Dominyck Bullard Finds His Purpose Through NIL Platform, Athletiverse

They say the only things certain in life are death and taxes. Well, anyone who saw three-year-old Dominyck Bullard at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) baseball complex would add the following certainty to that list – Bullard would grow up to be a professional baseball player.

Maybe it’s the way he carried a baseball bat around a college men’s locker room as a toddler, or maybe it was the fact that his grandfather, Lou Pisani, was one of the winningest coaches in UNLV history.

“I grew up on a baseball field,” says Bullard. “I didn’t know anything else.”

During his senior year,he began thinking about whether he would go to college to play baseball or look at playing professionally. Unfortunately, Bullard’s planning came to a screeching halt due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, Bullard decided to stay close to home and play for a season  at the College of Southern Nevada (CSN), a community college in Clark County.

Everything was going seemingly well until Bullard began experiencing pain in his right arm. At first, he thought it was a torn ulnar collateral ligament (UCL) inside his elbow that would require a Tommy John surgery. He visited doctors who looked at his elbow and shoulder and found no signs of injury. 

“I kept playing through the pain,” says Bullard. “Then one day I was swinging a bat …”

When Bullard went to swing, he says he thought he broke his arm and immediately dropped the bat.

“I said, ‘There’s something wrong with me.’”

Again, doctors couldn’t find any issues in his shoulder or elbow. Then a doctor ordered an x-ray of Bullard’s entire right arm.

“My whole life, I thought it was my elbow, so no one ever took an x-ray of my right forearm, but that’s where they found a tumor, what looked like a hot dog sitting in the middle of bone, and you could see the bone splintering.”

Bullard didn’t know it, but the benign tumor had been in his arm for years. He went to the University of California San Francisco and underwent surgery to have the benign tumor removed.

Then came one of life’s biggest curveballs. The operation took Bullard out of baseball for several months, which meant he would have to find a new purpose.

“I was talking to my family and realized I was going to have to pivot from baseball because I didn’t know if I was ever going to get to play again.”

Bullard’s older sister, Samantha, attended the University of San Diego (USD). His family encouraged him to apply.

“USD is the only school I applied to, so if I didn’t get in, there was no other option,” laughs Bullard. “Luckily, I got in.”

Now in San Diego, Bullard says it was the first time in his young adult life he had to ask himself the question, “What am I really meant to do?”

“I wasn’t feeling very good, I wasn’t motivated, I was a little sad, just trying to find purpose again,” explains Bullard. “That’s when my now brother-in-law, who played baseball at USD, said one of his favorite people to go see and talk to was Fr. Mike White.”

During the Fall 2021 semester, Bullard decided to go visit Fr. Michael White, C.S.Sp., just to talk about life. 

“He [Fr. White] was telling me one day, ‘How you get over this rut in your life is figuring out how you can add value to other peoples’ lives,’”says Bullard. “I think for a long time I was looking at it from the perspective of what’s going to spark that fire in me again. Then I realized maybe I’ll find it helping other people out.”

Bullard reached out to a couple of his hometown friends who were student-athletes at various universities across the country. 

Earlier that year, the Supreme Court upheld the lower court’s decision that NCAA restrictions on educational-related benefits for college students violated antitrust law. A series of state laws went into effect, making it illegal for the NCAA to stop athletes from earning money off of their name, image, and likeness, or what is now known as NIL.

Bullard says his friends were interested in “getting deals,” but they felt these newly formed NIL agencies only cared about the top one percent of college athletes. So, Bullard decided to go find the marketing deals for his friends.

He started by cold calling marketing directors, getting turned down right and left. 

“Then I realized most of the deals were happening on social media and that’s when the fire just hit.”

The first deal Bullard secured was for his good friend Kristofer Bow who was selected in the 14th round by the New York Yankees in the July 2022 Major League Baseball draft. He signed Bow a deal with a local gym in Las Vegas called Rebel Fitness. The gym paid Bow $200 to film a commercial.

Bullard pivoted from a career in baseball to an entrepreneurial mindset. He focused his energies on a new start-up that would connect businesses and brands to college athletes. He called it Athletiverse, a platform that would democratize college sports.

“I knew the demand was there,” says Bullard. “I just needed the supply [of athletes].”

He worked at Jack in the Box during the summer of 2022 to raise money for incorporation and paid Facebook ad campaigns to attract college athletes. 

“I did the first deal with Kris and posted it to social media. Since that day, I’ve scratched my advertising budget. We’re 100 percent organic. Athletes just find us. Like in the situation with Kris, he put that on his Instagram story and then we had 60 other athletes knocking at our door.”

Athletiverse now has 20,000 athletes in its ecosystem. The 2,000 plus athletes who have signed up to use the platform earn on average of about $200, says Bullard.

Although word of mouth has helped Bullard create his supply, one of his biggest challenges remains – raising capital as a young college student.

“I was this 19-year-old kid knocking on the door of banks, and they thought I was there to deliver the mail. They didn’t think I was there to pitch them on an idea. I just needed people to start believing in me.”

One of the first people to believe in Athletiverse was Bullard’s accounting professor, Michael Burendse of USD’s Knauss School of Business. He connected Bullard to Bill Eigner of Procopio Law Firm in San Diego. Eigner invited Bullard to lunch at a sushi restaurant downtown. He told Bullard he had five minutes to make his pitch for Athletiverse.

“We sat down at noon and left at 3:30 p.m.,” smiles Bullard. “It started with that one meeting and Eigner started advocating for some of his other connections to get in touch with me.”

Now at 21-years of age, Bullard is once again seeking investors through the San Diego Angel Conference (SDAC), a USD Knauss School of Business program that connects accredited investors with cutting-edge startups that fuel innovation in today’s economy.

A total of 106 companies nationwide applied to SDAC with the hopes of receiving at least $200,000 in angel investment. Bullard is among the six finalists and is the first USD student to ever make it into the final round.

“I think it’s cool to be representing my community and USD [at SDAC],” says Bullard. “USD has one of the most superior business schools out there and our network is second to none, which I now get to represent.”

The SDAC will take place on Saturday, April 22 in USD’s University Center, Forums A,B and C.

— Kelsey Grey ’15 (BA)