Not everyone can become a pro athlete.
Nor can they build a billion-dollar business.
Eddie Lewis has done both.
The 14-year soccer pro, played in both the United States and England, for teams such as San Jose Clash, Fulham, Preston North End, Leeds United, Derby County, and Los Angeles Galaxy.
After retiring he went straight into building TOCA Football, which is a technology-enabled soccer experience and entertainment company that aims to transform the sports experience and build communities that inspire everybody to play.
He sat down with us to discuss the vision for TOCA, how they’re implementing new technology into their product, advice for founders building in the sports tech space, and what he learned from sports that’s made him a great entrepreneur.
Vetted Sports
Can you break down what TOCA is for people who might not be familiar with what you’re building?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
Yeah, sure. TOCA is simply a soccer company. We love the sport. We love promoting the sport, and we use cutting-edge technology to do it. From a historical perspective, we started on the training side of the soccer world and then evolved into the fan engagement side with TOCA Social. It’s become now a very holistic view of how we can find more and more ways to engage both soccer players and soccer fans with the sport we all love.
Vetted Sports
You’ve been building this company for a while. Take me back to the inception of the idea. Where did it come from and how has it transformed from that initial idea?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
So the original concept was born out of my own head as a former soccer player and former professional. I was actively looking for ways to develop my technical skills. I grew up playing a number of different sports and was a very good athlete, but was late to soccer. So I was always kind of desperate to catch up from a technical perspective. I stumbled upon this idea around training with a tennis ball and a tennis ball machine and that made a huge difference in my career. So once I retired, the goal was to take this concept and make it more soccer-specific to address the youth soccer community as well as others who are playing and engaging with the sport.
Along the way, other opportunities began to emerge from this training concept that originally was designed for aspirational, soccer players. From that ultimately became kind of the roots of what TOCA social is today and so for us, it’s certainly been a journey. I think because we’ve been very focused from the beginning on the soccer community, and how we can improve that, whether it’s from a training perspective, or a fan engagement perspective, there’s just been more and more opportunities that have started to emerge. We’re trying to take full advantage of that.
Vetted Sports
Can you break down the business model of TOCA, and how you guys thinking about engaging more with the soccer community and bringing more users into what you’re building?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
So we have two sides of the business. The TOCA training product lives inside of the TOCA soccer business, which is a soccer center business if you will. We’re up to 37 or 38 centers across the US and hope to be up to 150 or 200 by the time the World Cup comes to North America here. That’s very much a soccer community center. We have kid’s programs in the morning and TOCA training dominates from after school until 7 or 8 pm. In the evenings, we run adult leagues like you typically see in a lot of soccer centers. In addition to that, we do a bunch of events and programming that have started to ramp up now with this relationship and partnership with the MLS.
On the other side, we have TOCA Social, which is currently just one location in London, but there is a strong appetite to expand that footprint very quickly. We’ve just made a deal with a group in Mexico to open what is potentially 20 TOCA Socials in Mexico. We have several areas in the US that we’ve identified, and we’re still working on lending our first location here in the US for that. We also have some talks ongoing for Western Europe. So that’s a very unique opportunity, one that scales globally very quickly. In addition to that, I think forward-looking we have real aspirational plans to start to step out of some of these brick-and-mortar location-based businesses and start to address either the digital market or attract the larger soccer community through other platforms as well.
Vetted Sports
With Web3 and AI rapidly emerging, how are you thinking about incorporating these technologies into your product offering?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
Rapidly is probably an understatement for sure. I think AI, in particular, will be involved in every aspect of the business whether it’s on the sales side, marketing, all the way through to the actual product itself. As an example with the training side, one of the things we’re currently developing is an AI training model. We have a very smart system already from the touch trainer to these interactive smart targets. It’s all controlled wirelessly. There’s also a display TV that displays all the data that’s being collected during a session. But we’re now taking the next step with the system and making it much more dynamic and adaptive.
In simplistic terms, instead of taking the concept of setting, and sending a set of instructions to the system to perform an exercise, now that exercise becomes very dynamic based on how well the player is doing in that particular exercise. So in terms of the value it adds from a training perspective, it personalizes the training even more than what we’re currently doing. It makes it limitless in terms of how far you can you can push a player.
Vetted Sports
How hard is it for a company of your size to constantly innovate with technology moving so fast and implement it into your business?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
There are two ways to look at it. The challenge, as you point out, is that technology is moving very quickly. Although we consider ourselves a tech company in the sense that we have quite a bit of tech involved in our experience, it’s a lot of work to stay ahead of that curve. At the same time, traditionally in our space, and in soccer in general, I think there’s been a real lack of technology being involved. Certainly, as you come downstream to the youth level and player development side. It’s catching up by the minute, but from our perspective, I think we’ve always been a leader. Now it’s just on us to make sure that we then stay in that position.
Vetted Sports
You’ve raised over $100 million in venture capital since you started the company. What general advice do you have for someone else who’s trying to build a big sports tech company, and the challenges that kind of come along with that?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
I would say, particularly in our space, it is a capital-intensive business in the sense that, it’s a location-based business. We’re not a software company, where you build it once and sell it over and over again. So, there are different capital requirements, in terms of what our business needs. But if I said to somebody listening to build this successful company, you’re going to need to raise $100 million, that would be certainly overwhelming and wasn’t how we got there from the beginning. So it just becomes, like anything else. If you’re going to build something, you have to do it in stages, and steps and have to focus on trying to accomplish the next milestone in front of you, and not get too far ahead of yourself trying to think where this thing is going to end up.
The reality is it’s probably going to pivot a couple of times in the process, depending on whether the vision has changed, whether the market has changed, or the opportunity may change. It may have nothing to do with your ability to execute or anything else. There are just several variables that come into it, and you have to stay fluid from that perspective. I try to tell people to stay grounded and make sure they’re not chasing the money. Instead focus on actually solving a problem and just trusting that if you do that, the money will follow.
Vetted Sports
Sports and business are synonymous in many different ways and you’ve been successful on both ends. Is there any one particular, overarching trait would you say has contributed to a lot of your business success?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
Everybody’s probably different in some respects. Thinking back as a young soccer player who really was trying to progress in a sport that at the time didn’t even exist, it was two things that stood out. It was the hustle, which was like, “How can I figure out how to advance myself in this sport, where there isn’t a lot of opportunity?” I had to find a way to get myself into college. I had to find a way to get myself to Europe. So with our whole generation of soccer players, there was a lot of hustle that was involved. Then it was the tried and tested, hard work side of it. I mean, you hear it over and over, and it’s such a cliche in the sports world, but it’s such a competitive environment.
What I do love about sports, and I think is slightly different in business, is that in sports, literally every day, you have to carry your weight and hold your own or else, you’re gonna get found out. I think that kind of work ethic and results-driven mentality for me in the business world, helped me. It was really about just making sure I put the time in on the work side, and then figuring out a way, to hustle my way through it. This is my first company. If it was my second or third or fourth, on an individual level, I’d probably be in a better position, or I would have achieved certain milestones quicker or less expensively, but again it was my first time around. So there was a lot of learning. Certainly, I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I was also very fortunate to stumble upon some wonderful investors and advisors and ultimately, leaders in my organization as well.
Vetted Sports
Where can people learn more about you and check out TOCA?
Eddie Lewis (Founder of TOCA Soccer)
Our website is www.tocafootball.com and www.toca.social. On social media, we’re @tocascocial and @tocafootball across all the platforms. We’re constantly trying to get the word out on what we’re doing so I appreciate the opportunity to chat with you today.
