🥎 GameChanger Announces Significant Product Update

This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.

Today, GameChanger is announcing what it says is its largest product update in 15 years. We spoke to GameChanger President and Dick’s SVP Sameer Ahuja about it:

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Now, here’s everything you need to know about GameChanger’s big update.

GameChanger announced what it is billing as the most comprehensive product update in its 15-year history this morning, calling it a “a major step forward in how families, athletes, coaches, fans, leagues, and organizations experience youth sports."

More than a dozen new features will be rolled out to GameChanger’s over 9M users and 1M teams.

“It’s the most significant update to the entire product in our history,” GameChanger president Sameer Ahuja told Buying Sandlot. “The quality of the video you are going to get now has gone up dramatically. It’s going to be like you are used to in anything else you stream. We’re going to have automated highlight reels on your phone and a bunch of tools for coaches.

“To think you can bring all of this to a youth sports game, going back a few years, is kind of unheard of. We really want to be pushing this envelope and just delivering a better and better experience every year. We hope this is the best anyone has ever had.”

The Dick’s Sporting Goods-owned platform has begun billing itself as “The Home of Youth Sports.” The update is the latest in a series of ambitious moves to strengthen its dominant position in youth baseball and softball, while also expanding into new sports with basketball as the top priority.

“GameChanger is a happiness company,” Ahuja said. “We continue to connect families with the game that is most important to them, which is the one their kid or grandkid is playing in. We are really fortunate and grateful for how big we’ve been able to get and what we’re able to do.”

Live streaming is at the center of the update.

Every scored and streamed game on GameChanger will include:

GameChanger relies on the combination of manual scorekeeping and video to unlock all of the features — highlights and reels are not fully AI-powered through just video.

The app will now require a paid subscription for live streaming games. Live game alerts, however, will move to the free-tier. Free users will also receive five complimentary baseball/softball full-game views— a sub will be required after that to stream games, from one of the existing paid tiers:

GameChanger says it will also introduce a Team Pass, which allows coaches or staff to purchase on behalf of an entire organization.

There will also be support Live Activities on iOS, which means real-time score updates and game updates will surface on an iPhone lock screen:

There will also be deeper integrations with action cameras like GoPro and Mevo, as well as fixed multi-angle and single-angle cameras.

GameChanger recently launched a partnership with Pixellot to install and use its cameras at fields nationwide.

A report last year said GameChanger has the largest market share in the fragmented youth sports streaming space, but it was projected at only about 9% adoption.

Replay capabilities are another big component of the update— a clear trend among many youth sports streamers.

“We want to put the content in the hands of the parents and grandparents,” Ahuja said. “Videos of the game, highlight reels, stats, all the scores.”

Game Highlight Reels will condense full games into SportsCenter-style recaps available shortly after a game ends.

Player Insights will track key stats and trends that give athletes and families more information on personal development and performance.

The new features build around the platform’s existing ones — automatic highlight clips, auto-generated recap stories and athlete profiles.

The update delivers a suite of features designed to save coaches time and enhance their preparation:

GameChanger said the platform will remain free for all coaches.

GameChanger says its new Organization Announcement feature (coming soon) will provide a centralized hub for league officials and tournament operators to interact with all coaches, teams, staffers, etc. both in-app and on the web:

GameChanger has added several industry veterans in recent months:

There have also been several new activations and partnerships:

We will go deep on our takeaways from Kyle’s sit-down with Sameer in the newsletter tomorrow.

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Good game.