Looking at The World Cup Through the Eyes of Youth Sports

Here at Pixellot, we’re going to be among the five billion people – stunningly about 60% of the world’s population – who’ll be part of the World Cup experience.

While we’ll be watching and streaming and rooting – we’re not going to tell you for whom! – we’ll also be thinking not just of the grown-ups displaying remarkable prowess, but of the children they once were.

That perspective makes total sense; after all, at Pixellot, our focus is on youth sports. Elite athletes certainly have enough attention. FIFA is a massive media empire. In a single four-year World Cup cycle, they are projected to generate roughly $13 billion in revenue, making it the most lucrative sporting event on Earth.

Those athletes are well-attended by the sports ecosystem. We are not them. We are a media company with an important and specific mission: to capture and distribute the games of those who do it for the love, the passion, and the commitment. Those athletes don’t have agents, they don’t have big endorsement deals.

Which means that when we watch Sadio Mané, we’ll be thinking of the kid who grew up in Bambali, a poor Senegalese village, playing barefoot on dusty fields.

When we watch Cristiano Ronaldo, in our minds’ eye we see the young man who couldn’t afford anything other than hand-me-down boots.
And as our eyes are glued to Riyad Mahrez, we won’t be able to forget his humble urban beginnings, which shaped him and his belief that street football is behind his creative spark and natural, improvisational style.

There are hundreds of powerful stories like this, which remind us that soccer is truly the world’s meritocracy. These inspiring biographical snapshots make us believe in the power of possibility. Dirt fields in Dakar, Rosario, Montevideo, Cairo, or Rio are nothing less than low-cost schools of human development and escapes from poverty.

The value of youth sports runs deeper and more significantly, though, than the path to the elite stage. We all know that only the fortunate few will ever achieve that status. But everyone who has played youth sports, or plays know, recognizes just how significant the activity is.
Whether it’s soccer or any other game that puts young people out the field, the individual, social and cultural role that youth sports plays is monumental. They teach discipline, resiliency, and the capacity to cooperate. They show us how to delay gratification, endure unfairness, and pursue mastery in the face of many obstacles. As the great tennis player Arthur Ashe said, “Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

In a world where childhood obesity is a global problem – where loneliness and anxiety and digital addictions are of epidemic proportions, the importance of what we do at Pixellot has never been greater. We are a company dedicated to enabling every kid to be a hero, to find their individual strengths.

Every month, our platform captures and delivers more than 150,000 games across 35000 courts and fields. That includes more than 19 sports in 80 countries.

You can see that on a high level; the participation numbers are extraordinary. And in fact, youth sports is a $40B industry. But the real stories are happening individually. We enable the full range of our partners – teams, leagues, federations, venues – to turn what otherwise would be fleeting game moments into forever experiences. The joy and jubilitation, the agony and pain. Always viewable and shareable.

So as we sit back and enjoy the games, let’s remember that right outside our door there are kids kicking a soccer ball, shooting hoops, hitting a baseball. Whether or not they ever make it to the World Cup, their cup also runneth over.