Former NFL player Patrick Willis, a six-time All-Pro San Francisco 49ers linebacker, signed on to the roster of CoachTube instructors last week. CoachTube is an online channel designed specifically for athletes and coaches. Willis will instruct an on-demand instructional course for linebackers called Build the Beast.
Coachtube already features instruction from elite players and coaches like J.J. Redick, Brad Stevens, James Franklin, and Gus Malzahn. But Wade Floyd, the founder of the platform, raved over the value Willis might bring to the brand. “We are thrilled to bring a player of Patrick Willis’ caliber to our network of expert coaches,” Floyd wrote in an email to SportTechie. “Patrick played the position at the highest level and brings a wealth of expertise that he is eager to convey to help his students achieve their goals.”
The platform features over 1,300 training courses delivered by 500 different coaches, organizations, and governing bodies in 40 different sports. The lessons comprise different mediums, including video, text, and downloadable content.
“When I heard about CoachTube and met Wade I knew it was a perfect fit. I can use their platform to have a far larger reach than having to travel to dozens of football fields myself,” Willis wrote in an email to SportTechie. “Being in Silicon Valley I tend to think a lot about tech and the future and CoachTube is headed in the right direction.”
SportTechie Takeaway
CoachTube is following a market wide shift in the approach of content delivery by owning the distribution channel rather than a more traditional approach of simply creating or owning the content. A similar example would be Peloton, which raised another $550 million in a new funding round this summer. Wade is planning upcoming additions for CoachTube including speech recognition algorithms, 360 video content, and AI detection of an athlete’s movement patterns.