Triple Play: ZogSports

Make money and make a difference? It's not just a bunch of wishful thinking. Robert Herzog's Manhattan-based ZogSports proves that profit and philanthropy are not mutually exclusive.

ZogSports is a charity-focused, co-ed, social sports club that organizes intramural sports leagues, trips, classes, clinics, social events, and volunteer opportunities for young professionals in Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, and northern New Jersey. "I call ZogSports my post-9/11 epiphany business," says founder and CEO, Herzog. Two months before 9/11, Herzog took a job as vice president of operations at Marsh & McLennan.

His office was on the 96th floor of World Trade I. Due to a confluence of events that morning—including taking a local train instead of an express, a stop at the dry cleaner, and a morning workout at the gym—Herzog was running late to work.

"When I arrived on the scene, the first plane had directly hit my office. There was a gaping hole in the side of the building where my office had been, and none of the people from my office who were there already got out of the building," says Herzog. "So after that, I took a life inventory." Herzog said that of all the bad that happened that year, the bright spot was meeting his now-wife on a co-ed softball league.

Bright Spot Leads To Business Idea

Herzog had always been active with recreational sports leagues and had a good time, but he had ideas for improving them. "The other leagues were highly competitive and not much fun. Then, I saw people being incredibly altruistic after September 11th, and I wondered what could I do that would combine sports, socializing, and charity."

Herzog began organizing a touch football league in early 2002 and, three months later, left his position at Marsh & McLennan to work on ZogSports full time. Today, the company has grown to 9 full-time employees, 150 part-time employees, and they run leagues in touch football, dodgeball, volleyball, basketball, indoor and outdoor soccer, softball, kickball, floor hockey, wiffleball, touch rugby, and bowling. To make the leagues social and charitable, ZogSports organizes happy hours at local bars after the games where all the players hang out.

Social Entrepreneurship

Before social entrepreneurship was a buzz word, Herzog was a social entrepreneur. ZogSports, a for-profit business, donates a portion of all proceeds to charity through Play For Your Cause, a separate not-for-profit corporation Herzog started. Through the organization, donations are made to each winning team's charities of choice.

"When I started ZogSports, I thought, 'What can I do that would allow people to incorporate charity, philanthropy, and volunteerism into what they want to do already? What do people want to do?' They want to play sports. They want to meet people. They want to go to happy hour. They want to hook up. I came up with the idea to incorporate charity into that."

ZogSports makes money from fees paid by league participants, either individuals or whole teams. They also collect 15% of the money each bar makes during a ZogSports happy hour. The company then donates 10% of their profit, plus 100% of the money they receive from the bars, to Play For Your Cause. The teams that finish in first and second place in each league are then given a check to donate to the charity of their choice.