In 2021, Kobi Wu was one of countless parents of student-athletes watching from the sidelines as her son tried to navigate the newly-changed NIL (name, image, and likeness) landscape.
The NCAA had just adopted its interim name, image, and likeness policy, cracking open a market that had no precedent and, crucially, no standards. What Wu saw wasn’t a gold rush. It was a structural failure in real time.
“Billions of dollars were moving through a market with no standard for how to value the people at the center of it. Brands were guessing. Schools were guessing. Athletes were leaving money on the table because nobody could tell them what they were actually worth,” Wu told Hypepotamus. “College sports was being asked to operate like an economy without any of the tools an economy requires.”
Three years later, Wu, a tech entrepreneur with a master’s degree from Georgia Tech, founded Cache to build the infrastructure needed to improve NIL deals.
What’s In A Deal?
The NIL era promised athletes economic agency. What it delivered, in many cases, fell short of that reality.
NIL deals are comprised of an athlete’s performance metrics and trajectory, their social reach and engagement quality, market positioning within their sport and conference, as well as the brand’s campaign objectives, exclusivity considerations, usage rights, and duration, Wu explained.
“The problem is that most deals are still being structured on feel,” she added. “Someone sees a highlight reel, they check the follower count, and they make an offer. That’s not a deal that’s an emotional guess.”
Cache’s CacheScore™ and CacheValue™ puts a “defensible number” behind a deal.
“So when an athlete walks into a negotiation, or when a brand is evaluating a signing, there’s a framework underneath it, not a gut call,” she added.
Athletes access the platform for free. Schools, brands, and programs pay to use it for NIL deals, revenue sharing, and sponsorship evaluation.
The platform’s CacheShare™ system is designed to help athletic directors, compliance officers, and finance teams who are now tasked with allocating millions of dollars “with no framework, no precedent, and real legal exposure” if something goes wrong with the deal.
“Schools aren’t just buying analytics when they come to us,” she added. “They’re buying audit protection.”
