Siegel Enterprises, founded by Stu Siegel, has recently acquired ISS Hockey, a hockey scouting company that collects data on children and prospects ages 14-19. But before this former CEO of the Florida Panthers got into the scouting sector of hockey, he was a CEO of several technology-based real estate companies.
As the CEO and principal of eNeighborhoods, Siegel worked to create seamless, network-wide interfaces for major brand name real estate companies, turning their websites into search-engine-like pages that could search and display listings from smaller broker sites.
“When a consumer put in what city or town they were looking for, we’d throw that search out to a broker site which had the MLS listings,” says Siegel. “It was a seamless process for the consumer, giving a unique look and feel – and different view – depending on their entry point.”
While at eNeighborhoods, Siegel helped create the largest database of listings working within the industry at the time. In 2008, Siegel had an opportunity to change gears and bought an interest in the NHL, specifically, the Florida Panthers hockey team.
I’ve always been a hockey nut and a hockey fan. I thought my passion for hockey mixed with my passion for business would be a great combination,” he says.
A month ago, Siegel sold his interest in the Panthers to his partner and acquired ISS Hockey, a global network of scouts throughout the world, compiling data on kids, and providing grades and ranks for all of the junior leagues, colleges and NHL teams to subscribe to, helping these organizations with their own valuation process.
Siegel’s new company compiles information in some of the ways that eNeighborhoods did. After gathering real estate information regarding neighborhoods, school info, rank of schools, demographics, etc., REALTORS® would then subscribe to these information feeds and use them to better sell properties to their buyers. Fueled by his penchant for hockey, Siegel is applying similar info gathering and selling tactics during his new post at ISS Hockey.
“We hope to expand our coverage and the information that we compile on these prospects to continually enhance our industry leading products on behalf of our customers,” he says.
A self-proclaimed “data guy,” Siegel and ISS Hockey also plan to continue looking for revolutionary ways to compile information about hockey prospects, in addition to finding unique ways to display that information. Siegel also plans on holding drilling sessions, called combines, in order to compare players from all over the world side by side. However, despite his new successes, Siegel remembers the real estate industry fondly.
“I enjoyed being in the real estate business,” he says. “It was a great group of people – gregarious people. I enjoyed that a lot and had a lot of great friends in the industry.”
