Meet Krossover, the Uber of Sports That Wants to Take Over Youth Leagues

Benjamin Newman wanted to buy Krossover, a web-based sports video analytics service, the first time he saw a demonstration. But as a high school boys basketball coach at a New York City public school, he couldn't afford the service's average cost of $1,200 per season. Eventually, he and the girls' coach decided they needed to find the money some way.

For the past two years, almost all of the fundraising proceeds for both squads have gone to an annual Krossover subscription. "It doesn't matter if we have new practice jerseys," Newman said. "But this improves our game individually and collectively."

Before Krossover, Newman did what almost every other coach in America does. He broke down game film on his own, giving reports to his team the next day. It's an antiquated, time-consuming process that hasn't changed much in 40 years.

Krossover changed all that. Now, Newman uploads the game footage to his account just like you'd upload a YouTube video. Within 36 hours, each possession from that game is broken down by five key data points: how the possession started, the outcome of that possession, the key player, who had an assist (if anyone), and the location on the court of the key event (made/missed shot, turnover, or foul). From these game breakdowns, Krossover automatically compiles statistics from the game and the entire season. Newman can search by virtually any filter imaginable to parse his team's performance, using many of the same advanced statistics fans peruse on Basketball Reference. For his $1,200, Newman gets something previously reserved for big-time college programs and National Basketball Association teams: an on-demand film analyst and statistician.

Newman is one of 4,000 coaches across the country using Krossover. For now, the company's business is focused on producing film breakdowns and analysis. But as more teams sign up and upload footage, Krossover is realizing they may have something far more valuable than a sports analytics service.

In the past year alone, Krossover turned approximately 100,000 games—mostly basketball and lacrosse—into some 20 million clips, categorized by school, team, player, and all the data points which go into every possession. "That content is valuable to someone," company founder Vasu Kulkarni told VICE Sports in his Chelsea office. "It's valuable to the kid, his teammates, his coaches, probably a lot of his friends at that high school, alums who played at that high school. If we can build a media company that's smart about targeting the people who are actually a part of that community and care about that content, I think you can get a couple thousand views per video." If each of those clips got a mere 50 hits on YouTube, Krossover videos would have one billion views annually. Although it's debatable how much those views are worth on their own, a widely recognized product could lead to other revenue streams, such as selling career highlight reels to athletes and their families. Not to mention, Krossover has only just begun offering football services and has yet to enter the soccer market.

Unlike many startups, Krossover has a profitable business model on which to lean while it experiments with billion-dollar ideas. Although it's a tired internet meme, Kulkarni has a point when he describes Krossover as "Uber, but for sports." The company has replaced an accepted but (arguably) inefficient process with a technically-savvy one reliant on a steady stream of semi-skilled freelancers.

Every day during this past season, Krossover assigned 1,000 game films to approximately 2,000 indexers, as the company calls their film analysts. Indexers range from college kids looking to make a few extra bucks to full-time freelancers. And as is the case with Uber, there are some questions about their compensation.

I spoke to a few indexers under the condition of anonymity to ensure full candor. Most indexers are paid $20 per game. I got a pretty wide range of responses about how long it takes to break down a game. Depending on the quality of footage and the indexer's experience, it can take anywhere from an hour and a half to five hours. Do the math, and it seems that most don't make minimum wage. "I feel that the base pay is really low for the kind of work we do and the training that is required," one indexer studying at a small college told me. "$20 for three to four hours isn't much."

However, not all indexers feel this way. Some are happy to make the tradeoff between lower pay for the freedom to work whenever they want while getting paid to watch sports. A different indexer, who has lots of experience in the professional realm, told me "I'd rather work my own schedule from home for $6.50 an hour than bag groceries or work in customer service for $9."

From Krossover's perspective, the market is filled with people willing and ready to index film at their current rate, which, to them, means the rate is appropriate. "When an indexer starts they're definitely taking more time to breakdown and analyze a game, decreasing that rate," said Josh Waller, the company's head of sales and marketing. "This can include idle time, taking breaks, surfing the internet, etc. We'll train them further to get the average indexing time down to 2-3 hours, making compensation in line with the minimum wage rate."

Kulkarni, the company's founder, paid his way through school at the University of Pennsylvania by flipping a wide array of products—"anything from TVs to tickets"—on eBay for profit. He peppers his speech with business lingo and the occasional phrase like "If we're talking about being capitalists here…" It's hardly surprising he wants to pay indexers as little as possible; an extra five dollars per game would be a $500,000 hit to his company's bottom line.

Perhaps more disconcerting—if potentially more profitable for Kulkarni—is Krossover's expansion into the pre-high school sports market. A travel league of roughly 700 middle school teams has joined Krossover. Just last week, a third grade coach called the company's sales team and asked to have film turned around for the next day so he could scout their opponents in the league playoffs.

The professionalization of youth sports is a growing problem in America, and one Krossover looks poised to exploit. Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute and author of Game On: The All-American Race to Make Champions of Our Children, sounded incredulous that Krossover would offer its services to such young kids: "I would want to know why anyone would want that level of analysis for anyone under the age of 12." At that age, Farrey said, kids aren't in the proper mind or body to be taking sports seriously. "Experts, and the body of research, suggests that at the youth level, focus needs to be on participation and not performance," he said.

I asked Farrey where the responsibility lies. Krossover is selling a product with perfectly legitimate and useful applications to high school and college sports. Is it Krossover's role, as self-identified capitalists, to limit the amount of money to be made? "Even capitalists have responsibilities to be ethical and support overall goals of society," Farrey said. "They're exploiting a marketplace that exploits parents and coaches' beliefs that competition equals development. But it doesn't."

To be sure, third graders don't need to know their true shooting percentage. I asked Evan Kirshner, a sales manager at Krossover, if any age was too young for Krossover's services. After a brief pause, where his eyes wandered around the office from the pop-a-shot to the indoor basketball hoop and the swinging chairs that could be in any tech startup's office, he replied, "No. Because there's no doubt that sports is going in such an analytical direction. Film is such a big part of the game right now. Yeah, I think there are some ages where you don't need to be harping on it too much, but if you could show little Timmy who is five years old, if you just show him his jump shot, video of what he's doing right, what he's doing wrong, I don't think that can hurt, especially at that age I think you are a visual learner."

In essence, Kirshner's reply to Farrey is that coaches can use Krossover responsibly no matter what age. Using Krossover responsibly for their age group is just another way parents put their trust in coaches. Of course, it's rare for any company to admit its product isn't for as wide an audience as possible. Krossover's goal is to make billions, and the more coaches who sign up, the closer it is to the goal.

There's no debate that Krossover is a massively useful tool for coaches that has already proven a viable path to millions in revenue. It's renewal rate is 75 percent, according to Kirshner, and the company is poised to become a household name. Teams that have Krossover win more than teams that don't. These are the company's metrics, and coaches seem to be on board. But what about the children being scouted and judged? "Those are measures of their product," Farrey said. "It's not about the kids anymore."