ZenSports has been improving the world of amateur and recreational sports since they launched earlier this year. Their newest Deals feature being released today continues to expand upon their already robust product.
Local sports facilities are now able to create “Deals” within ZenSports that allow players to purchase membership passes for unlimited play during certain times for a flat yearly, monthly, weekly, or daily fee right from their phone and with their credit card. Players are also able to book one-time reservations as part of this new Deals feature.
Facility owners can set up their preferred method for getting paid, and get paid within minutes of a player making a payment (including weekends and holidays). Facility owners are able to see a dashboard of players that have valid passes and reservations, and even add employees as admins to view the dashboard. Players are also be able to see a list of the passes that they’ve purchased and reservations that they’ve made.
The goal here is to create a drop-dead simple way for amateur/recreational sports players to book passes and reservations at local sports facilities, and to help these facilities (which are often small businesses) generate additional and recurring revenue from targeted, relevant customers. Removing all of the normal friction from this process will be a win-win for everyone involved. ZenSports does the heavy lifting of marketing, payments, and administrative work, while facilities and players can just focus on what they care about most — playing.
Up to this point, ZenSports has built a one-stop-shop mobile app for amateur/recreational sports. The “Play” feature makes it easy for people to find players that are nearby and into the same sports, and with a couple taps of a button, schedule a one-on-one or group play outing. For players that are more competitive, they can find, register, and pay for more organized competitions like leagues, tournaments, pickup games, etc. In addition, ZenSports also has several social features that allow players to live stream themselves playing, and share pictures, videos, and stories that are going on in their sporting lives. There’s also an instant messaging feature where players can message a friend or group of friends to have conversations with. For competition organizers, ZenSports offers capabilities to manage tournament brackets, registrations, match play results, prize money, league scheduling, and team management.
According to Co-Founder & CEO, Mark Thomas, “Our goal has always been to be everything for amateur/recreational sports players. Most products within sports tech are a feature, not a product -- simply focusing on one little component and forcing players to cobble together multiple different products to help them play. With our newest Deals launch today, we’re continuing to move one step closer to envisioning our goal”.
Specifically with the new Deals launch, Mark believes that the next big step has been taken in helping get people out there and play. “ZenSports starts with helping you find others nearby you that are into the same sports that you are, and making it easy to reach out to them and play. But once you find someone to play with, it’s still a pain to find where to play, and to actually book time to go out and play at local facilities. Many facilities have exclusive membership clubs that are difficult to find out about and join, or don’t make walk-ins easy for one reason or another. With ZenSports’ new Deals feature, we go that last mile in getting you into the facility of your choice, at a price that won’t break the bank. Whether you’re an individual, a group of friends, or a company looking to find a new team building adventure, our app is perfect for helping you get out there, play, and have fun in a social environment.”
With ZenSports membership passes, players can become members at local sports facilities for a low flat fee, and get unlimited play during specific times (or anytime) based on the type of pass that is purchased. Players can subscribe to a membership pass with their credit card right from their phone, and even set up payments to be automatically recurring so that they don’t have to worry about re-purchasing the pass after the time interval has expired. Players can even buy membership passes as a gift for other players.
ZenSports’ reservation feature is like OpenTable for sports facilities. Similar to OpenTable, players indicate where they’d like to play, how many people are in their party, and the date, time, and duration of the reservation. When making a reservation, users can add other people to the reservation, so that others can redeem the reservation upon check-in. ZenSports automatically tracks the availability that’s left during a certain date/time slot so that a facility can’t be overbooked.
ZenSports new Deals feature is a huge opportunity for local sports facilities to make additional revenue during slower periods, get help with marketing, and manage all of the administrative tasks that come with membership passes and reservations. “Local businesses generally don’t have the time or huge marketing budgets to effectively attract new players into their facilities,” says Thomas. “With ZenSports, we already have the amateur/rec players in our app and we’re social media marketing experts, so we’re able to drive the kind of new and repeat customers into these businesses that they care about. And because we only take a percentage fee of actual bookings through our app, there are never any up-front marketing costs. We don’t get paid unless the facility gets paid. Our interests are perfectly aligned.”
As part of this launch, ZenSports has partnered with six local pool rooms in the Bay area, in which players can now book passes or reservations at. ZenSports’ goal is to expand to facilities for all sports in the Bay area, such as bowling centers, tennis clubs, golf courses, and even public facilities like basketball courts, softball diamonds, etc.
ZenSports is available for download on both the App Store and Google Play Store, and is headquartered in San Francisco, CA.
