This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
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In the email today:
📈 Youth Sports’ Revenue Upside For D1 Schools
Toledo started was was believed to be the first youth sports organization operated by a D1 school in February when it launched Rocket Youth Sports Leagues.
Things have been pretty quiet since with only a handful of flag football dates promoted. But former Toledo AD Bryan Blair — now at Syracuse —said RYSL was “a clear six-figure revenue drive” with significant upside during a recent appearance on JohnWallStreet’s “Big Business On Campus” podcast.
“I thought getting youth onto our campus and turning them into Toledo Rockets fans from an early age benefited our entire campus. Toledo had some enrollment challenges, we had lots of space in terms of fields and facilities that were not being used 365 (days a year). We had student-athletes that needed NIL and were willing to lean in and possibly be coaches or assistant coaches or refs. You combine all of that and you say, ‘Golly, youth sports is a $40 billion industry. There are a lot of people paying a lot of money to send their kids all over the country to participate in these things. How do we get a start?’ … The sky is the limit. If I can go to a college campus that feels safe and [kids] are around tremendous student-athletes that serve as youth role models and I’m leaving with a t-shirt that has the Toledo or Syracuse logo, I am a walking ambassador for what Syracuse is. That feel-good in the community lasts, but also there is a clear revenue component.”
Blair indicated Syracuse — which faces its own enrollment issues — will also try to lean into youth sports.
Blair sounds a lot like Dave Pettigan, the Philadelphia Union’s youth GM, on on our podcast last month talking about how every MLS Go (RCX Sports) program in the Philly area must wear Union jerseys:
“We were pretty strict. We were like, ‘Hey, listen, we’re on board with MLS Go, but every kid in our region has to be in a Philadelphia Union kit.’ Your job is to create the league, our job is to create fans. Because the first jersey you put on, that’s typically your team for life, right? And so we’re making sure that the first jersey these kids put on at grassroots entry level is a Philadelphia Union jersey, and that’s the message. Whether you think that we’re the best or the worst in the league, we’re your team. Get behind us, support us.”
Growing lifetime fans (and in this case potential future students) is a huge opportunity here with many available tools — branded gear, access to coaches and athletes, leveraging the campus and facilities for great experiences.
Sure, the sense of urgency is higher at a MAC school like Toledo that sits between Ohio State and Michigan than a P4 school like Syracuse. But the value is universal and the community connections can be parlayed into new revenues.
Schools can use youth sports as a way to create NIL opportunities for their athletes, especially in Olympic sports. They can monetize facilities and venues that often sit dormant. And there is a deluge of data that can be tapped in terms of concessions, ticketing, memberships, etc.
📺 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
💰 Where Youth Sports Sponsorships Go Next
Everyone wants to talk about sponsorships in youth sports right now.
But the industry needs to better distinguish what they entail, according to Priority Partnerships’ Dan Scheinman.
“I think a lot of what I'm seeing being talked about as sponsorship is really advertising around sports, or advertising around youth sports,” Scheinman told Buying Sandlot on the heels of Priority’s second Youth Sports Sponsorship Study in tandem with YouGov Sport.
“It’s more similar to a media buy or a digital buy. That is a great strategy, I’m not discounting that strategy by any means. I just think if a brand goes into a sponsorship, they're often looking for association. That is the difference I think our industry will benefit from. There's an opportunity from just being more clear about what we're selling. Are we selling advertising through youth sports, or are we selling youth sports sponsorships?”
The most powerful asset in sponsorship is giving a brand the ability to tap into the organization’s IP, Scheinman said. And youth sports organizations may be leaving revenue on the table by failing to speak the same language as buyers.
Scheinman pointed to the deal his firm brokered between Soccer Shots and Trust & Will as an example of what is possible with sponsorships.
The online estate planning platform has its logo on hundreds of thousands of Soccer Shots shirts nationwide and is able to position its services in front of a desired audience. The pact also includes a community grants program to help expand access.
“Youth sports offers a level of personal relevance that you can't get anywhere else,” Scheinman said. “For brands to be able to find a way in that's natural and additive to the experience, additive to the families, solving pain points or helping to make sports more accessible. There's something really powerful here. I really hope what this study ultimately does is give brands a reason to really consider youth sports. The more brands that come into the space, the more it is going to help with accessibility issues. Not only for families, but also for operators that are spread very thin and are trying to do a lot all at once. Having additional revenue come into the system is going to help them run better programs for these families as well.
“This is a really powerful marketing platform that happens to have every attribute a brand could ever want in a marketing strategy. It's community-oriented. It's brand safe. You've got an engaged audience, it invokes emotion. It encourages kids to stay active.”
The initial study found 84% of youth sports parents are supportive of brand partnership with only 3% having a negative opinion. The latest report said 68% of respondents were likely to build trust with a brand that sponsors their child’s youth sports program and 71% of parents would consider a brand when they need what it sells if it was endorsed by their youth sports program.
“Youth sports is showing all the same signals that women's sports showed before it absolutely skyrocketed,” Scheinman said. “I think youth sports is ready for that breakthrough moment right now. We're already starting to see some blue chip brands move into the space and I think we're going to see a lot more.”
🏆 Industry Leaders Clean Up
The inaugural SportsTech Breakthrough Awards were announced this week with a heavy youth sports presence.
TeamSnap earned Youth Sports Platform of the Year honors for TeamSnap ONE, which launched last year. TeamSnap said organizations sent over 14M messages and scheduled over 1.2M games and practices in the first year.
OTTO Sport AI hauled in two awards. Otto Event received the SportTech Innovation Award and Otto Prep was named the Recruitment Intelligence Solution of the Year.
Other industry players earning honors:
Arbiter: Scheduling & Workforce Management Technology of the Year
GameChanger: Team Management Solution of the Year
GoFan: Ticketing Platform of the Year
Hudl: Video Analysis Platform of the Year
Pixellot: Live Sports Streaming Solution of the Year
SportsEngine: League Management Solution of the Year
TeamWorks: Athlete Management System of the Year
Veo: Automated Video Capture System of the Year
Congrats to all.
🥇Youth Sports Take International Stage
The Youth Olympics will open tomorrow in Dakar, Senegal.
First-ever Olympic event in Africa
About 2.7K teenage athletes
Competitions in 35 sports
Run from Oct. 31 to Nov. 13
This will be the first “summer” Youth Games since 2018, as the 2022 event was skipped due to the pandemic. And it may be the last. IOC President Kirsty Coventry questioned the event earlier this year when she froze the process to name a 2030 host (the 2028 winter edition remains scheduled for Italy).
The controversy doesn’t end there. Human rights groups have protested Senegal’s treatment of LGBT people in the run-up to the event. And it will be the first time the IOC permits Belarusian and Russian athletes to compete under their flags since the Kremlin invaded Ukraine. Several European broadcasters are refusing to televise the opening and closing ceremonies as a result.
Team USA will be represented by 29 athletes across a dozen sports.
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
This is an ugly one.
A husband and wife may face felony assault charges after an altercation at a 12U softball game in Texas left one man hospitalized with brain injuries and another with a broken hip.
The husband allegedly hit the first victim in the face with a metal water bottle, knocking the man unconscious and causing a broken jaw, fractured skull and three brain bleeds, according to the man’s attorney.
The second victim then intervened and was injured in a subsequent scuffle; the wife allegedly also got physically involved at this point. She has since resigned from her position as a Houston-area middle school vice principal and the United States Fastpitch Association has said it will issue lifetime bans to anyone involved in the incident.
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Where is AI actually showing up in your youth sports business?
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