US sporting governing bodies turn to UK SME for technology to manage operations and provide online safeguarding training

April 29 02:56 2021

Two leading US sporting governing bodies have turned to a UK-based SME for the technology to manage their membership and provide online safeguarding training, as well as a range of other functions.

USA Track & Field, of which approximately 130,000 Americans are membershas adopted a platform developed by UK-based Sport:80 to manage members including state organisations, clubs and individuals (athletes, coaches and officials). Their platform centralises membership registration, qualifications, background screening, SafeSport (online safeguarding training), and a range of other modules and functions. Fifty-six USATF Associations oversee the sport and its more than 3,000 clubs at local level, with thousands of volunteers keeping track and field active at both local and national levels.

“The Sport:80 Platform is allowing us to make significant improvements to the way we manage a number of our services and how we engage with members.” explains Scott Galbreth, Director of Information Technology.

“By centralising our member services, we have been able to aggregate data and access a 360-view of our members. We are also able to create greater levels of engagement because we can offer them a self-service approach to managing their relationship with us. The platform is also scalable, allowing us to work with Sport:80 to introduce new features which continue to improve our digital offering. This is something that we have already take advantage of since we launched the system.”

Sport:80 is also currently onboarding USA Karate to deliver a platform that will enable the governing body to manage a variety of operations, including membership registration, management of belts and grades, qualifications, event registration, SafeSport, and background screening alongside a range of backend administration functions. Research has suggested an estimated 18 million Americans participate in karate or some other form of martial art during the course of a year with Karate one of the most popular martial arts in the country*. The governing body has moved to increase its digital presence anticipating a surge in interest in the sport with it featuring in the Olympics for the first time later this year.

These two additions bring Sport:80’s total roster of sporting governing bodies to 55 worldwide – an increase of 18 since the start of the Covid-pandemic. 

“We offer the first tech platform built specifically for national governing bodies of sport, wherever in the world they may be,” explains CEO Gary Hargraves.

“By the time we get to the end of this year we will have onboarded a minimum of 23 national governing bodies since the start of 2020. This includes the likes of US Bobsled & Skeleton, US Speedskating, USA Curling, USA Judo, USA Surfing, and USA Taekwondo among others. Providing all sports are soon back doing what they do best, and people are allowed to compete and participate againwe will be in a really strong position to grow the business even further. We are continuously developing our digital ecosystem which includes our flagship platform, while also introducing new products to enable our clients to capitalize on the power and value of technology.”

The last, positive year for Sport:80 has seen the total number of governing bodies worldwide that it works with increasing to 55 and the company experiencing year-on-year growth for the sixth consecutive year.

[1] Source: https://martialarts.stackexchange.com/questions/7483/has-anyone-studied-the-demographics-of-martial-arts

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