Athlete Data as a Revenue Generator in College Sports

The future of NIL and college sports will hinge on creating frameworks that unlock new revenue opportunities while safeguarding athlete rights and reducing risks to data users.

Athlete Data: A Powerful New Asset Class

Athlete data is rapidly emerging as a powerful new asset class in college sports, reshaping how fans engage, how athletes are valued, and how institutions navigate the evolving NIL landscape. From skeletal tracking and biomechanical models to biometric performance metrics, the same datasets once reserved for coaching and scouting are now fueling immersive fan experiences, metrics and emotion-based storytelling, interactive broadcasts, and live sports betting. This shift creates unprecedented opportunities to connect fans more deeply with the game — but it also introduces pressing challenges around data privacy, ownership, and commercialization. As athlete data becomes central to both engagement and revenue, the debate is no longer about whether it will be used, but rather who controls it, how it is protected, who can generate revenue from it, and how will stakeholders share in its value.

Athlete Data in Sport

Football analytics have evolved from basic event metrics to hyper-detailed performance data, offering granular insights into player movement, biomechanics, and in-game decision-making.

At all levels of sport, wearable technology and data tracker apps are utilized. In college and professional sports, real-time data is collected to improve athletic performance. Skeletal tracking is a new technology providing even more data points and analytics to help athletes improve specific aspects of their game. This technology records the biomechanics of the body to create a 3D map of an athlete’s movement, creating “digital twins” of players. As a result, sports teams can use this for tactical analysis, to enhance coaching and training, to conduct scouting, and to create immersive fan experiences.

Leveraging Athlete Data to Engage Fans and Generate More Revenue

Fan Engagement in Broadcasts

Skeletal tracking is also fueling the next generation of fan engagement. It’s a way to revolutionize fan engagement, transforming passive viewing into an interactive, choose-your-angle experience. As it evolves, fans could soon customize how they watch games — selecting camera angles, replays, or even full VR perspectives in real time. For example, companies like Genius Sports and Meta use skeletal tracking to recreate entire soccer matches in real-time 3D. Fans can watch plays from any angle — even from a player’s POV (e.g., seeing a goal through the athlete’s eyes). Other options include:

·        Virtual Reality Games: a VR game experience with 180-dgree video with 3D recreations of the players on a digital tabletop.

·        Personalized Replay Control: Fans can replay goals from the perspective of a specific player or position, adding depth to debates like, “Should he have scored that?”

·        Near IRL Viewing: Future tech may include life-like, animated avatars of players captured with hundreds of cameras — offering next-level realism for fan replays and storytelling.

·        Video Game-style overlays: Styles that are built for Gen Z and Alpha who are digital natives that want an interactive and immersive experience.

·        Predictive Insights: The next phase of data analytics in sport adds real-time, next-gen stats and predictions based on athlete data to give fans the interactive experiences they want.

This is the future of sports fan engagement – data-driven, immersive, gamified and interactive experiences like AR. Most fans watch the game while using a second screen and nearly half expect real-time stats as part of the broadcast. These new fan engagement opportunities meet next-gen fans where they are and give them insights to increase engagement.

Storytelling and NIL Opportunities

Fans want to be close to the action and to their favorite athletes – feeling involved with what clothes their favorite players wear, what cars they drive, and what major events are happening in their lives. Likewise, fans want to know details like workout routines and specifics that impact how a player prepares for and plays in a game. Athlete data checks this box. For example, Patrick Mahomes, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback. And his wearable tech partner, WHOOP, shared his performance data as a part of telling his story during a 2021  playoff win against the Buffalo Bills. Mahomes’ data revealed how his heart rate increased during high stakes plays, then again in an overtime victory, taking fans along for the ride.

Even health data pertaining to an athlete’s family member has been used in storytelling. To engage fans during the 2024 Olympic games,  when U.S. gymnast Hezly Rivera performed, her father’s heart rate was shown on-screen by NBC, the U.S. broadcast partner. Viewers saw Henry Rivera’s heart rate increase at critical points during Hezly’s routine, giving fans a shared and immersive experience and an opportunity to engage at an emotional level.

College athletes and their NIL partners can leverage athlete data to enrich their own storytelling and create content that will increase fan engagement. Particularly with the growth of women’s sports and increased spending power of women, there are opportunities and benefits to create deeper  connections between athletes and their fans. Women sports fans want to know more about their favorite athletes’ journey through authentic stories and emotional connections.

Athlete data enhances sports storytelling by providing a foundation of numbers that are contextualized into emotional narratives of perseverance, triumph, and struggle, transforming statistics into compelling stories that resonate with fans and drive brand engagement. Longitudinal analysis reveals trends, while correlations uncover hidden performance factors, illustrating the "why" behind the data. This blend of quantitative data and qualitative storytelling creates authentic, shareable content that humanizes athletes beyond their performance, fostering deeper connections with audiences and building lasting legacies. 

More Ways that Data Fuels Athlete Stories:

·        Contextualizing Records: A record-breaking performance becomes a powerful story when paired with the data-informed background of an athlete's journey, including injuries, sacrifices, and resilience, as seen with an NBA player’s scoring record. 

·        Revealing Underdog Narratives: Statistical trends like a team's early-season struggles, followed by a successful playoff run, highlight momentum and resilience, creating compelling comeback stories that resonate with fans. 

·        Uncovering Performance Factors: Analyzing the relationships and causality between different statistical variables can reveal hidden factors influencing performance, providing a deeper understanding of a team's playing style or an athlete's unique skills. 

·        Emotional Connection: The true magic of sports storytelling lies in transforming raw numbers into emotional connections that create memorable moments and loyalty among fans. 

·        Humanizing Athletes: Athlete-focused stories emphasize the human being behind the athlete, sharing their struggles, triumphs, and personal experiences to create authentic, relatable narratives. 

·        Building Engagement: Using social content and data-driven insights can provide an intuitive and engaging user experience, similar to platforms like TikTok, bringing fans closer to the game and elevating the entire broadcast experience. 

Sports Betting

Athlete data from professional athletes is already used in sports betting products, primarily in professional sports. Earlier this year, the NCAA authorized sportsbooks to use its official championship data, opening the door to fuel sports betting with athlete data and the insights it provides. This partnership intends to support the growing demand for live, data-driven fan engagement in sports betting. Genius Sports, a sports data capture and distribution company that partnered with the NCAA through 2032, provides official NCAA data feeds to power live betting options using NCAA’s logos and trademarks in sports betting apps. College Football Playoff data is not included since the CFP is not operated by NCAA. However, college sports fans also want the same data-driven fan engagement experiences that sports betting provides, giving university athletic programs and athletic conferences opportunities to provide athlete data.

We see that today’s sports fans don’t just want to watch — they want to participate, interact, and immerse themselves in every moment of the game. By responsibly leveraging athlete data — from performance metrics to real-time tracking —  integrated, immersive fan experiences can be created that bring these touchpoints together.

Athletes hold the key to transforming passive viewing into active participation, enabling fans to be a part of the action, to engage, play, analyze, bet, and connect in one seamless ecosystem. Using athlete data to power these innovations not only meets the demands of next-gen fans but also unlocks new opportunities for deeper engagement and value creation.

The rapid growth of live, data-driven fan engagement, particularly in sports betting, reflects a broader shift in how audiences consume sports — fans now expect real-time stats, predictive insights, and interactive experiences that mirror the fast-paced digital environments they’re used to. Fan engagement in sports betting is fueled by increasingly sophisticated datasets — from skeletal tracking and biomechanics to biometric performance metrics — that bring unprecedented depth to in-game experiences. Official league and tournament data is fueling this evolution, powering live betting options, personalized overlays, and immersive broadcasts.

Challenges to Using Athlete Data

But as the appetite for granular performance data grows, so does the tension around athlete privacy. Tracking technologies that capture biomechanics, movement patterns, and even biometric data raise critical questions: Who owns this data, how should it be monetized, and where must the line be drawn to protect athletes from exploitation, harassment, decreased contract value, commercial opportunities, and other downside risks? Striking the right balance between innovation in fan engagement and safeguarding athlete rights will determine the future trust and sustainability of data-driven fan engagement experiences in broadcasting, storytelling, sports betting, and beyond.

Athletes’ biometric and biomechanical data represent some of the most personal forms of information, revealing not just performance outputs but underlying health, fatigue, and even injury risks. For example, biomechanical tracking can reveal injury vulnerabilities and training loads, while biometric data may expose deeply personal health information. Without strict safeguards, such insights could be commercialized without consent, misused by various stakeholders, or weaponized by opponents and fans.

Additionally, athletes are increasingly recognized as rights-holders since they have NIL, publicity, and other intellectual property rights in their data with corresponding rights over how their personal data, likeness, and performance metrics are used and commercialized. As athlete data is increasingly used, it raises questions around property rights. Even more tension and confusion are created when considering applicable federal and state laws, governing body rules, Collective Bargaining Agreements, and individual player contracts.

These developments raise urgent questions of ownership, control, monetization, exploitation, and misuse. Beyond financial fairness, the unauthorized use of tracking and performance data could compromise athlete safety and integrity of competition. The sports industry faces a critical challenge: how to harness data and innovation while protecting the privacy, autonomy, and property rights of the athletes who generate it.

Stakeholders that collect and use athlete data must navigate a careful legal and ethical framework. Unauthorized use of an athlete’s biometric or performance data in products could trigger disputes over ownership, compensation, and consent. As fan demand for interactive, data-fueled products and experiences grows, stakeholders must establish clear governance models that both fuel innovation and uphold athletes’ privacy, property, and other rights, ensuring that engagement does not come at the cost of athlete control and protection. This new balance between innovation and protection of athletes and industry stakeholders will define the sustainability of this new fan engagement frontier — and whether athlete trust and dignity are preserved in an era of unprecedented data exploitation.

As these challenges are addressed, athlete data will increasingly be used for fan engagement and to generate revenue in college sports. Athlete data provides a new revenue stream for universities, athletic conferences, athletes, and their partners. New revenue streams are needed since there are limits on how often ticket prices and tuition and fees can be increased, and naming rights deals for sports facilities can be done. New student athletes join university teams each year and their athlete data may be used for the time that the athletes participate in athletics programs and beyond. That data can be licensed to broadcast, content, advertiser, and fan engagement partners, opening doors to dollars that fund athletic programs, athlete contracts, and other university initiatives.

Solutions

The stakes have never been higher. Biometric, biomechanical, tracking, and performance data are not just numbers on a screen — they represent an athlete’s identity, health, and livelihood. Without clear protections and governance, the risk of misuse, exploitation, or erosion of athlete trust grows alongside innovation. Addressing uncertainty and reducing risk while implementing business practices that address the use of athlete performance data in sport, broadcasts, storytelling, and fan engagement opens doors to commercial opportunity. The future of NIL and college sports will hinge on creating frameworks that unlock new revenue opportunities while safeguarding athlete rights and reducing risks to athletic programs and data users.

HONOR DRM provides technological and business solutions to manage risks associated with athlete data use and increase opportunities to generate revenue from this data. To learn more, contact us at info@honordrm.com.