The Pitch, which will open its doors next month, aims to make Minneapolis known as the sports technology hub of the nation.

Co-founded by Rally Ventures and Sports Ngin, The Pitch will be a coworking space — an emerging trend in office styles. The spaces consist of various businesses, often startups and entrepreneurs, working together in the same office. 

The Pitch is meant to help provide sports technology businesses and startups a place to grow and develop, said Teke O’Reilly, executive director of The Pitch.

O’Reilly said they have three clients so far, but he expects there to be 10 to 12 when they open in July.

Tyrre Burks, CEO and founder of Player’s Health, a sports injury platform company, is one of the three clients. Burks said since his company’s inception it has worked in coworking spaces, which offer economic and creative advantages, especially for small companies. 

 “It allows us to scale our team and our office in a way that is very cost-efficient,” he said. “I think being a part of the coworking space … you are able to have your finger on the pulse of sports tech within Minnesota.”

O’Reilly said his first experiences with coworking were not ideal.

“It didn’t work at first. I was really bothered by all the stimuli, and I didn’t want to talk all the time,” he said. “And at a certain time a switch goes off and you get used to it; you get used to the vibe.”

O’Reilly said coworking spaces offer a sort of organic and random way of developing ideas and relationships. 

“It’s kind of like the randomness of being in this open area with a whole bunch of random people,” he said. “And when you get a whole bunch of people doing that, that’s when the magic happens.”

O’Reilly has worked in coworking spaces in Minneapolis before and said he sees a future where they become the norm.

“I just think its kind of the way people work now. We might not even have this word ‘coworking’ before too long,” he said. “I’m curious to get to the answer to that because my intuition tells me it’s gonna kind of get integrated into life.”

Clients can either pay to work in a shared space at The Pitch on a month-by-month basis or have a longer lease for a larger, dedicated space. 

The Pitch will also offer mentorship services from experts in the sports tech industry, O’Reilly said.

Jerry Hoffman, president of Hoffman Strategy Group, an urban real estate consulting company, said the 2008 economic recession and the increased popularity of freelancing in business models have helped coworking spaces become a trend. 

Another factor in coworking spaces’ popularity has been its embrace by millenials, Hoffman said. 

“I think what this is indicative of is an undercurrent of persons wanting to use their own skill set in an entirely different manner, that manner being their own business,” he said.

O’Reilly said The Pitch looks to startups’ potential success as key to making Minnesota a hub for sports technology. 

“That’s all we want to provide — just an exciting, great place for people to be,” he said.