

At 2018’s second annual Pitch Day, held on January 31, 10 prospective portfolio companies were invited to give a three-minute pitch to attendees.

Companies participating showed the diversity of applicants. For example, on the fitness and performance side, FitBionics is developing a functional beverage with ingredients derived from athletes’ bacteria, with the idea that a successful athlete’s biology can translate to better performance for other athletes as well. It needs access to athletes’ bacteria in order to continue developing the product.

In the realm of content and fan engagement, Fantasy Life is a brand launched by ESPN fantasy sports analyst Matthew Berry, who introduced an outbound licensing program almost two years ago. Berry pitched the brand’s ability to allow athletes to monetize fantasy sports, of which they are the central focus but for which they are currently not compensated. The app could be branded to a player (or a team or league), with income derived from sponsorships, merchandise, virtual goods, and the like.

The winner of an on-site vote by attendees was Octi, an AR app powered by kinetics, featuring technology that the founders say could replace motion-capture suits in the future. The app tracks a body in motion and adds 3D special effects to the image. Through the app, users can turn their pet into a dragon or themselves into their favorite player.

Coming in with a virtual tie to Octi in the Pitch Day attendee competition was The Relish, a digital sports content and community brand created for women. The founders noted that women are avid sports fans but are underserved by most sports content today. The streaming network offers lifestyle programming, day-in-the-life stories about athletes, and the like. The Relish would benefit not only from participation by the athletes of the NFLPA but also the members of the U.S. Women’s National Team Players Association and Women’s National Basketball Players Association. REP Worldwide, an agency recently co-founded by the NFLPA, oversees the latter groups’ commercial activities.

Other companies were pitching concepts such as hyper-realistic, hologram-like augmented reality; strengthening equipment for hands and arms; a used athletic equipment online marketplace; and a shower wipe that keeps athletes clean when they cannot take a full shower, among other concepts.

The NFLPA’s partners in the OneTeam Collective are Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers, Madrona Venture Group, BlackRock, LeadDog Marketing Group, Harvard Innovation Lab, Intel, and Sports Innovation Lab.