Athletes.org (AO) is building out its growing business, as the company announced this morning it will launch its first two chapters -- “The AO Chapter for ACC Men's Basketball Athletes" and "The AO Chapter for ACC Women's Basketball Athletes.” Each has been co-founded by current athletes, including women’s basketball star Deja Kelly (North Carolina) and men’s basketball players Jeremy Roach (Duke) and Armando Bacot (North Carolina).
“It's really important that Athletes.org as an association is free and accessible for all athletes, all sports, all divisions, all conferences,” AO Chairman Jim Cavale told SBJ. “But it's very important that there's also a chapter model inside of our association that is a much smaller group of athletes based on their sport and their conference. Now we have similar athletes with similar problems, similar need, similar solutions.”
Athletes.org previously launched a players association -- though Cavale makes clear it is not a union -- in August that provides free on-demand support and benefits for those college athletes that sign up.
With the new chapter program, the idea is to join athletes under the same conference and sport umbrellas in which they can discuss and vote on key issues and make decisions on group licensing NIL deal opportunities. Those voting results, too, in theory, can be used by the athletes involved to advocate on a national level.
“It allows us to start organizing their voice and what they think on these key issues now, through voting in our app, through chapters having founders that are current athletes that can represent the thoughts and voice of their peers in their chapter,” Cavale explained. “And the chapters (also) allow us to generate group licensing deal flow, because now we've got a much smaller focus group for brands and licensees to spend dollars.”
The launch of the chapter system also comes as AO has added former Penn State AD Sandy Barbour and former Syracuse men’s basketball coach Jim Boeheim to its BOD. Others on the board include Mit Winter (leading NIL attorney), Amy Huchthausen (former NCAA D1 Commissioner), Reggie Love (Apollo), Roman Harper (SEC Network Football Analyst), Jason Ranne (Wasserman COO), Terri Smith (NFLPA COO), Omari Hardwick (Actor) and Dean Jordan (Wasserman Media).
UNC F Armando Bacot is a co-founder of the "The AO Chapter for ACC Men's Basketball Athletes" Getty Images
