Former Tech specialist launches interesting venture

Several years ago, Jimmy Kibble started his own web site design company, and now the former Tech punter is putting his entrepreneurial skills to use again, kicking around a new venture that figures to intrigue high school, college and professional athletes, as well as coaches, from around the globe.

Kibble, who lives in northern Virginia, and a few others have started a company called Beyond Sports, LLC, with the goal being to help athletes gain exposure to get them to the next level in their respective careers. They help high school athletes get recruited by colleges, help college athletes get scouted by professional teams in various pro leagues, and help professional athletes to secure employment with other professional teams and organizations.

And they do this by using the Internet.

“Think of us as the Facebook or MySpace to all athletes,” Kibble said. “We allow them to get recruited and scouted by anyone, and it’s exclusive to us.”

Essentially, the way this works is athletes upload all their vital information, including video, to the Beyond Sports Network and they put together individual profiles, which they post on their online site, www.beyondsportsnetwork.com. Then coaches, scouts, recruiters, etc. can sign up for free, go to the site and look at this information, and then determine on their own if they might be interested in taking a closer look at a certain athlete. Coaches and others in the athletics realm can also send their information to Beyond Sports in hopes of getting out information about themselves for possible future job employment.

Kibble and his group do their best to monitor the information that goes on the site, and they limit the access of the every-day fan to the site. People can go in and look at the video and some of the information, but they can’t sign up for the site and log in.

“We’re not a fan web site,” Kibble said. “Our goal is to provide athletes and coaches a secure place to go recruit and coach and network.”

 So far, in the three months since Kibble launched the site, more than 1,200 athletes and coaches from all over the world have signed up and sent in information. And this isn’t exclusive to the sport of football – one can be a basketball player, rugby player, soccer player or pretty much any type of player.

The best part about this from the athlete’s perspective is that they can get this information out there for free. Kibble’s company charges nothing to do this. So how does he make money?

“We’re going to be running Combines for leagues,” he said. “We’re going to have our first football Combine on April 13^th at James Madison University. This will allow them to be seen by professional level coaches, and we’re going to take all their Combine stats and we’re going to digitally film their skills sessions and upload them to their Beyond Sports profiles, so that coaches who can’t be there at least can evaluate based off the profile.

“There’s going to be a charge for that ($85) – and that’s cheaper than most Combines – and then we’re going to charge for advertising on our site. Basically we don’t want this to be a backbreaker for coaches or players. It’s all about giving them a chance.”

Kibble knows the challenges these athletes face. He bounced around with various leagues, including NFL Europe, in hopes of landing with an NFL squad. Once he gave up pursuit of that, he and a friend – Steve Smith, who is Sr. Director of Team & Partnership Development for the arenafootball2 League [af2] – hatched the idea of a recruiting system and it spawned into Beyond Sports.

And the ideas keep coming. Kibble and his team recently signed a three-year partnership agreement with the af2 league. The af2 network, which resides within the Beyond Sports Network, will allow the league to compile stats and a live database on its players, while also researching and recruiting new talent from college to the free agent pools and assisting active players on potentially moving up. The af2 coaches will have exclusive access to every player and that player’s data.

“We’re in conversations with other leagues, too,” Kibble said. “This is just a start. Our goal is eventually to join up with the big ones like the NCAA and the NFL.

“We’re trying to do something here that benefits everyone. We want this to make sense for everyone involved. We’re trying to create a new standard for the way coaches and athletes interact, and so far, we haven’t come across anyone who does think this is a good idea.”