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Competition
The field, and where each of them is trapped
The field
This is a crowded, well-funded category. Naming it is stronger than avoiding it.
The category leader is Endeavor-backed. Another sits inside the registration software clubs already buy. We are not claiming an empty market — we are claiming a position none of them can take without breaking the business that funds them.
Current players
Who we are taking the market from
Exposure to free rates how much of each business would have to be dismantled to match a zero price. Sort any column.
| NCSAEndeavor / IMG Academy | Direct-to-family paid packages | Multi-tier, four figures | |
| SportsRecruitsIndependent | Club and school subscriptions, plus family plans | Often bundled via the club | |
| Stack Sports / CaptainUStack Sports | Bundled into league and club registration software | Bundled | |
| FieldLevelIndependent | Freemium with paid athlete upgrades | Free tier, paid upgrade | |
| HudlIndependent (Bain Capital backed) | Team and athlete subscriptions | Subscription, often team-paid |
Sort by exposure to see who is most structurally trapped · 5 of 5 rows
NCSA
Their strength
Scale, brand recognition, and the largest counsellor network in the category. The default answer when a parent asks who to call.
Where they are exposed
Their entire revenue line is the family fee. They cannot match free without dismantling the business that funds them.
SportsRecruits
Their strength
Sells to the organisation rather than the household, so the buyer has a budget and the athlete arrives pre-acquired.
Where they are exposed
Club-led distribution means slow, seasonal sales and limited reach into families whose clubs do not buy.
FieldLevel
Their strength
Already operates a free tier, and is built around coach-to-coach networking rather than a static directory.
Where they are exposed
Thinner program data and analytics. Networking is not the same product as knowing which roster spots are open.
Hudl
Their strength
Owns film, which is the other half of a recruiting profile, and is embedded in team workflow at scale.
Where they are exposed
Film is not matching. They have the tape and not the decision layer — which makes them a partner as easily as a rival.
Stack Sports / CaptainU
Their strength
Distribution through the registration layer families already touch every season. Enormous passive reach.
Where they are exposed
Recruiting is a feature inside a much larger platform, so it gets neither focus nor product velocity.
Ownership and pricing move. Verify each row against current public sources before this is shown to an investor.
Positioning
Cost to the family against depth of data
The top-left quadrant — deep data at no cost — is empty, and that is the entire strategy in one picture.
Axis values are our assessment of each product, not a measured benchmark. Presented as judgement.
SWOT
An honest read on our own position
Strengths
Operating discipline that is hard to argue with
$303K burned across the nine closed months against $313K of ARR, with burn flat every one of those months while revenue grew 5.5×. Against all capital ever raised the ratio is less flattering, but the run-rate discipline is real.
Outcomes, not just a funnel
1,500 scholarships earned and 15,000 coach conversations opened. Almost nobody in this category can point at results rather than sign-ups.
Distribution that does not reprice
Four sport verticals owned by equity-holding operators with their own audiences. No social payroll, and no exposure to ad auction inflation.
A pricing position incumbents cannot copy
Free is structurally unavailable to a competitor whose entire P&L is the family fee.
Weaknesses
$1.85M has already gone in
Capital raised to ARR is 5.9×, and 81% of that capital came from friends, family, and personal savings rather than institutions. A first institutional lead will price against the full history, not the last nine months.
Revenue is small and about to be switched off
$313K ARR, and the pivot removes most of it. Everything rests on a replacement model that has no signed revenue yet.
Engagement is thin against the headline
6,874 monthly active against 29,287 registered — 23%. The number a brand or a college would underwrite is the smaller one.
No named technical owner
The core asset is an AI product and the deck does not identify who builds it. Model cost per user does not appear in the P&L at all.
Two workbooks disagree on revenue
A 1.64× gap across nine overlapping months. Until it is reconciled, every financial figure is a question.
Opportunities
The other side of the marketplace
College programs have recruiting budgets, are not minors, and carry no COPPA exposure. Charging institutions instead of families is on-mission and higher-margin.
Club and school licensing
One organisation delivers 150–350 athletes at near-zero acquisition cost. This is the only realistic path to a base measured in millions.
Middle school, early
Extending to 7th grade moves the US addressable base from roughly 4M in-window athletes to 16M, and builds the habit years before the deadline.
International, which nobody else is doing
24 countries live already. No US competitor treats this category as global.
Threats
A defensive free tier from a funded incumbent
Endeavor-backed NCSA could launch free as a loss-leader and absorb the damage for longer than we could survive it.
Advertising to minors is legally constrained
COPPA and state design codes limit what can ever be sold against an under-18 base — and the 7th-grade expansion makes that worse, not better.
The registration layer bundles it away
If Stack Sports or an equivalent makes competent recruiting a free feature inside software clubs already buy, our wedge narrows sharply.
This round does not reach the plan
$2.5M funds proof, not scale. If the Series A market is closed when we get there, the free model has no second source of fuel.
Four of the five charge the family. That is not a coincidence — it is the business model of the entire category, and it is the one thing none of them can give up.