PlugSports

Plug gives athletes the power to represent themselves by uploading their skills to a platform where coaches can scout and recruit them. But even more so, athletes and coaches can connect in a way that is familiar and NCAA compliant. The overall design of Plug is an open platform with three primary users; athletes, independent recruiters, and Universities. Each user has the opportunity to upgrade their user account to give them more features that will aid in the efficiency of their recruiting strategy. Digital Portfolio: The Digital Portfolio is similar to a profile on popular social media platforms. Both Athletes and Recruiters can build their Digital Portfolio by adding videos that showcase their skills, highlights, training, and training facilities. Users on Plug can view the Digital Portfolio to learn more about recruiters and athletes. Player Card: The Player Card is similar to an athlete’s resume. It describes the athlete by their characteristics, skills, and experiences preferred by recruiters during the recruitment process. Athletes can build their profile to include these specific characteristics that recruiters can search. Some essential characteristics that all athletes will automatically have after signing up are their sport, position, height, gender, grade, age, school, graduation year, city, state, and zip code. However, an athlete can build their profile by adding optional characteristics like their GPA and the sports organizations that they are associated with. Search Filters: Search Filters provides an efficient way for recruiters to find ideal players by searching for exact characteristics. For example, a soccer coach could use Plug to find a female soccer player who plays as a center mid, age is 18, currently living in San Jose, California, with a GPA of 3.5. In this example, our soccer coach will be presented with all of the matching athletes and their Digital Portfolios. Discover Page: The Discover page showcases all of the users on Plug who post to a particular sport. Those posts are categorized in chronological order by users near you and users who have the most trending posts within that sport. The Discover page creates inherent value in building relationships between users on Plug and a more natural way to scout talent near you and even across the nation. Communication: Is a feature that allows communication between users on Plug to explore all of their recruitment opportunities. NCAA Protection: Is a feature offered that can guide coaches when reaching out to athletes. This feature benefits athletic departments and organizations by ensuring that recruiters comply with NCAA rules regarding the recruitment process. This feature makes the recruitment process more efficient and compliant. Who Viewed Your Profile: Is a feature that gives users the ability to see who has visited their profile page. It benefits athletes by showing them the recruiters on Plug that are interested in their talents and skills.