On the basketball court, Anthony Leal is a beloved player for the Indiana Hoosiers. Off the court, he’s a budding entrepreneur who is doing exactly what one of his Indiana University Kelley School of Business courses challenges students to do: turn an idea into a business.
Leal co-founded Motion Sports Inc. with IU graduates Jay Townsend and Nate Ebel. Motion provides a technology platform that handles all the needs of an athletic department and its athletes more easily and in one place, including:
- Schedules for games, practices, interviews and events.
- Communication between coaches, athletes, support staff and administrators.
- Nutrition logs.
- Film to watch.
- Compliance forms to sign.
- Roster management and eligibility.
- Name, image and likeness deals.
The platform will eventually handle payments from athletic departments to athletes as a result of the House vs. NCAA lawsuit settlement regarding revenue sharing.
Since its founding in September 2024, Motion Sports has secured deals with three college athletic departments, which are using some parts of the platform and advising on the others, said Townsend, Motion’s CEO.
The technology can be used on all devices — cellphones, tablets and desktop computers — Townsend said.
The rapid growth from idea to business to product sales started with Leal’s entrepreneurial spirit and eye for opportunity. A Bloomington native, Leal earned a Bachelor of Science in entrepreneurship and corporate innovation in 2023. He said the “spine sweat experience,” the nickname for BUS–W409: Practicum in Entrepreneurship, was a vital experience in understanding what it takes to turn a business idea into reality.
“You could tell right away that Anthony has what it takes to become an innovative entrepreneur; he is one of the brightest students I’ve worked with during my time at IU,” said Regan Stevenson, associate professor of entrepreneurship and management and the Larry and Barbara Sharpf Professor in the Kelley School. Leal has been a teaching assistant for Stevenson, who also taught Leal’s “spine sweat” class.
“Anthony is always ready to put in the work and strives under pressure,” Stevenson said. “These skills transfer perfectly from the world of competitive sport to the world of entrepreneurship.”
It was his ability to navigate the name, image and likeness landscape early on that really set the path for Motion Sports. The NCAA adopted a new policy in 2021 that provides student-athletes the opportunity to receive third-party compensation, such as product endorsements. IU has been active on that front.
The Maurer School of Law launched an NIL Initiative in 2022 through its Center for Intellectual Property Research to navigate the complexities of the NCAA’s policies. Also in 2022, The Media School started a name, image and likeness media branding course to teach students how to help athletes create profitable brands. IU Athletics’ efforts include its partnerships not only on campus but with industry leaders such as Altius Sports and its official NIL partners, Hoosiers Connect and Hoosiers For Good.
Leal secured name, image and likeness deals with local businesses, including one with the help of Ebel, a 2012 graduate of The Media School who owns a local digital marketing agency.
Leal earned enough from these deals that he surprised his sister on Christmas 2022 by paying off her college student loans. After a video of that surprise gift went viral, Leal started receiving calls from other college athletes asking how to find and negotiate deals. Those conversations confirmed that other athletes were experiencing the same challenge he was of having to log on to many apps to keep track of everything.
Townsend, a 2014 Kelley School graduate whose experience is a mix of the corporate world and roles with college basketball programs, said it’s common for big athletic departments to use multiple platforms or vendors.
“The big takeaway from those conversations was there was a bigger problem that needs to be solved than helping athletes do NIL deals, but to simplify the day-to-day lives of athletic departments,” Leal said.
Ebel said one of their main goals right now is to build relationships with college athletic departments and show them how Motion can help. He said that landing deals with schools in some of the largest athletic conferences could take a couple of years because of existing contracts they have.
Motion Sports is in discussions for deals with a few athletic departments, Townsend said, and the technology platform would be shared at some upcoming conferences related to college athletics.
The team is refining a couple of aspects of the technology platform that should be ready within a few months, Townsend said. He said it’s been rewarding to see how far the product has come in the few short months since the fall, when it was an idea with no customers.
“Everything we’ve done in the last few months has been really, really promising for where we can go, especially when we finish up complete development sometime this summer,” Leal said. “We’re confident in the solution we’ve built and the fact that people want to use it.”
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