Steve Thayer and his son Ryan Thayer wanted to offer financial help to athletes from their alma mater, the University of Illinois, so they came up with an idea to sell NFTs of players.
They found the answer when a Supreme Court ruling last year allowed college athletes to receive compensation for the use of their name, image, or likeness .
“We put our heads together and thought that selling NFTs of players would be a perfect legal solution to providing fair compensation for their name and their likeness,” Steve said. The Thayers started their company in January, calling it NextName. They had a soft launch event in February for prospective investors. Tokens went on sale in July.
Ryan described the process. “A lot of schools have an NIL director that helps the athletes understand opportunities,” he reported. “We’ve been able to work with the school and their NIL director to get in front of the athletes and set up meetings for us to pitch them the idea. Once they’re onboard about the platform, we’ve created a template X-Series NFT with one of our partners to create what the modern-day trading card would be.
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