TORONTO, June 18, 2021 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Today, Best Athletes Ltd. announced the appointment of Steven Caldwell to CEO as the company embarks on its next phase of growth as the leading sports analytics & video technology platform helping youth athletes get recruited and take control of their future. He takes over from Steve Currie, who has held the CEO role since the company’s inception and will stay on in an Operations role.
In the highly competitive youth sports market, athletes strive to get recruited and coaches compete to build great teams. What’s missing for the athletes and their parents is the ability to benchmark performance and understand the path to University/College scholarships and elite team participation.
Barry MacLean, co-founder and Chair of Best Athletes, said, “We are thrilled to have someone of Steven’s calibre leading our company at this critical time in our growth. We’ve built a really solid software analytics platform and our sales pipeline is robust. As the youth sports market opens up post COVID, we are positioned well to expand across Canada and enter the lucrative US market.”
Steven joins Best Athletes after a distinguished professional soccer career that includes stints with five English Premier League Clubs, the Scottish National team and as captain of Toronto FC from 2013 to 2015. Currently he is a Soccer Analyst with TSN, and an assistant coach with the Canadian Men’s National team. And of particular note, he is a proud soccer parent.
His experiences as an international professional, a coach and a parent allow Steven to really understand the challenges and needs in youth sports. Steven said, “We’re allowing athletes to really take control of their future by accessing professional level tools at a fraction of the cost and what excites me most about this opportunity is that it’s solving a real problem - something that I’ve experienced as a parent and also in my playing and coaching careers.”
Best Athletes is poised to tap into a large and growing market opportunity in North America. According to US-based Wintergreen Research, the Youth Sports market is estimated to triple in size from $25b to $75b by 2026. Currently, Best Athletes is focused on soccer, the world’s largest youth team sport, and will quickly expand to other verticals such as hockey, basketball and rugby. Early interest in the platform has been strong with more than 190 coaches and 700 athletes signing up with the launch on June 1st and expectations of 2,000 athletes onboarding through the fall of 2021.
Caldwell’s appointment comes at a time when the company has just launched their platform and is seeking additional investment. As part of fundraising activities, Best Athletes also announced today the launch of an equity crowdfunding campaign on FrontFundr, Canada’s leading online private markets investing platform. The crowdfunding campaign will provide Best Athletes with funds to expand data-science and machine learning capabilities and launch into the lucrative US market. The company previously raised $1 million in pre-seed money that has been used to build a robust online platform and intellectual property focused on sports analytics and performance metrics.
For more information about Best Athletes Ltd and this investment opportunity, visit FrontFundr.com/bestathletes.
Details of the offering can be found in the offering document at frontfundr.com/bestathletes. This communication is for informational purposes only.
About Best Athletes Ltd.
Best Athletes is a sports analytics platform providing professional-level software for youth athletes and coaches. Leveraging machine learning and video we help youth athletes develop & get recruited, and we help coaches build better athletes & teams. Led by CEO Steven Caldwell, current TSN Soccer Analyst, former captain of Toronto FC and English Premier League player, our experienced team of sports and technology industry professionals is redefining how data science allows youth athletes to take control of their future through leading edge sports analytics for recruitment and performance development. Best Athletes is the common performance connection between Athletes/Parents, coaches, clubs, universities & colleges, Associations and Scouts.
Contact:
Steve Currie: steve@bestathletes.co
About FrontFundr
FrontFundr is Canada’s leading online private markets investing platform and an exempt market dealer. It provides startups and growth companies access to capital, and gives investors access to private companies they believe in and want to support. It provides a community of 25,000+ investors with the ability to review and complete private placements on one digital platform. The company’s revolutionary technology allows users across Canada to invest in innovative growth businesses in under 12 minutes, starting from as little as $250. To date it has helped more than 60 companies raise over $60 million.