This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
We’re rolling out a completely revamped premium community of youth sports owners, operators, investors and service providers.
The best part? Because youth sports doesn’t happen without the thousands of people who serve and interact with athletes and their families everyday, the vast majority of operators will be able to join the community for no cost.
Details on how operators can apply to join in the newsletter today.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
🏟️ Capacity Sports Group Is Making Moves
Few players in the industry have been as active — or are as intriguing — as Capacity Sports Group.
The company launched in January when Bullpen Tournaments and Prep Baseball finalized a merger.
That deal alone created a formidable portfolio. BT operates diamond sports at Grand Park Sports Campus and its parent is involved in the Indiana super complex’s overall management while PB had over 1.6K events last year and utilizes LakePoint Sports in Georgia as its flagship campus.
But CSG has made a slew of acquisitions since — and it is not done.
“We have an appetite to be in anything and everything that makes sense, is profitable and can be scaled nationwide,” CEO Ken Kocher told Buying Sandlot.
CSG recent bought a pair of facilities outside of Philadelphia — United Sports and YSC Sports — and operates about 10 facilities year-round.
But Kocher said complex acquisition is not the main goal— CSG sees itself as a partner with venues, whether it be management or as an operator.
“We’ll be opportunistic on that, but our mission is to go and partner with complexes and be able to bring content — tournaments, events, leagues — to those complexes to fill them,” he said. “The ultimate winners behind it all will be the cities, the counties, the developer that’s trying to develop property around it by bringing in a lot of people.”
CSC’s other acquisitions fit that content strategy — baseball/softball tournament operator Play9 Sports, soccer platform Sideline Sports Solutions (S3), Flag Football Life and West Chester Flag Football.
CSG expects to run over 300 tournaments across over at least 150 fields nationwide by the end of this year, drawing 20M in attendance to its events.
Kocher said baseball/softball, flag, lacrosse and soccer are CSG’s main sports currently; the Philly area facilities bring field hockey into the fold and he envisions volleyball will become a focus once it begins to add more indoor venues to its portfolio.
CSG’s current presences leans heavily toward the Midwest and Northeast, but its ambitions are not confined to that footprint.
“We feel like our specialty is players, tournaments, events and running complexes,” he said. “We’re excited about where we’re going.”
Two other quick things:
1) CSG also owns Top Tier, a club baseball program with over 250 teams across 10 states. But CSG is not taking the super club approach like Curve Sports or True Lacrosse. Kocher did not rule out acquiring more clubs, but said it is not a big growth vehicle and he envisions CSG partnering with club roll-ups instead.
2) There is going to be a demand for serious flag recruiting coverage very soon as more D1 schools launch women’s teams. Don’t be surprised if CSG emerges as a real player in the space alongside with the usual suspects like On3 and Rivals.
Prep Baseball is a major brand — it has offers robust media coverage with boots on the ground in almost every state and Canada and it bills itself as the largest scouting infrastructure in amateur baseball. Kocher said CSG is working to upgrade its software to be able to replicate the blueprint in other sports. But it also realizes authenticity will be critical.
“The trick is having experts in those sports that provide the proper coverage,” he said.
📆 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
⚾️ PlayMetrics Partners With Pony Baseball
The youth sports management platform — fresh off its SportsEngine acquisition — will handle competition and membership operations for the baseball and softball organization.
Pony said the deal will modernize and unify its systems across communications, game day management, registration and rostering and scheduling. It will include an integrated mobile app.
Pony said it has over 500K athletes competing annually across over 4K leagues in most U.S. states and overseas.
👥 Operators: Apply To Join Our Private Community At No Cost
Operators run the youth sports market. Our revamped community is built around the people doing the work— clubs, leagues, schools, tournaments, facilities.
Membership comes at no cost for vetted operators in exchange for contributing to the industry's most comprehensive operator panel surveys.
Independently-owned operators can apply to join as an Operator Contributor at no cost. All scholastic, community, and non-profit operators are also eligible to apply.
Registration and pricing for larger operators, service providers, and investors will be available next week.
In addition to premium content, the revamped Buying Sandlot community will offer:
Peer Networking: Private networking areas so operators of all sizes can connect, share best practices, and partner
Investment Opportunities: A true peer-to-peer platform so youth sports founders and operators can connect with interested capital
Data and Reports: Segment-specific benchmarking reports, industry pulse data, and detailed investment lists
Initial reports include:
Youth Sports Funding and Platform Consolidation Report (May, 2026)
Youth Sports Transactions Database (May, 2026)
Youth Sports Facilities - Planned and Under Development (May, 2026)
The Raise: Intel On Why Operators Need Capital (May, 2026)
Great Youth Sports Facility Benchmarking Report (July, 2025)
Vetted Directory of Service Providers: Pre-vetted platforms and tools when you need them, without unsolicited sales pitches (Q3)
Other Benefits (institutional memberships only): Private webinars, warm introductions, Deal Drop market intel reports, quarterly calls, custom reports, and later this year, access to raw intelligence, real-time dashboard
Youth sports has never had access to this kind of first-party, real-time data.
FAQ
I’m a small operator and already paid to join the existing Buying Sandlot premium community— am I eligible for this? Yes. In fact, any existing member who already paid to join and is independently owned with under $2M in annual revenue, should take the survey. If you qualify, we will refund you what you’ve paid and you will be a member of the revamped community when it launches (more features, less cost).
I’m a large operator, service provider, or investor and already paid to join the existing Buying Sandlot community— what happens to my subscription? It gets better— more research, more reports, more networking. Frankly, better community features (Slack wasn’t cutting it). The cost will remain the same for existing subscribers. Investors who want to discover and communicate with operators and founders seeking to raise capital will be able to upgrade to an additional tier.
Why no cost? Youth sports is a pyramid, with capital at the top, platforms and service providers in the middle, and operators at the foundation. The operators are the engine that makes everything go. They also have much smaller budgets and are the most time-constrained, but possess the first-hand knowledge on what’s actually happening in the space. We’re here to ensure they have access to the same information as institutional investors.
As an Operator Contributor, will I be approached by investors? Only if you want to be. Two-way communication with investors is opt-in. Investors can't cold-message you— introductions only happen when an operator opts in or initiates one.
Will my individual data be visible to investors or other members? No. Only anonymized aggregates appear in benchmarks and reports. Identifying information is never shared without explicit opt-in.
Operators: Apply for membership in under 2 minutes right here.
🎲 How Prevalent Is Wagering On Youth Sports?
This topic seems to pop up every now and then — we’ve had allegations of youth football wagering in Cincinnati, Little League World Series lines at offshore books and a Pennsylvania soccer coach cooking up hoops props.
Now have an actual report written by a pair of European sports integrity officials.
There were 160 global reports of suspicious betting involving youth sports in 2025, according to data from the Group of Copenhagen — an advisory group of national gaming platforms that targets match fixing.
That was a 661% increase from 2021 (21 reports) and an unspecific number occurred in the U.S.
But 98% of the reports involved soccer — the main issue appears to be events like U17 international competitions, where athletes could be more vulnerable to bad actors. And, obviously, no legal book here offers action on youth sports.
The narrative surrounding the ills of youth sports - as seen in the video - has grasped onto this topic, and casual viewers might presume that it is legal, widely-available, and routine. It’s not. It exists is dark pockets of the industry, often at highly-competitive elite levels, but that hasn’t stopped the topic from getting lumped in with more common criticized practices like stay-to-play and private equity.
🏢 SFC Head Count Booms After New Acquisition
Not a youth sports move, but still a notable one for a major player — The Sports Facilities Companies has bought Power Wellness, which is billed as the nation’s largest fitness center management firm.
PW manages 26 facilities in 13 states; the acquisition on-boards over 2K new SFC employees.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
*Paid promotion
🤳 Follow Buying Sandlot on Social
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.