Several companies have shown up recently that take a new approach on investing in Athletes. BLA signs them to their own portfolio, so it is run like a venture capital fund (think shark tank) that only invests in young athletes aspiring to be top end professionals. Vestible wants to be a pro athlete stock market. And the most recent one to make big news, Finlete, lets fans buy a portion of player earnings to get dividends like preferred stock. Though I think their aspiration is to be very similar to the Vestible stock market.
Emmanuel Clase has recently partnered with Finlete, which will give regular people a chance to get a chunk of his future baseball earnings.