A crowdfunding campaign to raise new investment for the popular GAA app, What’s the Scór is entering its final days having raised €190,000 so far.
Founded by former Galway All-Ireland Hurling medal winner Paul Flaherty, and based in the City of the Tribes, What’s the Scór (WTS) has been downloaded over 135,000 times and is being used by a little over 300 clubs to ‘livescore’ their matches.
Bigger clubs with an active social media manager or team can do a bit to keep fans up to date and the growth in coverage and interest in the AIB Club Championships has created a greater appetite but there are many thousands of games that struggle to get noticed.
Individual enterprises like the popular Dub Match tracker are used by fans in individual counties but Flaherty’s ambition is to focus on local at a national level.
The app still requires club representatives at each game to update the scores on the app but many have members that are tracking the score on devices anyway so this is just an extension of that. The scores are then pushed to the app in real-time.
Revenues to date have come through advertising. The site currently has adverts running from Schweppes and Deliveroo as part of a partnership with one of Ireland’s leading digital publishers.
In the pipeline are plans for a new feed service that will allow broadcasters and media companies to take a scoring feed from WTS. A subscription service is also planned for the second half of 2022.
What’s the Scór launched on the Spark Crowdfunding platform in mid-December, providing an innovative way to allow everyone throughout Ireland to acquire a stake in the company.
The original target was set at €100,000 which was achieved in just 10 days. With demand still high among investors to get involved, the figure has been extended to €200,000 with just over a week left in the campaign.
“It’s been really encouraging how fast we hit our target but even more so, how close we are to doubling it and hitting €200,000,” said Flaherty.
“This investment will be a significant development to our vision of having every game scored in Ireland.”
Sport for Business Perspective
Digital advertising is difficult to monetise at scale in a single market but niche audiences are a powerful plus and if the team can secure a position as the go-to site for club fans and those of colleges and counties, then it could prove a winner to be in on the ground floor with.
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