They behave a little like the "illuminatis of startups". It's a kind of YCombinator but in a closed ecosystem of co-optation, doing also lobbying towards investors termsheets, public authorities, classic industries etc...
For soccer, do you know Jogabo app? Why don't you partner on specific sport community apps intead of making all sports in the same time with Sporty? It will be harder to have a critical mass for all kind of sports and avoiding the chicken and egg problem....
PS : Do you really think everybody can/like play at amateur/occasional level more than 1 or 2 sports?
The real question is : are the developers or the providers that actually struggle with oauth?
If providers followed well standards, developers would not struggle to implement all these current oauth versions.