Youth-oriented sports social network WePlay raised $8.6 million in a series B financing led by Deep Fork Capital. Existing investors also participated in the round, including FirstMark Capital and athletes Derek Jeter, LeBron James and Peyton Manning. That brings the total capital raised to $13 million.
WePlay launched in March, and is designed as a social utility where parents, coaches, and kids can manage their Little League and school sports teams. The company was founded by former Geo Cities CFO/COO Steve Hansen. Chairman Rick Heitzmann, a managing director at FirstMark, says the goal is to become:
. . . the operating system of youth sports.
We are hyperlocal content. It is not about the New York Yankees. It is about the Gramercy Bombers T-ball team. You have a deeper connection to that team if you are a parent, coach or grandparent.
But connecting with the pros is definitely an an extra draw. The site features personal pages from about a dozen professional athletes, who offer kids playing tips as well as see footage from their high-school days and earlier. WePlay’s traffic is off to a decent start, but it is still modest, with about 200,000 U.S. unique visitors in June, according to comScore. Competitors include TeamSnap and RosterBot.
Congratulations to WePlay for raising that much capital. Interesting to hear that athletes are investing in websites.
Yawn, I don’t like this site. So they already blew through the other 5 million? Probably wasting it on the pro athletes who have a secretary make a profile.
What don’t you like about it? Have you tried using it?
@ John S
Brett doesn’t like it cause he’s been stuck with a laptop and lava lamp his entire life:)
“Deep fork capital”. Seriously?
Soon VC’s will have “Web 2.0″ names like Zoomr Capital
this will attract the youth little leagues for sure..
http://tinyurl.com/apple777
Yes. A lava lamp.
Guess I just don’t get it. Neither do my kids who play pop warner. Myspace+sports layouts+ Lebron James. Very impressive raise though. Way to go.
13 million funded on that…
Their TOS;
To the extent that the Services provide Users an opportunity to post, store and exchange articles, information, materials, data, files, programs, photographs, concepts, communications, footage, ideas and opinions (“User Content”), you agree to and hereby do grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, weplay, its contractors, and the users of the weplay Site an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully sublicensable, fully paid up, worldwide license to use, copy, publicly perform, digitally perform, publicly display, and distribute such content and to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such content, including a User’s likeness.
LOL
From Facebook’s TOS… (http://www.new....k.com/terms.php)
When you post User Content to the Site, you authorize and direct us to make such copies thereof as we deem necessary in order to facilitate the posting and storage of the User Content on the Site. By posting User Content to any part of the Site, you automatically grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant, to the Company an irrevocable, perpetual, non-exclusive, transferable, fully paid, worldwide license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such User Content for any purpose, commercial, advertising, or otherwise, on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such User Content, and to grant and authorize sublicenses of the foregoing.
VC$, found that interesting at first until I realized you missed the last two lines of that specific TOS clause:
“This license does not grant weplay the right to sell User Content or otherwise distribute it outside of weplay’s Services. weplay does not claim any ownership rights in any User Content; you continue to retain all ownership rights in such User Content.”
(linkback) WePlay – Thrive or Fail? [VOTE] http://www.thri...rfail.com/acf65
massive market , u didn’t mention the two biggest players digitalsports and highschoolsports.net , this market goes under the radar since most of the tech blog population are single older males
It will be interesting to watch this site. The impression I get right now is that this money came without the realization that this is an already crowded space and that weplay is a social network with a sports theme, not a team solution.
Congrats to WePlay. Locking the top athletes in is a killer move.
Congrats. This is an interesting play. eteamz, leagueathletics, takkle and checkswing.net are others in this space.
I am not sure that having the athletes fake profiles there are all that valuable. Most of the kids who see them quickly see that they are not going to be interacting with jeter or Lebron. Having those athletes $$$ is nice though.
Congrats. It will be interesting to see where the additional $8.6 million goes. I really like what they’re doing with the sport based hubs, as it looks like they are going to be great resources for people looking to learn more about each sport.
I would love to hear anyone’s feedback on our site http://www.teampages.com. Our focus is a little bit different than WePlay’s in that we’re focused on making team management and communication easy by providing teams with websites that they can easily create in less than 4 minutes, and use to send schedule updates, news, and reminders to all their members. We’re always looking for ways to improve our site and make it more useful for coaches, parents, and athletes.
I’ve been watching a company called FirstString.com. Supposedly they’re launching soon. I’ve heard quite a bit of buzz about these guys in LA.
This market seems wide open and the one who can really relate a site that’s valuable to athletes will be the big winner…
MyGsport.com – is a social networking portal for sports fans and enthusiasts that allows team members and friends to stay in touch. Our site is free and allows members to create personalized WebPages, IM members, chat, blog, post pictures, videos, podcasts and other audio. We also provide an arcade and free applications to spice up your web spaces. Please come and enjoy our growing network!