Coast to Coast: Amateur Sports Teams 2.0

One of the first startups we profiled on StartupNorth was New Brunswick based Yourteamonline. Since then Yourteamonline has launched version 2.0 of their sports team management suite and added a slew of new features. In the meanwhile, Victoria based TeamPages has also risen in prominence.

Both TeamPages and YourTeamOnline provide player pages, statistics, team pages and league interaction. It seems like we have a coast to coast fight for the amateur sports team demographic.

The market for amateur sports related spending in North America alone is $111 billion. More than enough room for two leaders, and even better if they are both from Canada. The amount of targeted advertising dollars up for grabs is staggering. Add on the amount of money that changes hands for local team sponsorships every year, and things are looking up!

The first similarity I noticed was the abundant use of blue on both companies’ websites. The choice of colors is not where the similarities end however. And this is where I start to wonder a little.

Both YourTeamOnline and TeamPages are marketing themselves as a generalized sports team management toolkit. If I were calling the shots here (which I am not!), I would approach each sport differently. YourTeamOnline is starting down this path, they have customized versions for Hockey and Soccer, but their marketing is still focused at a general market, which is going to be tougher to capture. This is the same strategy that every other competitor in the marketplace is using and it is going to be tough to stand out, even with a much better than average offering.

YourTeamOnline and Teampages both focus on letting individuals, teams and leagues build social networks, and each have unique characteristics that, in my opinion, make them the two best team/league platforms out there. Where most competitive packages focus on the minutiae of managing a team, YourTeamOnline and TeamPages focus on the individual users, whether they are coaches, parents or players.

I am also impressed with the roadmaps that both companies allude to on their sites. YourTeamOnline has plans to launch youtube-like video uploading and a feature called “SportsWire” that helps get team statistics out to the public, newspapers, and other consumers of team data.

Is this a clash of the titans? A fight to the death? Jackie Chan vs. Chow Yun Fat? I think it is probably more the result of an overdue idea and a huge market, with scalable revenue opportunities. Will there be one winner, or two? We’ll be watching to find out.

YourTeamOnline and Teampages have each taken early-stage funding.