Why Draft Youth Sports Teams Using an Evaluation App

Before the days of wearable technology, such as fitness trackers, coaches relied on stopwatches to measure speed & reaction time. They then used handwritten logs to monitor these stats manually.

The transition from traditional workout logs to fitness trackers is just one example of how sports technology is changing the game. Other well-known examples include smart equipment, VR training, and even Esports streaming platforms.

However, did you know that sports technology also includes software for athlete evaluations? An app that coaches & evaluators can use to score athletes (at any tryout, clinic, or camp) on their mobile devices, gain access to real-time data, and draft their teams accurately and quickly.

While this may be your first time hearing of an athlete evaluation app in the world of sports technology, we uncover the top 5 benefits of using an app for your youth or professional sports team.

Eliminate the hassle of pen-and-paper forms

With a typical pen-and-paper form, you are stuck entering each score by hand (which takes more time than you think!).

After evaluations, you need to analyze all that data. Mining through each sheet of paper to derive insights would be nearly impossible. So, you must collect all the evaluator’s papers & enter all that data into a spreadsheet before the last task—formatting reports. And, unless you are highly skilled in using Excel, this task causes more headaches and hardships than anything.

With SkillShark, this time-consuming and error-prone process is eliminated:

• Enter scores with a slider button (or opt to type it in) on your mobile device.
• Immediately after evaluations, navigate to the reports section to gain instant player data in a neatly formatted report.
• Easily review data from reports to make accurate & quick drafting decisions.

That’s it!

Collect data from evaluators systematically

Hand-collecting papers from evaluators is a task of the past. A time-consuming, and frankly unnecessary process, coupled with the fact that some evaluation papers can get misplaced when collecting them by hand.

When switching to sports tech, all evaluators’ scores will be stored, and they will be collected on a centralized platform for later review.

No longer will you have to contact each evaluator individually for their scoresheet. Once evaluations are complete, head to the SkillShark web app to see all evaluator’s scores in real-time.

Gain instant access to player data: As mentioned, all scores from any evaluator are stored on SkillShark right when they are entered.

When it comes time for team placement divisions, just select which report you want to run, choose the player(s) you want to assess, and the skill(s) to analyze. Presto! In a matter of minutes, you will have the data at your fingertips, in a report-ready format, to comb through in whichever way you like.

Let’s use an example to really portray how easy it is to gain access to player data.

• The Bobcat Hornets use SkillShark for their evaluations, with each evaluator having the app downloaded on their mobile device.
• During evaluations, evaluators enter athlete scores using a simple slider function.
• Once evaluations are complete, the lead decision maker(s) access the SkillShark web app and navigate to the reports section.
• After choosing a pre-generated report (i.e., player ranking grid or player comparison report in this case), you can quickly identify the top player(s) for each position.

The drafting process can be completed in less than an hour, instead of taking days!

Easily identify the top-skilled players

Detailed yet clear auto-generated reports will show you in minutes the top players are for your team.

Let’s look at an example.

Scenario: You have just conducted your basketball tryouts. After running through the essential drills and scoring players on the SkillShark app, you head over to the reports section and click on the ‘All Scores’ report.

Player ranking grid in SkillShark

You see immediate results of how your players ranked overall. SkillShark averages the scores across all categories evaluated such as dribbling, defense, passing, shooting etc.. to provide an overall score. After spending a bit of time looking over player scores, you are able to identify the top players for your team in minutes.

Note: For instance, if you want to identify the best player for a specific position (i.e., point guard) you can hone in on the passing and dribbling skills.

Cut down hours of evaluation time

Without the hassle of pen-and-paper, you are saving HOURS of time, not to mention administrative labour.

Wrapping Up

Next time you think of sports technology, think of SkillShark. Just like any other sports tech that makes our lives easier, SkillShark’s athlete evaluation app is an all-in-one platform for ANY evaluation for ANY sport.

Score your athletes, access real-time insights, and draft teams quickly & accurately. What can be better than saving time, reducing administrative overhead, and being confident with every player you draft.