This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
Big send. Let’s get right to it.
In the email today:
🧱 Masters Academy International Making Waves
Elite boarding schools are a fixture in New England, but none have emerged as sports-focused powerhouses.
Masters Academy International plans to change that.
The $84M private athletics academy will open next fall in Stow, Massachusetts, bidding to become a northern equivalent of IMG Academy — keeping elite athletes like Maine native Cooper Flagg in the region while also tapping into the talent-rich Northeast.
“Top athletes want to marry their academics with sport. Many of them leave their public schools looking for better coaches, bigger schedules, better competition, better facilities. But [private schools in the region] are all kind of doing the same and nobody is doing a multi-season sport,” MAI co-founder Peter Masters told Buying Sandlot.
“The secret sauce for us is our ability to carve out over four years almost 2,800 hours more training time than our competition here in New England. And if you join us as a sixth-grader, you’re close to 4,500 more hours.”
The MAI basics:
Co-founded by brothers Chris and Peter Masters, who own the Boston Junior Bruins youth hockey program
Located on the site of a former Bose Corporation campus
Grades 6-12 + a post-graduate year— curriculum partnership with Boston’s Newman School
Former IMG head of school Rich Odell is part of MAI leadership
Global schools group Cognita is a lead investor
5 hours of academics, 4 hours of sports daily
Annual tuition in the $50-$70K range
Applications will begin in September.
MAI teams will compete as independents— the school will not be part of the MIAA.
MAI will offer hockey, baseball, basketball, soccer, lacrosse, figure skating, golf, fencing and esports in Year 1. Future potential sports include football, softball and volleyball.
Masters said MAI will play more local/regional schedules than IMG does.
An early coup for MAI: USA Fencing is exiting Colorado Springs and moving its main operations, including a performance center, to the campus.
“It’s incredible for us,” Masters said. “Our ability to win the bid over the 18 other finalists is a huge feather in our cap. I think it puts us the national stage right away.”
Construction is underway on the first phase of facilities.
3 turf soccer/lacrosse fields
2 baseball fields with lights
40K-square-foot basketball pavilion with 4 courts
13K-square-foot performance center
12K-square-foot indoor facility
Hockey will be off-campus for now, but a two-rink facility is planned along with the fencing facility and more turf fields (one with a dome). An adjacent property has grass soccer fields, softball fields and outdoor basketball courts.
You can view additional designs and plans on the public filing page here.
A clear trend emerging here in sports education. I see several macro trends upstream of this, in order:
1) NIL and direct payments to college athletes. As we outlined here, the sports labor market effectively just increased by $2B and the equivalent of an entire new pro sports league has been created by the NCAA.
This means more jobs, and an increased likelihood of earning meaningful money from athletics at a younger age.
Of course families will spend more to prepare young athletes for this opportunity.
2) AI will create more leisure opportunities.
Without sounding too delusional here, the coming wave of automation will free up humans for higher-level tasks and unlock time in the day for health and wellness.
Education will be completely upended.
100 years ago we didn’t have dishwashers, vacuum cleaners, or many other household appliances, and cars and planes were barely a thing for most people.
As such, our lives today, broadly speaking, are more leisurely than they were in 1925 and incomprehensible to someone living in 1825.
That same level of change may occur within the next 10-15 years, freeing us up for more interesting pursuits and, yes, athletics.
What it means to be human will be redefined. But the desire to compete has been around for thousands of years. And without sounding too dystopian or batsh*t crazy, sports will be one of the small handful of things that keeps us human.
In other words: You don’t need 7 hours in the classroom learning how to do complex math when we’re all walking around with computers smarter than the sum of all humanity attached to our heads. 2 hours more of sports in the day seems like just the start.
3) Brain drain.
Virtually every Northeast parent I’ve spoken to in the last year with a high school age kid has said their son or daughter is looking at southern schools, for a myriad reasons we won’t get into here.
I think you’ll continue to see innovative thinking around education nationally, but especially as northern institutions lose brain and body power to southern schools.
But what about the weather?
🏟️ The Shopify of Youth Sports Tournaments*
There are only a handful of companies that deserve the moniker: The Shopify of [X].
That’s because it’s rare when one platform can cover all of a business’ needs in a single interface.
EventConnect is the Shopify of sports tournaments.
It’s the leading no-cost platform built specifically for organizers who juggle schedules and hotel blocks in the same breath.
registration
rostering
payments
real-time performance reports
lodging and more
Their proprietary HousingConnect tech bolts room blocking and booking straight onto checkout, delivering the best online group rates while parents still have their credit cards out.
This means up to:
30% more room night reservations
24% savings on team hotel costs
EventConnect already powers 9,000 events, taps 30,000 hotels across 800 destinations, and backs it all with class-leading customer support.
Want to join them?
*Sponsor
🏈 NFL Flag, Pop Warner Join Forces
NFL Flag and Pop Warner Little Scholars announced a partnership to expand flag football access and opportunities nationwide.
RCX Sports - which partners with pro leagues on youth programs like MLS Go, NHL Street, MLB Pitch, Hit and Run - will support local implementation.
The partnership will launch in December with the jointly-run Crown Classic Flag Football Tournament at the Pop Warner Super Bowl in Charlotte. The event will be open to Pop Warner and non-Pop Warner teams.
The partnership model will allow Pop Warner to integrate NFL FLAG into its existing programming beginning in Spring 2026, inviting local leagues and associations to offer both tackle and non-tackle football under one umbrella, alongside existing cheerleading programs, with the goal of expanding options for every young athlete. The structure of the program is designed to be flexible and inclusive, giving leagues the ability to adapt to the needs of their communities and creating new pathways for girls to play flag football alongside boys.
A release said over 2.4M kids participated in flag football in 2024, making it the fastest-growing youth sport in the country.
Everyone — from the NFL to Disney to Unrivaled Sports — is in big on flag.
Especially girls flag, which is exploding nationwide.
⚾️ Perfect Game, Pioneer Fit Team Up
The premium belt manufacturer is now the baseball development giant’s official belt provider, including a presence at PG’s major events.
As part of the partnership, every player selected to compete in Perfect Game’s most prestigious showcases – the DICK’S Perfect Game All-American Classic, and the 13U and 14U Select Festivals – will receive a custom Pioneer Fit belt to mark their achievement. Pioneer Fit will also engage fans and players through on-site activations at select PG tournaments nationwide, bringing their innovative products and craftsmanship directly to the amateur baseball community.
(...)
Pioneer Fit will also be featured across Perfect Game’s digital media landscape, including PerfectGame.org, PerfectGame.TV (PGTV), and PG’s social media channels, ensuring deep engagement with players, parents, and fans across the country.
That is a picture of my kids getting an autograph from new Phillie Harrison Bader last night. He’s a Drip King.
Look at the sweet, sweet Bruce Bolt arm sleeve.
I have no idea if he is wearing a Pioneer belt in this photo, but he may be. It doesn’t matter.
The point is, drip and accessories are, by far, the biggest trend in baseball and Perfect Game - purveyor of the youth version - continues to lock up partnerships in this category. They’ve already struck deals with Bruce Bolt and Sqairz for custom colorways.
The kids love it. And my kids were happy too.
🧢 ESPN Rolls Out ‘Take Back Sports’ Ambassadors
The worldwide leader has begun airing vignettes on its platforms for its ambitious youth sports initiative with Positive Coaching Alliance, which aims to get kids moving and participating.
The vignettes tackle critical youth sports issues and are also featured on TakeBackSports.org.
Eli and Peyton Manning, Steph Curry and A’ja Wilson are among the almost two-dozen ambassadors.
Disney committed $5M in March— the initiative is tied to Aspen Institute/Project Play efforts to get 63% of kids participating in sports by 2030. The vignettes are the latest activation by ESPN.
🏢 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Willis, Texas: Prosperity Sports Park — a 146-acre complex — is under construction. The $40M project will consist of 17 baseball/softball fields, a pair of 10K-square-foot concession stands and an 8-acre lake when completed. Phase 1 calls for eight fields; the facility should open next year. Future plans could include basketball and volleyball facilities.
Hackensack, New Jersey: The city has scrapped plans to build a 75K-square-foot complex featuring a dome after almost a decade of delays. The Johnson Park Sports Complex had a projected cost of $7M when announced in 2016; the plug was pulled after the price tag grew to at least 40M. Plans included an indoor facility, outdoor turf and pickleball/tennis courts.
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
This is a youth football game at Baldwin Park, 11 year old game I’m told.
Parents …..
— #Fred J. Robledo 👨🏻💻 (#@SGVNSports)
11:47 PM • Aug 3, 2025
A brawl broke out at a youth football game in Los Angeles last weekend.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.