1 Youth Sports Trend Flying Under The Radar

This is Buying Sandlot— the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.

A special welcome to our new subscribers who have come to us from our partnership with Malcolm Lemmons and his excellent sports tech newsletter, Vetted Sports.

In the email today:

• 🏢 Youth Sports Facilities News

• 👨🏻 Parents Behaving Badly

• 📈 Trend Watch: Girls Flag Football

• 🏒 The Trade War Is Impacting The Price of Hockey …

• 🤳 Tech: Rematch Sports Highlights Now Available i …

• 📋 Job Alert: Marketing Manager, Unrivaled Sports

• 📊 Poll

🏢 Youth Sports Facilities News

A MASSIVE Facility in a Small City

Lawton, Oklahoma, a city with a population of only 90k and total annual amateur sports participation of around 5k, is moving ahead with plans to build a… checks notes… 120-acre, $60 million indoor-outdoor facility.

• The indoor portion of the project will cost around $35 million. It will feature 8 basketball courts (convertible into 16 volleyball courts) and 2 turf fields.

• The outdoor portion, which could nearly double the cost of the project, would feature 10 rectangular fields capable of hosting soccer, football, baseball and softball games.

• Funding right now includes only a $3 million grant, so planning and construction will be phased, and scaled down as needed.

• Officials told the Southwest Ledger that Lawton charges on average $45 per sport for youth sports, whereas peer cities charge from $85-$160— so they see an opportunity to increase prices with the new facility.

ANALYSIS

Lawton is one of those mid-country cities that’s surrounded by square plots of land and not much else. I mean…

Even the city’s growing flag football and volleyball participation only gets into the low-100s.

But as with most new facilities - like those in Michigan and Indiana - officials cite regional tournament demand as justification for the project.

Lawton can pull from larger population centers. It is within 90 minutes driving distance of Oklahoma City, and around 3 hours from Tulsa and Dallas, Texas. So, in theory, this could work.

Still, there are some red flags here.

Initial cost estimates for a smaller, 85,000 square-foot facility in 2019 came in at a more modest $12 million. The size of the project has doubled while the projected cost has 5x’d since then(!), with officials citing inflation (of course) and the fact that they underestimated requirements to attract regional tournaments.

The facility would more than meet the needs of the nearby community. Whether it could drive enough demand and sports tourism money to justify its size remains an open question.

Related: The Indoor Court Arms Race Is Heating up in the Midwest

Other Facilities News

• Danbury, CT: A championship high school volleyball coach and her husband, a European volleyball player, plan a 16,000 square-foot volleyball facility that will also feature basketball and pickleball courts, along with amenities like a coaches’ lounge and weight room. They aim to pull visitors from New York.

• Irondale, AL: A modest baseball and softball facility in Irondale, AL was completed in February. The $8.6 million Ruffner Sports Complex features 3 turf fields and concessions.

• Brooklyn, NY: Things are less upbeat in major cities. The large Aviator Center is set to close. The 175,000 square-foot facility features indoor gymnastics, volleyball and ice hockey. The affordable (for parents) facility cites Covid-related losses and a recently-shuttered nearby migrant detention center - which it says caused it to lose $500k in summer camp revenue last year as scared parents kept their kids away - as reasons for the closure. While not as modern as some of the other facilities listed here, the Aviator’s struggles show that large facilities are not a sure thing, even in population-dense areas like New York. Though land and rent costs are, of course, much higher here than good ol’ Irondale.

• Douglas County, Oregon: Local officials are struggling to secure funding to build a medium-sized indoor-outdoor facility.

👨🏻 Parents Behaving Badly

A Pittsburgh-area mom is facing theft charges for stealing over $150k from her local baseball and softball league, for which she was… you guessed it… treasurer.

What did she use the money for?

Meanwhile, in West Virginia, the former President of a baseball and softball league is facing charges for misusing nearly $20k worth of funds on…

Look, I’m not recommending you steal funds from your local youth sports organization. In fact, I highly recommend against it!

BUT.

If you’re going to steal 5- or 6-figures worth of money from children, please, for the love of God, spend it on something more exciting than TJ Maxx sales and improved home broadband speeds.

More: Kids Inc. to step up security after a parent fracas in not-so-sleepy Amarillo.

📈 Trend Watch: Girls Flag Football

Might do a deeper dive on this at some point, but girls flag football is ripping (along with flag football overall).

One New York town reports more girls playing flag football than boys. In the state, there were 176 girls teams last season, up from 51 the year before.

Nationally, searches for the term “girls flag football” have skyrocketed from basically non-existent 5 years ago, to nearly 2,000 per month now. And volume for the last week of March is roughly double what it was for last year.

The NFL is embracing the overall trend as well.

→ The Ravens youth football grant gives Under Armour apparel and equipment to football organizations across Maryland, including the Ravens Girls Flag Football initiative. [Get your grant requests in by April 11, if you’re in Maryland.]

→ Retired quarterback Alex Smith hosted a flag football clinic at a Dick’s last month.

More on this in a future email.

🏒 The Trade War Is Impacting The Price of Hockey Equipment

Recent tariff threats by President Donald Trump, including a potential 25% increase on Canadian imports, are causing significant uncertainty that is impacting the price of sports equipment.

The AP ran an article this week on why hockey is particularly impacted.

• Roustan Hockey, which owns Christian and Northland brands, supplies over 100,000 hockey sticks annually to the US. They are seeing postponed or canceled orders as they can’t guarantee costs to customers.

• About 40% of Roustan’s business is with the US market, including 90% of sales of Christian and Northland brands.

• Along with Canada, lots of hockey equipment is produced in China and Mexico.

• In North America, hockey equipment is a $1.3 billion business, and the tariffs will almost certainly impact end consumers for the already very expensive sport.

Quick thoughts: Hockey already prices out large segments of the population since it can cost several thousand bones just to get in the game. While all sporting equipment (along with countless other goods) may be impacted by tariffs, the impact on hockey may push even more would-be families away from the sport. Volleyball spandex just doesn’t cost as much, tariffs or not.

🤳 Tech: Rematch Sports Highlights Now Available in US

That Emoji is literally you holding your phone up for 3 hours and 46 minutes at your son’s next travel soccer tournament so you DON’T MISS A MOMENT.

From SBJ:

The app is currently free (with pro versions coming later this year) and focusing on growth in the Dallas area… perhaps nearby Lawton, too?

You can see more at Rematch.tv.

My take: I’d argue that the problem with missing highlights isn’t that you forgot to press the “record” button— it’s that the phone was in your pocket when they happened!

I think many parents are in the practice of recording long stretches of video, and then editing or deleting based on space demands.

Rematch will still require you to take the phone out of your pocket and hold it for a loooooooooooooong time until something, anything happens. It’s just automating the use of the delete button for footage you don’t need.

I’d be much more interested in, say, smart glasses that do this for you so you can leave your cold, gloved hand in your pocket. Hmm.

📋 Job Alert: Marketing Manager, Unrivaled Sports

Unrivaled Sports, the David Blitzer-backed company gobbling up large facilities and brands, is looking for a marketing manager for player development.

The role: The Marketing Manager, Player Development will manage the marketing department in daily execution of marketing strategy, content, fulfillment, client management, and analytics for Individual Player Programming: All-Ripken Games, Prospect Tour, All-America Game, All-American Flag, Soccer Youth, etc. The role works closely with cross-functional departments including, but not limited to sales, operations, finance, partnerships, merchandise and business development. This is a remote position that will require up to 20% - 25% travel.

The job requires about 5-7 years worth of experience and strongly prefers East Coast-based applicants.

Here’s the full LinkedIn description.

📊 Poll

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Good game.