MOJO instructional sports videos connect coaches with experts

Ben Sherwood, MOJO Co-Founder and CEO as well as a former executive at Disney, discusses the latest in streaming trends and his growing instructional sports company MOJO.

Video Transcript

SEANA SMITH: Let's talk about the business of streaming and sports. We've got one company that's at the center of this. The name is MOJO. It's a digital coaching platform for youth sports.

So here to talk a little bit more is Ben Sherwood. He's a cofounder and CEO of MOJO. And, Ben, it's great to have you on Yahoo Finance.

Let's just first start big picture and talk about what we're seeing just in terms of the rise of streaming and sports because just this weekend we're going to have the Notre Dame game exclusively broadcasted on Peacock. When you take a look at the shift that we're seeing in consumer trends and what consumers are favoring versus that more traditional TV offering, I guess, what do you think this tells us about the future of sports and the future of sports streaming?

BEN SHERWOOD: Future of sports streaming is really exciting. Consumers have all the power now, and they have all the choice. And I think that increasingly you're going to find streaming as the go-to option as businesses and brands want to go direct to consumer and have that direct relationship with the consumer.

Of course, as a former Disney executive-- I used to run television at the Walt Disney Company. I know that broadcast is still very powerful. So is cable. And there will be many, many years ahead where the biggest audiences will be reached through broadcasting, of course, and through cable. But I really believe that the future belongs direct to the consumer with sports and with brands going right into somebody's home and knowing that consumer and all of the benefits that come from that direct relationship with the consumer.

ADAM SHAPIRO: Ben, I want to pick up on what you just said about TV still commanding the big ad dollar. Why? Because once you've cut the cable, there's just no going back, and it makes no sense. I mean, we know that the ratings system in television is suspect when you compare it to what you can get in digital.

BEN SHERWOOD: Adam, you're not going to get me, an old broadcast guy, to say bad things about broadcasting. I spent most of my career at ABC and the Walt Disney Company, and you've got to remember, broadcasting is still the only way into 125 million homes in the United States. So if you want to get the biggest audience, broadcasting is still the way, despite all the challenges with measurement, despite all the massive trends away from linear or traditional television.

I'm just really excited about the future of streaming and going direct to consumer because I think that that's where you can really build successful businesses with all kinds of subscriptions and with all kinds of additional sells to the consumer. But you're not going to get me to say that broadcasting is dead. People have written the obituaries for broadcasting for a very, very long time, and every decade there's some new incredible statistic or some new record that gets set in broadcasting or some amazing and giant audience gets together for a big television event.

ADAM SHAPIRO: My career was TV. Milt Weiss, former ABC, was the guy who hired me in Cleveland. You may remember him from your days at ABC.

But let's talk about MOJO and this whole, you know, fascination with thousands of hours of premium content being consumed and where you're taking this next.

BEN SHERWOOD: Yeah. MOJO is a coaching app for families with kids involved in youth sports. If you've got kids from 4 to 14 years old on the youth-sports journey, MOJO is an award-winning app that, with the tap of a button, you can coach a whole season even if you've got no experience, a little experience, or even if you've got a lot of experience. And what we set out to solve was the problem in sports where a mom or a dad gets off of work at 5:45, has got to get to the field by 6 o'clock, and they have no idea what to do on the field, or they've got a few ideas but they need expert-backed support, expert-backed resources, trusted resources to do a better job.

And so that's where we come in. With the tap of a button in our app, you get access to the world's best coaching advice and videos-- how to coach a soccer team, how to coach a flag-football team. Coming soon we'll have basketball, and coming soon we'll have baseball and softball.

And so we take all the stress, all the hassle out of coaching a team. We make it available for any parent free of charge. Download the app for free, and any parent can coach those sports a whole season. Best quality, backed by NFL Flag, the official flag-football league of the NFL; backed by FC Barcelona, the world's most popular soccer club, where we want this summer to shoot our content. And so you get these incredible resources.

And then for parents at home, there's all kinds of activities to do with your kids at home and on the weekends at the park and backyard, on the street to help your kids learn and grow. The fundamental insight I had from 12 years of coaching my two boys in sports is that it's too hard. There aren't enough good resources out there. We've got it all in one app to give you the best season you've ever had, the easiest season, stress free, more fun, more memories to last a lifetime for kids between the ages of 4 and 14 and the moms and dads who love them and want to help their dreams come true.

SEANA SMITH: Amen. I wish this was around several years ago when I was a younger soccer player and lacrosse player because I remember I think many of our coaches or some of our coaches, at least, I'm not sure ever really played this sport. So this certainly would have been very valuable to them.

But then just in terms of where this goes next-- because just up until the middle of August, you only offered soccer. Now you have flag football on your platform. What's next?

BEN SHERWOOD: So thanks. I want to just point out that about 80% to 90% of the coaches in youth sports in this age group are moms and dads, and every member of your audience knows that it's kind of a luck of the draw if you end up with a coach who knows the sport or don't. In fact, statistics show that about 3/4 of the parents who volunteer or get "volun-told" to coach the sport don't know anything about the sport they're coaching and had no relevant experience.

And so it's the luck of the draw if you've get a good coach. You might fall in love with the sport. And if you get a bad coach, you drop out. Remember, about 70% to 80% of all the kids who play organized sports drop out by the age of 13, and the number-one reason they give for dropping out is it's not fun.

So MOJO is here to try to fix that. We want to make sports more fun for kids in that age group. We want to develop all these wonderful habits for a lifetime. We want to make it easy and stress free for moms and dads and volunteers to coach or to help their kids at home.

So what's next for us? We're adding new sports-- basketball, baseball, softball. We're adding new technology and new features. We won the Webby Award for 2021 for the best sports app on the internet, and we're planning on adding even more features and functions for parents and for coaches.

And we're just going to try to keep rolling with this huge return to sports that's happening right now. We are seeing record numbers on our app, and we're seeing across the youth-sports business, families can't wait to get back outside after getting shut in by the pandemic. And so we're seeing lots and lots of families getting ready to play sports.

And as I said, a coach can use MOJO for free. You can download the app, and you've got a whole season. Tap of a button, best coaching experience you'll ever have.

SEANA SMITH: Certainly makes a lot of sense. Ben Sherwood, cofounder and CEO of MOJO, thanks so much for taking the time to join us. We wish you all the best.