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:
🍌 Industry Takes On The Bananas
Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole got people talking last week after he set youth sports as his “next frontier” in social media posts.
So we asked around for some industry thoughts:
“This could be an amazing juggernaut depending on the direction they go,” said Route 27 Group’s Rick Abbott, who previously was the CEO of Cooperstown All-Star Village.
Abbott said he does not believe Banana Ball itself is transferrable to youth sports — it is a show put on by adults who are accomplished athletes and ballplayers and have performance ability (acting, dancing, singing, etc.)
“If he decided, for lack of a better term, to take on the Cooperstowns, Dreams Parks, Perfect Game and different things and do a youth baseball location, have them play baseball and sprinkle in the fun of Banana Ball and all of these other things that go along with it, I think he’s sitting on a gold mine,” Abbott said.
“If he decided to take on the big cats, I think with his creativity and their marketing, I would be very concerned he’s going to cut into more than a few people’s bottom lines.”
Another interesting thought from Abbott: Cole could use a traditional youth baseball platform as a pipeline to identify potential Banana Ball prospects when they reach high school age and then offer specialized training.
LENZ Sports Group co-founder Matt Wray thinks the best bet is a modified version focused on introducing younger kids to the sport outside of the traditional youth baseball calendar.
“The issue with this in my eyes is Banana Ball at a youth level, even watered down, is going to serve as an alternate sport type to traditional baseball,” he said. “If it begins pulling kids away from traditional baseball, then we are honestly just robbing Peter to pay Paul with participation numbers in the sport.”
Next Level Sports CEO Lance Smith said he is all for the Bananas’ involvement.
"The game needs something exciting, it needs energy,” he said. “Your right fielder can't be just out there to fill one of the on-field positions, they need to be engaged. If anyone can do that, or will focus on that for youth baseball, it certainly feels like the Bananas and Jesse Cole can do that. And in the end, that could be amazing for a game that has dipped at the youth level."
Former big leaguer Zach Lutz — one of the scheduled speakers at the Buying Sandlot summit — wrote on LinkedIn that while youth sports should absolutely be fun, that does not mean chaos.
“If platforms like Banana Ball can lower the barrier to entry and partner with people focused on teaching, standards, and development, we might actually move the needle. The goal isn’t backflips. The goal is kids who love the game enough to still be playing at 14, 17, 21 … and beyond.”
FWIW: A recent podcast interview with Bananas head coach Tyler Gillum could offer some clues — he echoed much of what Cole said about youth sports, but talked about kids playing baseball OR Banana Ball, not just the latter.
I will throw out another potential avenue — what if the Bananas helped subsidize youth sports on a large scale?
This is a $1B business that almost assuredly has businesses worth 10x, maybe even 100x or 1000x that, chomping at the bit to work with it.
The Bananas create/partner with traditional leagues that align with their values, pulling them together under an umbrella similar to Babe Ruth or Cal Ripken or Little League.
Major brands provide significant funding that removes access barriers. The leagues play it straight with some cosmetic tweaks — drippy uniforms, music, slight rule changes, etc. — and then funnel into a single-site Banana Ball World Series where all the magic is let loose.
Now that world be a serious threat to the Little League World Series throne.
🏟️ First Full Round Of Buying Sandlot Summit Speakers Unveiled
Our first wave of Buying Sandlot Summit speakers has been unveiled, with more on the way! Panels and sessions will be unveiled in the coming weeks.
Gif by cbc on Giphy
Get your tickets now:
Attendee: $649, includes food and evening networking event
VIP Attendee: $899, includes everything for attendees + VIP Lounge, VIP-only breakfast, and access to nearby hotel room blocks
🧱 Chicagoland Project Pivots In Big Way
Back in August we wrote about a developer who bought a $17M office park in the Chicago suburbs and pledged to spend at least $25M converting some of it into a youth sports complex.
The developer is now thinking bigger, plunking down $20M for a recently-closed college campus (also in Bannockburn) with plans to now spend at least $40M on the project.
116 total acres
60 acres of existing sports facilities and fields, indoor and outdoor
Existing athletics center will begin hosting youth sports immediately
Long-term plan to build 400K-square-foot indoor complex
Indoor facility would have 8 basketball courts, full-sized soccer field
Entertainment area for families also planned
Adjacent to planned new HQ for NWSL’s Chicago Stars
Project still needs city approval
The developer has pledged to cover some costs personally; he has also started a charitable organization and may seek private financing.
📺 Video: The $40B Industry Built on 8-Year-Olds
Joon Lee is a former ESPN writer who regularly appeared on Around The Horn and hosted the digital version of Baseball Tonight. He’s now creating sports essays on YouTube. I (Kyle) generally enjoy his work.
Last night, he tackled the $40B (more like $60B at this point) youth sports industry. And while the facts presented were largely accurate and he didn’t draw any sweeping conclusions, the tone was clear. Commenters were more blunt.
This Bloomberg piece chronicling a family living in a trailer to better travel to tournaments doesn’t help things.
We’ve probably reached the tipping point in society where most parents would agree that things are getting out of hand.
That may be true (and in many cases, I agree). But there’s another side to the story, and that’s the alternative to playing sports. We are just now getting our heads around how terrible screen time is for everyone, and especially kids and teens. While living in a trailer to support a youth sports habit is probably a sign of another type of addiction, every minute spent playing, practicing and training for sports is a minute not spent scrolling Instagram, playing video games, or in a group chat. And the benefits to playing sports are well-documented.
Obviously things can go too far. This is why I feel a coming wave will be around improving the recreational experience and the general offering at local public and private facilities (vs. so much effort and money going into the travel space). Frank Decembrino from Clubhouse Partners gave us a good view of what a premium local club offering could look like— from increased socializing opportunities to strength and speed training.
Most media reports focus on the downsides of the current state of youth sports, but they rarely focus on what kids would otherwise be doing with their time. Youth sports directly competes with screen time.
As Joon said in the video, there is no “commissioner of youth sports.” And there won’t be. But I do think the industry could use a publicist to counter some of the narrative.
🏢 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Cincinnati: City Council has signed off on a process to identify costs and locations to build 2-3 fields specifically for youth football. Most leagues currently rent school leagues; one council member called on the NFL’s Bengals to assist the effort.
Lebanon, Tennessee: A contractor published an op-ed in The Tennessean alleging the city has stiffed its company and local subcontractors out of payments due for work on a now-open complex in town.
Minnetonka, Minnesota: Hoop Habits — a basketball training platform — is opening a 41K-square-foot facility after outgrowing its 6.5K-square-foot facility in nearby Edina. The new venue will have four full courts and can host tournaments.
Overland Park, Kansas: The first hotel at The Sports Facilities Companies’ AdventHealth Sports Park at Bluhawk — a $17M, 99-room Holiday Inn Express — is expected to open in April or May before World Cup games in Kansas City. Plans call for two more hotels with a combined 250 additional rooms once the complex’s retail space is completed. The $40M Phase 2 for the youth sports facilities will expand the total footprint to 400K-square-feet.
Slidell, Louisiana: The city plans to invest up to $8M into a recently-acquired 24-acre baseball and softball complex. A private investment group will partner with the town; the site was seriously damaged by a 2024 tornado. Officials hope the renovated complex can attract sports tourism; Slidell is about 30 minutes north of New Orleans, 90 minutes east of Baton Rouge and 90 minutes west of Mobile, Alabama.
Yuba City, California: Officials will apply for a state grant of up to $8.5M to potentially build a regional sports complex. The proposal calls for the city and Sutter County to buy a defunct K-Mart and merge it with a nearby park, creating a 24-acre facility with 6-8 baseball diamonds, several soccer fields and more.
🇨🇦 Canada Goes For The Gold(s)
The Canadian Olympic Committee announced it will receive over $500M in private investment over the next decade for a multi-faceted push to become a top-5 medal-winning nation in both the Summer and Winter Games.
Driving youth sports participation is outlined as a critical focus of the plan — the COC is aiming to engage 1M more kids in organized sports through several initiatives.
For context: There are about 41M people in Canada and roughly 8M people ages 19 and under. So that is a significant goal.
Quick Take: The USOC should be working on a similar plan now. Many national sport organizations are woefully under-resourced and the college sports developmental pipeline could explode at any time now that revenue share is here.
🎤 Perfect Game Gets The Big Guns
A trio of big name comedians -- Nikki Glaser, Tiffany Haddish and Jay Leno -- headlined a fundraiser for the Perfect Game Believe in Baseball Foundation last Friday night at The Laugh Factory in Hollywood.
The foundation raises funds to offset youth sports costs for elementary and high school age athletes.
Perfect Game commissioner Dennis Gilbert was honored as the first recipient of the Perfect Game Leadership Humanitarian Award; the event was hosted by Joe Davis, the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers, and Hall of Famer Trevor Hoffman, who works with PG.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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