GameChanger is not new to basketball. But the youth sports juggernaut is putting its best foot forward as if it was.
The Dick's Sporting Goods-owned platform rolled out its new hoops-specific product yesterday, the latest step in its aggressive expansion on the court after becoming synonymous with baseball and softball.
Basketball was already GameChanger's second-biggest sport and 50% of diamond sport athletes on the platform also play hoops, SVP & GM of Emerging Sports Brandon Rhodes told Buying Sandlot. But the company has made significant investments -- in time and resources -- to engross itself in the sport's ecosystem and inform its expansion.
"We spent the better part of the last few years really planting a flag," Rhodes said. "Getting out there into cultural events, getting out there in partnerships with EYBL and really understanding what the athlete, the parent, the coach, the club director wants in basketball."
"We're not starting from scratch. We have a rich history of scorekeeping and streaming already happening in basketball. But when you look at the sport, there's a lot of key differences from diamond (sports) that also influence the product."
Among them:
Basketball-specific club management tools — team announcements and messaging, schedules, rosters, RSVPs. Coaches are "at the heart" of GameChanger, Rhodes said, but it is increasingly viewing club directors as equivalent, especially in basketball.
AutoStream zoom and pan function for single-iPhone streams; features that adjust to varying camera angles and positions depending on gym layout.
Varying scorekeeping approaches that accommodate basketball's pace of play. Users can do everything from advanced scoring with detailed box scores to simplified scoring to just tracking points for a live stream scorebug.
Introduction of automated Player Game Story and Player Season Story features, which compile and aggregate individual stats and video highlights in social-media ready packages.
The latter is the biggest update in this rollout. GameChanger is famous for its written game recaps and already produces automatic game highlight packages. The individual offerings are the next step and will eventually be available for baseball and softball as well.
"It's the most personalized product that we've had," Rhodes said. "There's five people on the court, so it's a little more individual-driven. It's highlight culture. How do we empower that?
"And we know that you as a parent care about the No. 1 player, which is your kid. So you'll have a personalized recap with personalized insights with all the highlight clips that your kid had in that game and a reel of all those highlights stitched together."
Rhodes said GameChanger is interested in "large-scale growth team sports," name dropping flag football, soccer and volleyball. But the immediate focus over the next 6-12 months is basketball growth.
"We're still in the first quarter," he said. "We have a long way to go to get to where we are in diamond (sports), but encouraging early signals. Strong product usage, strong return rate, really good feedback from the community. We obviously want to go fast. We're going to aggressively upgrade the product, which we're doing now. We are going to be talking to our full community because we know there's a big crossover between diamond and basketball. Our product has a strong word of mouth. ... If the product is good enough, people bring other people."
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