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:
📰 Another Media Wave Hits Industry Shores
It has been a busy week or so for national and regional outlets weighing in on The Business of Youth Sports.
The Wall Street Journal had a re-heated column jabbing the industry. The Denver Post rolled out a four-part series examining the local state of youth sports; KQED had a similar piece about the Bay Area.
Business Insider published a pair of parent essays on the cost of youth sports and extracurricular activities.
Fast Company’s “Private equity is coming for your kids’s sports leagues” was actually far more balanced and nuanced than the headline would suggest. And today — New York Magazine rolled out a cover story titled “The Pay-To-Play Childhood.”
None of the pieces covered much, if any, new ground. All coverage of the industry has largely become paint-by-numbers. But everyone wants in on it. These reports are driving web traffic and make for good clips in awards packages. So expect the parade to roll on.
Three things:
1) People need to actually read the Let Kids Play Act. Both the FC and NYM stories suggest the bill targets conduct rather than corporate structure; the NYM piece inaccurately writes that LKPA “would require any investors in youth-sport companies with below-board tactics — junk fees and binding contracts, for instance — to divest over a two-year period.”
Again: LKPA would automatically label all private equity as a “vulture investor” and ban it from the industry, regardless of conduct. The bill also clearly defines “covered parties” as private equity. Non-PE entities are not impacted by the bill. In our interview with bill co-sponsor Rep. Chris Deluzio (D-PA), the congressman also seemed fuzzy on the distinction between targeting specific practices and an ownership structure. And while the bill mentions PE firms could effectively get a waiver if they prove they have not engaged in specific practices, the mechanism to do so is murky at best.
(This is also the subplot of the federal stay-to-play lawsuit against Team Travel Source that should be getting more industry attention: The plaintiffs are arguing that a non-PE entity is engaging in the conduct, not the PE-backed platforms it partners with.)
2) We now have a good amount of data that indicates average youth sports costs are being inflated by high-end spending and the vast majority of families are not spending tens of thousands of dollars. But these reports never seem to be able to find the parents who are spending a combined $750 for their two kids to play rec sports where the longest trip is to the other side of town. We know they exist!
3) One of the Business Insider essays led with Project Play figures. But the author goes on to explain that about $1.5K of the $2.3K she spent on her kids was for Boy Scouts, piano lessons and musical theater. It’s another reminder that all activities for kids are rising in cost, but the scrutiny tends to be confined to youth sports.
📆 EventConnect Exists To End Tournament Chaos— For Organizers And Families*
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):
Centralize the weekend workflow: registration, rostering, payments, lodging, and real-time reporting.
Organizers can run end-to-end on EventConnect or integrate the systems they already use— no rip-and-replace required.
Either way, the data lands in one place so operators aren’t stitching together reports from multiple tools.
The “moment that changes outcomes”:
HousingConnect embeds hotel booking directly into checkout— capturing rooms at peak intent instead of sending families to a separate portal later.
Results can be up to 30% more room-night reservations and 24% savings on team hotel costs.
Proof of scale:
EventConnect powers 5,000 events and connects 30,000 hotels across 800 destinations.
Learn more about how EventConnect can help power your tournament right here.
*Sponsor
🙋♂️ Parents Behaving Better
Digital education can impact how adults view behavior at youth sports events, according to a new study out of Sweden’s Umeå University.
Niklas Lovefall — the founder of the Sport Values training platform and a referee according to his LinkedIn page — wrote a master’s thesis in education examining the impact of a 20-minute training module developed by a regional hockey organization.
He conducted a survey of 11K parents across 19 sports, plus three waves of hockey parents over two years that maxed out at close to 1K — both pretty substantial sample sizes in the grand scheme of industry reports.
73% said their understanding of how their behavior impacts kids increased “greatly” or “very greatly”
75% said the same about young coaches; 61% about officials
Hockey parents said referee abuse dropped from 3.26 (out of 10) to 2.25 after Year 1
Hockey parents saw more modest drop in coach abuse (3.68 to 3.23 over two years)
Lovefall also found parent behavior gets worse as kids get older basically as a rule. Hockey saw the worst behavior by a wide margin and behavior was worse in boys’ sports than girls’. Parents in individual sports were better behaved than team sport parents, but the survey found young coaches can face challenges in the former due to how closely they work with families.
FWIW: The author disclosed a business interest and there was no control group. The survey also relies heavily on parents — a group that is likely not the most reliable narrator.
A whopping 55% of respondents claimed they had never seen bad behavior at youth sports events before viewing the module. Coaches consistently said behavior was worse than parents. And a 2020 report surveying kids regarding the impact of mandatory education for Hockey Canada families found little change in parent pressure and support or athlete enjoyment.
⚾️ Little League Teams With Boys & Girls Clubs
The organizations announced a partnership that will create pathways for BCGA kids to participate in local LLI baseball and softball programs.
The initiative will launch with 25 pilot programs in 2027, emphasizing expanded access in underserved communities.
Equipment, training resources
Community activations
Youth programming
Volunteer initiatives
Storytelling efforts
The organizations will cross-promote, according to USA Today; officials told the news outlet the organizations overlap in over 90% of their respective footprints.
Locations have not been determined yet; the programs will be subsidized, but not necessarily free for participants.
🏃 Facilities Arms Race: At The Starting Line
Hopkinton, Massachusetts — best known for the starting point of the Boston Marathon — is kicking the tires on an indoor facility partnership with KemperSports.
The concept of a regional track and field venue has been discussed to complement the planned $35M International Marathon Center museum in town, according to The Hopkinton Independent.
A Kemper rep suggested a track-focused facility could still house indoor turf fields and courts.
🧱 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Cape Coral, Florida: The $17M Festival Park complex has opened. The venue has four multi-sport fields and festival space on an 80-acre lot. A second phase of the project will add six more fields, which officials say will allow it to host tournaments.
Colonial Heights, Virginia: City officials authorized the sale of a 38-acre site to a hospitality company that plans to build a multi-field complex. The $180M project would also include a hotel and a restaurant and could grow in scope. More background here.
Long Beach, California: The city’s Veteran Memorial Stadium is set to be demolished to make way for a $250M project that will include a new stadium as well as a sprawling complex that will include a 2.5K-seat arena, rectangular fields, basketball/volleyball courts and other facilities.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
3Step Sports played a role in the athlete selection process for the Patriot Games, according to NOTUS. The report on the event also said the deal to host the competition at SPIRE Academy came together relatively quickly and was not planned long-term.
Embattled FIFA president Gianni Infantino caused more waves in the international soccer community by making an appearance at a U14 event in the Dominican Republic. Other FIFA officials had asked him to stay away.
Black Bear Sports Group has officially re-opened a Kalamazoo, Michigan, ice rink following its controversial acquisition of the venue. One ice sheet is operational and a second is expected to go online within weeks.
🚔 Youth Sports Crime Blotter
We had a section back in May about a youth hoops organization in Nevada that was bilked out of $40K and could not use its new facility after the GM of an Idaho flooring company disappeared with the deposit cash for the court.
The man — who was convicted of scamming roofing companies out of over $400K about a decade ago — was arrested last week in Pocatello and may face extradition.
Cops said they got his address from his parole officer. But the org said it had told the PO months ago. And the guy was publicly fired by the company and had his name reported in the media. So it is not clear why it took so long.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.