🥎 GameChanger's Big Basketball Play

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

Take our Great Youth Sports Calendar Survey right here. All respondents will get access to high-level results.

Let’s get to it.

GameChanger is not new to basketball. But the youth sports juggernaut is putting its best foot forward as if it was.

The Dick's Sporting Goods-owned platform rolled out its new hoops-specific product yesterday, the latest step in its aggressive expansion on the court after becoming synonymous with baseball and softball.

Basketball was already GameChanger's second-biggest sport and 50% of diamond sport athletes on the platform also play hoops, SVP & GM of Emerging Sports Brandon Rhodes told Buying Sandlot. But the company has made significant investments -- in time and resources -- to engross itself in the sport's ecosystem and inform its expansion.

"We spent the better part of the last few years really planting a flag," Rhodes said. "Getting out there into cultural events, getting out there in partnerships with EYBL and really understanding what the athlete, the parent, the coach, the club director wants in basketball."

"We're not starting from scratch. We have a rich history of scorekeeping and streaming already happening in basketball. But when you look at the sport, there's a lot of key differences from diamond (sports) that also influence the product."

Among them:

The latter is the biggest update in this rollout. GameChanger is famous for its written game recaps and already produces automatic game highlight packages. The individual offerings are the next step and will eventually be available for baseball and softball as well.

"It's the most personalized product that we've had," Rhodes said. "There's five people on the court, so it's a little more individual-driven. It's highlight culture. How do we empower that?

"And we know that you as a parent care about the No. 1 player, which is your kid. So you'll have a personalized recap with personalized insights with all the highlight clips that your kid had in that game and a reel of all those highlights stitched together."

Rhodes said GameChanger is interested in "large-scale growth team sports," name dropping flag football, soccer and volleyball. But the immediate focus over the next 6-12 months is basketball growth.

"We're still in the first quarter," he said. "We have a long way to go to get to where we are in diamond (sports), but encouraging early signals. Strong product usage, strong return rate, really good feedback from the community. We obviously want to go fast. We're going to aggressively upgrade the product, which we're doing now. We are going to be talking to our full community because we know there's a big crossover between diamond and basketball. Our product has a strong word of mouth. ... If the product is good enough, people bring other people."

Youth sports doesn’t need another company trying to own everything. It needs great companies that work together.

For more than a decade, EventConnect has powered the group travel, housing and data behind some of the largest events in youth sports.

But our vision is bigger than another all-in-one platform.

We’re leading the way in open integrations, technology built around your brand, better data, stronger partnerships, and the flexibility to work within the systems you already use.

You shouldn’t have to move your business into our ecosystem to work with us. We’ll meet you in yours.

Sometimes that looks like EventConnect. Sometimes it doesn’t look like us at all.

The future of youth sports won’t be built by one company. It will be built by an industry that works better together.

Let’s build it.

*Sponsor

The Brand Velocity Group-owned operator has formed a partnership with the national organization to “expand access to youth flag football through local park and recreation agencies across the country.”

The multi-year deal will assist local agencies with launching and growing NFL Flag programming.

NRPA members will also be able to tap into the NFL Flag Fund to support girls flag and growth initiatives. NFL Flag will also support NRPA’s “Get Her in the Game” campaign to increase access and participation for girls in all youth sports and the organizations will collaborate on general access matters.

The NGB has expanded a strategic partnership with Franklin Sports "to help more young athletes discover and enjoy lacrosse."

The organizations said they have reached over 50K elementary and middle school students in seven states so far as part of the previously-established USA Lacrosse PE Grant Program with plans for expansion in 2027.

Marucci Sports has been re-acquired by founder Kurt Ainsworth and a group of investors in a $225M deal.

The baseball bat, equipment and apparel maker was offloaded by Fox Factory Holding Corp. just three years after the public company paid $572M for it.

Marucci and sister brand Victus Sports (of pencil bat fame) are the official bats of MLB and are very popular at all levels of the game. But they were not delivering expected financial returns for Fox, according to The Baton Rouge Advocate.

One of the more brazen — and convoluted — tales in the esteemed history of this section reached a conclusion when an Alabama woman pleaded guilty to stealing $73K from a youth baseball league.

Why is this saga so noteworthy?

The woman has to repay the $73K within seven days as part of her felony plea deal. She got two years probation and will go to prison for almost four years with any violation. It’s not clear if she is still a city employee.

Quick Take: You will find some elite TV news content at the link.

We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:

Follow BS on X

Follow BS on LinkedIn

Follow Kyle on X

Follow Kyle on LinkedIn

Follow James on X

Follow James on LinkedIn

Good game.