RosterBot to Add Chat Feature

RosterBot, the service aimed at streamlining all team organization for youth and recreation leagues, will introduce a chat feature in January, Sports Illustrated recently reported. The feature will allow coaches, players and parents to plan pizza parties, coordinate practice schedules or share a video of the game-winning hit, an attractive tool to an already solid team management service.

“It keeps (communication) in one place, where you can read it at your leisure,” said Bret Hedican, a former NHL player and current San Jose Sharks broadcaster and RosterBot co-owner, to Sports Illustrated. “There are always things to talk about and we want all that info in one spot.”

For those that want to spend more time coaching and less time on the administrative side of the job, RosterBot is a coach’s dream come true. Coaches enter a team roster and can create events, or games, and players or parents can check off which games they will or will not be attending. The player editor lists players’ names, contact information and positions, and a coach can blast an email team-wide with one click. And with the chat feature to come, gone are the reply-all emails that chew up an inbox’s space and grind at the patience of the recipients.

Created in 2008 as an experiment by Ian Bell, RosterBot received over $1 million in seed funding, as it announced earlier this year. Former NHL player Paul Reinhart’s investing group Sora Capital led the financing and was joined by Hedican along with David Tedman, co-founder of Hootsuite. Additionally, RosterBot has partnered with Invoke Labs, which specializes at accelerating growth for startups, as it did with Hootsuite. Tedman also founded Invoke Labs.

Reinhart, a father of three hockey players — including Sam Reinhart, drafted second overall in 2014 by the Buffalo Sabres — told Beta Kit that RosterBot will become essential in all levels of sports.

“It’s a service that I certainly wish existed 15 years ago when my career as a hockey dad began,” Reinhart said.

But RosterBot’s value isn’t just for youth sports. Ever manage an adult rec league team? The biggest pain is collecting league fees from players. RosterBot will handle the bookkeeping. The app won’t count a player as active until they’ve paid their dues. And can you imagine the smack talk with the chat feature? Expletives galore.

RosterBot (free) is available for both iPhone and Android and users can also log in at rosterbot.com to access their accounts.

(Image via RosterBot)