Earlier this year, former pro soccer player (and former Westporter) Kyle Martino appeared on ABC’s Shark Tank, seeking an investment in his company, Street FC, an app that connects players to pickup soccer games in their area. “But the story of the company, honestly, starts here in Westport,” Kyle tells Westport Lifestyle. The inspiration to build Street FC traces back to his days as a Bedford Middle School student, he says. “We had something called ‘short goal,’ which were small side games at Staples that kids of any age or gender could show up to. I started playing in those games when I was 12 or 13,” he says. “That was really how I connected with soccer and realized the community of soccer in this town. Westport gave me a deep, insatiable love for the sport.” From then on, Kyle sought out pickup soccer games all over the area: at the Field House in Fairfield or in Mount Vernon, N.Y., or up in Bridgeport. “I was a blacktop rat,” he says. “I would go up to kids in the Staples cafeteria and tell them ‘you’re staying after school and you’re playing.’ All that time I spent playing soccer on concrete helped my game so much. If I wasn’t playing basketball or skateboarding, I was playing soccer. I didn’t realize it at the time, but seeking out these ecosystems became a part of my personality.”
Kyle went on to play midfielder at Staples (he credits one of his coaches, Dan Woog, who you can read more about on page TK, with “fueling the flames of the love of soccer” while also acting as “another parental figure—someone who had your back but also called you out if you needed it. He wanted us to be more than soccer players.”) He was named the 1998-1999 Gatorade Player of the Year at Staples. He went on to play for the University of Virginia, becoming the ACC Player of the Year his junior year, then played professionally for the Columbus Crew and the Los Angeles Galaxy. But when Kyle experienced a career-ending injury at age 27, he had to reevaluate his relationship to the sport. “The day the game is over can be a really challenging identity crisis for professional athletes, and I didn’t even get to plan my exit—it was taken from me,” he says. “Now, I’ve become a fan again.” It was during that soul-searching process that he went back to his foundational love: those pickup games in and around Westport. “I realized this spontaneous, incredible, organic way that we all access the sport was disappearing,” he says. And in his travels around the world (both as a player and, later, a studio analyst and commentator for NBC Sports), he saw that places where the culture of pickup games wasn’t dying had one thing in common: they all had soccer goals perched under their basketball hoops on public access courts. “I thought to myself, New York City has 2,000 basketball courts, and is filled with kids who come from countries where soccer is the number one sport. If I can find a solution to get them playing soccer this way, that’s my dream.” Street FC went from dream to reality in 2019, and is now in 13 cities, with more than 15,000 players. “Street FC is really the gift to the seven-year-old in me,” he says, As the platform grew, and as this summer’s World Cup approached, Kyle got a surprising call asking if he wanted to appear on season 17 of Shark Tank. “They said ‘we’ve seen what you’ve done, and we would love it if you wanted to be on the show,’” he recalls. He couldn’t turn down the opportunity.
Kyle’s appearance on Shark Tank ended with two offers and an eventual investment from the guest shark, Reddit founder Alexis Ohanian (who is married to Serena Williams). “Alexis and I both went to UVA, and we’d come across each other in the tech and sports worlds, but we’d never talked about him investing in any of my companies,” Kyle says. (Kyle is also the co-founder of Goalpher, a pop-up soccer goal that can be stored underground when not in use, and the co-founder and chief business officer of American Football Company, a parent company and business development engine for soccer-focused enterprises.) “To have another entrepreneur validate what we are building—to have him say ‘I believe in you’—it was amazing.”
There’s a lot to believe in. Street FC is a tangible example of Kyle’s steadfast conviction that there’s power in unstructured, recreational soccer. “I truly believe if you keep your kids focused on enjoyment and community—not competition and performance—the longer they’ll stay in sports, and the better player they’ll be.” It’s an impactful message, especially coming from such an elite athlete. “The legacy we need to leave behind is that the system needs to carve out a place for free and spontaneous play,” he says.
He’s dedicated to that mission—not just with Street FC, or Goalpher, or AFC, but also this summer, when he will serve as an ambassador for U.S. Soccer during the 2026 World Cup. He’s also got a new, daily morning show called The Robbies and Friends where he’ll be discussing all things World Cup with former Premier League players and hosts of The 2 Robbies soccer analysis podcast Robbie Mustoe and Robbie Earle. (The idea for the show, he says, was born from a brainstorming session at The Spotted Horse in Westport between Kyle, the Robbies, and PepsiCo’s CMO Mark Kirkham. There’s always a Westport connection!) With the World Cup bringing all eyes to the sport he loves, this is the moment to seize. “If I can shape and bend this system—which is headed toward hyper-specialization and kids dropping out of soccer—towards what it felt like when I was little? Where it’s free, it’s expressive, it’s spontaneous, it’s community-based? That’s the legacy I want to leave.”
For more information about Street FC, visit streetfc.city. Follow Kyle at @kylemartino
"Westport gave me a deep, insatiable love for the sport.”
“The legacy we need to leave behind is that the system needs to carve out a place for free and spontaneous play."