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"Since Michael Lewis penned the hit book Moneyball about the Oakland Athletics in 2003, the term has come to be a sports catchall for using advanced stats and analytics to gain a competitive advantage. It's bled over from Major League Baseball to the NBA, and today those are the main pro sports leagues credited with finding new ways to measure players and games. \nThe app GameChanger, however, is bringing Moneyball-style analytics beyond the professional ranks and down to the grassroots level with youth teams. After launching a successful baseball service in 2010, the company is doubling down with a basketball version set to go live next month. \nHere's how GameChanger works: coaches or assistants, instead of using a traditional scorebook, enter stats and plays using the app on their smartphone or tablet. The app stores all the information but doesn't just create an electronic box score \u2014 it also crunches the data to provide those advanced analytics. \nA Little League coach, for example, can see how a player performs against a specific pitcher after their first pitch is a strike. In the basketball version, a high school or middle school coach will be able to access halftime information on what combination of five players proved most effective or see where different players made and missed shots from (see below). \n\n\nThat's all free for teams to use. GameChanger's main revenue stream right now is fan subscriptions to team accounts \u2014 for parents and family in particular. Those subscriptions let fans access box scores and stats, but also can let parents, for example, follow games they can't make in person in real time. As stats-keepers enter information into the app it relays a play-by-play feed narrating the game, much like the popular game-tracker services major websites use for pro sports. \nGameChanger has so far raised $3.5 million in funding and counts a staff of 23 at its Manhattan headquarters. The company was founded by Ted Sullivan, a former minor league baseball player and youth sports director, and has signed up more than 60,000 amateur baseball teams in two years. \nWhile fan subscriptions make up the bulk of GameChanger's revenue stream (it also partners with a small number of prep sports websites to provide stats and content), in-app ads and sponsorships have massive potential for the company. \nWhy? The incredible amounts of localized data it collects. Sullivan says on a typical summer afternoon, with youth baseball games happening across the country, GameChanger collects more statistical data than an entire season of Major League Baseball. And it knows where its teams are and who won and who played well. So a local pizzeria, for example, will know which team won and is in a festive mood, as well as which player-of-the-game to offer a free soda. \nBut, beyond advanced competitive analytics and intriguing advertising potential, Sullivan says GameChanger's detailed stat-mining serves a higher purpose for aspiring athletes.\n\"Our bigger mission,\" he told Mashable, \"is giving coaches and high school players tools and information to help them get better.\" \nThumbnail photo courtesy of iStockphoto, skodonnell\u202C"^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2012/09/21/gamechanger-app-youth-sports/>