MADISON, Wis. — Strengthening its program to support student-athletes in capitalizing on their name, image and likeness opportunities, Wisconsin Athletics announced Thursday the launch of a dedicated NIL marketplace built to specifically serve the Badgers.
YouDub Marketplace serves as Wisconsin’s official NIL marketplace and stands as one of the first school-specific offerings in the nation. Powered by industry leader Opendorse, YouDub Marketplace gives Badgers fans, supporters and interested businesses a single, streamlined platform to access hundreds of student-athlete profiles and pitch those they are interested in pursuing for NIL opportunities. They can then use the same platform to securely book deals and provide payment to student-athletes.
Current student-athletes can be found and contacted using YouDub Marketplace, along with former UW student-athletes who are among the 75,000 athletes worldwide using the Opendorse platform.
“This is an exciting step in our evolving efforts to provide the highest level of support to our student-athletes when it comes to their NIL opportunities,” UW Director of Athletics Chris McIntosh said. “We are fortunate to have a large and passionate fan base that not only supports the efforts of our program and our teams collectively, but specifically takes pride in supporting our student-athletes individually as Badgers. This new marketplace makes it easy for our fans and our business community to channel that support directly to the student-athletes. Most importantly, it gives our student-athletes another powerful tool as they continue to elevate themselves in the NIL space.”
YouDub Marketplace simplifies for student-athletes the process of promoting themselves, finding NIL opportunities and executing potential deals. Student-athletes can review opportunities, accept deals and receive compensation all in one place. Once a deal is completed, the same platform is used to disclose the activity automatically to ensure compliance.
"Wisconsin has built an award-winning NIL program that stands among the nation's best," said Opendorse CEO Blake Lawrence. "Today's launch of the YouDub Marketplace will take that student-athlete support to the next level. Starting now, Wisconsin fans can find and support every Badger using the top NIL technology in college sports."
In addition to the new marketplace, UW student-athletes continue to benefit from all aspects of the Badgers’ partnership with Opendorse and its best-in-class tool for content delivery, personalized social media assessments and analytics, and access to industry leaders on topics like endorsements and brand-building.
YouDub Marketplace is the latest addition to Wisconsin’s continually-evolving NIL program, YouDub:
• Earlier this month, the Badgers added a partnership with the leading NIL advisory and education firm, Altius Sports Partners, to provide strategic guidance and a robust offering of educational programming to UW student-athletes, staff and stakeholders.
• Student-athletes also have access to free legal advice and contract review via the UW Law & Entrepreneurship Clinic and to cost-free business coaching and business plan development through the Wisconsin Small Business Development Center.
• Within Wisconsin Athletics, student-athletes have access to in-house resources that include the Badgers’ Brand Engagement staff as a resource to help develop social media, personal branding and communication skills, as well as staff from the Career and Leadership team, which provides networking opportunities and personal and career development programming.
About Opendorse
Opendorse, the NIL company, is the leading technology provider in the athlete endorsement industry. More than 75,000 athletes use Opendorse to understand, build, and monetize their name, image, and likeness (NIL) with support from thousands of brands, fans, sponsors, donors and partners including Team USA, PGA TOUR, NFLPA, MLBPA, WNBPA, LPGA, over 100 professional and collegiate sports teams.
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