Partners
Local judgement, international reach.
An agency in New Zealand is only as useful as the doors it can open elsewhere. Ours open through a partner who has been doing this since 1998.
ForwardzoneFootball strategy & management · Est. 1998
Forwardzone is a football strategy and management firm founded in Johannesburg in 1998, working across talent management, advisory and experiences. It operates in Africa, Europe, South America and Australia, and its work spans player recruitment and development alongside corporate sponsorship and activation for major brands.
Our partnership gives Evolve two things a young New Zealand agency cannot manufacture: relationships in markets our athletes want to reach, and people on the ground who can tell us whether an opportunity is real before we put a player on a plane.
It works in both directions. Forwardzone's clients get a considered route into New Zealand and Oceania football, and our athletes get represented by someone who is already in the room.
Technology
Only Ballers
The athlete management platform our roster runs on — built and hosted by us in New Zealand.
Only Ballers is where an athlete's career record actually lives: profile, playing history, video, development plan, training and match logs, and scouting reports filed by named people. Athletes, coaches and scouts each see the part that belongs to them, and nothing else.
We built it because the alternative — a PDF, a Dropbox folder and a WhatsApp thread — is how good players end up unrepresentable at the moment it matters. Because we run it ourselves, athlete data stays under our control rather than a third party's.
Working with us
Clubs, academies and brands.
We work with clubs and academies on recruitment briefs, trials and scouting events, and with brands on football partnerships and activations delivered alongside Forwardzone.
If you have a brief, the fastest way to a useful answer is to send it with the constraints attached — budget, timeframe, and what has already been tried.
Further partnerships to be announced.