BigTeams, one of the fastest growing, easy to use and most comprehensive website and software systems for high school athletics programs, today announced the company has closed on a $5 million Series B raise and has purchased one of the largest high school scheduling software providers, Schedule Star, from Gannett. The acquisition of Schedule Star and its thousands of school clients enables BigTeams to offer a comprehensive scheduling, school-branded website and fundraising product to high school athletics directors for the first time.
'The acquisition of Schedule Star, one of the iconic brands in high school sports for more than half a century, along with this additional funding, puts BigTeams in great position to accelerate our business in 2015,' BigTeams CEO Clay Walker said. 'We are looking forward to serving an even larger and deeper list of schools with our combined product offering. In just a short time we have seen great interest from both high school athletics administrators in the BigTeams web platform and content management system. Now, we will have an even more robust package to offer high school athletics programs.
BigTeams has experienced rapid growth since Walker joined the organization in March 2014 and now works with schools in 43 states and Canada. The McLean, VA based group is the official software of The National Federation of High Schools (NFHS) with sites that feature rosters, scores, game articles, photos, school merchandise and statistics for athletic departments across the country. The new BigTeams mobile responsive platform launched in September and the company is currently experiencing record traffic. Advertising inventory has more than tripled year-over-year with marketing and promotional deals that include The National Guard and Anthem, among others.
Schedule Star was founded in 1964 to provide scheduling services to high schools across the country. The enterprise was acquired by Gannett in 2007 and provides software for schools to schedule activities, practices, games and transportation. The offering also allows multiple schools in a league to coordinate scheduling and share scheduling data online.
The Series B funding was led by SWaN & Legend Venture Partners and Capital Sports Ventures, LLC. SWaN & Legend is based in Leesburg, VA and managed by partners Fred Schaufeld, David Bosserman, Todd Klein and Tony Nader.
Capital Sports Ventures, located in Arlington, VA is led by CEO Greg Bibb, former Executive Vice President of Business Operations for the Washington Wizards and Chief Operating Officer of the Washington Mystics. Bibb and Schaufeld launched CSV in January 2013.
About BigTeams
BigTeams develops the most advanced high school athletic websites and software available based on the belief the less time an athletic director has to spend disseminating information, raising funds and creating a website, the more time he or she has to spend with coaches and students. The BigTeams goal is to build and support powerful school-branded websites for high school athletics programs that help the school with administrative work, fundraising and generate community engagement. The BigTeams product features industry-leading administrative tools, including scheduling, online athlete registration and booster volunteer management systems. The platform also helps high school athletics programs generate revenue through features such as local online ad sales, photo sales, e-commerce sales, mobile app sales and more.
About Schedule Star LLC
Schedule Star, the leader in high school athletic scheduling, has been trusted by thousands of athletic departments across the country since 1964. For 50 years Schedule Star has provided a complete solution for managing team schedules, facilities, transportation, eligibility, rosters, officials, game help, contracts, awards, certificates, scores, stats and more while keeping the schools' community up-to-date with real time schedules, detailed information and alerts of event changes.
About Capital Sports Ventures (CSV)
Capital Sports Ventures is a sports and lifestyle properties accelerator that advises, manages and provides capital for sports and lifestyle properties and events. Along with actively investing in the sports and lifestyle industry, CSV offers advisory services to a select number of clients. CSV is a member of the SWaN & Legend Fund 2, LP portfolio.
About SWaN & Legend Venture Partners
SWaN & Legend Venture Partners invest in emerging brands that earn consumer passions and companies that support those brands, including: Anonymous Content, Capital Sports Ventures, CustomInk, José Andrés' ThinkFoodGroup, KIND Healthy Snacks, La Lumiere, NEW Asurion, Optoro, OrderGroove, Quad Learning, Social Radar, Tango Card and the Washington Capitals, Mystics, Nationals and Wizards. http://www.swanandlegend.com.