Introducing Power Play - The #1 Resource for Learning How to Turn Fans into Customers

Looking back now, I humorously recall how stressful it was using the sign grid pictured above on my left arm. As the catcher, it was my job to switch our sign sequences every inning so opponents couldn’t pick up on what the pitcher was going to throw. The problem was there was over 2,000 different combinations of signs and our pitchers… well let’s just they weren’t the most studious of individuals.

It’s the memory of dodging 97mph fastballs that I didn’t call that reminds me of where many of the clients I work with are today. We all know what it feels like facing the unpredictable.

Friends,

Before I got too ahead of myself, I wanted to spend some time to properly introduce the newsletter and myself.

I'm Dominyck Bullard, the Founder and CEO of Athletiverse. My journey, starting as a college baseball player, took an unexpected turn in 2021 due to an arm injury, leading me to establish Athletiverse out of my college dorm room during the fall semester of my sophomore year of college.

Originally, I wanted to create a place where college athletes like me could find NIL opportunities and be connected directly to brands and donors looking to support the dreams of college athletes. However, in the spirit of 21st century businesses, I decided it was best to create an audience first and let the business model come. So in August of 2021 I fired up Instagram and created an account called, Athletiverse.

Fast forward nearly 2,900 posts and 577 days, and Athletiverse recently celebrated hitting 50K followers on Instagram—a milestone beyond my wildest dreams. On average, we now do around a quarter of a billions views monthly and we aren’t slowing down.

Our plans to build a community worked, we attracted college athletes, garnered brand sponsorships, and drew attention from universities. However, I quickly recognized the limits of social media - all our followers were anonymous. To address this, I experimented with ways to capture follower information to create known users through website, newsletter, and referral/affiliate assets.

I started this process when we had 17K followers, and I ended up capturing nearly 30% of our total audience in just three months, opening doors for more targeted ad opportunities with brands. I sincerely never thought these skills would become the center of our business model.

We had finally found our footing as not just a brand but as a business.

Becoming experts in top-to-bottom digital marketing conversion, I created a team and we began working with clients. Because our main fans on social media were college athletes, we started with collectives and athletic departments. You may ask yourself, how did a then 20 year old convince a bunch of institutions that have been around for 100s years to trust him. That’s fair question to ask. Short answer: I kept the pitch simple. We had built and monetized our own audience and now we’re going to help you do the same thing.

We have been blessed to work with some of the top names in college sports and our solutions last quarter alone helped generate over 28 new sponsorships for clients bringing in over $250,000 and helping raise just over $100,000 in donations.

Athletiverse has evolved into one of the top Gen-Z led digital sports groups, empowering sports stakeholders to create more profitable and winning athletic programs through digital media solutions.

Now for the good part. Power Play is where I will be sharing all the keys to our’s + other’s success.

Like us, college programs and many non-culturally iconic professional teams operate like start ups. They have great audiences on social media but need a way to capture and monetize fans without breaking the budget. 

As we dove into working with athletic departments specifically, we encountered common challenges faced by many clients in the collegiate space— disappointing social media returns, lack of clear social media strategy, donor fatigue and fan apathy, balancing donor and alumni engagement, all while trying to attract younger fan audiences proved to be a struggle for many.

It was from addressing these problems that our company developed the strategies and tools to build digital assets that help our clients transform fans into paying customers or members. Power Play aims to share these proven strategies with you, guiding you towards similar success by presenting strategies, discussing case studies, and providing tools you can use to replicate our success. If nothing else, you will learn how the best throughout the industry are using social and digital media to generate revenue and grow exponentially at scale, or what they are missing.

With that being said, welcome to Power Play.

If you have specific questions, suggestions for enhancing the newsletter, or an interest in collaborating with myself and Team Athletiverse, please don't hesitate to reach out via email at [email protected].

P.S. it’s my hope in my last semester of school we can fill the testimonial section of this newsletter with folks from around the industry sharing their best social/digital tips, strategies, and wins. To contribute, please feel free to reach out!