Among the talent scouts in Las Vegas this week hunting for rising stars at the National Basketball Association’s summer league, Roe Stimler was trying to get people to sign up for his website. The Israeli entrepreneur runs a social network called SportJobz that hopes to one day do to sports agents what LinkedIn did for business recruitment.
Stimler, a 30-year-old former sports agent, created SportJobz in Tel Aviv with his developer co-founder Lior Broshi more than a year ago. The site invites basketball players to create free profiles with their photos, video, playing statistics and other information. Recruiters from teams around the world can then search the database, sorting by age, height, weight, position and even shoe size.
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The site has attracted interest from international teams, as well as hopeful free agents who failed to make the cut with NBA teams. You won’t find LeBron James’s profile on SportJobz, but more than 3, 000 players, mostly Americans, have created accounts on the site. About 200 teams, mainly from European leagues, use SportJobz to scour for talent options. Diamond Foggia, a team in the Italian league, found Laurence Donelson, an American player, through the site, and signed him to a one-year contract worth $45, 000. Greece’s Kavala B.C.and New Zealand’s Waikato Pistons have also used SportJobz to ink player deals valued between $40, 000 and $50, 000…
For the full story, click here: BLOOMBERG, Nadine Skoczylas—With Mason Levinson and Matthew Kalman
