Can You Invest in an Athlete? A Short History of Selling Shares in Players

Agentiq just raised $4M to let fans buy a cut of athletes' future earnings. The idea isn't new. Here's what happened every other time someone tried it.

On Oct 7, Agentiq announced a $4M raise led by defy.vc to build a platform where fans invest in the future on-field income of professional athletes. We made it the Primary Signal of CapSignal Sports Issue #15.

The pitch is easy to like. Athletes get cash early in their careers, when they need it most. Fans get a financial stake in players they already follow. But the model has been tried at least three times in the last decade, and each attempt ran into a different wall. If you want to judge whether Agentiq can work, start with that history.

The basic deal is the same every time. An athlete takes a lump sum now. In return, investors get a fixed percentage of what that athlete earns later, usually for the rest of their career. If the athlete becomes a star, investors do well. If the athlete gets hurt, underperforms or retires early, investors lose some or all of their money.

What changes from company to company is the wrapper: a tracking stock, a private contract, a crowdfunding offering, or, in Agentiq's case, a separate LLC for each athlete sold through SEC-qualified Reg A offerings.

The idea of selling future earnings from a person's work goes back at least to David Bowie. In 1997 he sold $55 million in bonds to Prudential Securities, backed by future royalties from 25 of his albums. Investors were buying a share of income from music that was already recorded.

Then the music business changed. In 2004, Moody's downgraded the bonds to junk, citing illegal downloading and weak sales. The lesson carries over to sports: even a proven income stream can shrink when the market around it shifts.

Fantex was the first serious attempt to let ordinary investors buy into athletes. Its first planned offering was Houston Texans running back Arian Foster, with a planned $10 million payment. Foster then needed back surgery, and Fantex postponed the deal. Injury risk showed up before the first share was sold.

Fantex launched with San Francisco 49ers tight end Vernon Davis instead. In April 2014 it sold all 421,000 shares at $10 each, raising $4 million to pay Davis for 10% of his future earnings. By June the stock was back at $10, after peaking at $12.50. Fantex went on to sign NFL players including E.J. Manuel and Mohamed Sanu, and later MLB players, starting with pitcher Andrew Heaney, who received $3.34 million for 10% of his future earnings.

It didn't last. According to Front Office Sports, a big part of the problem was that hardly anyone traded the shares. Investors could buy in, but there was no real market to sell to. Years later, an arbitrator ordered Fantex to pay Sanu about $1.15 million.

The lesson: a share in an athlete is only as useful as your ability to sell it.

Big League Advance took a different route. Instead of selling to the public, it signed private deals with young baseball players. In 2017, it paid 18-year-old Fernando Tatis Jr. $2 million for 10% of his future baseball earnings.

On paper, it was a spectacular bet. In 2021, Tatis signed a 14-year, $340 million contract with the San Diego Padres, which would send Big League Advance about $34 million from that deal alone, per Front Office Sports.

Then Tatis stopped paying in 2024. He argued the contract was predatory. An arbitrator ruled against him in 2025, and in May 2026 a California judge upheld an award of nearly $3.74 million. His lawyer said he would likely appeal.

The lesson: when the bet pays off, the athlete may decide the deal was unfair, and collecting can mean years of litigation.

Finlete, a San Diego startup, brought the model back to fans through regulated crowdfunding. Its highest-profile offering was Cleveland Guardians closer Emmanuel Clase, offering up to 300,000 shares at $12, or up to $3.6 million, for as much as 3% of his future baseball earnings.

Demand was much smaller than the ceiling. When the window closed in July 2025, it had raised a little more than $315,000, according to Front Office Sports. That same month, Clase was placed on paid leave in a gambling investigation. He was later indicted in an alleged pitch-rigging scheme, and his paid leave became unpaid.

The lesson: when your investment rides on one person, everything about that person is your risk, including things that have nothing to do with how well they play.

Agentiq's structure borrows from all three. Each athlete gets their own LLC, which pays the athlete upfront and receives a defined share of their future on-field income. Fans buy units in those LLCs through Reg A Tier 2 offerings. Its first five athletes are baseball players, and the company says it has more than 200 in its pipeline.

The founders argue the regulatory path is clearer and the financial technology is better than it was in Fantex's day. They also say they plan to add the pieces earlier companies lacked: trading between investors, insurance, and "baskets" that spread one investment across several athletes.

None of those exist yet. As of its final offering circular on Sept 28, no units had been sold. And two of its first five athletes, Justin Martinez and Hunter Dobbins, are coming back from elbow surgery, per Tech Funding News.

Companies that raise money under Reg A Tier 2 have to file semiannual and annual reports with the SEC. Agentiq's first reports will show how many units each athlete offering actually sold. That's the first hard evidence of whether fans want to invest in athletes, or just cheer for them.

CapSignal Sports tracks early-stage sports deals and what they say about where the market is heading. For the full October breakdown, read Issue #15: The $4M Bet That Athletes Are an Asset Class, and subscribe here.