Consider the professional athlete’s balance sheet. There may be money in the bank, perhaps a house, perhaps investments. But the asset that makes everything else possible goes to practice every morning. It can tear a ligament. It can lose a starting job. It cannot be divided among fifty different careers. This is the peculiar financial problem that X10 Capital has chosen to buy.
- Cash today in exchange for a share of future playing income.
- Capital an athlete can diversify with a financial advisor.
- A trade-off: greater security now, less upside later.
People watching from the stands tend to see the contract an athlete might sign. The athlete also has to live through the season before signing it. Between those perspectives sits a business: pay a player now, acquire an interest in future earnings, and collect according to the agreement. X10 operates in that interval between promise and payment.
The asset that goes to practice
X10 describes its purpose with the phrase “Harness the power of diversification.” Its customers are professional athletes in the NFL, NBA and MLB. The firm buys an interest in future on-field or on-court earnings. A player can then use the proceeds to build a diversification plan with a financial advisor. The transaction turns some earning potential into something spendable, investable and already received.
That distinction matters. An impressive forecast cannot pay a bill. A future contract cannot sit in a diversified portfolio before it exists. Bringing money forward gives the athlete choices earlier. In return, the athlete gives up part of the income that success might produce. The exchange can look sensible before a breakout season and painfully expensive afterward. Both impressions can describe the same decision.
The portfolio logic is straightforward. A player has one playing career. A fund can hold claims tied to several players. A disappointing season for one investment need not define the whole portfolio. That is an explanation of the model’s appeal, not proof that every deal is fairly priced. The percentage, the payment and the contract still have to make sense individually.
First, they tried selling it to fans
David Beirne and Buck French launched X10 in 2017. They had already worked on the same broad problem at Fantex, where fans could buy securities linked to athletes. The awkward discovery was that enthusiasm for sport did not automatically produce a busy market for athlete stocks. Sports Business Journal later reported that retail investment lagged and the public-facing platform wound down in 2016.
The transition had begun before X10. A July 2016 Fantex announcement disclosed a $59.3 million private placement linked to twenty athletes across three sports, with UBS Investment Bank acting as placement agent. It also announced the wind-down of Fantex’s retail brokerage. This was a Fantex offering. X10 would emerge the following year with the private-capital approach already tested.
The sequence suggests a practical lesson: a product can need a different buyer more than it needs a better pitch. X10’s private-fund structure removes the need to persuade a crowd of fans to keep trading. Instead of waiting for an active trading market to materialize, the firm can concentrate on negotiating with athletes and assembling its portfolio.
The small print has a big number
One disclosed agreement makes the price concrete. A February 2025 California appellate opinion describes Eddie Jackson receiving $3 million for a 15% interest in future income, capped at $8.85 million. Five months later, he signed an extension. He subsequently stopped payments and challenged the arrangement. The court affirmed the refusal to vacate an arbitration award of about $6.49 million, including fees and costs. This was an unpublished decision about that dispute, not standard pricing or a blanket endorsement.
The useful question is what a percentage attaches to. Which income counts? How long does the claim last? What is excluded? Can it be bought out? A player comparing offers needs the answers alongside the headline payment. Otherwise, a tidy fraction can disguise a very untidy range of possible costs.
A small percentage of a big career is still a lot of money.Arithmetic, before optimism.
A scouting report meets a cash-flow forecast
X10’s team makes its underwriting interests visible. Beirne was an original Benchmark general partner. French built technology businesses. The sports side includes former players and front-office executives; a separate data-science group adds quantitative experience. Hal Morris brings a World Series ring, while Mark Dominik brings experience as Tampa Bay’s general manager. Assessing talent and estimating earnings belong in the same conversation.
The market has several versions of the idea. Big League Advantage also uses an institutional approach. Finlete, Vestible and Agentiq have pursued retail athlete-investment models. Those differences affect who supplies the money and how the investment is packaged. For the athlete, the comparison remains stubbornly personal: how much certainty is worth purchasing, and at what price?
What happens after the money arrives
The most transferable idea here is to examine the income source before arranging the portfolio. Someone whose livelihood depends on one employer, one business or one physical skill can recognize the concentration problem without being eligible for an X10 transaction. The lesson is a question to investigate, rather than an instruction to sell future income.
The model’s attraction weakens when an athlete already has enough secure capital, receives an unfavorable valuation, or spends the proceeds without building the intended financial cushion. Success can also make the surrendered earnings substantial. X10 offers a way to act before the biggest payday. Whether that is worthwhile depends on the contract, the uncertainty and what the player does with the check.