SBJ Tech: How TransferRoom is elevating women’s soccer transactions

I’m struggling with flirtatiously warm temperatures in North Carolina. We get a few days in the 60s-70s, then spells of cool breeze threaten my vibe. I’m ready to transition to warmth full-time.

I’ll be up in beautiful, gorgeous Boone — the home of my alma mater, Appalachian State — Friday for a networking event with seniors in my old department. I have about six restaurants I want to visit, and I don’t know how I’m going to fit it all in a day trip. But it’ll get my best shot.

When she looks back, Claire Rafferty thinks she may have enjoyed playing soccer outside of England. A former left back for Millwall, Chelsea and West Ham who appeared for both the English and Great Britain national teams, her career was centered in the greater London area.

A chance to play in the U.S. — “anywhere in the sunny side of America,” she joked — or potentially Australia would’ve been welcomed, but neither was really achievable. “That lack of network, lack of visibility, lack of transparency, kept me in the UK,” Rafferty told me.

Rafferty is now working to give all of those support mechanisms to today’s footballers at international marketplace TransferRoom, where she has been a driving force behind the platform’s newly launched women’s marketplace. Officially kicked off at the end of February, the TransferRoom women’s marketplace has accumulated approximately 50 clubs worldwide as clients in 20 days, Rafferty said, adding its first league deal recently with the USL Super League.

As to how it works: Teams that sign with TransferRoom receive a full squad list that shows crucial info like current contract terms and projected transfer valuations for every player. Teams can go into that list and make players available (from short-term loans up to permanent moves), which then becomes visible for other clubs on the platform as a launch point for negotiations.

The marketplace will start adding agencies into the mix in April, Rafferty said, giving teams a centralized communications hub that avoids the badgering of various channels (email, WhatsApp, etc.) that have often led to massive outreach from player reps at all angles. TransferRoom doesn’t share pricing information publicly because subscription fees vary based on the choice of service and the size of agencies and clubs.

Rafferty, a senior customer success manager, advocated steadily for this feature in her four years at TransferRoom “not just because I love women’s football, but because I believed it had the potential, and what we already had in place had the potential, to totally revolutionize women’s football.”

Over 10,000 deals in men’s soccer

TransferRoom has grown into an essential tool in international men’s football, building out relationships with approximately 800 clubs, 130 leagues, and 600 agencies. The platform recently eclipsed 10,000 verified deals across the world on the men’s side. Those international tethers are a boost to Rafferty’s efforts. She estimates that she’s spoken with more than 200 clubs during the three-month buildup to the official launch of the marketplace.

Data around women’s sports — whether it’s related to this marketplace, athlete biometrics or advanced analytics — often starts at a nearly blank slate because foundational research, for the longest time, focused on men or information just didn’t get the same record-keeping treatment. That speaks to the essential effort Rafferty sees ahead: providing clarity and true value for all the parties involved to keep lifting the sport.

“There’s lots of different nuances,” Rafferty said. “Clubs have very differing internal infrastructures, so that also is difficult to navigate. Some have more layers, some have less. Some have a manager doing the recruiting, doing the planning, doing the booking,

“Every single club you speak to is unique. However, the challenges are quite consistent.”

Biomechanics analysis platform Valor Vision will soon hit Italy thanks to Juventus Forward, the third-year innovation program led by the Serie A giant.

The startup, which for the most part has shifted from wearables to a computer vision-based software that can be used through a phone or tablet, is one of 11 companies in the debut cohort of the innovation program that started in 2024. Valor’s technology uses 3D video analysis to evaluate athlete movement, providing insights and personalized reporting for training and rehabilitation. I say “for the most part” because it still supports sensor use for most clients. But most added over the last couple of years have lean solely into the software-focused offering.

Pricing can range from $250 per month for its base package up to its elite offering (which the company doesn’t list because prices vary depending on the features that clubs request). It works at the professional level with Unrivaled, Austin FC and Nashville SC, along with major college athletics programs such as LSU, Tennessee, and TCU. They’ve also connected with other European clubs such as Fulham and Southampton.

Building the connection to Juventus has been a years-long effort started by Michael Macri, a biomechanics and athletic performance specialist who started working with the company in 2023 as a consultant. He became Valor’s director of performance science, and he steadily built a connection over time with the club. “That’s literally what the sporting industry is all about,” Macri said. “People choose companies based off relationships.”

In the next month, Valor tech will be deployed around Juventus’ U15 and U17 male teams and the U19 women’s teams to build out assessment protocols. That will help the club determine how to scale out the usage of Valor throughout its ecosystem.

Valor CTO and co-founder Dhyey Parikh is excited to see how Valor usage has evolved in three-to-six months’ time in the program. “I think that’s going to be when massive changes are going to occur to the platform, if necessary,” Parikh said. “... At the end of the day, what we want to do that we’re talking about is give them a tool that gives them actual insights to help make their decisions a lot more seamless.”

• For the SBJ magazine this week, my tech teammate Joe Lemire breaks down the moments in which cloud computing and producing doesn’t work — when there’s a need for speed, a hope to keep costs down or a requirement for better connectivity.
• While the Automated Ball-Strike System (ABS) is the innovation getting the most attention, a few other tech initiatives are coming from MLB this season, which my SBJ colleague Rob Schaefer highlights here.
• Schaefer also writes that the Cavaliers are expanding the scope of their work with ubiquitous AI firm WSC Sports to include more digital content-focused use-cases.
• My colleague Josh Carpenter writes about the new AI search tool on the Masters’ app and website, created with the help of tech partner IBM.
• Fan experience and ticketing platform Jump signed Seattle’s pair of clubs — Sounders FC of MLS and the NWSL’s Reign FC — to a multiyear deal starting in 2027.
• NurivaTech, a sports computer vision and AI startup, raised $8 million in seed funding with backing from several MLB veterans, Lemire also reports.
• IdPair, a platform acting as a data-infrastructure layer to support safer gambling habits, closed an institutional funding round led by Roger Ehrenberg’s Game Changers Ventures. An amount was not disclosed to SBJ.