South Africa’s MatchKit Helping Athletes Make Money In Covid-19 Era! MatchKit is a South African DIY website builder that was founded in 2020 by Mike Sharman, Bryan Habana, Ben Karpinski, Shaka Sisulu and Andy OG.
This platform helps athletes to make money regardless of the status of sporting events during the Covid-19 pandemic through enabling athletes and agents to showcase their sporting pedigree and sponsors.
MatchKit integrates with social media platforms such as TikTok to show potential sponsor the scope and quality of an athlete’s influence and also provides athletes with a hassle-free, plug and play e-commerce store where fans can purchase everything from bespoke branded merchandise to personalised video and audio shout outs.
This idea came about when 2007 Rugby World Cup winner Bryan Habana told CEO Mike Sharman about the lack of website adoption by athletes, rugby players in particular.
Sharman said, “Post Japan 2019, a domain name search for some of the most valuable Springboks will return figures of more than US $100 000 just to acquire ‘namesurname.com’ for some of our Rugby World Cup winners.”
“…because of the way in which social media algorithms distribute your content to your timelines, not all of your followers or fans see all of your content all of the time. This is a problem for your sponsors as they are never exposed to your entire audience, the universe that defines the value of your digital presence.” He added.
MatchKit will then provide athletes with one destination to house all their social media and key statistics and a place to showcase their sponsors as well as sell merchandise and raise money for charity. Athletes have to pay a US $20 monthly subscription to have a MatchKit, while it is recouping a fee on e-commerce sales made through its platform.
“We are nearing 200 active athletes, with more than 500 athletes having provided us with contact details to learn more about the platform and the tech. Athletes connected to MatchKit to date have six million combined fans on social media and there have been 40 000 views of our athlete MatchKit profiles.” said Sharman.
MatchKit has proven far from a bust and it is shaping up t be an interesting 2021 for the start up.
