OpenSports Sports Event Management Platform

OpenSports is a sports‑community and event management platform with a companion mobile app designed to help players, organizers, and clubs find and run pickup games, leagues, tournaments, classes, and memberships in one place. It’s used by recreational athletes and sports group organizers around the world to connect, schedule play, and manage activities.

Tech Stack: React Native, Expo, Node.js, WebSocket, FCM, Firebase, Redis, PostgreSQL, Redis, Stripe

OpenSports was created to solve a real problem in community sports: players struggled to find, join, and organize pickup games and leagues, and organizers were bogged down with manual scheduling, attendance tracking, payments, and communication. Traditional platforms like Meetup were not designed for sports-specific needs, which caused frustration among both organizers and participants.

The goal was to build an all-in-one sports platform that could let players discover and join sports activities, help organizers create and manage events, teams, leagues, and tournaments, and automate event logistics including waitlists, registrations, payments, and messaging. This required replacing inefficient tools and manual processes with an intuitive mobile and web solution.

To achieve this, the team developed the OpenSports app and platform with event discovery, player profiles, scheduling, and communication features, making it easy to run pickup games, multi-week classes, and competitive leagues. They added backend tools for organizers to create events, manage attendance and waitlists, and process payments with integrated options like Apple Pay and Google Pay. The platform was improved iteratively based on user feedback, including a major redesign in 2019 focused on clarity, navigation, and usability for both players and hosts. The team supported real local success stories, such as pickleball club organizers, where the platform replaced older tools and made administrative work easier while sustaining community growth.

Organizers were able to fill events faster, reduce manual administrative work, and simplify online payments, improving the experience for both hosts and players. Users found it easier to discover and RSVP for games and leagues, with clearer communications and notifications. Some organizers reported rapid rebuilding and growth of member communities after switching, showing the app’s effectiveness in deepening engagement and operational simplicity. OpenSports is now used globally by thousands of organizers and facilities to manage sports activities with automation and better workflows.