This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
In the email today:
🏟️ Early Little League World Series Ratings Looking Good
Official ratings for the LLWS aren’t out from this weekend, but according to data from ustvdb.com and with a little help from Grok AI, we can quickly compare like games with ESPN slots YoY:
Game Number | 2024 Viewers | 2025 Viewers | Change (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
Game 4 | 975,000 | 1,078,000 | +11% |
Game 8 | 1,109,000 | 1,338,000 | +21% |
Game 12 | 1,064,000 | 1,202,000 | +13% |
Game 24 | 1,544,000 | 888,000 (ESPN2) | -42%* |
Game 28 | 1,197,000 | 1,267,000 | +6% |
Game 32 | 1,346,000 | 1,758,000 | +31% |
Game 34 | 1,228,000 | 1,575,000 | +28% |
Overall, the available 2025 games show an average increase of about 10-20% in viewership compared to 2024 equivalents.
For added context: The 2025 Little League Softball World Series championship drew a record 1.44 million viewers, up 139% from 2024.
ESPN is likely to put out big headline ratings for the semis and championships sometime this week. We’ll update when they become available.
🤳 The Biggest No-Brainer in Youth Sports*
Why pay to take on the responsibility and risk of document handling and eligibility duties— when Zorts will handle all of it and pay you to do it?
The reality is: If you’re not using Zorts or the Zorts API, you’re running an organization that’s stuck in the typewriter era.
There’s a reason Zorts has racked up over 9 million impressions on their Instagram in the last 23 days and has over 100,000 followers.
Your customers already love Zorts, and they want your organization to be part of their community.
Zorts bundles its services— from athlete verification, to player cards, to secure document handling. Just pick and choose what works best for your organization.
Their customer service team will walk you through every step, and teleport your organization straight into 2025 and beyond.
Learn more about Zorts right here.
*Sponsor
⚾️ Batbox Lands Licensing Deal in Utah
The TopGolf-like tech-enabled baseball batting cage simulator's Batbox Suite product will makes its debut powering the Virtual Dugout in Lehi, Utah, which is about 30 minutes outside of Salt Lake City.
From Batbox:
The Virtual Dugout in Lehi, Utah is bringing a first-of-its-kind baseball experience to their community by partnering with Batbox. Through our licensed product, Batbox Suite, they will power their venue with the same cutting-edge technology and immersive gameplay that fuels our flagship in Addison, Texas.
Batbox Suite combines proprietary baseball simulators with adaptive gameplay, interactive kiosks, and continuous software updates that keep the experience fresh and social. Players at The Virtual Dugout will also be connected to Batbox’s global ecosystem, giving them access to local, national, and international competitions, leaderboards, and evolving game modes.
This partnership is a strong example of how Batbox can integrate into a variety of venue types to deliver an accessible, competitive, and unforgettable game—making baseball cool and connected again for every community.
Batbox is opening its first U.S. location in the Dallas area this year— it already has several locations in Mexico.
Batbox is the Top Golf of baseball.
But they have 3 go-to-market strategies:
1) Owned-facilities— like the one they are opening in Dallas.
2) Licensed simulators for sportstainment— in this case, powering a venue in Utah.
3) Licensed simulators for existing baseball and softball facilities— probably most interesting to this audience, existing baseball facilities can convert one of their hitting tunnels into a Batbox suite.
I’m bullish on Batbox where Top Golf has struggled because of what I wrote in July:
“But where the golf brand has struggled given the costs associated with its large facilities (it needs all the space for the balls to land), these 2.0 variants, including indoor golf establishments, use simulators to do the bulk of the heavy lifting. Batbox needs only about 40-45 feet for its tunnels.”
This capitalizes on both the gamification and tech-assisted trends in training— injecting some much needed life into a very tired format (batting cages).
⚽️ Defunct Youth Sports Complex Could Become $200M Entertainment District
Riverside, California, has big plans for a defunct youth soccer facility.
The city has entered exclusive negotiations with a developer on a proposed $200M multi-use entertainment district. It would sit on 56 acres previously occupied by the Ab Brown Sports Complex, an 18-soccer-field facility that closed in 2018.
Multi-use stadium that seats 5K to 15K using modular technology
6 soccer fields
Indoor complex for pickleball and other court games
Future phases would include a hotel, housing, dining and retail, community space, parks and more.
The developer is a minority owner in Orange County Soccer Club, which currently plays in the USL’s second tier.
USL is moving to a promotion-relegation model and is part of a wave of stadium and multi-use district projects across the country at the moment, many with youth sports tie-ins.
💸 An Idea I would Invest In: Aramark for concession stands
One of our jobs is to identify trends and opportunities in youth sports.
We keep seeing clear momentum around sportstainment and enhanced viewing experiences for parents, especially at larger, modern facilities (think what Valhalla FC Arena is doing in Colorado).
But most parents - especially of younger athletes - spend countless hours at community soccer and baseball fields, with little-to-no concession options beyond some kids standing at a snack table with candy, pretzels, and maybe hot dogs.
Who is building “the Aramark for youth sports concessions”?
Sports Facilities Companies and KemperSports offer a suite of venue management services - including concessions - but these 1) generally seem like bolt-on options (ie not core competencies) and 2) only apply to larger complexes that work with these companies.
According to Real Mom Nutrition, a recent study by researchers in North Carolina looking at what young baseball players ate at the baseball field found 90% of all food eaten at the ballpark came from the concession stand and that 73% of the available concession items were unhealthy.
There would be difficulties here, with the ability scale and quality assurance leading the way.
Perhaps the answer is self-service kiosks, or franchising to local operators. Or food trucks. But there has to be a better way as we all sit on camping chairs eating yet another granola bar.
Tens of millions of parents + hundreds of millions of hours sitting at fields + a need for hearty, healthy quick-service meals
Maybe we’ll do a deep dive on this at some point.
🏈 Football Drives The Bus In Ohio
WKYC 3 in Cleveland recently reported on the financials of fall high school sports in Ohio.
The stats were not terribly surprising, but still notable.
OHSAA made $1.78M in profits on football last year
All other fall sports ran a combined $210K shortfall
Football drew 540K fans last year, over 100K more than all other fall sports combined
Football is the state’s top sport for participation
🤦♀️ Parents Behaving Badly
A hard foul occurred in a New Jersey youth girls soccer game in May, according to NJ.com.
The athlete who committed the foul was suspended. The game’s referee was told they should have immediately drawn a red card.
But the mother of the fouled athlete posted footage of the incident on social media, leading to cyberbullying of the suspended player while the fouled player’s coach floated criminal charges.
The matter escalated to the point the team of the fouled athlete has been expelled from the league ahead of the upcoming season.
📋 Job Alert: Business Director, Nike EYBL Basketball — North America
Nike’s Elite Youth Basketball League is seeking a new business director for the North American operation.
We are looking for a Director in Business who will work with Basketball Leadership in North America and Global to elevate and expand EYBL across Product, Brand, and Marketplace. The ideal candidate has a proven record of leading key business initiatives with clear results, developing and executing plans in highly matrixed environments, and has a strong leadership presence working cross-functionally. The capacity to deal with ambiguity and high resilience will be key to the success of this role.
The listed salary range is $150K to $316K based on candidate location, experience, skills and qualification. A full job listing can be found on LinkedIn.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.