FanFuel

Student-athletes—especially those in women’s and minority sports—are struggling to cover basic needs like gear, training, and even dealing with student loan debt after they graduate.

At FanFuel, we want to change that. We’ve created a simple way for supporters to step in and directly support their favorite athletes while growing their savings through staking crypto. The staked amount is not a donation, but like putting your money in a savings account. Supporters can withdraw the principal amount anytime, while the majority of the rewards earned from staking go to the athlete.

How FanFuel Works

Athlete Profile Creation: Student athletes sign up on FanFuel and create profiles that showcase their stats, achievements, personal goals, and stories. Each athlete has a unique smart contract tied to their profile, which fans can interact with.

Fan Staking: Fans and supporters browse a list of athletes, select one they wish to support, and stake cryptocurrency in that athlete’s smart contract. This staked amount is not a donation—it remains the property of the fan and will be returned when they wish to withdraw.

Rewards Distribution:

• 70% of rewards go directly to the athlete, providing them with the financial support they need for training, equipment, and personal development.
• 10% of rewards are allocated to the athlete’s collegiate team, benefiting the entire team program.
• 15% of rewards are given back to fans via a weekly lottery/raffle system, where stakers can win based on the amount they’ve staked (the more staked, the higher the chance of winning).
• 5% service fee is charged by FanFuel to maintain the platform, ensure scalability, and support ongoing operations.

FanFuel’s Greater Implications FanFuel is more than just a platform for funding athletes—it’s about changing the way we support and engage with college sports. By directly involving fans in the financial success of their favorite athletes, FanFuel democratizes sports funding and creates a more transparent and meaningful system of support. It offers the potential to:

• Quantifies Fan Support for Sponsorships: FanFuel helps athletes showcase their marketability by providing measurable fan engagement, which can attract sponsorships and brand deals.
• Strengthens Fan Engagement: Fans can support athletes with minimal risk, as their staked funds are fully returned, while still earning rewards. This makes it easy and rewarding to get involved.
• Fosters Long-Term Connections: FanFuel creates deeper, long-term bonds between fans and athletes, which can continue beyond the athlete’s college career.

FanFuel vision is to bring together the passion of sports and the power of blockchain to fuel the future of college athletes, making it easy for fans to directly contribute to the athletes they care about while being rewarded in return.

FanFuel is built on the Flow EVM chain for staking contracts and transaction management. We use Dynamic for seamless user authentication that is user-friendly for non-web3 users. We use Nouns branding for a fun, gamified aesthetic and Nouns-branded NFTs as milestone badges (such as 10 athletes supported) to incentivize supporters to back more athletes.