🥎 Perfect Game Embraces Being A Media Company

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

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If you attend PG’s upcoming Dick’s All-American Classic weekend at Philadelphia’s Citizen Bank Ballpark on August 14-16, there is a good chance you will see a slew of future big leaguers.

The baseball developmental platform has a pretty good batting average: CEO Rob Ponger said 584 of this year’s 613 MLB draft picks previously participated in PG’s ecosystem and 16 of last year’s A-A players went in the first round.

Those impressive stats are among the many reasons Ponger is bullish on PG’s position as a media player and a potential gold mine for brand partners — two topics (among others) he touched on during a wide-ranging appearance on the Buying Sandlot podcast.

PG recently signed media rights deals with Doubted Athletes and Youth Prospects, platforms that create content geared for its Generation Z/Alpha wheelhouse.

Both outlets were already covering PG events, but now have greater access.

"Our role is to open up the fence," said Ponger, who previously worked in media at IMG. "The world has changed. Putting something on network at 2 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday -- I have 9- and 12-year-old boys. I don't think they know what ABC, NBC and CBS are anymore. They know on-demand, they know streaming, they know YouTube, they know Perfectgame.tv. We look at it as we're meeting our audience where they consume the content."

The move to bring DA and YP inside the fence comes as PG plans to enforce its media rights and deter unauthorized monetized content.

"This is our event," Ponger said. "We should be thinking of it as it's no different than an NCAA event. It's no different than a Major League Baseball event. We're the ones spending millions of dollars putting on these events on the fields."

To be clear: Ponger said PG has no issue with athletes and parents that film and take photos for their own use on personal social media accounts, sharing with grandparents, etc. He welcomes that.

"Unfortunately, there are a lot of people taking our content and not having our permission and using it for commercial purposes, monetizing it on different platforms," he said. It's something that we're going to have to put a stop to because they don't have any right to it. I can't go to a Phillies game with two cameras, film the game, and say, 'Hey, you can watch it on RobPonger.tv and I don't need to pay Major League Baseball a fee or the Phillies a fee.'"

Ponger said PG’s recent National Showcase event in Miami maxed out at 362K active stream viewers — an impressive number for any broadcast.

It’s one of the reasons PG has been able to consistently land brand partnerships — and why Ponger thinks even bigger names should pay attention to its events and media rights.

"This is, to me, an open book for the Chases or the Citibanks or the Geicos," he said. "You have 15-, 16-year-old kids about to open up a bank account. You have kids about to drive. I would be all over this if I was a bank. I'd be all over this if I was an insurance company. And the eyeballs that you have on us, we have a a captive audience that you can talk to.

"It also opens up even more NIL opportunities for the kids themselves. The kids can make money if they don't get drafted. They go to college, they're making money. And a lot of them are establishing themselves off of the PG content. ... Perfect Game is a great place for them to build their own personal brand as well by getting the exposure that we offer."

Another factor for brands: The PG tent is far bigger than elite prospects.

Ponger said the platform had about 100K participants when he and chairman Rick Thurman became involved eight years ago. It had 1.9M in 2025 with the growth driven at the base of the pyramid, not the top.

"The big push for us has been doing A-ball, double-A ball, triple-A ball, introducing baseball to 8-, 9-, 10-year-old kids who maybe have never swung a bat before," Ponger said. "I wouldn't call them rec ball events yet, but to me, we're opening up the game for everybody to play.

“There's also demand for a great product for your 8-year-old kid being introduced to baseball the right way. If he goes to a bad field, has a bad umpire, umpire walks off the field, curses out a parent. It's a turn-off. We want to make sure that little kids stepping on the field for the first time have a great experience out there and don't get turned off from the game."

PG is also growing its softball vertical. Ponger said it will have 75K to 100K girls participation across about 6K teams this year.

Tournament weekends have become mini supply chains: teams register, rosters change, schedules shift, hotels fill, and parents scramble.

Too many events still run things on spreadsheets, portals, and last-minute calls.

What we do (and why it’s different):

The “moment that changes outcomes”:

Proof of scale:

Learn more about how EventConnect can help power your tournament right here.

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The bipartisan STRONG Kids Act was rolled out earlier this week.

It has not yet generated the buzz of the Let Kids Play Act, but would almost assuredly have a bigger immediate impact on the industry.

The bill would create a federal youth sports grant program funded by half of the federal sports betting excise tax revenues — about $200M a year.

We broke it all down in a special send yesterday.

The health and wellness platform will provide complementary group education sessions for NJP athletes and families. Group and personalized coaching will also be available.

NJP operates camps, clinics and tournaments for ages 8-18 nationwide.

Koomba connects clients to dietitians, sports psychologists and mental performance coaches. All providers are vetted and have accreditation and credentials; the digital-only network operates on a subscription model and is HSA/FSA eligible.

“There’s not a lot of structure or support in pickleball. It’s kind of like choose your own adventure,” NJP founder and CEO Courtney Loughridge told Buying Sandlot.

Loughridge’s son is a top-ranked junior player; she said the need for strong mental performance skills has been a topic of discussion amongst NJP parents, which made Koomba an obvious fit.

“It’s been great to have somebody else inform him and guide him that’s not a parent and not a coach, but another trusted adult,” Loughridge said.

“This is a person who informs high-level performing athletes. It naturally gives them a bit more credibility with the kids. They have the background, the training, the knowledge of how to get kids to buy in, understand their perspectives and to cater to what the kids are looking to get out of it and help them in their individual games.”

Koomba maps all content to the American Developmental Model; former NCAA chief medical officer Dr. Brian Hainline is a senior advisor.

"Connecting an athlete to a coach or an app is quickly becoming a commodity," Koomba co-founder and head of strategic partnerships Russ Chase said.

"What youth sport really needs is trusted health infrastructure -- standards, safeguarding and a real developmental framework behind the support. That is what we are building with NJP for an entire generation of young athletes."

The eight youth baseball fields inside the Homefield complex in Kansas City, Kansas, are for sale.

They are listed for $9.52M; a Homefield official told The Kansas City Star the proceeds would go toward further development of the surrounding mixed-use district.

Capacity Sports Group/Prep Baseball has a long-term deal to manage the fields; that would not be impacted by an ownership change.

Otto Sport AI’s volleyball operations platform will be the event management partner for all JVA-owned and -sanctioned events starting with the 2026-27 season. It is a multi-year deal.

JVA will be the first organization to roll out Otto/SportWrench’s latest features, including Otto Event Builder (automated scheduling) and Otto Event Live (real-time hub for tournament director visibility).

JVA will also use a new Otto compliance utility that streamlines club sanctioning and automates athlete eligibility verification.

JVA hosts over a dozen annual competitions nationwide; individual events can feature over 900 teams and over 34K athletes, coaches, families and spectators.

Fuelboxx — a new youth sports nutrition company — announced its launch. It currently has three products — an energy bar and pre- and post-game meal kits. It is kicking off with activations and partnerships in the Los Angeles area, but says bulk sales are now available nationwide. It aims to partner directly with clubs, schools and organizations.

PlayOn Sports’ GoFan platform is now the Nevada Interscholastic Activities Association’s postseason ticketing partner. GoFan will provide handle digital ticket sales, event entry and financial reporting for NIAA championships and tournaments. GoFan manages over 750K events each year, including over 40K postseason events in 41 states.

The event — which bills itself as the world’s biggest flag tournament — kicks off today at Grand Park Sports Campus in the Indianapolis area and runs through Sunday.

This will be the event’s third year and its first since Brand Velocity Group acquired RCX Sports; the first two were held at the Hall of Fame Village in Canton, Ohio.

There will be teams from Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, Germany, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Panama, Spain and the United Kingdom, plus the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

ABC, Disney, ESPN and NFL Network will broadcast the entire weekend across various digital and television platforms;

PlayOn Sports has made two additions to its C-suite.

Dave Bottoms is the new chief product officer; he will lead consumer product marketing and product strategy. He comes to PlayOn from Upwork and previously had stops at Dropbox, Meta and Yahoo.

Celia Poon is the new CFO. She joins the company from Eightfold AI and previous stops include Twitter and Yahoo. She will oversee financial strategy, operations and long-term growth planning.

A Virginia man is accused of scamming youth soccer families out of over $60K.

Cops allege he created an academy that promised a summer camp travel tour in Italy, but he was in fact defrauding the families. The man was previously a coach for an established organization in the area, which police said gave him access and credibility.

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Good game.