Idea Bank

Crowdfunding Athletes: Micro-funding for Athletes

How can we improve crowdfunding for Olympic athletes? Micro-funding is a form of crowdsourcing but on a much smaller scale. It can be used for small firms and startups, often in developing countries.

The application of micro-funding using digital technologies can be applied to used to help fund Olympic athletes. Not the stars but the budding stars of the future, often the ones in categories that generally are poorly funded.

Social Olympics – a micro-funding approach for upcoming Olympic athletes.

In 2012 Olympics were being nicknamed the Social Olympics. It was one of the first Olympics to harness social media.

Since then we have moved on considerably, but one of the key takeouts for me was the hardship and lack of funding for some of the upcoming athletes.

Digital Olympics 2020 – The Problem

Inevitably some sports gain more interest than others and as a result, these more popular ones attract the attention and money of the big sponsors.

But the focus of the Olympics needn’t just be about marketing before and during the Olympics.

Social media and digital technologies can provide a more long-term benefit to Olympic athletes.

For those athletes who are not star players in more popular sports, it can be tough.

Getting funds they need to help them train, buy equipment, travel and well live, isn’t easy.

Even in the bigger sports categories, this can be a problem for young budding athletes and this is what the Social Olympics platform addresses.

So many fine and talented athletes need access to funds and sponsors but have limited experience and time to undergo the process of courting potential business sponsors.

The 2020 Olympics are here but the challenge for these athletes remains the same and hasn’t changed since 2012.

Olympics 2020 – Crowdfunding

Being a Social Olympics could mean using crowdsourcing to fund athletes. This is not new (see our blog on crowdsourcing). Kickstarter and many other crowdfunding sites have demonstrated the power of connecting the right people with their interests or cause and raising funds.

The idea for the Social Olympics crowdsourcing site is to allow people to connect with the talented athletes.

In return, people that need their help and in return get access to their blog, vlog, updates and news.

Taken further the concept of a social Olympics could involve exclusive access to Olympic events where they get to meet the athletes (ticketed – tickets sold of course).

The platform means that it gathers communities of sports fans around their favourite sport and athlete.

Digital Crowdfunding for Olympics – The Business Model

The benefits are:

  • New sources of funding are accessible to athletes through the social Olympics platform
  • Crowd/people get access to athletes – content, exclusives, ask questions, video log..
  • New opportunities for smaller levels of businesses to fund/sponsor as well
  • Advertising on the platform can be corporate sponsors in exchange for group deals e.g. very low hotel rates for all athletes using the platform, discounted travel…
  • Sponsors get access to the community of fans who have expressed interest in a particular sport
  • Content can be sold to PR and news distribution centres

The digital platform could be a new business model for how we help our young athletes.

Tell me what do you think?

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