The game that almost did not happen
Get Next Game is a sports community and booking platform for the UAE. It exists for one moment in particular.
Two people pull out
and the evening is gone
Ten people agree to play on Sunday. By Tuesday afternoon two have dropped out, the organiser is messaging a group chat nobody is reading, and at four o'clock the game is cancelled. The pitch stays empty, the venue is out a booking, and eight people who cleared their evening do something else.
Every booking app solves the pitch. Almost none of them solve the eight people — and the eight people are the reason the pitch stays empty.
How a short game gets filled
No new group chat, no starting again. The three steps happen in this order, and the numbers below are the order rather than decoration.
A place opens
Somebody pulls out. The game is now short, and the app knows it the moment it happens rather than when the organiser notices.
The right people are asked
The place is offered to people nearby who play that sport, at that level, and who have a record of turning up. Not everybody — the people it would actually suit.
The game is played
The place is filled, the pitch stays booked, and nine other people keep their evening. Nobody had to chase anybody.
Four things we decided early
Each of these makes the product harder to build and easier to trust. That is the trade we took.
Turning up is worth something
Reliability is earned over time and visible before anybody commits. It is not a rating of how good you are — it is whether you come.
Cancelling late costs something
Not as a punishment. A free cancellation at 5pm on the day is paid for by nine other people, and somebody should be told that before they tap it.
Scores need two people to agree
A result one captain typed is a claim. Only a result both confirmed counts towards a table, a ranking or anything else.
Money is shown both ways
What we owe a venue, and what a venue owes us. Both figures, always — never only the difference, which is the number that hides the other two.
Your terms, frozen at the moment of booking
Owners set their own cancellation terms rather than accepting one rule imposed on everybody. Those terms are frozen onto a booking the moment it is made — so tightening them in October cannot reach a booking made in September.
You open hours, set peak and off-peak prices, and see what is still unsold. A price change never touches an hour somebody has already been quoted.
An empty pitch on a Friday night is the most expensive thing a venue owns. Filling it is the whole business.
Built here, in both languages
Built in the UAE, for the UAE. The app is in testing across football, padel, basketball, tennis and cricket.
Every word is English and العربية, right to left throughout — not a translation pass bolted on at the end. Half the people who play here read Arabic first, and a half-translated app reads as broken rather than as bilingual.
We are choosing the first venues now
If you run a venue, coach a team, or just want to play more often — tell us.
Get in touch