By: Jaredan Levin
Nigel Caldon was getting tired of amateur hoops getting left behind: too many missing details and extensive narratives of the basketball world being overlooked.
“Every basket counts,” Caldon said. “Every player counts. That's what we believe.”
Nigel himself has been immersed in the game since he was six years old, having been born and raised in Brooklyn. He played both high school and travel ball in New York and has been a lifelong player and enthusiast.
He and his brother, Vaughn, co-founded their startup Ballstar after an innocent argument at a barbecue in order to organize data for basketball at all levels, with a focus on amateur and pro-am leagues.
“I feel like so many people, so many athletes can relate to that,” Caldon said. “In trying to explain how good he used to be, my brother ends up talking about teams he played for, people he played against, people he played, stat lines. He's had newspaper clippings that you can find of him. And it was kind of in that moment that he realized that none of that stuff was tangible anymore.”
In the era of explosive social media content where so many aspects of life are being outlined on the internet for public consumption, the Caldons felt that there were not enough spaces for athletes.
“Everything you say is on Twitter, every meal you eat is on Instagram, Caldon said. “But how is it that there's no place for athletes where every game that you play is somewhere? And that's what led us on the journey to Ballstar.”
The Ballstar operating system for amateur sports allows you to handle registrations, payments and all of the other minutiae of running a basketball league, team or game. It also functions as an updated version of the dinosaur stat book. All on the same app, the data is integrated by the system, and it makes it easy for the league owners and operators.
“It gives players the sort of data-centric experience that they've never really had before, unless you're lucky enough to go to the NBA or D1,” Caldon said.
Nigel has a background on Wall Street, so he not only knew what he and Vaughn would need to accomplish to get their company off the ground, but also had a strong knowledge of software development.
“So the first thing that we did was ask ‘Ok, where could we make the biggest impact on the game?’” Caldon said. “And we knew it would be in the amateur space because we're focused on stats and data. And we thought to ourselves, ‘what is the highest level of undocumented basketball?’ And that is the summer pro-am circuit, right? The parks, the Drew Leagues, the Dykeman's, the West 4th’s, the ABL's and so forth that happen all over the country.”
Nigel, being a New York City native, recognized that places like Rucker, the Cage, among others have national, if not global brand names. And from his various travels and encounters, he realized that basically every city has their own Rucker Park. So the path was set to get major summer pro-am leagues to adopt Ballstar to track their stats.
He approached the late Greg Marius to convince him to allow the Caldons to introduce their platform at Rucker Park. “ESPN for the hood” is how they were describing it at the time and Caldon relayed this to Marius.
“Man, I don't really understand what you're getting at, but I'm with you,” Marius said.
Now with a household brand name like Rucker on board, Nigel had no issues convincing every other major league in the country to adopt Ballstar that first summer, as none of them wanted to be caught behind the standard that Rucker was setting.
And because the higher-profile leagues were all in line to adopt the platform now, it was not difficult to get lower profile leagues to follow suit in future summers. Successful right from the launch, Ballstar’s clientele grew from 15 leagues in the first summer to now nearly 100. There was one particular moment at the Drew League that Caldon singled out as a highlight for the platform thus far.
“LeBron James dropping 40 points in the Drew League, that being on Ballstar is tremendous,” Caldon said. “But I'm just as excited about the guy who had 21 and 12 against LeBron.”
Caldon is enthused by all of this progress and continues to look forward to a bright future.
“[We are] continuing to chip away at the AAU circuits, whether it's Nike or Adidas or Puma or Under Armour,” Caldon said. “The professionals, the weekend warriors, the lifetime fitnesses of the world, the firefighters, the cops, you play ball forever. We just want to continue to expand our breadth to let every ball player in the world know that you've got a home at Ballstar if you want it.”
Caldon loves his hometown of New York and that is one of many reasons why he resides there to this day.
“I tell them all the time, ‘I won the geography lottery,’” Caldon said. “There's a lot of advantages to having this launch in New York City versus any other city. Number one being the mecca of streetball and having such a rich streetball ecosystem. We're also very lucky that because it's the largest market from a marketing standpoint, brands spend a lot of time and energy in New York City that they don't necessarily in other cities. I'm definitely a proud Brooklyn kid and proud New York City person.”
Already feeling like he has been able to positively impact the game, Nigel feels like he has accomplished what he was meant to do, even though he is still very motivated to grow the company.
“For me, not playing ball in college, thinking that my basketball life was over, being able to spend my time, my energy and my business acumen in the world of basketball has been easily the most rewarding thing,” Caldon said. “Being able to contribute to the game I love, although we are not a global phenomenon in the way that I would like us to be yet, means the world to me.”
In terms of participation in basketball on the local level, Caldon recognizes the importance and also draws comparisons between pickup basketball and soccer, the world’s most popular sport.
“[In] premiership soccer, you can get relegated to the B or to the C league,” Caldon said. That entire infrastructure gives hope to someone who can say ‘hey, you know, our community team could one day be Manchester United’. I love that kind of egalitarian nature of the sport over there. And that's exactly how it was born, at least in Brooklyn. It was like, ‘who are the best people on my block? We're going to go play the best dudes on the other block and we're going to keep on playing until someone beats us.’ And we have a rivalry. It's great.”
His toes dipped in many pools, Caldon has much going on in a given day-to-day. Outside of Ballstar, he works as a data scientist and corporate trainer, which leads him to often be teaching courses or traveling, and having to pick and choose certain days to devote entirely to one of his many pursuits.
“Wherever I go, for whatever my purpose might be, basketball is there,” Caldon said. “I'm always trying to see the local gym. I'm always trying to see who's hooping, where they're hooping. I just spent the last 11 months in Bahrain doing corporate training and consulting. Oh, they love basketball in Bahrain. I went to a pro game. The energy was so infectious.”
Living such a busy life, Caldon finds grounding influence from those who came before him, particularly his grandmother.
“She's got a very typical immigrant story of showing up with nothing and building a life where generations of our family could benefit from,” Caldon said. “And I am one of those folks.”
In terms of basketball, Kenny Anderson was his favorite player growing up.
“We have the same birthday, October 9th,” Caldon said. “We're both left-handed guards from New York City.”
Nigel Caldon is a man who loves basketball and his family and he considers himself blessed to be able to blend those two into his day-to-day, especially since he would not be where he is today without those around him.
“I gotta shout out my brother,” Caldon said. “I gotta shout out like, all the people who have supported, there are way too many to mention individually. Anyone ever came into contact with us and lent us a hand in any way: big, small or in-between. We're super grateful and honored to be on this journey for the game that we love. This is very much a passion project for us.”
Photos Courtesy of Nigel Caldon