Inside the Dorm-Room Side Hustle Fueling the $1.6 Billion NIL Gold Rush

Key Takeaways

Opendorse simplifies NIL deals, supporting 100,000+ athletes and nearly $1B in transactions.

The platform ensures compliance with NCAA, state, and professional athlete regulations across all deals.

Blake Lawrence launched Opendorse — now the leading NIL marketplace — from his Nebraska dorm room with cofounder Adi Kunalic, nearly a decade before most people even knew what “ NIL ” meant.

Today, the platform supports more than 100,000 athletes and has facilitated close to a billion dollars in name, image, and likeness transactions — a scale once unimaginable.

“In North America, only about 5,000 pro athletes earn money through endorsements,” Lawrence tells Entrepreneur . This includes everything from social media promotions to commercials and billboards.

“Opendorse step