Several little league practices and bus-stop discussions later, Jacobs and Lerner decided to fill the need they had discovered for a compelling way to teach kids about sports.
What they came up with, FunGoPlay, combines an online sports game world with physical sporting equipment that registers physical play and rewards it with special access codes. The “online sports theme park” will launch this Spring.
The model hits a sweet spot on several levels. Almost 20% of children in the United States are obese, and video games — an increasingl y favored activity — have long been blamed for increasing this percentage. Paradoxically, at the same time, childhood participation in sports is at an all-time high.
If FunGoPlay catches on, it will be both a video game that effectively encourages outdoor, active play and a way to teach sports basics that is compelling to young children — both factors that are likely to entice parents to open their wallets.
A World of Sports That Speaks to Kids
When Jacobs and Lerner first had the idea, they took a trip to the sports section of Barnes and Noble to check out their competition for teaching kids between 6 and 11 years old about sports. They didn’t really find any.
"It's a huge business to teach coaches how to coach, but there was nothing that really spoke to kids," Lerner says.
In order to create that appeal, the team went to work on a “sports theme park.” The park has multiple games i nvolving soccer, basketball,...
