Next League Acquires College Athlete Intelligence Firm Edge3
CEO and former NFL Player Kenyon Rasheed to lead its new College Sports Practice
NEW YORK, NY - January 17, 2025 - Next League, the leading digital growth consultancy and technology services organization working exclusively within the global sports industry, today announced it has acquired Kenyon Rasheed’s Edge3.ai, an athlete intelligence and advisory firm that recently partnered with IBM to leverage Watsonx AI to create a data-driven college recruiting service. Rasheed, a former NFL fullback, will lead Next League’s new College Sports Practice.
Co-founded with a fellow NFL alumnus, Brian Jones, who is also a CBS Sports analyst, Edge3 had previously signed with Next League to develop its product strategy and business model. Other retired NFL and NBA stars including Warren Sapp, Gary Payton and Horace Grant joined as advisors; Edge3’s first client was Will Anderson Jr., a national champion at Alabama who was named NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year with the Houston Texans in 2023.
“Disruption in the college sports landscape is one of the biggest sports business stories,” said David Nugent, Next League CEO. “What Kenyon, BJ (Brian Jones) and the rest of their group have imagined could meaningfully change the college sports landscape. We were looking for a path into the college sports ecosystem and bringing the Edge3 team into Next League massively accelerates that process for us. We’re fortunate to add them to the Next League family.”
Rasheed captained the University of Oklahoma football team before playing three seasons in the NFL as a fullback, starting 10 games for the New York Giants in 1993 and 1994. When his playing career ended, Rasheed began a career in tech. He started at Oracle before venturing out on his own, licensing sports data to media in a quarter-billion-dollar deal and building a HIPAA-compliant medical record system for players at the NFL Draft Combine.
He later consulted for Opendorse and worked for Global Payments, Inc., helping the company become the official commerce technology provider for Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium.
Rasheed and Nugent hit it off early in their product strategy and business model engagement and saw synergies in the two companies. “I think Kenyon was surprised I remembered him from his playing days at Oklahoma,” joked Nugent.
“Dave understood the opportunity in front of us with Edge3 and we shared a vision for tackling the challenges facing schools and conferences with all the disruption in college sports. It felt like a natural fit right away,” said Rasheed. Added Jones, “We were appreciative of the attention the Next League strategy team gave to our concept and it was clear that we were aligned culturally from the beginning.”
The Edge3 team shares in Next League’s mission to make investments that have a lasting social impact. Rasheed was one of the keynote speakers at the inaugural Next League University in Summer 2023 where he spoke with over 30 early career professionals about his career, perseverance, and how he leveraged his sports and technical expertise to build the Edge3 business model.
Rasheed and Nugent will be in Atlanta this weekend for meetings at and around the National College Football Championship.
About Next League
Next League is a global team of strategists and technologists, specializing in creating, designing, building and operating technology solutions for sports organizations.
Trusted by the teams behind the teams, we navigate complex technology landscapes to optimize engagement and maximize revenue with and for our partners.
The diversity of our team is our superpower. Individually we are strategic thinkers, creative engineers and skilled operators; collectively, we are a sports-obsessed, value and results-driven organization that brings innovative thinking to, and delivers meaningful impact for, our partners and our industry.
About Edge3
At Edge3, we are transforming the way college recruiting and athlete development are approached in today's fast-paced and data-driven world of sports. Founded by former professional athletes, Edge3 is an athlete intelligence and digital advisory platform designed to empower athletes, parents, and coaches with the tools and insights needed to navigate the evolving challenges of college athletics.
The commercialization of amateur sports has accelerated decision-making timelines, placing immense pressure on all stakeholders. Coaches often face the daunting task of analyzing vast amounts of data from disparate sources, while athletes and their families grapple with increasingly complex factors like NIL opportunities and the transfer portal. Edge3 rises to meet these challenges by leveraging the power of AI to simplify decision-making and unlock new possibilities.
Together, we are shaping the future of sports—one informed decision at a time.
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Next League
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