One Giant Leap to Advance Sports

As we celebrate the wonderful uniqueness of Leap Day 2024 today, we can’t help but wonder where Advance Sports will be on our next Leap Day, February 29, 2028. What lessons will we have learned? What goals will we have reached? Will we have truly disrupted the sports industry recruiting scene? It sure would be nice to just hop in the DeLorean with Michael J. Fox and Christopher Lloyd and find out. 

But until then, my only thought around the answers to all of these questions is that it will highly depend on how we differentiate our firm from what recruitment processes currently exist today. 

So what makes us any different from other well established sports recruiting firms?

For too long, the sports recruiting industry has grappled with several critical issues: the old-school, nepotistic nature of hiring the person the boss tells you to; the ghosting of candidates; and the often long drawn out processes that waste time for both hiring manager and candidate, to name a few. 

Ironically, an industry that, by all accounts, has recently experienced a revolution led by technology and media, sports betting and NIL and is now being infused with private equity, both domestic and abroad, has largely remained stagnant when it comes to how it finds and retains its people. The cold, hard truth is, even as one of the most relationship based industries out there, sports has somewhat stripped the human element from hiring, leaving a void where personal connections and understanding once thrived.

Enter Advance Sports, a visionary new school firm with an old school understanding of what really makes working in this industry so great. We are going to challenge the status quo to be sure, but we’re also going to stick to our philosophy of keeping people at the center of everything we do.  

So how are we going to restore power to the people in the hiring process? Obviously, we know there are a handful of well recognized brands already in the sports recruitment world. We also know there are a lot of skeptics out there about artificial intelligence - not only what it could mean for business, but for the future of how we live our lives. But one of the first most logical adoptions of this technology is how Generative AI can be trained to help bring talent and companies together in ways we’ve never seen before. And the sports industry today is one of the prime targets that will benefit from this talent disruption. 

For our corporate clients, this isn't just about leveraging AI; it's about training AI to serve a more humanistic purpose in a bot-filled and impersonal recruitment cycle. It’s about our unique approach; which ensures that you are presented with a pool of candidates not only defined by their passthrough rates in your applicant tracking systems but also by their alignment with your company's ethos and culture. You know when you say to people, I love my company, but it’s not necessarily for everybody? Yeah, we know that feeling too. And that’s why we believe that cultural fit needs to be at the forefront of any advances in recruitment technology. We want to pioneer a future where the sports industry doesn’t just keep hiring the same old way even though nothing about the sports revolution is the same.

Central to this revolution is also a true "People First" approach when it comes to our candidates. It’s not business jargon (which we typically don’t enjoy) - it’s a philosophy that underscores every aspect of Advance Sports' operations, aligning seamlessly with the current market needs in sports recruiting. It's about recognizing the unique strengths and aspirations of each individual, tailoring career paths accordingly, and providing strategic insights that place talented people at the forefront of their fields. Without the empty promises and ghosting practices that give job hunting in the sports industry such a bad name. We want to stand behind recruitment and career development processes that are efficient, deeply personal, and of course, relationship-driven. And needless to say, that goes for your relationship with us, too.

Advance Sports is pioneering new methods for identifying top talent at any stages of careers. How often do ambitious college students invest so much time and money in getting a sports management degree, only to be told upon graduating they also need 2-3 years relevant experience in order to land their first job? How can a professional 7-10 years into a career who becomes disenchanted with his/her current industry find a role in a new exciting industry without having to take a significant pay cut? How can a seasoned executive finally land the job of his/her dreams even in an organization that does not have a history of hiring diverse candidates at the C-level?  

These are the types of questions facing our team. And we know change is hard. But we believe the sports industry is ready for it. And we believe the active and passive candidates out there are ready for it too. Now is the time to bring them together. By prioritizing human connections and emotional intelligence, underpinned by sophisticated Gen AI technology, Advance Sports is setting a new recruitment standard - a standard where the synergy of technology and human insight creates a more fulfilling, effective, and personalized experience - a recruitment standard deserving of the sports revolution. 

Can AI actually make recruitment more human? We think so. And soon, we think you will too.

This is not just about differentiation; it is a declaration of how we can impact technology with people, and not simply the other way around. We can move toward a future where the sports industry does not merely adapt to change but lead it with purpose, precision, and passion. 

Join us as we Advance Sports.