Nebraska Crossing and JUSTDATA®, headquartered in Gretna, Nebraska, announces $5 million contribution to Husker Volleyball via 1890 Initiative.

By: Rod Yates; Investor | Founder of Nebraska Crossing and JUSTDATA®, and Johanna Boston, Co-Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of JUSTDATA®

RE: JUSTDATA® Sports and Nebraska Crossing take the First Step Towards Building an Ecosystem for Volleyball Athletes, Fans, and Brand Partners

GRETNA, Neb., July 22, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- JUSTDATA®, a fast-growing multi-industry firm in the $200 billion financial technology ("fintech") space where it is working to reshape the shopping center industry and collegiate athletics landscape, by entering a groundbreaking partnership with Nebraska's NIL collective, The 1890 Initiative. This partnership will provide $5 million over the next 10 years to support NIL for Husker Volleyball student-athletes. The 1890 Initiative is led by former Husker Matt Davison and owned by Tom and Shawn Peed of Sandhills Global. The deal with 1890 will be the first of many as JUSTDATA® looks to remake college athletics by leveraging financial technologies. JUSTDATA® is negotiating with the top 25 collegiate athletics programs in the country. JUSTDATA® is working with collectives supporting student athletes at the University of Nebraska and Purdue University, given the founders connection with these athletic programs. Last year Nebraska Crossing and JUSTDATA® announced a partnership with Drew Brees as a strategic investor and partner in both Nebraska Crossing and JUSTDATA®. "Nebraska and Purdue are special places and continually produce world-class student athletes for us to recruit. In our view, there was no better place to build and grow a company than in 'Big 10 Country' and creating new fintech technologies in an ecosystem platform will bring more attention to what is happening right here in Nebraska," added Rod Yates. 

By creating an ecosystem with the dominant athletic program and dominant shopping center in the trade area, JUSTDATA® creates a fanatical cashback customer acquisition platform for the shopping center retail brands and the athletic sponsors of universities. The primary objective is aligned when building shopping centers or becoming corporate sponsors of collegiates athletics--to acquire the most valuable customers (fans) and create loyalty. "Through JUSTDATA's FASTCASH APP™, a patented mobile cashback application, we created a 'co-opetition' ecosystem uniting global and national brand competitors to achieve a set of common goals; customer (fan) loyalty, stickiness, and consumer growth," offered Johanna Boston.

"Thank you to the Nebraska Crossing team for this generous gift to 1890 in support of Husker Volleyball. Your vision for NIL is a game changer for Husker Volleyball and will propel our program for years to come."

John Cook, Head Volleyball Coach for University of Nebraska Cornhuskers

What is the FASTCASH APP™ and how does it work?

• The Patented FASTCASH APP™ is a cashback mobile application that enables consumers and fans to earn and burn cashback rewards within an ecosystem (Nebraska Crossing retail brands + supporters of athletics), all through one passive rewards program.
• The consumer/fan downloads the app, and securely links their credit/debit card(s) through Plaid® and is issued a virtual Visa® card within the app. When the consumer shops using their linked card(s) they earn cashback that is loaded onto their virtual Visa® to spend within the ecosystem. No coupons, loyalty cards, or scanning codes needed!
• It's passive rewards that adds up fast! Uniting brands that consumers and fans use every day—Grocery, Gas, Retail Brands, Insurance, Banking Institutions, Restaurants, and More!

Benefits for Volleyball Athletes?

• $5 million of new NIL money to support financial initiatives for the athletes.
• Name, Image, & Likeness opportunities, to become FASTCASH™ Brand Ambassadors.
• Real-life opportunities to learn and participate in the fintech industry, typically not available to most collegiate athletes.
• Work directly with the founders and owners of JUSTDATA® and Nebraska Crossing + new career opportunities once their athletic career concludes. JUSTDATA® Sports expects to hire 200 new employees over the next two years.
• Each athlete will receive $2,000 FASTCASH™ (cashback) annually to redeem within the Nebraska Crossing ecosystem of brands.

Benefits of JUSTDATA® platform for the fans?

• The cashback platform allows fans to easily support their team through donations. Fans can donate a portion (or all) of their cashback directly to the NIL Collective with one-touch on the FASTCASH APP™.
• The value proposition is CASH! Fans can earn on average, up to $2,000 annually in cashback to spend within the ecosystem.
• It's Passive Rewards. Connect once through the FASTCASH APP™ and start shopping! Enjoy One (1) Loyalty Program with multiple brands! It's a powerful loyalty program uniting Nebraska Crossing Retail Brands with the participating brand supporters of athletics, for fans to earn cashback.

Benefits for coaches and athletics?

• New recruiting tools that propel partnered NIL programs to the apex of athletic programs in the country.
• Creates a new revenue model and a way to acquire new customers (fans) for athletics—that are key drivers for the financial health of an athletic program.
• Fan engagement—365 days a year.
• The JUSTDATA® ecosystem platform will be the largest financial sponsor of NIL by increasing by a factor of 10, in 24 months.

Benefits to Brand Partners?

• The FASTCASH APP™ requires zero point-of-sale integration for brand partners.
• Massive new customer acquisition model delivering a clear and measurable ROI (Return on Investment) for new & existing brand partners.
• Access to the Nebraska Crossing FASTCASH APP™ users and athletics' fan bases!

What is a JUSTDATA® Fintech Ecosystem?

In 2013, JUSTDATA® partnered with Nebraska Crossing to remake the shopping center industry. JUSTDATA® created the first-ever patent-pending Fintech Ecosystem Cashback Mobile Application. This relationship-centric platform is driven by a FASTCASH™ (cashback) rewards for shopping within an ecosystem, producing sticky customers. FASTCASH™ is earned through in-store transactions and can be redeemed at any of Nebraska Crossing's 90+ global and national brands + participating athletic brand supporters–regardless of where the original FASTCASH™ was earned. To gain access to FASTCASH™, customers download the NEX App and link their credit/debit card(s) securely through JUSTDATA's Fintech partner Plaid®. The user is then issued a virtual Visa® card where the earned cashback is stored and can be used through the app wallet. The onboarding of new retail brand partners to the platform requires zero integration with the retail brand partner's points-of-sale (POS).

"I've been around sports and the various industries related to it for my entire life and I've never seen anything like what they are building at JUSTDATA®. I am a strong believer that this technology will have a huge impact on the sports industry in the coming years. The remake into a fintech ecosystem is brilliant on so many levels!" --Drew Brees

Nebraska Crossing Shopping Center was JUSTDATA's first ecosystem laboratory and laid the foundation for their larger vision spanning many industries, including banking, transportation, and collegiate and professional sports.

"The sports industry has active and engaged customer (fan) base, strong community connections, brand affinity models, brand advocates, and a customer (fan) desire to support brands that offer a great value proposition. The collegiate fan is one of the most sought-after demographic group to market to, because of their education-level and higher than average household & discretionary income," Boston said, referring to the fans affinity and ability to support retail brands.

Why Ecosystems in sports?

With the recent popularity of Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL) deals, the need for new revenue streams is at an all-time high. As it stands, only 20 NCAA schools have profitable athletic programs. JUSTDATA® believes that a Fintech Ecosystem is the answer to their lurking revenue problem. An ecosystem will allow fans and sponsors to connect and fund collegiate athletics with every purchase they make inside the ecosystem. It's the first sustainable model that aligns all parties to a common goal—acquiring customers (fans), increasing customer (fan) retention and engagement, increasing sales (revenue), enabling a measurable ROI (return on investment, and creating new revenue models.

"Founder Rod Yates added, "the collegiate sports industry has not had new revenue models for 50 years and the data-centric universities that adopt this fintech platform will realize monumental advantages of creating new revenue streams, increased sponsorship sales and engagement, and NIL recruiting and talent retention that directly translates to wins and losses and fan support for their collegiate brands."

Further Information Contact:

Rod Yates 
[email protected]
Direct: 816-896-6508

Johanna Boston 
[email protected]
Direct: 402-709-1784

About: Drew Brees

A 20-year veteran of the NFL, Drew Brees played for the San Diego Chargers (2001-2005) and the New Orleans Saints (2006-2020) leading the Saints in the XLIV Super Bowl champions over the Indianapolis Colts in 2010. Extremely active in the community, the Brees Dream Foundation has contributed more than $50 million to numerous charitable causes worldwide.

Brees graduated from Purdue in 2001 as an All-American on the field, a Heisman finalist, and an Academic All-American in the classroom, leading the Boilermakers to last-minute upsets against top-ranked Ohio State and Michigan in route to the Boilermakers' first Big Ten Championships in 2000. He won the Maxwell Award as the nation's outstanding player and finished his career with two NCAA, 13 Big Ten and 19 Purdue career records.

Brees is second only to Tom Brady in NFL career passing yards. He was chosen in the second round of the NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers. Brees also owns the NFL record for most consecutive games (54) with a TD pass - a record Johnny Unitas previously held for 52 years. He played in the NFL for 20 seasons and finished second in numerous NFL career records, including: passing completion percentage (67.7); touchdown passes (571); passing yards (80,358); pass completions (7,142); and pass attempts (10,551). Brees also led the NFL in passing yards and held the record seven times before retiring after the 2020 season.

About: JUSTDATA

JUSTDATA's fintech mission is to unlock the power of a borderless cashback loyalty ecosystem for everyone.

About: 1890 Initiative

The 1890 Initiative was founded to provide student-athletes at the University of Nebraska opportunities to capitalize on their Name, Image, and Likeness while positively impacting the Nebraska Community on and off the field and/or court.

SOURCE Sandhills Global