Would you like to grab a burger and shake with Alana Hadley? Have your kid tutored by Olivia Mickle? Shoot the breeze with Esther Atkins? Maybe even receive a home-brewed ale from Camille Heron? There’s a website for that!
Have you heard of AthleteBiz? It’s an online platform dedicated to introducing U.S. world-class track and field athletes to fans and potential fans. Each athlete can craft her brand on her own AthleteBiz page, offering merchandise, services, blog posts, and more. In the way of services, athletes can offer everything from a personalized video message of encouragement, public speaking engagements, guest appearances, or even personalized coaching. The options don’t stop there. Athletes and fans are encouraged to get creative; all you have to do is ask for custom engagement (like that home-brew from Camille).
While we know running is the best sport around, AthleteBiz has its work cut out for it. Running is a minor sport in the United States compared to baseball, basketball, hockey, and, of course, football. AthleteBiz seeks to change that, while providing world-class American runners an opportunity to financially support their training and connect with fans like us.
AthleteBiz is the two-person effort of Jack Wickens and Aaron Cattell. In 2009, after joining the board of the USATF Foundation, Jack Wickens realized track and field athletes needed help. While athletes in the big professional sports like football were raking in millions, most elite runners were barely scraping by. As a long-time advocate for track and field athletes, Jack saw an opportunity and came up with the idea for a website that would allow athletes to both promote and financially support themselves through merchandise and service offerings, while at the same time growing a larger fanbase. With his past experience as a healthcare executive, starting up the non-profit organization AthleteBiz was relatively easy. He asked Aaron Cattell, a former human resources professional, to join him on this journey and in April 2014 they launched the first version of the AthleteBiz site.
Aaron Cattell serves as the Director of Operations for AthleteBiz and you could say he is a running superfan. He ran cross country in high school, around the same time Alan Webb was smashing the high school mile record. He’s been a fan of the sport ever since and, oddly enough, Mr. Webb is now featured on his website. So what all does this website entail?
Six months ago, AthleteBiz relaunched, which, along with the service offerings we mentioned above, added a store on each athlete’s page to showcase their favorite gear. To do this, they teamed up with Running Warehouse to offer discounts and the ability for fans to support their favorite athletes while they shop; if a fan shops on Running Warehouse through the link on an athlete’s page, that athlete will receive up to a 10% portion from the proceeds of that sale. The hope in all of this is twofold: allow the athletes to be entrepreneurs and connect with fans.
The men behind AthleteBiz, Aaron Cattell and Jack Wickens
Cattell estimates that AtheteBiz attracts about half a million unique users to connect with the 130 athletes it features. When talking about his line of work, Cattell says he sometimes gets asked, “So do you know Tyson Gay and Justin Gaitlin?” He kindly replies that he knows of them but thinks to himself, “I did just get off the phone with Katie Mackey, do you know how awesome that is?” That’s the great thing about this site: it features an eclectic mix of competitors, from Sanya Richards Ross to Kaitlin Goodman (who just so happened to be one of the first to sign on with AthleteBiz).
Wickens and Cattell emphasize that they are not in this business for themselves. Rather, as Cattell states, “We are in it to fill a gap within the industry and to give the athletes a platform. That is really important to us.” He also believes that track and field is here to stay. “There are really big fans out there; the opportunities are there. So many great things are happening, like the efforts of the American Track League and the Run With Us Initiative (a USATF Foundation sponsored school program that uses athletes to teach movement including running and track and field events).” He believes that every athlete featured on AthleteBiz is the type of person who would be a role model even if they weren’t an athlete. His enthusiasm speaks volumes for the athletes and the sport itself. It’s an exciting time to be in Track and Field.
Go here to check out the site. You can also follow AthleteBiz on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.
Have you already used AthleteBiz? If not, is it a site you’ll try?
Posted by Ginger. Check out more at Salty Running.
