Evaluating only FieldLevel’s profile at its peak — without knowing the outcome — the model ranked Competition as the #1 likely cause. That’s exactly how it died.
Key Events Timeline
FOUNDING
Todd Schindler founded FieldLevel in Los Angeles to digitize the college sports recruiting process.
FUNDING
Raised undisclosed Series A; launched coach-facing subscription tiers up to $3,600/year.
PIVOT
Attempted pivot to athlete-side subscriptions as Hudl began offering free recruiting tools to coaches.
SHUTDOWN
Staff laid off; platform transferred to SportsEngine (NBC Sports division), ending independent operations.
Full Analysis
Free · no account needed
Documented cause
FieldLevel operated a recruiting network connecting high school athletes to college coaches, charging coaches $1,200–$3,600/year. After a decade of slow growth and ~$10M in venture funding, the company faced intensifying competition from NCSA (owned by Stack Sports) and Hudl, which bundled recruiting tools for free. In late 2022, FieldLevel laid off most of its staff and transferred its platform to SportsEngine, a division of NBC Sports, ending independent operations without a traditional acquisition announcement.
Lesson
“Standalone recruting platforms must consolidate before giants bundle their features for free.”
Failure anatomy
Collapse type
Acqui-hire
📉 MEDIUM
// engine intelligence on FieldLevel
Tier 1 · instant unlock🔒 free account
Loading engine analysis…
Tier 2 · the productAnalyst · €149/mo
What you see retrospectively on FieldLevel, applied predictively to your companies:
→Cross-reference this pattern against your live portfolio
→Alerts when a company you track starts matching this profile