178 Blake Lawrence on Building Opendorse and the Future of NIL

Blake Lawrence is the Co-Founder and President of Opendorse, one of the leading athlete marketing and NIL platforms in sports.After his football career at Nebraska was cut short by injury, Blake turned to entrepreneurship, eventually co-founding Opendorse in 2012. Today, the platform serves more than 200,000 athletes and works with hundreds of teams and more than 200 college athletic departments.In this episode, Blake joins the Sports Business Leaders Podcast to discuss the evolution of Opendorse, the rapidly changing economics of college sports, and why he believes the $4.5 billion NIL economy is still in its early stages.Blake also breaks down what the revenue-sharing era means for athletic departments, how schools are competing to attract and retain athletes, and where college athlete compensation could be headed over the next several years.We also dive into Blake’s lessons from more than a decade of building and selling in sports, including why relationships matter so much, why sales cycles take longer than founders expect, and why companies need to build relationships from both the top down and bottom up when selling to teams, leagues, conferences, and athletic departments.