Episode 2: Rob Thompson & GamePlanU — The Third Wave

An All-American on the offensive line at the University of New Haven. A season of pro ball in England. Then the NFL, where Rob Thompson managed NFL Youth Initiatives and was part of the team that launched NFL FLAG. After that came an Arena Football front office, Radio Disney, private equity and a run of companies of his own. Today he's the founder of GamePlanU, which builds commercial pathways for college athletes, sports innovators and content creators.

This is Episode 2 of THE FACEOFF, and it's a conversation about pathways and money. Rob has watched investors come for youth sports three times in his career, and he's watching the third wave arrive now. His test for it is blunt: the money's in the heads and beds.

WHAT'S IN IT

• Athlete to founder. Europe, college coaching with his old line coach Tony Sparano, recruiting in the Street & Smith's era, his own recruiting agency at twenty-three, and the crazy idea of five-on-five flag football for boys and girls six to fourteen.

• Cradle to grave. NFL FLAG at the start of an athlete's life, GamePlanU at the end of the playing career, and why entrepreneurship is the bridge.

• Ambition and grit. The two traits he says athletes have and nobody can teach, why "student-athlete" belongs on the résumé as experience, and why he thinks NIL got the wrong name.

• Founders he's watched come through. NOCAP Sports and Protein Pints, and what each one figured out.

• What's next. Athlete-founder tracks inside college innovation centers, a national pitch competition, the GamePlanU360 community and the angel network he's building. Plus Walter Camp, New Haven and the line of scrimmage.

• The third wave. Traveling tournament tours in the eighties and nineties, platforms and club roll-ups in the 2000s, complexes and academies today. Why he calls the tournament business a monopoly, and why he doesn't see consolidation working without real estate.

• Eight million and half a million. High school athletes against college roster spots, and why flag football's pathway runs through college athletics.

FIND ROB AND GAMEPLANU

https://www.gameplanu.org

GamePlanU360: https://www.skool.com/gameplanu-academy-5140/about

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robthompson78/

THE GROUND RULES

Nobody pays to be on this show. Nobody gets on because they bought an ad. Nobody gets published without seeing the cut first. Anything a guest says as fact gets checked before it appears in print, or it's attributed to them by name.

The written version of this conversation is THE FACEOFF VOL VIII, free at https://thecoachsboard.com. If you run a club, a facility, a league or a team, or you're building something for the people who do, we'd like to hear from you.

The Coach's Board is the playbook for modern youth sports — the daily briefing for the people who actually run it.

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