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:
🏀 Marquee Hoops Names Take A Big Swing
A parade of big names from the business and sports worlds are joining forces in an effort to transform the American hoops developmental model.
The Futures Basketball League announced it will tip off next spring, aiming to overhaul the fragmented world of travel hoops and “combine the best of Europe’s club academies and America’s top college and pro programs — elite coaching, strength and plyometrics training, recovery and sports science, mentorship and education — inside a competitive league.”
The roster of backers is headlined by NBA stars Kevin Durant and LeBron James; other big names involved include Paolo Banchero, Maverick Carter, Daniel Haimovic, Ryan Harwood, Rich Kleiman, Ezra Kucharz, Derrick Rose and Gary Vaynerchuk.
“It really comes from a genuine place of how can we make the American basketball system better for everyone in it,” FBL co-founder and chairman Jason Stein told Buying Sandlot. “And we think that starts top down, based on our experience, with these elite players.”
April-to-August season
Top 120 players in 2028-31 classes
12 regional teams across U.S.
NIL compensation for athletes
Sneaker company agnostic
HMBL Development will lead player development
Stein said FBL’s main innovation is bringing together all elite prospects on one platform that focuses on development and empowerment, rather than the current landscape of myriad circuits backed by competing sneaker brands. Stein pointed to the drought of domestic-born NBA MVPs as proof change is needed.
There will be educational programming for athletes and families through the league, but Stein said there are no plans to establish school curriculum or academies.
“We did not want to interrupt the scholastic experience,” he said. “We want kids to have the experience of going to high school, being with their friends and families, being big man on campus. I think aggregating all these players in the spring-summer season is a game changer. It’s never happened before.
“Right now you have the top kids playing on 200 different teams in seven different circuits and not playing each other. There’s very little focus in the current system on player development, strength and conditioning, college preparation, media training, financial literacy. These are not only things that will have huge impacts for these athletes on the court, but off the court as well as they go forward.”
FBL will partner with grassroots basketball platform MADE Hoops; its games will be played at MADE events nationwide alongside its other competitions. FBL has also pledged $1M to the MADE For All Foundation to fund community initiatives and scholarships to expand access.
Stein’s SC Holdings — which is financially backing FBL — led MADE’s first outside capital round in 2025 alongside LRMR Ventures, the family office of Carter and James. Durant and Kleiman (Boardroom Sports Holdings) and Banchero are also investors in MADE.
📺 Friday Night Lights, Live At Home*
High school football is religion in Texas.
Clear Life Media brings it into living rooms with the help of Blackmagic Design.
The Lone Star State-based company produces high quality, multi-camera live streams for its “Game of the Week” productions, as well as youth and adult grappling competitions for its “Clear Life Combat” on-demand channel, using Blackmagic’s workflow and suite of affordable solutions including:
… and more
All stakeholders in the youth sports industry expect top-notch live streaming. Blackmagic Design makes it possible using the same products as professional teams, allowing high quality, affordable and easy to learn multi-camera streaming and filming.
For more information, visit Blackmagic Design.
*Sponsor
🌎 Sticking With Elite Youth Hoops …
Atlas — the new global platform headlined by IMG and Spire Academies — will play its opening round today.
There will be 12 games played at IMG’s Bradenton, Florida, campus through Friday.
A few quick updates:
Hoop Group president and ESPN college hoops analyst Rob Kennedy is now Atlas’ commissioner. The move comes after original commish and former CFL player Mike Morreale was named team president of the Ottawa Redblacks. Morreale, who previously served as the CEBL’s commissioner, remains involved with Atlas in an advisory role.
Atlas has named ShotTracker as its official technology partner in a multi-year deal. The analytics and video platform “will serve as the exclusive provider of official game statistics, advanced analytics and video across league competitions, while giving teams and coaches access to live data and video directly on the bench during games.”
Atlas will stream games on its YouTube channel. Games will also be carried by HomeTeam Network and individual team channels.
🧠 Prep Baseball’s New Mental Skills Training Pact
Capacity Sports Group’s PB has partnered with Optimize Mind Performance, giving its families exclusive opportunities via OMP’s app as part of the agreement.
OMP’s resources “are designed to help young players build confidence, manage pressure, maintain focus and respond constructively to setbacks.”
Over 250 pieces of content from sports psychologists, mental performance coaches, PhD-level experts
Self-tracking tools
AI-powered recommendations
Private, on-demand training at personal pace
A slew of college and pro teams and athletic departments use OMP. Among them: The Cleveland Cavaliers, Miami Marlins, Duke, Ohio State, Stanford and USC, as well as Team USA.
Quick Take: Soft skills development remains a hot trend across the industry.
📆 Onsides App Launches MCP
The youth sports scheduling app has launched an MCP and can now connect with users’ AI assistants. The Onsides plug-in detector is available in ChatGPT and is in the approval process with Claude and Muse.
“It's not rocket science that parents are always busy,” founder and CEO Dave Yoo told Buying Sandlot. “They access whatever information they need at various levels of stress, of chaos, time of day, location, whatever.
“My thesis is AI assistants are just one of those things that some subset of parents are going to be using heavily. And so our goal is to make this aggregated, normalized data for their youth sports lives accessible via that medium in complement with our own native app.”
The integration brings availability and scheduling data into AI conversations; users still need to download the free Onsides mobile app to initiate the connection. Yoo said the MCP will eventually broaden its offerings to include tools like overuse risk monitoring through Onsides’ athlete activity tracker.
Disclosure: Kyle Scott is an Onsides advisor.
🔉 New Podcast: EventConnect’s John D’Orsay And Eric Vardon
Another great conversation with a pair of industry BIG DAWGS… and also a longtime sponsor.
-- How EventConnect handles group travel
-- What booking data says about families
-- How tournament expectations differ
-- Is there enough demand for new facilities?
-- Improving events with location data
-- The debate surrounding stay-to-play and transparency
-- and more!
BUYING SANDLOT: THE BUSINESS OF YOUTH SPORTS
The Engine Powering 5,000 Tournaments: EventConnect’s Leaders Talk Stay-to-Play, AI, and the Future of Travel
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
BSN Sports has been named Yeti’s official team sports supplier. The stainless steel drinkware maker’s products will be available for purchase and personalization through the Varsity Brands division’s digital platforms.
Black Bear Sports Group has filed both a motion to dismiss and a motion to compel arbitration in its federal stay-to-play lawsuit. The most noteworthy development may be a disclosure filing that states the ice venue and hockey company “has no parent corporation.”
More Greg Olsen middle school football coaching content is on the way. The Fox analyst’s Charlotte-area squad and his famous assistants will be the subject of an “all-access docuseries” from DAZN, Team Whistle and Olsen’s Youth Inc. with Geico on board as the presenting sponsor. Episodes will debut on DAZN and then roll out on the other companies’ social media platforms. Quick Take: Other, less discerning outlets are positioning this as an investment in youth sports, but it’s nothing of the sort. Geico is likely paying Youth Inc. (and Whistle?), which sells apparel and uses Greg Olsen and content to promote its brand. There’s nothing wrong with that, of course (we’re a media company as well!), and some of the content is engaging. But when we talk about sponsorship in the newsletter, it’s about that money flowing to operators and programs running youth sports. That’s not happening here as best as we can tell. One Level Deeper Take: We are bullish on scaled operators who own facilities and clubs layering media and content on top of their business. This enables them to both promote themselves and be more attractive to advertisers. Similar to what Monumental Sports is doing at the pro level. To wit…
🏆 What Youth Sports Operators Can Learn From Monumental
Yesterday, we released a deep dive post and video on our time with Monumental Sports for our other vertical, Buying Sideline, which covers the business of sports hospitality.
The focus was on their new hospitality offerings. But because Monumental owns the teams (Wizards and Capitals), the arena (Capital One Area), and the media network (Monumental Sports Network), they are able to think holistically about operations and sponsorship— which directly applies to youth sports operators and how they can think about building a scaled sports business.
It’s worth a read.
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Good game.