I just started rewatching Ballers. So I’m going to consider myself an expert in sports recruiting for the time being. But clearly not as expert as some Intel alums who are taking on the industry as a whole. Meet Rule42 Sports Technology Group.
Today, athlete discovery still runs largely on word-of-mouth, personal connections and expensive travel showcases. It’s a system that favors families and organizations that can afford to pay to play, while leaving out many athletes who aren’t able to participate. The problem is even more acute in women’s sports, where scouting infrastructure, data and dedicated tools are either completely absent or years behind men’s sports, leaving countless talented athletes overlooked simply because no one built the systems to find them.
Founded by long-time technology c-suite executive, Renée James, founder and CEO of energy-efficient semiconductor pioneer, Ampere (sold to Softbank in 2025) and former president of Intel Corporation, Rule42 has assembled an all-star team of technology and sports leaders…
“Our team has spent decades on both sides of the scouting table as athletes, parents, scouts and coaches. We’ve seen firsthand how much talent gets missed simply because the current system wasn’t built to find it,” said Renée James, founder and CEO of Rule42. “We’re building the technology platform we wish had existed: one that puts athletes and their families in control and gives scouts and coaches the tools to discover talent wherever it is.”
If that name looks familiar, it should. Renée is the previous president of Intel, the cofounder of Ampere Computing, and the co-chair of the Oregon Governor’s Prosperity Council.
Former Intel President Renée James is founder and CEO of Rule 42, a Lake Oswego company aims to help coaches at colleges of all sizes find promising baseball and softball players. James was most recently CEO of chip startup Ampere Computing, which sold last year to SoftBank for $6.5 billion.
For more, see the press release announcing Rule42.
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