This Huntsville Startup Is Bringing Big-League Training to Braves Country's Youth Players
HUNTSVILLE, July 17 (Hypepotamus) - Baseball across “Braves Country,” or the Southeastern states with a strong love of the Atlanta MLB team, is set to expand, thanks to a new partnership with a startup out of Huntsville, Alabama.
This summer Ember Sports, a mobile SportsTech, announced an official partnership with Major League Baseball's Atlanta Braves to expand affordable player development training tools for youth baseball and softball athletes across Braves Country. Through its partnership with the Braves Country Baseball and Softball (BCBS) network, Ember Sports will bring its training technology to athletes, coaches and families across the Southeast.
Ember Sports provides data-driven training options, turning phones, tablets, or VR headsets into hitting and pitching analytics. This can provide measurable feedback, help track training progress, and even provide recruiting data without the need for expensive sports gear or hardware.
Ember Sports' technology is available for $12.99 per month.
"At the Atlanta Braves, we believe every young athlete deserves access to high-quality training and development resources, regardless of their location or budget," said Atlanta Braves Senior Director of Alumni Relations & Growing the Game, Greg McMichael, in a press release. "Our partnership with Ember Sports is a meaningful step toward making that vision a reality. By bringing their mobile-first platform to the BCBS network, we're putting a powerful and impactful training tool directly into the hands of the coaches, families, and kids who make up the fabric of baseball and softball communities across the Southeast."
Fred Williams, CEO of Ember Sports, told Hypepotamus that Ember Sports first got connected to the Braves organization through McMichael, who also played for the Braves in the mid 1990s.
“The conversation grew naturally from there,” Williams added. “From the very first discussions, it was clear that our products aligned with the core mission of BCBS: growing youth access to baseball and softball and deepening overall engagement with the game. That shared vision of making baseball and softball more accessible, more measurable and more fun for the next generation of players is what turned an introduction into a true partnership.”
Tech Square Ventures is an Atlanta-based firm investing in enterprise (B2B) and marketplace technology companies.
Building SportsTech in the Southeast
Ember Sports, which was founded in 2020, has built a network of current and former professional players across the country who inform the company’s “product development, validate our technology, and help us stay connected to the game at every level.” Williams said.
He added that Ember Sports got off the ground in Alabama after the founding team saw a “disconnect” in youth sports. “The tools being marketed to young athletes weren't aligned with what current and former professional players viewed as meaningful development. We set out to close that gap by building technology grounded in what genuinely matters for player growth, while keeping said technology accessible and engaging for athletes at every stage.”
The reality, Williams explained, is that professional-level data and terminology (like exit velocity, spin rate, and throwing velocity) have trickled down to younger leagues, impacting how players are evaluated, developed, and recruited.
“The problem is access,” he added. “The technologies that capture this data have traditionally required large financial investments and lengthy, cumbersome setups, which only widens the gap between the athletes who can afford these tools and those who can't. The Ember Hitting and Pitching Analyzers were built to remove that barrier for all athletes by providing an affordable, easy-to-use solution for capturing these all-important metrics. ”
This helps improve engagement, performance, and development.
For recreational players, Ember Sports’ technology “turns practice into entertainment, and it passively gives every athlete a target to chase. That's how you build lasting engagement with diamond sports,” Williams said. For serious players and coaches, the platform provides the data to guide development.
“At its core, that's why Ember Sports exists: to make sure the data that shapes the future of the game is available to everyone who plays it.”
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