Sports Thread Announces Version 3.0 -- First Social Media App To Combine Athlete Self-Promotion And Evaluation With Youth Sports Communications

INDIANAPOLIS and DENVER, Jan. 4, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Sports Thread today announced Sports Thread 3.0, a social media-based, self-promotion and communications software platform for the 40 million youth athletes in the United States.

The company made the announcement at the 74th annual American Baseball Coaches Association (ABCA) annual convention being held in Indianapolis Jan. 4-7, with more than 6,000 baseball coaches and 330 exhibiting companies in attendance. (The company is exhibiting at the ABCA Trade Show in Booth 213.)

With version 3.0, available in the first quarter of 2018, Sports Thread expands its services beyond high school athletes pursuing college scholarships and college coaches looking to identify potential players to tournament, club and league organizers that need a highly engaging communications platform for event staff, players, coaches, parents, and fans.

Student athletes typically use a half-dozen software applications to manage their participation and promotion at tournament events. These include messaging apps, team websites for tournament/game announcements, coach-to-player communications, social media posts for self-promotion, and college research.  Sports Thread consolidates all these functions in one plug-and-play platform.

The Sports Thread 3.0 platform enables tournament, club and league organizations to employ an all-in-one software solution that provides push notifications, group messaging and a "Digital Coaches Book", which makes it easier for college coaches and scouts to evaluate student athletes at tournament events. Additionally, student athletes can create and promote their personal player profile -- Athletic Digital Identitytm  -- to coaches and colleges nationwide.   

POWERED BY SPORTS THREAD

Sports Thread also announced it will become the Official Communications Provider for several tournament organizations, most notably the Nations Baseball Tournament Association LLC, a leading youth baseball organization that sponsors hundreds of baseball tournaments nationwide for players ages 5-22 (the company is exhibiting at the ABCA Trade Show in Booth 250). The Nations Baseball website features the most complete roster system and team classification system in the country. Nations Baseball and Sports Thread together can offer the unprecedented availability to every athlete playing in the Nations Baseball organization the opportunity to fulfill the dream of playing at the next level. Additionally, Sports Thread announced partnerships with North American Youth Sports, Heart of Texas Premier Tournaments, and Wisconsin Sports Services. Through these partnerships and others, Sports Thread is contracted to add an additional 200,000 users to its platform in 2018.

"Sports Thread 3.0 integrates software that meets the needs of everyone involved in the youth sports market under one inclusive platform," said Sean Leary, founder and CEO of Sports Thread and a former Division I pitcher. "We are providing organizations with a software solution that will not only streamline their event communications, but also make it easier for college coaches to discover and evaluate tournament participants. Athletes at events 'Powered by Sports Thread' will receive more focused evaluation by coaches in attendance and exponentially increase the amount of exposure they receive through the ability to broadcast their performance to coaches nationwide."

Ron Mathis, Partner and Manager of Nations Baseball and former MLB pitcher for the Houston Astros, said: "Nations Baseball and Sports Thread share a set of core values, including putting student athletes first and empowering them to take control of their own athletic destiny. Most athletes play tournament baseball because they are determined to play at the next level. Together, Nations Baseball and Sports Thread will help make that possible."

SPORTS THREAD 3.0 PRODUCT FEATURES

• Sports Thread Communications ? Tournament, club and league entities will be able to harness the power of Sports Thread's communications platform by tapping into its push and SMS notification systems to instantly update participating athletes, coaches, parents and fans. Sports Thread's partners will be provided a state-of-the-art communications framework to simultaneously update all their event participants as well as segment messaging to teams, age groups, and user types.
• Digital Coaches Book ? Partner companies of Sports Thread will not only benefit from its communications platform but will also provide the most advanced digital indexing and evaluation tool for the athletes at their events on the market today. Athletes at tournaments "Powered by Sports Thread" all receive an Athletic Digital Identitytm (profile page). All participants at an event "Powered by Sports Thread" will be searchable and attributed to that event so that any college coach in attendance will be able to easily find that athlete and use their Athletic Digital Identitytm for further evaluation in addition to evaluating them in person. College coaches will be able to initiate Sports Thread Chat with any athlete of interest, beginning the recruiting process via direct message.
• Coaches View ? College coaches can access "Coaches View", an indexed list of every athlete in their sport, complete with filters to refine results. Coaches can review athletes in their sport, then click through to their Athletic Digital Identitytm for further evaluation, and contact them via Sports Thread Chat.

ABOUT SPORTS THREAD

Sports Thread is a purpose-driven company based in Denver, Colorado that offers a social media based, self-promotion, communications and educational platform for the nearly 40 million youth athletes in the United States regardless of their individual skill level, socioeconomic status or geographic location. Tournament, league and club organizations also use Sports Thread to streamline communications between players, coaches, parents, and fans.

Contacts:
Sports Thread 
Sean Leary, CEO, Founder 
(720) 544-3828 
[email protected]
Press and Influencers 
Cathy Caplener 
(310) 428-7476 
[email protected]  

Note to Editors - An electronic press kit is available at press.sportsthread.com. Demo high school athlete accounts may be accessed by logging in at http://www.sportsthread.com or via the App with [email protected] and [email protected]. The password is sportsthread. Media accounts will be available by e-mail requests to [email protected].

SOURCE Sports Thread