This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
🏐 3Step Sports Is For Sale
The nation’s biggest youth sports club and events operator has hired Goldman Sachs to explore a sale, according to Sportico. The report says it could also seek a potential capital raise.
3Step’s EBITDA is $40M, according to the report.
2M athletes across close to 1.5K leagues and events
Proprietary management app for families, teams
Proprietary recruiting databases — UCReport, Premier Basketball Report
Owns about 30 facilities nationwide
3Step is a multi-sport platform — volleyball (over 1.2K clubs) and basketball are its major sports, according to data on its website.
3Step also lists field hockey, football, lacrosse, soccer and combat sports (wrestling, judo, etc.) as offerings.
3Step also has a data partnership with ESPN for its recruiting rankings.
🏒 Black Bear TV is modernizing the family experience*
Black Bear TV makes you feel like you are at center ice — no matter where you are.
Hockey does not stop when you are away from the rink. But Black Bear TV allows family, friends, alumni and supporters to watch their team’s live games and events when they are unable to be in the building.
Best-in-class streaming technology
Convenient and reliable to use
Improved access and visibility for teams
Vigilant about permissions and safeguards
Black Bear TV has cameras on 100+ sheets of ice across 60+ venues, streaming an average of 1.6K games a week, over 6K a month and 55K a year to over 50K users. Audience figures confirm it is a critical part of the modern hockey experience — the average viewer watches for over an hour and the platform generates 750K monthly page views.
*Sponsor
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Speaker Unveil
Each newsletter, we’ll unveil a speaker, as we aim to put together the most compelling list of speakers and panelists in the history of the youth sports industry.
Today, we’re happy to announce that Carrie Gamper, Co-Founder of Base Sports Group, the leading sponsorship agency in youth sports, will be on-stage in Philly April 14-15. Carrie has been involved in the sports industry for her entire career. She co-founded BASE in 2021 and has helped transform it into the largest national sponsorship sales agency focused on supporting youth and amateur sports events and facilities. BASE has secured partnerships with brands like: Papa John's, PRIME Hydration, US Army, DUDE Wipes, College Ave Student Loans, Floyd's Barbershop, Hard Rock Café, and many more. These brands have trusted BASE to create powerful engagement experiences with the families of youth athletes across 20+ sports and in more than 40 states - a total network of more than 25 million consumers. Join her in Philly by getting your early bird tickets right here.
She will be joined at the event by previously announced speakers: John Stewart (CEO, Fastbreak AI), Aman Loomba (SVP Product, GameChanger), Jordan Baltimore (CEO, NY Empire Baseball), Jason Sacks (CEO, Positive Coaching Alliance), Brett Marbut (Senior Director of Strategic Growth at PlayOn Sports), Brent Wall, (CEO, Student Athlete Score), Reed Shaffner (CTO, TeamSnap), and Matt Mueller (COO, Hudl).
Early bird tickets will only be available for a short while longer.
💰 PE Firm, Tech Exec Launch New Venture
GTCR announced it has formed Ascent Sports Group in partnership with Gary Swidler, the former COO/COO/president of dating apps parent company Match Group.
ASG is “a new technology platform designed to improve experiences for athletes, families, coaches, teams, leagues and venue owners across youth and amateur sports.”
Swidler will be the CEO.
GTCR is partnering with Mr. Swidler to pursue opportunities in a large, fragmented market where constituents often rely on multiple, disconnected solutions to participate in, follow, and engage with sports. Ascent Sports Group will focus on investing in products and services that simplify these experiences, improve accessibility, and better connect sports communities through technology.
Mr. Swidler (...) will work closely with GTCR to identify, partner with, and build companies that enhance how youth and amateur sports are played, watched, and shared.
"There is so much we can do to bring high quality game streams, simplified team sign-ups and communication, advanced analytics, video highlights and more to the youth and amateur sports world," Swidler said on LinkedIn. "We will be aggressively pursuing investments and hiring great talent to make this vision a reality."
GTCR said it currently manages about $50B in equity capital.
This is the second new youth sports tech endeavor helmed by a Match Group alum in the last week — Otto Sport AI CEO Luke Zaientz also spent time there previously; he and Swidler did not overlap.
The takeaway? Infrastructure and tech is the hot place to be in the industry with an emphasis on platforms and tools that connect and engage users.
It sounds like ASG will need to make a few acquisitions to get rolling and it clearly has money on hand. Did we just find a new contender for SportsEngine?
🎧 On3 CEO’s ‘Enormous Belief’ In Youth Sports
Shannon Terry is bullish on youth sports.
The On3 founder and CEO (and Rivals and 247 Sports before then) said he is an “enormous believer” during an appearance on The Turf: Powered by D1 podcast with D1 founder/CEO Will Bartholomew (D1 is a past Buying Sandlot sponsor).
“Age 13 to 17 or 18, there's 24 million in the U.S. that play youth sports. College sports is becoming the pro sports and youth sports is kind of becoming the new college sports. I am a big bettor on the future of high school and youth sports. So if you set me down today and you said, 'Where would you, if you could in a perfect world, where would you really put a lot of money and time?' I would say youth sports."
Terry also said Rivals — which On3 recently acquired — hopes to establish itself as a “beacon” allowing youth athletes to unlock everything they can get out of sports.
The full podcast can be watched above; Bartholomew and Terry talked a lot more about youth sports, NIL and more throughout.
⛳️ Golf Orgs Collaborate To Support 63X30 Initiative
The PGA of America will team with First Tee and Youth on Course to back the Project Play program aiming to increase youth sports participation to 63% by 2030.
The organizations said the collaboration has three areas of emphasis:
Facility access
Removing participation barriers
Promoting and upholding Children’s Bill of Rights
As we wrote last week: The data may be a bit puffed up — especially stats that suggest youth golf’s growth is outpacing flag football — but the sport is clearly experiencing a boom. It makes sense that golf orgs would want to continue to capitalize on this. And golf likely has greater odds than other sports to grow the tent and pull in participants who are not playing otherwise.
⚾️ New Tech: Make The Play Baseball
MTP is an app that teaches situational baseball to youth players, teaching them where to be and what to do through various gamified experience.
“When kids first start playing — they’re playing in the outfield, they’re not engaged and when the ball does come to them, they have no clue what to do,” creator Greg Gates told Buying Sandlot. “Coaches are yelling, parents are yelling, teammates are yelling, it’s panic mode.”
Gates believes that frustration contributes to attrition levels — especially when he sees stats that as many as 70% of youth baseball parents did not play themselves. MTP can boost confidence for athletes and also provide more access to the game, he said.
MTP was awarded a Delaware state grant in 2024 and is currently conducting a funding round ahead of its launch later this year. Gates said there has been interest from everyone from high school coaches to facility operators to professional teams.
Gates said his team is working on developing a softball-specific program; basketball and soccer are planned expansion sports.
🏢 SFC Lays Out 2026 Plans
The Sports Facilities Companies will have 11 venues under its umbrella either break ground or open this year.
The projects encompass eight states; a full rundown of the venues and timelines can be found here.
🤔 An Interesting Take …
The Staten Island Advance published a follow-up on the strict new fan conduct rules announced by CYO officials in the borough, surveying youth sports leaders in the region.
One reaction that stood out: A veteran official said he believes the only effective way to curb bad behavior would be to penalize the offenders’ kids.
On the surface, that seems grossly unfair but is the only leverage a sports organization has over the parents. Once everyone is made aware of the rule, mom and dad are the ones punishing the child, not the program. Not only has this been the most effective measure I’ve seen, it’s the only one.
Enforcement is often the main issue because "everyone wants bad behavior stopped — until it’s their own,” he said, adding issues today are no more prevalent than decades prior, there are just people taking videos now.
Curious to know what people think about this.
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Good game.