HOW LEAGUES USE HOOPER
Drive engagement and deliver personalized feedback to your players with Hooper, the first app to use AI to track stats and generate highlights clips with just a phone.
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Almost all the leagues we’ve worked with talked to share one challenge in common.
How can they bring the experience of being a basketball professional to its members?
In most cities, recreational basketball players have options - there are multiple leagues with similar pricing, schedules, and offerings. So how does a player choose between them? And how does a league differentiate itself from its competitors?
From conversations with league directors, we learned it comes down to building an experience. People playing competitive basketball want to feel like they are playing in the NBA, and all the structure and huzzah that comes with it.
Today, leagues do a good job of following through on part of that promise - most leagues have referees, jerseys, and a playoffs post-season to crown a champion. But in a lot of cases, the analogy with the NBA stops there. People band together to play a league game, win or lose, and then once the game clock hits 0, they go home. That’s the end of their experience.
It’s about the feeling
We think there’s a lot of room to grow on this league experience. Every move a basketball pro makes is clipped into a highlight on ESPN. Every celly is trending on Youtube. There are narratives between players and teams that develop over the course of a season. These are things that make basketball prime time must-see tv.
Why can’t we have that same energy in rec leagues? Well, in fact, it has been done. The Brodie League does a great job of crafting this kind of experience. Games are recorded, players are interviewed, there are MVP awards, and matchup & stats are collected throughout a season.
While the Brodie League has the resources to curate a great experience, doing this everywhere can be hard to scale. Hiring videographers, stats keepers, and more can add up. As an independent league, how do you replicate what Brodie has done?
How Hooper delivers the pro experience
One of our goals with the Hooper app is to try to bring that pro experience everywhere. You can record half court and full court games in the app, and every game comes with a report of box scores and shot charts for all the players. But it’s not just about numbers. Every make is converted to a vertical highlight that you can compile together into mixtapes to share with their your friends. And for those debatable foul calls, the full video with downtime removed lets you replay an hour of game footage in 10 minutes to catch the should of, could of, and would ofs.
Pro Group features
For leagues in particular, where Hooper shines is the groups feature. Basketball at its core is a social sport. We think the best league experience is a social one as well.
Hooper groups allow organizers to schedule games, organize payments, and keep track of teams and who’s playing who. But beyond the logistics, Hooper groups is a place for basketball discourse and debate. Group members can chat about the latest game, strategize for the next one, share team mixtapes, and compare who’s been on a hot streak and who’s been shooting bricks.
Highlights and stats are compiled for every group member. These can be used to anoint MVPs, acknowledge most improved players, and see who’s in the leaderboard for highest field goal percentages.
Spotlight: Courtsight League
Courtsight is a Canadian basketball league that was an early adopter of integrating Hooper into their logistics and process. Courtsight’s games were recorded on Hooper, and stats and highlights were automatically created for each player and team. Going forward, Hooper is excited to build more of the ideal league experience with Courtsight, and bring the pro feeling to every player.
