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The Social Sports Network: LockerDome

May 6, 2011 | Author: | Posted in Recreation & Sports

The fast-paced world of everything we participate in is inexplicably fused into the social fabric. This includes the world of sports and recreation. LockerDome is an example of how sports and social networking can be successfully intertwined.

“Teams and organizations pay to launch their own private networks, where they can manage team schedules, player profiles, and rich media content.” says Gabe Lozano, Co-Founder and CEO of LockerDome. He add that that athletes can create a free profile, which becomes their sole sports identity. “An athlete’s LockerDome ID allows them to join multiple networks – such as their high school baseball team network, club baseball team network, and fall soccer team network. Coaches and fans can scour LockerDome to find information on players and teams. “They apply a broad range of open-source web technologies that support and compliment their homegrown sports management functionality. The service makes the most of Amazon’s web services to apply production code in a scalable and stable hosting environment.

Lozano identifies two key variables that enable LockerDome to apply a unique service to customers through technological innovation- creation and consumption of content- that allow for quicker and easier access to content on players and teams. “LockerDome’s standard ID system improves the consumption end. Regardless of how athletes and teams create their content, we want to make all of their content more accessible – for themselves, for college recruiters, for mom and dad, for grandma, and even for showing their kids in 20 years. On the content creation side, there are several companies that have developed some really neat post-pc apps (i.e. apps for the iPhone, iPad, etc.) to simplify scorekeeping, as well as making the consumption of real-time game stats more accessible.”

LockerDome’s distinct service of offering online content platform for athletes to profile themselves and connect with teams and coaches, is a by-product of Lozano’s background. His passion for both sport and entrepreneurship helped shape LockerDome. “Athletically, I played competitive baseball for 17 years – from tee ball through college. I’ve additionally spoken to groups of college-bound athletes on maximizing the college recruiting process.” he said. “As an entrepreneur, I’ve created and executed successful web strategies for more than two dozen companies.”

But he adds that LockerDome is not just another social network. “Instead of adding yet more clutter to the market, LockerDome’s universal ID allows you to find content on youth athletes and teams more easily.” In visualizing LockerDome, Lozano says that he looked back at his own youth and memories he had playing sports as a kid. Taking that one step further, he asked himself, “How incredible would it be to relive those moments today?” Lozano and his team began to think about all of the youth athletes that are participating in sport today, and how they too would one day wish they had captured memories of the past. “We ultimately realized that billions of lifetime memories are created each year by more than 45 million youth athletes. Yet sadly enough, the photos, videos, articles, and stats that capture these special moments are disorganized, hard to find online, and eventually lost forever.” says Lozano. “Bottom line, we believe our solution will allow every athlete to easily track and share a lifetime of sports memories in a single location, forever.”

Lozano and his team at LockerDome have identified a demand in amateur sports that to date, he says, has not been adequately addressed. He believes that LockerDome’s web-based delivery of social networks for teams and athletes has impacted the way team sports are organized online. “Truthfully, I think the impact to-date has been next to none. Team sports were dramatically enhanced when team management started coming online in the 90s. Since then, in spite of the multitudes of sports social sites that have launched, we’ve seen almost no fundamental advancements.” Lozano highlights the gap for amateur sports information online and how LockerDome is primed to fill that need technologically. “It often feels as if the amateur sports market is still 5+ years behind most other markets . Between millions of passionate sports participants, the high adoption of online networking, the recent influx of post-pc devices, and the factors listed above, the youth sports market is primed for major disruption.”

LockerDome has established itself as a market leader, most notably in baseball. “Much of our current penetration is with large club baseball programs that want an easier approach to manage profiles for hundreds of players.” says Lozano. Players can now update their own online profile, rather than depending on a coach to post their recent information. “An example is Mac-N-Seitz, an elite club baseball program that is run by Kevin Seitzer, the hitting coach for the Kansas City Royals. Our customer programs collectively had over 100 players receive Division 1 scholarships in 2010.”

But Lozano points out that even more energizing than what LockerDome has achieved, is where their platform is headed. ” One of the most interesting networks currently being launched is for Baseball For All, an organization run by Justine Siegal, a woman that recently made national headlines when she became the first woman ever to throw batting practice to an MLB team. Justine is launching the Baseball For All Network as the primary recruiting source to promote and grow girls baseball across the country.”

Lozano says that LockerDome is set to officially launch a universal ID system by August 2011, since currently players are limited to a joining single network. “We will additionally enhance how our members share information within their existing social graphs, as well as a few surprises.”

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