Windermere resident creates app for selling secondhand sports equipment

For some families with children who play organized sports, gearing up their athletes is not cheap.

Sometimes, in fact, the cost is what prevents children from being able to play organized sports.

This realization is what spurred Windermere resident Mike Mason to use his experience with business, hospitality and technology to create the SecondPlay Sports app.

SecondPlay Sports is a mobile app that provides an easy and convenient way for families to buy and sell youth sports equipment. Users simply need to download the mobile app, snap a few photos of the equipment they want to sell, add some details and post. Users also can buy equipment from local families.

Mason’s four daughters grew up playing sports, and he realized just how much gear they had stockpiled when he walked into his garage one day and saw shelves full of it.

“I really struggled trying to figure out how to get the gear into the hands of kids who could use it,” he said. “There’s really nowhere online to get rid of it. I certainly could have donated it, but I really felt like the gear had a story and it’d be cool to have my youngest daughter’s glove — (which she) caught her first fly ball in — put into the hands of another girl who might do the same thing.”

SecondPlay is Mason’s second technology company. His first venture, Zentila, was an award-winning SaaS platform that opened in 2012. When Zentila was recently sold, Mason began looking for another idea to work on. 

As Mason researched more about organized sports and the challenges facing families regarding related expenses, he found that participation nationwide continues to be a challenge — and one of the reasons behind that is cost of equipment. That’s when he had the idea to create a marketplace for used sports equipment.

“The idea was I could potentially impact a family and be able to get their kid into sports,” he said. “You can come into this technology marketplace and possibly gear up your kid for $75. The more research I did, the more I learned of the issues facing school districts and funding and participation fees. There’s a lot that surrounds this idea of cost when you want to get a kid into sports.”

With that finding, SecondPlay Sports morphed into a twofold venture. It’s a place for families to buy and sell used sports equipment, but Mason also designed it to be a place for sports teams and leagues to benefit through use of the app. Those selling their sports equipment can choose to donate a portion or all of their proceeds to a sports team or school system.

“You can go in, select a team to gift all or part of proceeds to, and that team would benefit through the sale in the app,” he said. “That helped to solidify the idea that if we could potentially affect the funding level for a team, maybe the participation fees could go down or be eliminated, if we can do this right.”

The app is free to download and use, and listing an item also is free. Revenue comes from participating organizations and sports teams. Schools, teams and leagues can sign up with SecondPlay and pay an annual license fee, which varies depending on the size of the team. Teams are then able to benefit from the sales in the app — a sort of fundraising option — and can encourage parents, teammates and community members to use the app.

SecondPlay Sports is available on both the App and Google Play stores. 

Search filters in the app help users find the exact equipment for an athlete based on sport, age, size and distance.

Right now, Mason said, he is focusing on spreading word of the app and garnering inventory for users who are interested in buying equipment now. As a special launch offer, interested teams and leagues can sign up to use the app’s fundraising benefit for free through the end of the year.

“For me (the short-term goal is) building up Central Florida and getting to a place where we’re seeing the activity and impact of how SecondPlay is helping families to put their kids in sports,” Mason said. “I believe most families with kids in sports have garages filled with gear. Our hope is we can begin to put more kids into sports, get them off the couch and into sports. That’s really, for me, the overarching goal of SecondPlay Sports.”