The fourth annual Ballin’ For Charity basketball tournament took place on Sunday at Basketball City. Teams from the startup and tech communities competed in two separate divisions, vying for the recreational & competitive crowns.

When the dust settled, NYC Social cut down the nets* as the recreational division champions and in the process raised $1,000 for the Volo City Kids Foundation.

*No nets were harmed in the 2019 Ballin’ For Charity Tournament.

Before the balls started bouncing, NYC Social shared with us why they selected Volo City Kids as their charity of choice. “All children should have the opportunity to participate in sports. We are donating to Volo City to support their mission of removing barriers to participation so that children, especially those in inner cities or those from low-income families, can learn, grow, and gain from the physical, emotional, and social benefits that playing sports provides,” said NYC Social.

Congratulations to ⁦@NYCSocialSports⁩ on their #BallinForCharity championship!! That’s 1K for Volo City Kids!! 🏀 🏆 🏀 pic.twitter.com/sQJ1NpeBSl

— LeagueApps (@leagueapps) April 14, 2019

Level Up Long Island used its size to muscle their way to the top of the competitive division mountain top. Their title netted Dan’s Plan a check for $1,500. Dans Plan Inc. is a nonprofit organization designed to spread awareness for suicide prevention and the disease of addiction.

Congratulations to ⁦⁦@levelup_li⁩ on their #BallinForCharity championship!! That’s $1,500 for Dan’s Plan!! 🏀 🏆 🏀 pic.twitter.com/perBC2VgKz

— LeagueApps (@leagueapps) April 14, 2019

Aside from the two winning teams, Ballin’ For Charity notched a major victory for Fundplay. This year’s B4C event raised over $25,000, pushing its historic efforts over the $100,000 mark. Every dollar raised by B4C powers Fundplay initiatives which include software grants, cash donations, volunteer training, and support.

This year’s tournament was co-chaired by Joanna Johnson and Brian Koffler. “This year’s Ballin’ for Charity was a great success. We brought together hundreds of people from the NYC tech community, all while raising money for charity,” said Johnson. The event also served as an opportunity for LeagueApps to step into the shoes of its customers by running a complex tournament at a large venue. “You quickly learn to delegate because there are so many moving parts involved in running a tournament like this,” said Koffler.

This year’s B4C also featured a few new bells and whistles. Harrison Forman, LeaugeApps’ Platform Partnership Manager, secured Pixellot as our very first live-streaming provider. Pixellot is an automated sports production company that enables live-streaming of professional and amateur sports organizations via an unmanned multi-camera system. “We used the Pixellot automated cameras for the championship game at this year’s Ballin’ For Charity. Hundreds tuned in to LeagueApps YouTube page to catch Bleacher Report taking on NYC Social in the championship game. At LeagueApps, we’ll continue to seize opportunities to bring innovation into all parts of our company,” said Forman.

In addition to Pixellot, we paired up with a few other sport-tech companies: MyStatsOnline and Go4Ellis. MyStatsOnline was a way to test out, in real-time, how stat tracking can be used at tournaments. And you can’t forget about player safety at a large sporting event. We partnered up with Go4Ellis to book a certified Athletic Trainer. He kept our players healthy throughout the day and gave us peace-of-mind, knowing we had a medical professional on-site.

Another benefit of running Ballin’ for Charity is the opportunity it provides the LeagueApps team to test out our new technology. We utilized LeagueApps registration to collect payments from registered teams and donations from generous donors. This year we tested some newly innovated technologies that not only helped make B4C a great experience but also helped train our team and prepare us to roll new technologies out to our partners.

This year we launched two branded mobile apps for the participants of the tournaments. Branded Participant Apps were a new offering that LeagueApps launched in late 2018.  As part of Ballin’ for Charity, we used the iOS and Android apps to publish the tournament schedule, contact volunteers, and send important notifications to staff and players throughout the day. Our Product team was able to log numerous pieces of feedback that we’re already working on to make our Branded Apps better.