GoodRec, the recreational sports marketplace founded by Lewis Black and Midori Koide in October 2020, has grown to 1 million players across 68 cities and organized more than 65,000 games in 2025. The GoodRec recreational sports platform is converting a massive participation gap into a scalable business inside a $30 billion recreation industry.
Key Takeaways
- GoodRec reports 1 million players across 68 cities, with over 65,000 games organized in 2025
- 73% of Americans played sports as youth, but only 25% of adults still participate, per Robert Wood Johnson Foundation data
- The global sports technology market hit $29.74 billion in 2024 and is projected to reach $68.70 billion by 2030
- GoodRec works with hundreds of facility owners to maximize utilization of underused venues
- The company reported positive cash flow from its very first game and secured pre-seed funding in 2021
From Backpacks as Goals to 68 Cities
GoodRec launched during the COVID-19 pandemic with a setup that was anything but polished: makeshift goals fashioned from backpacks on a Brooklyn field. Black, who holds a mathematics degree from the University of Manchester, built the platform to solve a simple problem. “We wanted a more flexible and instant way to play sports. So we built the GoodRec app,” he said.
The company bootstrapped early growth by collecting advance payments from users to fund field reservations and equipment. That pre-payment model produced positive cash flow from the first game. Pre-seed funding followed in 2021.
Starting with soccer, GoodRec expanded into basketball and volleyball. The team targeted urban markets with populations exceeding 500,000 to ensure sufficient user density. Some hosts now see their scheduled games fill weeks in advance.
The Participation Gap Driving Demand
The core market opportunity sits in a stark drop-off. According to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, 73% of Americans played sports during their youth. Yet only 25% of adults currently participate. Among Americans aged 18 to 49, that represents roughly 130 million potential customers, three-quarters of whom have stopped playing entirely.
GoodRec’s marketplace model attacks the friction that keeps lapsed players on the sideline: finding a game, organizing teams, booking a field, and handling equipment. By bundling all of that into a single transaction, the platform turns casual intent into a completed booking.
A Facility Utilization Play for Operators
The platform’s relationship with venue owners is where the model intersects most directly with sports facility economics. “We work with hundreds of facility owners to keep their facilities closer to fully utilized,” Black said.
For facility operators, this is a demand-generation channel. GoodRec fills off-peak inventory by aggregating individual players into organized games, rather than requiring a team or league to book a block of time. That approach is directly relevant for multi-sport facilities with underused capacity.
GoodRec Recreational Sports Platform for Youth Sports Operators
Youth sports operators running multi-sport complexes, fieldhouses, or community recreation centers should examine GoodRec’s facility utilization model directly. The same coordination friction that suppresses adult participation also limits venue revenue during off-peak hours. A marketplace that matches individual players to open time slots offers a concrete mechanism for monetizing capacity that currently sits empty. Club directors and facility investors can treat adult recreational programming, enabled by marketplace tools, as an incremental revenue layer on top of existing youth programming infrastructure. directly.
Source: Benzinga
IMAGE: GOODREC
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