Weplay, an American online community site for young athletes, parents, coaches, families and teams involved in youth sports, launched in March 2008.[1] The venture was conceived as a joint venture between Creative Artists Agency, the venture capital arm of New York-based hedge fund Pequot Capital (now known as FirstMark Capital) and MLB Advanced Media, Internet arm of Major League Baseball.
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The athletes who join the site are able to set up their profiles with pictures, exchange communication with other friends on the network, upload videos of sports events, and play games.[2] It also provides a team management application for parents and coaches to manage a comprehensive and singular calendar, organize car pools with other parent users and exchange advice about equipment and other relevant interests.[3] Coaches can directly communicate with their players and parents, as well as learn about strategy and exchange game plans with other coaches.[4] Weplay also provides community hubs for youth sports with discussion boards, media galleries and links to helpful resources. The hubs include:
Professional athletes such as Derek Jeter, LeBron James, Peyton Manning and Jennie Finch are weplay members with their own unique profiles. Several of the athletes have a financial stake in the company.[3]
The pro athletes on weplay have real profiles that they maintain, which includes updated blogs, a media gallery of youth sports photos and videos, weekly Q&As with fans as well as self-created group profiles that let other site members meet connect through shared interests. Jennie Finch recognizes her favorite softball teams on a weekly basis [5] while Peyton Manning is using weplay to champion his cause to make football an officially recognized Olympic sport. The current roster of weplay athletes includes:
In March 2009, Weplay launched its Skills and Drills library. By partnering with Adidas, Amateur Softball Association, MLB, leading online drill providers and leveraging their footage with the Weplay Pros, Weplay has Skills and Drills libraries for softball, baseball and soccer. Drill libraries include several hundred videos, 3D Simulations and documents broken down by skill level and skill type by sport.
The company launched as a startup in late 2007 under the name ‘Made the Cut,’ and changed to Weplay at launch in March 2008. Weplay is headquartered in New York City with a west coast office located in Long Beach, California. Stephen Hansen (Geocities, Universal) serves as CEO.
Weplay has already partnered with several national youth sports organizations, including Pop Warner (football), the Amateur Softball Association , the Positive Coaching Alliance and the National Association of State Games. The exclusive partnerships make weplay the official social network service provider and partner for some of these YSOs.[6]
Weplay raised another $8.6M in August 2008.[7]