This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
A huge wave of new speaker announcements today for the Buying Sandlot Summit taking place in Philly on April 14-15. Panels, sponsorships and the agenda are beginning to get rolled out on the event website, so keep checking back for details. Join the hundreds of operators, executives, founders and investors who will be attendance by getting your tickets right here.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
💰 SPIRE Academy Secures The Bag
Business just picked up in a big way.
SPIRE Academy has secured one of the most lucrative youth sports partnerships ever with Vensure Employer Solutions, the nation’s biggest private HR tech and workforce solutions firm.
$6M commitment over five years
$500K in Year 1
Brand patch on boys basketball uniforms
Presenting sponsor of SPIRE’s Performance Research Institute
Community programming
That patch figures to be in front of a lot of eyeballs over the next five years.
SPIRE was briefly No. 1 in the country earlier this year under new coach Kevin Boyle — eight national titles at Florida’s Montverde Academy, five New Jersey state titles at St. Patrick’s, four No. 1 picks coached (Kyrie Irving, Ben Simmons, Cade Cunningham, Cooper Flagg).
But Vensure CSO Phil Urso claims this isn’t about exposure. He told Sportico the goal is to turn members of SPIRE’s community — alumni, donors, parents, other sponsorship partners — into clients.
Sponsorship is a topic we’ll be discussing heavily at the Summit:
I reached out to Urso and have not heard back yet, but I have a lot of questions.
Urso told Sportico that “we’re an EBITDA company, so if I go spend half-a-million dollars, I’ve got to get $1.5 million in ROI."
That sounds like Vensure is looking for an $18M ROI over the lifetime of this deal. Which is a lot of HR solutioning.
SPIRE’s boarding tuition is about $70K a year, so Vensure is certainly now swimming in a well-heeled pool.
But a place like IMG Academy has about 10x more students and a much larger national profile.
A large-scale platform like Little League International or i9 Sports would figure to give you many multiples more shots on goal for payroll services clients (and make a much larger impact on families).
And while it is a brand new and largely unknown landscape, past projections suggest Vensure might be able to get a jersey patch with a power conference college hoops team for the $1.2M annual average of this partnership (or a court sponsorship for mid six-figures).
Vensure said it works with 161K businesses worldwide and processes over $150B in annual payroll, so obviously it can afford to experiment a bit. And there is undoubtedly exposure upside here between Boyle and the performance innovation lab.
But while this certainly won’t be the last high-value youth sports sponsorship, the strategy here feels like it may be unique.
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Speaker Unveil
What, you thought we were done?
Today, we’re happy to announce the following speakers:
Luke Zaientz (CEO, Otto Sport AI): Otto just raised $16.5M and is part of a wave of Tech 2.0 platforms leading with AI
Sandeep Hingorani (Founding Team, Baller TV): A leading live-streaming platform that recently rolled out the Baller Cam
Hanna Howard (CEO, Rematch US): The youth sports streaming app that allows parents to capture and share highlights
Jake Deane (Co-Founder True Lacrosse and True Sports): True just took on capital to expand in lacrosse and volleyball
Kyle Lubrano Satola (VP of Athlete Safety, Ankored): A nationally recognized leader in athlete safety, compliance and risk management
Tony Caudill (CEO, Duesy): A tournament payment platform leading with text message delivery
Zoya Lehrer (CEO, Orgo): The logistics calendar for sports parents and athletes
Ticket prices increase at the end of the month. Join the hundreds of youth sports operators, founders, executives and investors who will be in Philly on April 14-15.
🚨 A Sobering Reminder About Being Prepared
Gunfire broke out as people were leaving a high school basketball game in Newark, New Jersey, on Tuesday — a day after the fatal shooting at a high school hockey game in Rhode Island.
It was Newark Collegiate High’s senior night doubleheader for its boys and girls teams, so the crowd was large. The incident occurred right after the boys team beat Newark Central.
Three people were injured, including a 16-year-old boy. There was a panic as people ran back into the gym, according to NJ.com.
There is no indication the shooting was related to the game, but Newark Central’s coach said city and school officials need to do more to manage crowd safety at high school sporting events.
🏒 Land Of 10K OTs
A 12U girls ice hockey playoff game in Minnesota went 12 overtimes over three days this week, finally ending in a shootout that went to sudden death itself.
The Cottage Hill Wolfpack and St. Paul Saints finished regulation tied at 1 on Monday, then played six extra periods before play was suspended. The song remained the same on Tuesday after four more OTs.
State and local officials then literally invented new rules overnight to ensure the game ended on Wednesday. Cottage Hill won in the shootout’s sixth frame.
🌽 An Update From Nebraska
State lawmakers are tired of a staring contest with Gov. Jim Pillen regarding several youth sports facilities projects in the state.
A pair of bipartisan bills were proposed in a legislative committee this week that would streamline approval through a special state tax program designed to support sports complexes.
The law requires Pillen to sign off on approvals; he said he won't consider them until at least the summer.
One bill would put a 30-day “shot clock” on the governor to address projects; the other would remove the governor from the process entirely.
🧱 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Big Bend, Wisconsin: Now neighboring towns are standing in largely symbolic opposition to a proposed complex in the small village located outside of Milwaukee. Officials in Vernon and Waukesha have passed resolutions against the potential Breck Athletic Complex.
Compton, California: And1 unveiled restored outdoor basketball courts in the city last week as part of its “Paint the Park” initiative during the NBA’s All-Star Game weekend. The courts feature murals by a local artist.
Edwardsville, Illinois: A public-private 50K-square-foot fieldhouse in the St. Louis suburb is expected to break ground next week. It will contain a Shoot 360 location and have five basketball courts/nine volleyball courts, plus futsal and training space.
Sanford, Florida: Seminole County official are moving forward with plans to build a 172K-square-foot indoor events complex near the Orlando airport and the Boombah Sports Complex. The venue would host some youth sports and have a price tag of at least $100M.
Strafford, Missouri: The city’s Sports Center will close in May after six years; no reason was given. The facility is about 33K-square-feet and has four basketball courts.
🎓 Limiting International Athlete Scholarships?
A proposed bill in Idaho would restrict the number of athletic scholarships public college and universities can award to foreign students.
Most sports would have a 10% roster cap
Football would have a 5% cap
No more than 50% of any roster can be “non-U.S. citizens” at any time
Current international athletes — and future ones who are awarded a scholarship by July 1 of this year — would not be impacted for at least four years if the bill becomes law.
Two things:
1) This bill — and potential copycats elsewhere — would be very convenient for schools looking to cut sports. They already want to dump programs like golf and tennis that have international-heavy rosters. Now they can point the blame at politicians rather than acknowledge they would rather use the money to pay the football team.
2) On the other side: International athletes’ ability to earn revenue share and NIL compensation is restricted due to visa rules. Going overseas is already becoming a Moneyball strategy for resource-challenged schools as a result, so don’t be surprised if there is also some backlash if this becomes a trend.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
Florida’s state senate passed the “Teddy Bridgewater Act,” which allows middle and high school head coaches to spend up to $15K of their own money toward supporting students with food, transportation, etc. The bill was drawn after the former NFL QB and Miami Northwestern coach was suspended for providing improper benefits to players.
The Athletic has a very thorough dispatch about U.S. Soccer’s U15 boys team putting a scare into England’s U15 side during a recent international camp in Cyprus befo. Team USA lost the match, but agents, scouts and rival nations reportedly took the effort as a sign the “U.S. Way” developmental philosophy could be showing early returns on the world stage.
South Florida athletics has launched a partnership with Florida Premier FC — the latest example of a D1 program getting involved in youth sports. Florida Youth Soccer Association is teaming up with Sports Sponsorship and Event Consulting to "to strengthen and expand its sponsorship and partnership initiatives."
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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