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:
🧢 BSN Sports Launches New Club Division
The Varsity Brands-owned apparel and equipment maker, distributor and marketer has launched Club Direct.
The new division will work exclusively with club sports teams. It is being heralded as BSN’s “most significant strategic expansion” since the company’s founding.
The main hook: Club Direct will offer factory-direct manufacturing. It says it will be able to ship stock uniforms to clients in as little as two days and pegs the turn-around for custom made-to-order uniforms at four weeks.
Other offerings:
Geographic region- and sport-specific sales reps
Live uniform try-ons
Added customization tools
More available brands and exclusive offerings with partners
Extended service hours starting in 2026
🥨 But Take The Survey Data With a Grain of Salt
BSN also conducted a survey with Talker Research of 4,150 parents, coaches and athletes.
Here are some results:
1 in 6 parents (17%) believe their child is destined for “sports stardom”
72% say youth sports now feel more professional than recreational
85% of coaches say intensity feels more “professional”
27% said their child needs them nearly, if not, every step of the way
Average athlete needs new equipment 3× per year
Average annual spend on equipment: $313
Popularity growth: basketball 44%, soccer 40%, football 35%, baseball 25%, volleyball 22%
64% say jerseys and equipment are worth it for “pride and progress”
48% say sideline / parent behavior at games is mostly positive
Might have been better to term that last one as “52% believe sideline behavior is not mostly positive” 😭
I got to be honest— I hate this survey.
The questions read like they were written by someone who doesn’t understand youth sports, or by AI. I mean, look at this:
“In what sports have you noticed an increase in general popularity of?”
This is intended to show which sports are growing at the highest rate, but wholly unsurprisingly, the results fall almost exactly in line with the participation rates in given sports, i.e. respondents noted increased popularity in their sport. Shocking. No flag football, eh?
And then you have emotionally leading questions like this designed to elicit a favorable response for marketing:
Indeed, as it turns out, the survey was conducted by what is, in effect, a marketing agency whose mandate is to come up with the story and then generate questions to support it. Literally, it’s in the copy at the top of the survey questions form:
To be fair, it went on to say that any edits that violated “research standards” wouldn’t be allowed, so there may still be plenty of value here, but it’s always worth understanding the incentive.
I wouldn’t spend so much time here, but this stuff gets picked up and parroted by media outlets and others:
Anyway, that’s how the sausage is made.
🎮 Perfect Game’s Outside-The-Box Collaboration
The baseball and softball developmental platform has moved into the virtual world, launching Perfect Pillars — a baseball themed map for the popular Fortnite video game.
Soldier Sports’ new Designer Tank Bat is featured throughout gameplay, “blending real-world performance with digital play.”
The initiative represents the first-ever collaboration between a leading amateur baseball organization and Fortnite’s creator ecosystem, highlighting the ways in which sports and gaming can come together to connect Gen Z athletes.
A refrain you hear a great deal: You have to meet youth athletes where they are. And many of them are playing Fortnite. PG continues to find ways to tap into the culture of its participants.
🏊♂️ IMG Academy Adds Another Sport
Swimming will be the powerhouse’s 12th sport— and the third added this year along with boys volleyball and wrestling. The program is open to boys and girls.
IMG said the program will be one of the biggest investments in school history, as it is also building an Aquatic Center on its Bradenton, Florida, campus.
The almost 10K-square-foot facility will have a 10-lane pool and serve as a training destination for elite swimmers. Ground breaks next week and the facility is scheduled to open in 2027.
Obviously, this ties in well with IMG’s #AddMoreAthletes campaign.
Double-clicking on that thought:
1) Collegiate swimming and diving has weathered the post-House world well so far — we have not seen many programs cut in the last few years and there are still over 100 D1 men’s and women’s programs, plus lower divisions.
2) If colleges are ever inclined to start adding sports (as IMG is pushing for), almost every campus in America has a pool or two somewhere and swimming rosters are big, which promotes participation.
3) When it comes to the future of non-revenue college sports, betting on the ones that become a national point of pride every four years in the Olympics seems like a good decision.
🔉 New Podcast: LeagueApps CEO Brian Litvack
This is a good one! Will have takeaway thoughts on this next week, but you’d be hard-pressed to find someone who has more knowledge about the youth sports industry than Brian.
You can listen and subscribe to the Buying Sandlot podcast with the following links:
🏟️ NYC Youth Sports Complex In Limbo
About 2.5K baseball and softball families on Staten Island could lose access to several fields as a long and strange legal battle nears a resolution.
The Staten Island United Federation Baseball League says the property — which houses four fields — was given to a predecessor organization in 1976
The property was formerly the site of a controversial state school for children with intellectual disabilities
The league says its has maintained the facility without any state assistance for 50 years
The State of New York abruptly changed the facility’s locks in 2022 and then sent a cease-and-desist prohibiting youth sports at the site; a judge issued an still-in-effect injunction allowing the organization to continue using the complex
The state reportedly has no plans for the site, but insists it must take control
The matter is currently in mediation and a decision is expected soon.
The local org said it has offered to negotiate a 25-year lease and/or operate programming for people with disabilities, but the state has not budged.
🧱 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Atlanta: The Braves have announced the Hank Aaron Diamonds Initiative and will provide turf infields and other upgrades to all baseball and softball fields on Atlanta Public Schools campuses. The team will also support expanded access opportunities for middle and high schoolers and the Braves RBI program; the initiative runs through the team’s charitable arm.
Palatine, Illinois: The Orbit Ice Arena has proposed taking over a vacant 30K-square-foot building to construct a second venue. The project would include a roughly 10K-square-foot addition and host youth ice skating and hockey activities.
Reno, Nevada: Jacobs Entertainment is moving along with its plan to build up to 12 new rectangular youth sports fields in the city; early projections indicate each field will cost over $1M. The casino resort operator is aiming to generate more sports tourism and believes the city can host 25-30 major weekend events a year.
🤦♂️ Public Employees Behaving Badly
The city of Justin, Texas, has apologized after a city worker called local police on a youth baseball team for practicing on a municipal field without a reservation, calling it a “failure of judgment.”
Making the stakes a bit higher than your typical small-town kerfuffle: The Dallas suburb is partnering with PG-aligned Keep Calm and Baseball On and Kemper Sports to build a 12-field complex.
“As Justin moves forward with new and improved youth sports programs and facility upgrades, know that we are listening, learning and acting with purpose,” a city statement said. “Justin holds itself to a high standard of service, leadership and common sense, and in this instance, we fell short. We understand the frustration and disappointment this caused, and we share it.”
🔗 Youth Sports Links
⭐️ Poll Results
We got lots of responses to this one. Including write-in votes for: Fastbreak (2), Sprocket Sports (3), Playbook (2), Tourney Direct, Open Sports (2), Blitzboard, and TeamLinkt.
And some comments:
[Teamsnap] is the smoothest of operating systems by a long shot.
Sprocket Sports! You need to start focusing on them! Way less ego than the other brands and way better product.
I'm familiar with GC. I don't think it's great for running a team, but really good for tracking stats and streaming. Had SE a few years ago and just didn't like it. It's probably way better now.
gamechanger just seems like the best one there is.
AES, within SportsEngine, is the best for club volleyball.
I (Kyle) probably should have included Fastbreak and Sprocket, at a minimum, here. Was aiming to get a sentiment on the larger names in the space. There’s also a likelihood that results mirror adoption rates. As we learned today… not all polls are scientific. Though the sentiment on GameChanger clearly jumps out.
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.