Isn't this "pay-for-play"?

We love this question.

First off, it's important to address the perception of "pay-for-play" being a bad thing. There's no other industry in the world where you could argue that the preservation of the product is dependent on the labor explicitly not being compensated. It's telling how ingrained "amateurism" has been in our language around college sports in that most fans instinctively assume being paid is inherently a "bad" thing.

Professionals in all industries are paid-to-play, and we're all also able to negotiate in advance. And make no mistake - the NCAA is a $19 BIllion industry built on the labor of these athletes - these are professionals. Our belief is that all professionals should consider the role, the team, the location, the benefits, and of course, the compensation. The good news is that the NCAA has finally made some significant strides towards "revenue-sharing," but even with that, they're still explicitly avoiding categorizing athletes as employees.

Moreover, most schools won't be participating in revenue sharing, and even the ones that will are capping the amount of revenue that they're willing to share with no guarantees around distribution, Title IX compliance, or negotiation rights. Our position is, and always will be, that compensation should be based on fair market value. It requires supply and demand, it requires participation and negotiation from both sides, and it requires a free market.

So, is it explicitly "pay-for-play?" Well...no, actually. Fanstake's mechanism allows for fan bases to expose fair market value for an endorsement deal in advance of an athlete making a decision. It helps athletes understand what the opportunity is, but the NIL deal isn't even offered until after a decision is made. Just like we all make our professional decisions on various factors, we expect athletes to consider academics, location, coaching staff, playing time, facilities, team style, teammates, and - yes - potential financial opportunities.

Fortunately, in March of this year, there was a Federal injunction placed on the NCAA that prohibits them from enforcing any restrictions on negotiating endorsements in advance of selecting a school, which allows Fanstake to expose the market value of which we'll offer them these endorsement deals at. We do want to be clear though - we do not support pay-for-performance, and we have strict anti-harassment policies around this.

A Stake's conversion has no correlation with playing time, availability, or performance. We offer no guarantees as to performance, nor should fans have any expectations around performance.