Eagles' Howie Roseman joins the iSport360 team

Howie Roseman, executive vice president of football operations for the Eagles, has taken a new side job as investor and board adviser for iSport360, a leading youth sports feedback platform, the company announced Thursday.

Launched here just last year, "iSport360 is helping kids to be more successful in youth sports while educating parents and coaches, all causes that are dear to me," Roseman said. And the growth potential for youth sports apps is huge, added the 41-year-old NFL executive, with iSport360 "projected to grow 20 times in the next five years. So the decision to get involved was easy for me."

The app is designed to open the lines of communication and keep expectations realistic for youth players, ages 7 to 14, and their optimistic parents, said iSport360 founder, CEO, and parental user Ian Goldberg. The sports-tech project targets "the 70 million sports parents in our country who are frustrated by the lack of player feedback from their kids' coaches. … It's especially upsetting when many are spending thousands of dollars a year on sports. Coaches don't have the time or tools to let every parent know how their child is doing. So, the problem is a huge expectation gap that leads to hyper-stressed parents on the sidelines," he said.

The iSport360 app is a simple mobile platform that helps sports-loving parents, players, and coaches share objectives and actionable feedback in a calm, helpful, nonconfrontational way. Working with national youth sports governing body guidelines for eight (soon to be nine) team sports, the app is building a "defensible database of well-defined youth sports standards and performance data on thousands of young athletes," Goldberg said. That keeps player appraisals and expectations honest.

Likewise, to underscore the play in "play ball," iSport360 has turned to psychologists and educators for app design guidance and participation in an "informative and frequently funny" sports parenting newsletter for the user base, currently nearing 25,000 and growing "by 1,000 per week," said the developer. While free for participants now, starting in the fall, the app will cost users $2.99 a month. iSport360 currently supports soccer, baseball, basketball, softball, ice hockey, lacrosse, cheerleading, and futsal — a form of indoor soccer.

"Howie brings relationships and a level of access in the professional sports community that will help iSport360 scale quickly," Goldberg said. "Especially since we are developing a version of the iSport360 app for football, our ninth team sport. Howie's network will be invaluable to the launch, marketing, and scale of our football product."

To date, the sport-tech company has raised $225,000, and it will soon close a second round of investments that will include "Silicon Valley angels, pro sports personalities, and innovators in the entertainment and media industries," Goldberg said.