REVISITING CATALYZING FANS: HOW DAN MARKEL PREDICTED THE FUTURE OF COLLEGE ATHLETICS

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

2025

Abstract

Although Dan Markel did not like sportsball, the final published work of his too-short life and academic career— Catalyzing Fans —explored sports and appeared posthumously in a sports journal. He offered an idea—a mechanism through which sports fans could pool and spend money to support their favorite players and teams by recruiting star players to join or remain with the team. A decade after his tragic death, Dan’s idea—commonly called “fan collectives”—forms a cornerstone of “name, image, and likeness” funding that has revolutionized college sports. As part of this festschrift in honor of Dan, we revisit his final article and explore the brave new world of college athletics—unforeseen in 2015—that has put his idea into action

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