Featured Guest: Krystal Beachum on Student-Athlete Entrepreneurship

While the new NCAA NIL rules will not allow the universities to pay the players, however, they will be allowed to do the next best thing. The new policies allow student-athletes to profit from third-party companies based on their name, image, and likeness. The recommendations will be considered by rule-makers in the three NCAA divisions and could take effect by early 2021.

While most people may think of student-athletes becoming social media influencers from sponsorship deals and endorsement deals. Krystal Beachum sees student-athletes becoming more entrepreneurs. Krystal currently runs an online accelerator program that teaches student-athletes how to get paid, stay eligible, and explore entrepreneurship as a career.

With influencer marketing, usually, specific companies target the pages with the most engagement and over 10,000 social media followers. With entrepreneurship, you can have 500-1000 and still be able to make money from your small followers. This will level the playing field for Division II and Division III student-athletes as well. They can now create a t-shirt brand, run a skills camp, and create a crowdfunding account for their startup company. This allows the lower-tier student-athletes to capitalize on the new rules as well.

I have been an advocate for student-athlete entrepreneurship since I started my journey as a student-athlete entrepreneur as a Division II student-athlete. The work I do has also been featured by the NCAA. http://www.ncaa.org/student-athletes/former-student-athlete/be-bold-be-boss-6-strategies-jump-start-your-future-business-venture

It is incredible how I have seen this space evolve to serve the student-athlete experience better. To learn more about me and my work, you can connect with me on all social media platforms  http://krystalbeachum

You can learn more about Krystal’s accelerator program at http://studentathletepreneur.com. Check her out! We welcome your thoughts and comments below.