Mike Marsh had one of the most high-pressure jobs at Tualatin High School’s baseball field at a game one pleasant May evening. But he didn’t have to bat, nor pitch, nor coach. He didn’t even set foot on the diamond. Marsh was the GameChanger Guy. For those who haven’t been on the sidelines of youth sports lately, GameChanger is an omnipresent app for livestreaming, scorekeeping and team management. The app has changed the viewing experience for millions of youth-sports participants and families since its founding in 2010 for baseball and softball. During a game, users can track each pitch, hit, out, run, steal and more. Anyone interested in a team and granted permission from the coach (since these are minors) can watch the video feed. Afterward, users can send around highlight clips or an artificial-intelligence- generated article recapping the game. Nearly every parent in the stands that day in Tualatin had their phone open to GameChanger to keep track of their seventh- or eighth-grader’s game—the 2023 version of keeping a scorebook with pencil and paper. “It keeps me focused on the game,” Marsh said. “I don’t get to daydream as much.” As a team parent for the Cleveland Youth Baseball and Softball program in Southeast Portland, Marsh’s job was to enter all the data from the game in real time. He sat on a wooden bench behind home plate, his cell phone plugged into a camping battery to ensure it didn’t die in the middle of the game. After all, grandparents across the country — from Salem, Ore., to Florida and North Carolina — were following the game in real time, waiting to see how their middle-school grandsons performed. Marsh’s wife was across town watching their third-grader play baseball live in Southeast Portland while also keeping up with the Tualatin game on the app. “It’s nerve-wracking,” Marsh told Oregon Business between innings, because he could not speak during game play. “I’ve lost the plot a little before.” Periodically, the parent who was GameChanging (it’s a verb now) for the opposing team came over to compare data with Marsh. The umpire and the coach relied on him occasionally, too. “That’s when I get nervous — when the coach comes over,” Marsh said. About 36 million youth-sporting events happened in the U.S. in 2022; GameChanger scored 6 million of them. It is the No. 1-rated youth-sports app in the country and has been BY RACHEL SASLOW | PHOTOS BY JASON E. KAPLAN Cleveland youth player Emmitt Zang using GameChanger in the dugout 37
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