The graphics that announce a recruit's commitment are a core currency in college sports. They are also a logistical bottleneck, requiring a design team to produce dozens of bespoke assets under tight deadlines. Sideline Design is building a platform to turn that process into a templated workflow, aiming to become the default tool for athletic departments to create and distribute branded content [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief].
A wedge into the recruiting machine
Founded in 2022, the Utah-based company targets a specific, high-pressure workflow: the production of graphics for recruiting, official visits, and signing day announcements. The product allows coaches and communications staff to generate custom graphics in seconds, then push them directly to social media, SMS, iMessage, and email [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The bet is that speed and consistency matter more than bespoke design for a large volume of routine communications.
By removing the need for in-house design skills or external freelancers, Sideline Design is trying to insert itself into the daily operations of sports programs.
Building a team to sell into athletics
While details on founders are sparse, the company has recently made key leadership hires focused on client relationships and growth. Rachel Allenick was appointed Director of Client Experience in November 2024, and Dan Shea joined as Director of Business Development around the same time [Sideline Design, November 2024].
Jeff Byrd is listed as Director of Partnerships, and Kyle Gehring, a graduate in Sport Management from Otterbein University, serves as CEO [The Org, undated] [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. This team structure suggests a focus on direct sales and account management, a necessary motion for selling into the relationship-driven world of collegiate athletics.
The technical breakdown and scale risk
From an infrastructure perspective, the product is a classic case of workflow automation applied to a narrow vertical. The technical lift is less about novel AI and more about building a robust, permissioned asset library and a reliable distribution engine that can handle bursty, time-sensitive traffic.
The real challenge is scaling the template system to accommodate the unique branding of hundreds of different schools without becoming a custom design shop.
- Asset management. The core is a library of approved brand elements,logos, fonts, color palettes,that non-designers can safely assemble. Maintaining version control and permissions across a decentralized athletic department is a non-trivial backend problem.
- Distribution plumbing. Pushing a single graphic to a dozen platforms simultaneously requires maintained API integrations and queue management. A failure on signing day is not an option.
- Template flexibility. The system must be rigid enough to enforce brand guidelines but flexible enough to feel personalized. Getting that balance wrong means users will revert to manual processes.
What could go wrong at scale? The most likely failure mode is becoming a feature, not a product.
Larger athletic departments with dedicated creative staff may outgrow the templated system, while smaller programs might find the cost prohibitive for a seasonal need. The platform's success hinges on becoming deeply embedded in the daily content calendar, not just the annual recruiting spike.
The quiet path to an estimated $770k
Public information is limited, but third-party estimates place Sideline Design's annual revenue at approximately $770,000, with an estimated valuation of $2.5 million [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief]. The company appears to be growing organically, with no institutional funding rounds or major press coverage yet documented.
This suggests a bootstrap-or-slow-burn approach, focusing on product-market fit within a niche before seeking capital to accelerate. The recent business development hires indicate a push to convert early traction into a more formal sales motion.
The market for recruiting tools is crowded, but Sideline Design's focus on the graphics workflow,a visible, high-stakes output,gives it a clear wedge. If it can standardize this process for even a fraction of the thousands of college sports programs, it establishes a beachhead.
The next twelve months will be about proving that its templates are indispensable not just for recruiting, but for the year-round content machine that modern athletic departments must now operate.
Sources
- [Perplexity Sonar Pro Brief, undated] Sideline Design Research Brief | https://www.perplexity.ai/
- [Sideline Design, November 2024] Welcome to the Team, leadership announcement | https://www.thesidelinedesign.com/
- [The Org, undated] Kyle Gehring profile | https://www.theorg.com/