Editors’ Note

Peter Frintzilas is the CEO of TeamSnap, an industry-leading sports management and communication platform for amateur sports. Before leading TeamSnap, he was an Executive Partner at Waud Capital Partners, where he focused on growth-oriented investments in the mid-market vertical software space. Prior to joining WCP, he was Senior Vice President and member of the Executive Team at Intralinks, a $300M+ global FinTech solutions provider, serving as both Head of Marketing, Strategy and Innovation and General Manager of its Banking and Securities division, and where he helped to transform and lead the company through three different sale transactions, ultimately culminating in a $1.5 billion sale to SS&C. Before Intralinks, Frintzilas worked in a range of go-to-market and technology roles at Mimeo.com, Yahoo, and RR Donnelley. He serves as a Strategic Advisor to SportsTech company PlayEasy, a Mentor to the Techstars SportsTech Accelerator, and recently sat on the Advisory Board of the Big Data Program at Rutgers University. Frintzilas earned a BS in information management and technology from Syracuse University, an MBA from the NYU Stern School of Business with dual specializations in strategy and corporate finance, and an executive certificate in innovation and strategy from the MIT Sloan School of Business.

Organization Brief

TeamSnap (teamsnap.com) is home to the largest online community for everything youth sports. It is consistently rated the #1 sports management platform by its loyal audience of more than 25 million youth sports coaches, administrators, players, and parents and over 19,000 sports organizations across more than 100 different types of sports and activities. The leading sports-tech company offers brands innovative new ways to connect with passionate youth sports audiences from across the globe, while offering sponsorship opportunities that impact the lives of millions of youth athletes each year and also provide much needed funding to thousands of youth sports organizations. It is currently in high-growth mode, expanding its footprint toward becoming the platform and marketplace for all things youth sports.

What is the history of TeamSnap, and how do you define its mission?

TeamSnap was founded by Dave DuPont in 2009 to solve the pain points he was experiencing as his son’s lacrosse coach. He quickly realized that there was a way to digitize the manual processes needed to run a youth sports organization, like paper-driven registration and phone chains. Since then, TeamSnap has continued to grow and innovate for the past 15 years. We are currently in the pockets of 25 million coaches, administrators, players, and parents across North America and have 19,000 sports organizations using our easy-to-use tools for communication, scheduling, payment collection, registration, and fundraising.

Through all of that growth, our mission has remained the same – to bring the world of youth and amateur sports together by creating connections and unlocking the power of play – we take the work out of play. We believe that when people connect through sports, the world becomes better.

What excited you about the opportunity to lead TeamSnap and made you feel it was the right fit?

Prior to TeamSnap, I was an Executive Partner at private equity firm Waud Capital Partners, where I helped design our investment thesis in the youth sports technology market. At the time, TeamSnap was a founder-led, venture-backed company that experienced tremendous growth through grassroots expansion, but we saw the untapped value of what it could provide for the youth sports ecosystem. When Waud and TeamSnap entered into a strategic partnership in 2021, I stepped in as CEO.

I was excited for the opportunity to step into a leadership position in a growing organization that had a strong foundation with a huge runway for growth, and to combine my passion for sports with my more than 20 years of software operator experience.

Will you highlight TeamSnap’s capabilities and services?

TeamSnap is the leading provider of sports management software and the online community for everything youth sports. Over the past two and a half years, we’ve witnessed accelerated growth, doubling the size of the organization in terms of both revenue and head count, and have invested heavily in our technology. We currently have three offerings: TeamSnap for Business, our SaaS solution with tools that helps over ten thousand small and medium sized businesses operate to provide sports programming for families and athletes; TeamSnap for Teams which simplifies the administrative tasks in managing a sports team; and TeamSnap for Brands which provides specific opportunities for brands to connect with communities, at scale, through digital and on-field activations.

How is technology impacting the way TeamSnap operates?

Every growing technology company must always be on their toes so they can continue to innovate and stay relevant to their users. At TeamSnap, we are constantly creating new value for our community of users and investing in our platform to build a more secure, scalable, and efficient infrastructure to serve them. In addition to focusing on our products, we are always exploring new technologies and services to improve our efficiency as an organization – whether that means automating business practices or using generative AI within our technology.

What was the vision for creating TeamSnap Impact, and what do you see as TeamSnap’s responsibility to be engaged in the communities it serves and to be a force for good in society?

Our vision for TeamSnap Impact goes back to our mission which is to enhance the lives of kids by enabling their participation in sports and to create a world where youth sports are accessible and equitable for all. As a leader in the space, I felt it was our responsibility to give back to the youth sports community and we saw an opportunity to create a mission-based vehicle to give back to the communities we serve and formalize our passion for sport equity.

We created TeamSnap Impact in 2022 as a community impact program aimed at supporting youth sports and leveling the playing field for kids in underserved communities. We are dedicated to helping improve access to quality sports programs for all young athletes regardless of race, gender, religion, or socio-economic status. We do that through providing funding, software, and services to the youth sports community.

As of November 1, 2023, we’ve provided $618,000 to 8,300 children and partnered with 14 organizations including Special Olympics Colorado, Philadelphia Youth Basketball, and Maryland State Youth Soccer Association.

What can be done to create more equitable access to sports?

There are many organizations dedicated to creating more equitable access to sports in different ways. So, in addition to our work through TeamSnap Impact, I have joined the board and executive committee of the PLAY Sports Coalition. This group consists of thousands of stakeholders across the youth sports industry all with the same goal to ensure the youth and local sports industry thrives by providing families, and especially youth in under-resourced communities, with equitable access to play for physical and mental health, and character and leadership development. One way we are doing that is by unlocking state and federal funds for use in youth sports programs and projects.

TeamSnap also works with the Positive Coaching Alliance that creates a positive youth sports environment by delivering more than 20,000 live group workshops to more than 19.2 million youths in 18 nationwide chapters, conducting online courses, and running scholarship and coach award programs.

There seems to be a general increase in interest in youth sports, especially after the updates to Name, Image, and Likeness (NIL). Are you seeing that interest from big brands, and how are you helping them tap into this huge market?

Yes, we are seeing more and more interest in the youth sports space from brands. There have been a lot of changes lately, with NIL and streaming capabilities and this is causing sponsorship dollars to increase, but there is limited space available across professional and collegiate organizations, bringing brands to the youth sports space. It is estimated that parents in the U.S. spend up to $40 billion a year on their kids’ sports activities and six hours a week on the field, so the money and attention is there for brands, and it is something they are now starting to pay attention to.

Over the past year or so we have expanded our services through TeamSnap for Brands to create the leading conduit for brands to reach youth sports families. We’ve created a service that utilizes hyper local targeting but with national scale and coordination. We offer brands direct access to digital and on-field sponsorship opportunities from one source.

What are your priorities for TeamSnap as you look to the future?

I would love to have TeamSnap in the hands of hundreds of millions of families across the globe. In the meantime, we are remaining focused on building innovative and valuable technology products for all participants across the ecosystem of youth sports. The sports tech landscape is going through a secondary evolution, and we are looking at adjacent tech, like video streaming and educational media, to see how they fit into our portfolio. We think that these types of technology will help accelerate our modernization and make a big impact in the market.