06/24/24 – ArbiterSports, KHSAA, Riherds.com Announce Revolutionary Partnership for School Data Management Services

June 24, 2024 2023-2024 News Releases

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: JUNE 24, 2024

SALT LAKE CITY/LEXINGTON – In a significant development, ArbiterSports and the Kentucky High School Athletic Association (KHSAA) unveiled an expanded five-year partnership where ArbiterSports will replace the KHSAA’s long-standing, internally developed software platform for managing all aspects of high school athletics related to its member schools.

This expanded collaboration introduces the Arbiter360 solution, which will be the location for schools and KHSAA staff to enter schedules, manage student rosters, record coach eligibility and compliance requirements, report on Title IX compliance and participation and other critical components of high school sports, beginning with the 2024-25 school year. Additional features will evolve quickly, including the processing of student transfers.

ArbiterSports, a leader in athletic management solutions, has been the KHSAA’s technology partner for the assignment, payment and eligibility of sports officials for almost two decades, as well as the manager of the payment for all of the KHSAA’s event workers for the last two years. This new agreement expands the relationship into other vital member school-related areas managed by the KHSAA.

Julian Tackett, Commissioner of the KHSAA, shared his enthusiasm.

“The previous platform we provided has been invaluable to our member schools, along with the terrific in-office support of IT Director Rob Catron as their primary liaison and the unmatched development skills of our developer, Frank Riherd,” said Tackett. “However, the cost and long-term feasibility of maintaining this on our own, especially as its scope increases, have been a concern for years.

“As we researched options to outsource our coach compliance and store our member school schedule and score data without using multiple platforms, one alternative was clear in the current marketplace,” Tackett said. “ArbiterSports is the ideal long-term partner for this solution because of the familiarity our schools already have with their technology, the company’s demonstrated commitment to continual innovation and the quality and scale of their organization. I don’t know that we could have trusted this key role to anyone else. Mr. Catron was able to lead our efforts to hit the ground running quickly with the great product and development team from Arbiter. Over the last few months, both organizations have moved at a Herculean pace to make this transition happen, and our member schools and their student-athletes are the beneficiaries.”

“The KHSAA is well known as a national leader among state high school associations for embracing technology to streamline the process of managing compliance, eligibility and results,” said Kyle Ford, CEO of ArbiterSports. “We are honored to have been chosen to partner with Commissioner Tackett and his entire team to continue that vision. Schools will now have a single location for managing the day-to-day needs of their programs while also ensuring all state requirements are met – the holy grail of the athletic world. With collaboration from KHSAA’s primary platform architect, Frank Riherd, and backed by ArbiterSports’ extensive support capabilities, this initiative promises a transformative shift in the administration of sports programs at KHSAA member schools.”

In conjunction with this project, the KHSAA was able to reach a five-year agreement with Riherd, who is also its longtime scoreboard platform architect, to continue his work on the best-in-class scoreboard project. This collaboration will allow the continuation of score and results management, tournament bracketing, automatic RPI calculation in all team sports, statistics for teams and individuals and other typical sports information collection and display.

“Our office has a third of its staff with extensive experience in sports information, and we know the value of these services to the public and to our membership,” Tackett said. “We know that what we have built has an extremely loyal following, and we want to be able to continue providing this service and are grateful for Mr. Riherd’s long-standing partnership and continued desire to stay involved.

“The combination of our staff, the ArbiterSports partnership and the outstanding work by Mr. Riherd will help our schools have smoother management options for their athletic programs for years to come,” said Tackett. “As our schools also potentially take more advantage of other optional services offered by ArbiterSports, including the athlete registration system, to make these tasks seamless, we believe this will be a great step in helping the operational efficiency of our member schools. Synchronizing those efforts on a single platform will certainly help with the burdens of our athletic directors as they handle these challenging times.”

– KHSAA –

About the Kentucky High School Athletic Association

The Kentucky High School Athletic Association was organized in 1917 and is the agency designated by the Kentucky Department of Education to manage high school athletics in the Commonwealth. The Association is a voluntary nonprofit 501(c)3 organization made up of 290 member schools, both public and non-public. The KHSAA awards 229 state championships to 59 teams and 178 individuals in 13 sports and six sport-activities, funds catastrophic insurance coverage for its more than 109,000 rostered member school student-athletes, provides coaching education and sports safety programs for more than 12,000 coaches and licenses and facilitates the distribution of training material for over 4,000 contest officials.