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Opportunity
8.26 million US athletes, and the global layer above them
The market
8.26 million US high school athletes. We have 0.35% of them.
This is the largest participation base in the history of American high school sport, and it grew for a third consecutive year. The opportunity is not that the market is emerging — it is that a market this size has no free, data-led option in it.
Sizing
From where we are to where this goes
The current base, July 2026. 0.35% of US high school athletes.
Juniors and seniors, roughly half the NFHS participation base.
NFHS 2024-25 survey. Record high, third consecutive annual increase.
With the 7th-grade freemium expansion. Company estimate.
Company estimate across 24 live countries and beyond. Directional.
Bars are scaled against the global figure, so the US tiers look small by design. That is the point — we are 0.35% of the US base alone.
By sport
Where the athletes actually are
Sort any column. Lime markers are verticals with a seated leader; dimmed markers are selected and activate on close.
| Track & Field | 644,235 | 513,808 | 1,158,043 | 14.0% | — |
| Football | 1,031,039 | 68,847 | 1,099,886 | 13.3% | — |
| Basketball | 540,704 | 356,240 | 896,944 | 10.9% | 450M |
| Soccer | 484,908 | 393,048 | 877,956 | 10.6% | 250M |
| Baseball / Softball | 472,598 | 331,306 | 803,904 | 9.7% | 65M |
| Volleyball | 95,972 | 492,799 | 588,771 | 7.1% | 800M |
| Cross Country | 238,685 | 189,260 | 427,945 | 5.2% | — |
| Wrestling | 300,214 | 74,064 | 374,278 | 4.5% | — |
| Tennis | 158,667 | 204,721 | 363,388 | 4.4% | 87M |
| Competitive Spirit | — | 206,262 | 206,262 | 2.5% | — |
| Golf | 162,357 | — | 162,357 | 2.0% | 67M |
| Swimming & Diving | 119,102 | — | 119,102 | 1.4% | — |
Sort by any column, or filter by vertical coverage · 12 of 12 rows
The adjacent market
The transfer portal
The same product, sold to people who are already in college — and who are legally adults, which changes what the business is allowed to become.
Around 27K Division I athletes entered the transfer portal in the 2025 offseason, roughly 14% of all DI athletes. Only about 10% transferred and received athletic aid. Close to a third never appear at another Division I programme at all — which is nearly 8.9K athletes a year who entered a market they had no way to navigate.
| Sport | Entrants | Cycle | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| Football | 4,500 | 2025–26 winter window | Entered inside a single 15-day window |
| Men's basketball | 4,970 | 2026 | Down from 5,428 the prior year |
| Baseball | 6,255 | 2025 | |
| Women's basketball | 2,570 | 2026 | |
| Softball | 1,629 | 2025 |
Portal athletes are eighteen to twenty-two. Every compliance ceiling that limits what we can build on a high-school base simply does not apply to them.
They are adults
Portal athletes are 18 to 22. COPPA does not apply, state design codes for minors do not apply, and parental consent is not a gate. Every compliance ceiling that limits what can be sold against a high-school base disappears in this segment.
Removes the biggest structural risk in the plan
Two thirds do not land
Roughly 27,000 Division I athletes entered the portal in the 2025 offseason — about 14% of all DI athletes. Only around 10% transferred and received athletic aid, and close to a third never appear at another Division I programme at all.
~8,900 stranded athletes a year
The urgency is extreme and the window is tiny
Football's 2026 winter window was 15 days. Basketball windows now run about two weeks. An athlete who enters without a list, without coach contacts, and without a read on where roster spots exist has almost no time to build one.
The product already solves exactly this
Willingness to pay is much higher
A high-school family is deciding whether to spend on a maybe. A portal athlete is deciding whether to keep a scholarship they already have. The stakes are immediate, financial, and personal — and the buyer is the athlete, not a parent.
A genuinely different price point
It is counter-seasonal to high school recruiting
Portal windows cluster in December, January, and April. High school signing periods fall in November and February. The two businesses fill each other's troughs rather than competing for the same weeks.
Smooths the revenue calendar
It is the bridge to the coach-side product
Programmes now hire general managers purely to evaluate portal talent. Selling roster-gap intelligence to those staff is the college-side business in Option 2, and portal supply is what makes it worth buying.
Makes the two-sided marketplace real
What it could be worth
Arithmetic on stated assumptions, not a forecast. The coach-side licence is the larger prize; this models the athlete side only.
Where this gets hard
The incumbents are already here
On3, 247Sports, and Rivals all run portal trackers with real audiences and media businesses behind them. They own attention. What they do not own is a matching and outreach product for the athlete who is not a four-star.
The top of the market is served, the bottom is not
A ranked transfer has agents, collectives, and coaches calling. The 8,900 who never land are the ones with no representation and no plan — which is a larger, more underserved, and less glamorous market.
The rules keep moving
The NCAA changed windows in January 2026 and moved to a five-year continuous eligibility clock in June 2026. Any product here needs a rules layer that is maintained, not shipped once.
Seasonality cuts both ways
Demand is concentrated in a handful of weeks. That is efficient for marketing spend and brutal for anything that looks like a monthly subscription.
The trackers — On3, 247Sports, Rivals — own portal attention and serve the ranked athletes well. Nobody serves the 8.9K who enter without representation, without a list, and without a read on where a roster spot actually exists. That is the same athlete we already serve in high school, four years older and with far more at stake.
International
Nobody else in this category treats it as a global market.
We are live in 24 countries and adding more monthly. Sport is international, the athletes we want are international, and US college recruiting is a destination for talent from everywhere. Every competitor in this deck operates as a US business.
The global figures in the table are federation estimates. They count players far more loosely than NFHS counts registered high school participants, and they should be read as direction rather than as a number to underwrite.
Sources
NFHS High School Athletics Participation Survey, 2024-25
8,260,891 participants, published August 2025. The authoritative US count.
International federation estimates
FIFA, FIBA, FIVB, ITF and R&A self-reported participation. Directional only — these count players far more loosely than NFHS.
Company estimates
Middle-school expansion and global totals. Assumptions, not measurements.