The Jersey Number Manifesto

The New Search Standard for Live Sports

“Pick a number. Any jersey number.”

I. THE PROBLEM: Fandom Is a Gate, Not a Bridge

Sports media built an empire for die-hard fans—and in doing so, shut the gate on everyone else.

600 million people watch live sports but don’t identify as fans. These adjacent viewers—casual, global, curious—are invisible to legacy systems.

They don’t care about depth charts. They want delight. They don’t know every name. They know what they feel.

II. MISSED MOMENTS ARE LOST MARKETS

Each failure is a broken moment of discovery. Each broken moment is a missed opportunity—content, product, engagement, all gone.

In the World Cup, 5 billion viewers watched. Millions spotted breakout players they’d never seen before. But when they reached for their phones to Google them, they failed. Spelling. Timing. Friction.

III. LIVE GAME ENGAGEMENT ISN’T BROKEN. NAMES ARE.

What if the problem isn’t the engine—it’s the input?
Names are long. Confusing. Often unknown in real time.

But jersey numbers?
They’re visible. Universal. Instant.

Jersey numbers are the natural language of live games. They don’t need translation. They don’t need perfection. They just work.

IV. THE SOLUTION: THE PLAYERS GUIDE

The Players Guide is the first AI-powered search and recommendation engine built for live games. It lets anyone search players by jersey number—instantly—and get a personalized recommendation engine in return.

• 2x more time spent on platform than Yahoo! Sports.
• 2x more Fanatics product views than Threads.
• 3x more monetizable behavior across product, data, and engagement.

V. WHAT CHANGES WITH JERSEY SEARCH?

For Viewers:

• Discover unknown players in seconds
• Skip spelling, delays, and missed moments
• Personalize your experience without knowing a single name

For Retailers:

• Product listing ads based on live player interest
• Impulse browsing without re-googling
• Measurable lift in CTR and conversion

For Leagues & Media:

• Reach a global, non-fan audience in real time
• Unlock monetization outside of primetime
• License search behavior and engagement data

For Players:

• Democratized visibility during games
• Real-time value tied to on-field performance
• Data-driven leverage for NIL, sponsorships, and contracts

VI. THE MISSION: ONE MORE

This is the flywheel that fuels sports for the next generation. Not loyalty. Not legacy. Just relevance, at speed.

One more viewer. One more search. One more game. One more product bought. One more reason to come back.

VII. THE MARKET IS ALREADY HERE

430 million people search players every day. But they’re searching the hard way: name + team + number.

We make it simple:
1 number → 1 player → 1 click → 1,000 products.

That’s not a novelty. That’s a new category.

VII-A. POWER LAWS: THE ECONOMICS OF ATTENTION

CTR Distribution – Players Guide Ads
A few top players generate the bulk of immediate clicks—but the real opportunity lies in the tail, where thousands of lesser-known athletes cumulatively rival or surpass the head in total engagement.

This is the anatomy of a power law. A few jersey numbers consistently generate breakout engagement—but the long tail of less-searched players still holds immense value.

Like Amazon’s early insight, the long tail becomes the fat tail when distribution costs collapse. Jersey search is that collapse. It removes friction, flattens discovery, and lets adjacent curiosity monetize at scale.

By indexing every number in real time, we don’t just catch the stars—we capture the margins. That’s how the tail compiles: 1,000 small moments that add up to market-moving relevance.

VIII. THE ECONOMICS

If just 10% of daily player searchers buy a $50 product, that’s a $24B opportunity.

Double product engagement. Triple data licensing. Jersey search isn’t a feature. It’s an engine.

IX. THE TIMELINE

• 2015: Stealth research begins
• 2017: Patent filed
• 2021: Patent granted
• 2023: Code recovered
• 2025: Pre-launch runway raise
• 2026: Jersey search ready for the World Cup
• 2028: Official recommendation engine of the Olympics

X. WHAT WE BELIEVE

• Search should work at the speed of curiosity.
• Discovery shouldn’t require spelling.
• Every jersey number is a gateway.
• Everyone deserves to feel connected in real time.

XI. FINAL WORD

Sports media has spent 50 years optimizing for those who already care. We built this for the rest of us—who want to care but need a better way in.

That way is The Players Guide.
And jersey numbers are the key.