Rob Connolly’s first athlete-related start-up was Meetlete, a sports-star version of Cameo. Getting a star athlete on a video call for a reasonable fee was an easy sell to fans, but not to the athletes—the company had so many athlete no-shows for calls that the effort was scuttled by constant refunds.
He has higher hopes for his second athlete venture: Finlete, which keeps the fan meet-and-greet of the first effort but adds what should be a stronger motivator—more money.
“Finlete is a platform that allows fans to support, for now, minor league baseball players,” Connolly said in a phone call. “And with the current amount of money that these athletes make in the minor leagues, there’s a really interesting potential return that people participating in Finlete can see.”
Finlete is a new entry in the increasingly popular financial play of athlete investing, in which funds swap an upfront payment to an aspiring pro in exchange for a fixed percentage cut of future sports income. Comcast owns 7% of Finlete’s business, while famed venture capitalist Tim Draper has a $50,000 seed investment in the endeavor.
For Finlete, Connolly sees a lot of potential in farm team ballplayers, partly because minor league baseball pays most players badly. Finlete’s first athlete, Texas Rangers middle infield prospect Echedry Vargas, signed with the club out of the Dominican Republic in 2022 for a $10,000 bonus–the minimum at the time, according to Connolly. Right now, Vargas plays in A-ball, where salaries max out at $27,300. “He’s like a minimum wage guy … but outperforming players that signed for millions of dollars,” the executive said.
Finlete is taking a crowd-funding approach, selling shares in a Securities & Exchange Commission-registered offering to retail investors. Investors can buy shares in Vargas for $8 (with a 12-share minimum) with the player receiving a $500,000 advance. In exchange, investors get a claim of 10% of his baseball earnings for the next 25 years if he makes The Show, or even if he ends up off-Broadway, so to speak, in the top pro leagues of Japan, Korea and Taiwan, according to the player agreement disclosed as part of the offering. If he fails to make the majors stateside or in Asia, Vargas won’t owe anything. The offering is still raising money and has about $26,000 in commitments, according to the Finlete website.
The presence of smart money suggests there’s increasing traction with the idea of swapping a lump sum of cash now for a cut of athlete income later on. The current wave of start-ups was sparked by the initial success of Big League Advance, a private fund that is best known for striking a deal with the now-superstar Fernando Tatis Jr. when he was a minor leaguer. Finlete joins the golf pro-focused Commonwealth Sports, NFL player-backing Vestible and international soccer player investing Nordensa—which isn’t available to American investors—as more recent entrants to the budding scene.
Conscious of the other competitors in the space, the company sees the carryover of the original Cameo-like idea as a key to drawing in fan investors; part of the pitch to athletes too, is to build a cadre of supporters early. In Vargas’ case, he commits to things such as signing 100 autographs annually and holding meet-and-greets with fans at games as perks to people buying a minimum number of shares, and at least two 30-minute video-chat appearance annually under the deal.
“It’s like a PG version of OnlyFans,” Connolly said. “You’re involved with the athlete on an intimate level. You get to be a part of the athlete’s journey, you get to hear what they’re struggling with and what they’re working on.”
Such a relationship is also potentially lucrative for Finlete. If the current share offering in Vargas’ future income sells its maximum proposed level of $800,000 (100,000 shares), $300,000 goes to cover the offering costs and reimbursements to Finlete. It’s not quite a fair comparison because certain costs aren’t proportional, but a typical stock IPO sees about 5% of proceeds directed to expenses and commissions. Finlete also gets the right of first refusal to buy any future baseball-related income Vargas might consider selling.
“We want to do $100 million in revenue in two years. We want to create a trading platform that allows fans to buy and sell their positions … and have over 100 athletes on our platform from Nascar drivers to horse racing jockeys to baseball players and UFC fighters,” Connolly said.
That’s a lot of hope riding on the shoulders of Vargas, who is currently batting .227 for the Down East Wood Ducks of the Carolina League.
