Welcome to Fanstake.

We're a small, passionate group that genuinely loves college sports.  We believe there's simply nothing else like it.  

On the surface, Fanstake is designed to be the best college sports app on the planet, and we aim to keep proving that day in and day out.   

Behind the scenes though, Fanstake has been built as a reaction to a broken model. We've been watching this uniquely American institution struggle, and believe we all have to acknowledge that things aren't working right now. We genuinely believe fandom has the power to solve the biggest challenges. 

For those that care to dive into it, this note is an explanation for how Fanstake works, our take on what's going on in the industry, and how we, as fans, can solve it. College sports is big business, and that business is directly correlated to your program's success (or failure) on the field.

We hope you'll join us on this mission. At minimum, thanks for stopping by and having fun. Whether you know it or not, you're part of the solution.

For love of the game,

The Fanstake Team

We believe fans have a stake in college sports. In fact, we believe fans have more power than any other faction in college sports. They always have.

1. College sports, like all professionalized sports, are driven by money. You may or may not like this — we never have FWIW — but it is factual.
2. Winning means more money. And in turn, money means more winning. As institutions, schools (public or private) cannot fall behind. It quickly becomes an existential threat beyond athletic departments and into broader school-wide budgets and stability.

It costs real money today to field a successful team in nearly every college sport. For generations schools have relied on donations to float that. And for the past 20-30 years that's meant leaning into advertising as well. The media rights packages, the consolidation of conferences, the TV contracts, the ballooning branding, the number of playoff teams — it's all about one thing: more money.

So the real college sports competition behind the scenes is the money game. It dominates the conversation in athletic department conference rooms across the country. There are schools that are winning this race, and schools that are losing — and trust us, every D1 coach knows this top 25 as well as they know the AP polls.

So, what can we do about it?

We've sat down with athletic departments around the country, across all conferences, and in every single case the questions were consistent:

1. How can we generate more money?
2. How can we solve donor fatigue?
3. How can we get NIL deals to thousands of athletes that don't have "name, image, or likeness" value?
4. How can we get more business sponsors?

And there has always been one additional question from our perspective. How might any school, regardless of size, do all of that successfully?

Fanstake is our solution. A pragmatic approach to a very real set of challenges:

1. Like we just covered, the business of sports is driven by advertising. Every billboard, every commercial break, every jersey patch or branded field goal net. It's about businesses trying to grab your attention away from the game for seconds at a time to think about their brand. This is about as American as apple pie at this point, so nothing shocking here.

2. NIL is a new challenge though. It's not just about sharing their total revenue with athletes, the real competitive edge is getting athletes additional NIL deals on top of rev share. Here's the rub though: 98% of college athletes have very little NIL value. It's not a critique of them — but NIL is about influence, and most aren't influencers — they're athletes.

Influence is the real problem that needs to be solved. The reality is businesses aren't paying athletes or schools out of goodwill; they're paying because they're hoping athletes can influence you - the consumer. 

Your attention is what they're buying.

So if they're going to buy it, we figured you should determine where their money actually goes.

Your job is to just be a fan and help your team win. The more engaged you are, the better your team does. That's what we mean by, "play for your team." More than that, we've always felt fans should benefit as well, so we pass some of that sponsorship money back in earned rewards. 

So if you see a brand on Fanstake — sponsoring a game or offering a product — they're there to support college athletes and get in front of engaged fans. And when you engage with them, you're actually choosing to direct their deals towards your program vs. another. So engage with them! It helps your team, and it helps the ecosystem. 

We hope you enjoy it, and we're genuinely grateful you're part of the solution. In the end, Fanstake is truly built by fans, and our vision is to build the platform that works for ALL OF US.

If you have any suggestions, comments or criticisms reach out to us at support@fanstake.com. We promise to read and respond to every piece of feedback.