🥎 Major Youth Sports Events Up For Bid

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

Let’s get to it!

A pair of RFPs to host national and international youth sports competitions are currently posted, with one bid deadline approaching.

Cities have until Oct. 1 to apply to host the 2026 USATF National Youth Outdoor Championships. The event runs June 24-28 next year. The Playeasy profile (via Sports Travel Magazine) for the event says 2K hotel rooms will be needed each night with 1.6K competitors and 4K anticipated spectators.

New York’s Icahn Stadium has hosted the championships three of the last five years; the event was also held at SPIRE Institute in Geneva, Ohio, and Barron Stadium in Rome, Georgia, in that span.

Bidding is also underway on the 2027 IIHF U18 Men's World Championship with a Dec. 1 deadline. The 24-day tournament will be held in April of that year. Only 150 rooms are needed each night with about 200 competitors, but 10K spectators are projected.

The tournament is typically held across two cities within close proximity. The Dallas Metroplex has hosted the last two times the event was in the U.S. — in 2021 (Frisco and Plano) and this year (Allen and Frisco). Ann Arbor and Plymouth in Michigan were set to host in 2020 before the pandemic canceled the event.

If you know about any potential bidders, feel free to drop us a line.

We have all been there. You urgently need customer support and you end up spending hours on the phone, only to be routed to an overseas call center. Or even worse — the only contact method is an email account that will not receive a response for a day, if at all.

That is not the case with Zorts. The cutting-edge youth sports management and safety platform also offers best-in-class customer service.

Zorts reps are U.S.-based and available 18 hours a day, 7 days a week. Including holidays. And shifts are strategically scheduled on a week-by-week basis to ensure someone is there to answer the phone when you need them.

Reps will be able to assist operators utilizing Zorts ID with Flash Biometrics with any issues or questions, ensuring the platform is positioned to safeguard events with its background checks and age-verification software.

Top customers will have their own rep and there is no call too small.

Find out how your platform can offer this class-leading feature to your customers right here.

*Sponsor

The youth sports tax credit legislation recently proposed in Congress includes a curious caveat: Expenses related to for-profit activities would not be eligible.

That seems reasonable on its face. The bill’s co-sponsor, Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), has made it clear he wants the bill to boost local recreation and non-profit youth sports. And preventing parents from writing off private lessons does not seem like a controversial move.

But as Kyle pointed out last week: There are plenty of for-profit youth sports operations that do not resemble club and travel competition, like i9 Sports.

I (James) dug into my notebook from my chat with i9 President Matt Kurowski last month for these now-timely comments about the youth sports league franchise.

“It’s the model that affords us the opportunity to deliver high-quality, consistent, process-supported structure in a space where that’s really hard to come by at scale,” Kurowski said.

“I say it all the time: We are a for-profit organization, and we are not embarrassed about it. It’s what allows us to have the best of the best, it’s what allows us to have great systems, great tools, a great team, great resources, great home office support, all of those things.”

Non-profit opportunities do not always translate into better opportunities. And Kurowski said i9’s strength is that every franchise owner is 100% invested — literally and figuratively.

“There’s no organization that can come anywhere close to our scale because they are mostly operated as a whole bunch of independent organizations,” he said.

“Our franchisees, yes, they are independent business owners. That’s core to the business model of franchising. But they are all operating from the same system, the same curriculum, the same communications tools. That allows us to deliver a standardized, consistent, good experience across the board. … Nobody is going to be more invested in a great experience than the person who owns the business.”

A youth soccer team about 45 minutes south of Richmond could have its season scrapped due to a dispute over its jerseys.

The team’s coach (ages 7-9) had a Bible verse printed on the back of the jerseys.

The move was brought to the attention of the Prince George County Parks and Recreation Department, which operates the league. Officials then reportedly told the coach his team would be barred from competition if it wore the jerseys.

The league’s first round of games was postponed last weekend due to a local parade, leaving the situation in a stalemate. It is unclear what will happen next.

The way I (Kyle) see it, there are 5 ways to serve sports parents— a captive audience and literally billions of attendance instances and hours.

1) Food

The numbers spell it out— families are eating out, and it’s often not healthy. Offering better, family-friendly options would have almost immediate uptake.

2) Convenience

Busy parents, little time, and demanding schedules mean any product or service that helps parents navigate this world could see rapid adoption.

3) Comfort

Making parents more comfortable at practices and games— plain and simple. Easy to implement on the local level, difficult to scale.

4) Productivity

Connectivity and quiet spaces to work.

5) Finance

Payments, insurance, and credit cards are difficult businesses with high barriers to entry, but they are substantially scalable.

We go in-depth on all of these, and provide concrete ideas on how to attack the biggest opportunities in our Sports Parent Economy deep dive right here.

The YMCA of Greater Montgomery in Alabama is seeking a director of coaching for its competitive soccer arm, Alabama FC South. The position also serves as the head coach of Montgomery United FC, which competes in USL’s League Two.

This dual role includes strategic planning for player recruitment and retention, team formation, game scheduling, coach development, and community engagement. Additionally, as Head Coach of Montgomery United FC (USL League Two), the position requires transformational leadership to guide all aspects of the men’s pre-professional team, including player recruitment, training, match preparation, and community representation.

The listed salary range is $55K to $65K; a full job posting can be found here.

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Good game.