A new app born in NTX gives sports fans the ability to pay student-athletes directly

The landscape of college sports has changed a lot in the past two years after a ruling made it okay for college athletes to get paid for their name, image and likeness, or NIL.

A new app based in North Texas called myNILpay is expanding and that allows sports fans to directly pay their favorite college athletes.

"It literally is the first of its kind application on your iPhone and Android that allows you to directly pay student-athletes and in an NCAA compliant manner," said Brent Chapman, CEO of the company based out of Frisco.

He said he came up with the idea about a year and a half ago when NIL was still new and spoke to players about their experience with it and thought there was a better way to handle payments. Chapman, who has been the Chief Information Officer for several different financial service companies, said he used his expertise as a technologist to come up with the app.

"You open up the app and you have all 500,000 plus student-athletes from every school, every sport. DI to DIII, swimming and rowing, basketball and football. You enter in the name of the person that you'd like to support. You put how much you want, a minimum of $20, you hit submit, that's it," explained Chapman.

He said the athlete will get an alert that they've received a payment, sign up for the app, put in their bank account information and receive the funds.

Chapman describes the app as the NIL version of a Venmo or CashApp platform but in accordance with NCAA rules.

"How it's compliant is, the company issues the fan a piece of digital art with the athlete's name and digital signature on it. That digital signature is the quid pro quo that's required by the NCAA," said Brent who equated to the virtual version of a signed ball or jersey.

Chapman said the payment is taxable on both ends since the fan pays a sales tax for their digital good and the athlete has a 1099 contract.

“So how it works is the athlete will receive 90% of the payment that is sent to them," said Chapman who said the other 10% goes towards paying credit card fees, donations to university athletic funds and 4% to the company.

He said this gives an opportunity for all student-athletes, not just the big names, but the big fish in small ponds to also have a chance to earn.

"What people may not realize is that out of all the high school athletes in the country, only 6% make it to play DI, DII or DII sports. That's a very small number," said Chapman. “Those athletes have friends and family have hometown people that look up to them, have alumni that want to support them right, and they previously have not had an opportunity to do that. Now they do, they can reach out to them and then those people can go on and support their college journey, it's not going to be millions of dollars, but is it $500, $1000 a couple thousand, makes a difference," said Chapman.

It's sometimes easy to forget all the work that takes place behind the scenes and the demands placed on student-athletes to always perform.

"It's full-time," said basketball hall of famer Nancy Lieberman who is a two-time Olympian, coach and sports broadcaster.

She played Women's basketball at Old Dominion University between 1976 and 1980 and was a two-time national player of the year and two-time National Champion.

The icon in basketball knows full well the demands of the sport and sometimes without extra resources. Lieberman reflected on how she didn't have any money at the time and even on her way to the Olympics she didn't have much to get clothes or do other things.

"When I was in college, I didn't even have money to go to the movies or things like that, but people were making a lot of money off of who I was," she explained.

Getting a job for a college athlete is usually not feasible based on their rigorous schedule plus studies. Plus, not all college athletes get scholarships but even for the ones who do, it may not be enough to cover all costs associated with school.

Lieberman said she fully supports myNILpay because she believes athletes deserve to be paid for their hard work.

"This is a beautiful way to reward the athlete directly,' said Lieberman who plans to use the app to give money to women's basketball players at her alma mater.

“it doesn't go you know, into the general fund, or the athletic department fund it goes straight to the athletes, and that's the thing for me, which is so amazing and super cool. That they can look in their account and go, 'Oh my gosh, people are sending me money," expressed Lieberman.

She said she reached out to some of her high-profile friends to also get on board. Ice Cube and Toby Keith retweeted her plea, showing support for the platform.

“The athletes get a chance, you know, just to really experience what it's like to have a little something. And I hope it's not even a little something but turns into a big something," said Lieberman. "They get a chance to enjoy, you know a little something from people who really appreciate them and I'm glad to be able to be a part of this myNILpay, it might be one of the most important things I've ever done."