Crowdfunding sites enable fans to reward athletes who graduate

FanPay and FanAngel enable fans to make pledges to college athletes, to incentivize their performance inside and outside the classroom.

It’s not uncommon for promising athletes to receive scholarships and bursaries to help them stay in school and develop their skills in semi-pro college teams — but balancing athletics with schoolwork is never easy, and often their academic work is neglected. Now, a crowdfunding site called FanPay is enabling sports fans to help out too — by offering monetary pledges to incentivize performance in the classroom.

For those who are unimpressed by the low graduation rates of college athletes, FanPay is a simple platform which enables fans to pledge monetary gifts to players, which they will receive if they graduate. To begin, users search the database for their favorite college player. If they can’t find them they can create a new FanPay page on their behalf. They then make a contribution by credit card or e-cheque, which is held for the remainder of the school year. If the student graduates, they are offered the gift, but if not, it is returned to the fan.

FanAngel is another platform that adopts a crowdfunding model to enable fans to pledge monetary rewards, but this site deals instead with on-field performance. Similar to FanPay, the site manages pledges and offers them to college athletes if and when they graduate. However, FanAngel also welcomes pledges for athletes in professional teams. These donations are designed to encourage brilliant performances and to persuade individual athletes to stay with their current team. Of course, it would need huge numbers of fans to get involved for the monetary rewards to stand up against the huge salaries that professional athletes earn.

Are there other ways to help college athletes to balance their academic and athletic challenges?