Benefits of A Sports Coaching App

While there is an app for everything these days, it is no different in the world of sports. A sports coaching app has one goal: to make athlete evaluations easier.

Sports organizations, clubs, academies, and scouts can all benefit from a powerful tool to digitally score athletes, analyze player data, and make accurate decisions. Even better, athlete evaluations conducted on a sports coaching app take only a fraction of the time when compared to traditional pen & paper methods.

This blog explores the 5 benefits of a sports coaching app—from reduced evaluation time to improved coach-athlete communication and more. Let's dive in!

1) Reduce Evaluation Time

Time is our greatest asset, yet many coaches still evaluate athletes using pen and paper. Scores are written down, and data is transferred from paper onto a spreadsheet (score by score). Then, coaches have to spend hours setting up reports to analyze player data and make drafting and/or tactical decisions.

With a sports coaching app, coaches and evaluators can score players from a mobile device or tablet. As scores are entered, they are safely secured on the back end and automatically compiled into reports for instant viewing, ranging from player rankings and comparisons to progress reports. Coaches can now make informed decisions in just hours—not days!

2) Improve Coach-Athlete Communication

With a sports coaching app, athlete reports are sent via email to both athletes and their parents. As direct feedback is provided, coaches won't have to spend extra time conducting one-on-one feedback sessions (where information might not get fully processed by the receiving party).

Athlete report cards not only improve the lines of communication between coaches, athletes, and parents, but they also increase transparency. No longer will players need to guess their strengths & weaknesses—individual athlete reports will provide all that information in a visually appealing yet detailed format.

Individual athlete reports on SkillShark

3) Compare Players

Imagine this: You are stuck deciding between three athletes for the final draft pick on your hockey team. On a sports coaching app, you can use the strengths vs. weaknesses report to compare up to 3 players across any metric at a granular level.

In the example below, three hockey players are compared across key metrics in passing, shooting, and skating. By focusing on a few specific metrics, you can accurately determine which athlete would be best suited for the forward position on your team.

Strengths vs Weaknesses Report in SkillShark

4) Make Quick Decisions

Typically, the process of drafting teams goes a little something like this when using pen & paper forms:

1. Athlete scores are manually entered onto a printed form. All printed forms are collected.

2. Scores are transferred one by one from a printed form to an Excel spreadsheet.

3. Charts or graphs must be set up to gather player insights.

The above process is extremely time-consuming, error-prone and laborious.

However, a sports coaching app is an all-in-one platform. A customized evaluation template is shared with evaluators, scores are entered through any mobile device, and reports are automatically generated. As a result, decisions can be made for team placement or tactical planning. Error-free, time-effective, and highly accurate.

5) Customizable Experience

No two coaches have the same strategy & technique, so why should their evaluation experience be the same? With sports coaching apps, everything from evaluation templates to athlete report cards can be customized, meeting your specific coaching needs.

• Evaluation template- Select the skills, metrics, and scoring ranges you would like to include in your template. Customization ensures each template is tailored to your team's specific positions and performance criteria.

• Athlete report cards- Choose what components an athlete sees on their report card when receiving feedback. Add comments, videos, benchmarks, and developmental resources, making each report card as detailed as you would like.

• Player reports- Customize what you see in each real-time report SkillShark offers. Comparing players? Select which players and skills you'd like to focus on. Looking at athlete rankings? Focus on a specific skill or broaden your viewing by looking at overall player rankings.

Wrapping Up

A sports coaching app has all the features in place to provide you with a stress-free and accurate evaluation process. Customize your evaluation experience, access real-time player reports, and, most importantly, save time throughout the evaluation process so you can quickly shift focus to what matters most—coaching.

Looking for an app that does it all? SkillShark is your answer! Book a quick walkthrough with our team to add your first 25 players (at no charge), run a practice evaluation, and see our powerful features in action.