Spotlight: New App iPlayMe2 Is Making Inroads

iPlayMe2 turbo-charging player <> club engagement

Author

Rich Neher
August 30, 2024

During these last couple of years, I’ve become acquainted with Paul Stratta, CEO and co-founder of iPlayMe2, an innovative app-centric platform for racquet sports clubs and facilities, and of course their players. Based in both NYC and Brussels, Belgium, iPlayMe2 straddles both continents where racquet and paddle sports are booming.

Paul Stratta

Paul’s near singular obsession is helping a facility’s players get games and hits more easily, and more often, connecting members with each other across the club’s eco-system, while driving more participation in a club’s events, tournaments, internal competitions, and open play opportunities.  iPlayMe2 doesn’t “do” court booking; there are plenty of options already installed in the market.

Paul highlighted to me that iPlayMe2 sits comfortably alongside a facility’s court booking module, as it focuses on players using the iPlayMe2 app to engage with each other, and with the club, vis-à-vis events built around actually setting up play opportunities and social connections. The latter is the real reason why members stay active, and draw more members to the club or facility.

Paul shared with me that his current customer base includes several dozen racquet and paddle-sports clubs and facilities across North America, and continental Europe. Already supporting eleven (11) racquet industry sports, his vision is that participation in any of a facility’s racquet or paddle sports is a win-win. Some recent additions to the iPlayMe2 family of partners are: the Tampa Yacht & Country Club, Longboat Key Club, the Jack Kramer Club, and the Los Angeles Tennis Club. Interestingly, iPlayMe2 is just as useful for public tennis centers, such as the Prospect Park Tennis Center, in Brooklyn, NY.

What’s unique about iPlayMe2 is that the clubs can push much of the work to the member-players themselves. Internal tournaments and competitions can be of the self-scheduling variety, empowering the participants to set up when to play their match, enter the scores, and define winners and losers, all via the player app. Brackets and league standings get automatically updated, with notifications triggered to advise on next-round opponents. Invited players can even “counter-propose” other time slots, directly through the app, allowing players to quickly sync dates/times and court availability. Optionally, facilities can run those friendly competitive events “old school”, by organizing match programming and entering the scores themselves. Players would then only show up and compete.

Replacing WhatsApp cliques, or exclusive text/SMS-based group circles, is another key focus of iPlayMe2.  The current version includes smart in-app messaging, and club <> member messaging channels, allowing inclusive communication across a club’s eco-system, to facilitate game arranging, finding a missing 4th , replacement player, last-minute player changes, etc.

iPlayMe2 Logo

Unlike WhatsApp or text-based group chats, iPlayMe2 allows game-finding “widgets” within the message channel itself, which are calibrated to display those “needing a player” to the appropriate type of player (by gender, age range, playing ability (rating), etc.), allowing for quick acceptances, without long chains of e-mails and text messages. Seems quite innovative, and useful.

Overall, I’m impressed with iPlayMe2’s dual obsession with player engagement and a club’s maximization of their play activities. iPlayMe2 built its player app to be as easy as ordering an Uber... tap, swipe, and click. Its club portal is equally intuitive, requiring only the fewest of tutorials to start being effective. I look forward to seeing the company’s further contributions toward optimizing a facility’s engagement of its player members and keeping more of them fully engaged and playing more often, and more easily. That also happens to be iPlayMe2’s motto. I like it.