Jim Cavale was merely attempting to enter a space.
Since inc- establishment Athletes. org ( AO ) last August, Cavale—the former founder/CEO of college NIL software company, INFLC R—had been pitching a number of football and basketball coaches around the country on the opportunity to give a presentation to their teams about joining his college players association.
Although the instructors were generally accepting, according to Cavale, nobody had yet to offer an offer before Alabama Birmingham basketball coach and former NFL quarterback Trent Dilfer made it official earlier this month. The second whole-team responsibility the association has made was announced on Monday that AO had signed the whole UAB football roster.

Cavale hailed Dilfer, a “player’s coach”, for making it happen, but there were other relationships as well: Cavale is based in Birmingham, Ala., and UAB was the second class to signal with INFLCR back in August 2021.
For today, AO’s offerings are somewhat reasonable: By signing up for free, members gain access to an application- based system of pro bono experts, from lawyers to marketing professionals. Cavale’s great promise is that AO may indicate athletes in potential revenue- sharing discussions. AO offers a top-down, management-friendly solution for swimmer organizing in contrast to new work of Dartmouth sports players to organise under the National Labor Relations Act.
With the Jackets in truck, Athletes. nonprofit then counts 2, 925 people, more than half to Cavale’s working purpose of enlisting 5, 000 NCAA players by the end of the year. Through direct texts to sports on social media and calls to participants ‘ agents, AO had been gradually and gradually growing its official account.
” We signed all of them up one by one”, Cavale said in an exam. ” It is much harder to do it that way than if we could have the chance to get in front of ( a ) team.”
Calling it a “big get”, Cavale hopes the focus from UAB’s commitment—and the 10- second highlight picture Athletes. .org created from it will take him to a number of other staff meeting rooms.
The information also prompted conflict-of-interest and other inquiries about Cavale’s program, which he launched just weeks after stepping down as INFLCR’s CEO and four years after selling that business to Teamworks for an undisclosed sum. According to Teamworks, Cavale may continue to be a business investor and mentor.
Following Monday’s news of UAB’s devotion, which was first reported by ESPN.com, many important college performer advocates took to social media to issue the way in which Athletes. org has portrayed itself.
” I’m always in favor of athletes making steps for themselves, (especially ) with my adopted home team at UAB”, antitrust economist Andy Schwarz posted on X. ” BUT… this feels like a fake/company union, at least from 30, 000 feet”.
Though not currently a union, Cavale says that Athletes. With various sport- and conference-specific chapters, the organization was organized in a way that could be changed into a single entity whenever necessary. By Cavale’s appraisal of the college sports landscape, that date is still likely a couple years off, even with the recent union vote of Dartmouth men’s basketball players.

We do n’t know how that works out, Cavale said, so instead of trying to figure it out right away, we are offering them this value from the jump and putting them in chapters with flexibility of unionization as the years go on.
A players ‘ association might seem to be undermining a fundamental principle of organizing by actively relying on coaches and schools, potential adversaries in upcoming collective bargaining negotiations, to facilitate membership sign-ups.
Cavale contends that this is in essence comparable to the role that NFL teams play in assisting the NFL Players Association in appointing new members.
” The NFL owners and the NFLPA are seen as adversaries because they negotiate a collective bargaining agreement,” Cavale continued,” but when all those guys get drafted last week, who do they automatically become members in? The NFLPA”.
Cavale insisted that his former employer did not cause a loyalty conflict for athletes when asked about UAB’s ongoing partnership with INFLCR. org. If anything, Cavale argues, that experience now redounds to the benefit of AO’s athlete members.
” I do n’t own INFLCR and I am not involved in it in any capacity”, Cavale said. We are trying to build a win-win on behalf of athletes because I have worked in the college athletics industry for the past ten years. I am aware of how athletic departments operate, who their leaders are, and how their organizational charts function. That INFLCR stuff is my previous career that gave me the context to really take a big risk and leave to do this.
In June 2023, Athletes. org applied for status as a 501 ( c ) ( 3 ) federal charity. Cavalle claimed that it has not yet received a determination from the Internal Revenue Service regarding its eligibility and has not yet accepted any contributions that are tax-deductible. On its website, Athletes. org currently calls itself a “non- profit”. According to Sportico, AO has a written sponsorship agreement with Cavale, a for-profit organization that Cavale founded in April 2023.