This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
⚾️ Capacity Sports Group Launches
Prep Baseball and Bullpen Tournaments announced they have completed their merger and formed CSG.
The integrated youth baseball and venue management platform will "[unite] facilities, events, scouting, media, technology and teams under one operating model."
Prep Baseball considers itself the largest amateur baseball scouting infrastructure; pairing significant year-round media coverage with its events and other offerings. Bullpen manages facilities, develops venues and operates events for complexes nationwide.
Top Tier, a travel baseball program with over 250 teams across 10 states, is also under the CSG umbrella.
CSG expects to operate about 150 fields nationally by end of 2026 at various complexes, including Grand Park Sports Campus
20M visitors projected to attend 300+ CSG tournaments this year
Prep Baseball had over 1.6K events in 47 states, Canada and Taiwan last year
Also of note: CEO Ken Kocher said in a release that CSG expects to eventually expand into other sports and "thoughtfully add complementary organizations."
Quick Take: Well-established single-sport platforms shifting into new sports following consolidation or capital infusion continues to look like one of, if not the, trends of 2026. CSG’s strategy sounds similar to True Lacrosse/True Sports Group — partnering with existing complexes, platforms, etc. while New York Empire Baseball/RISE Partners has said it is thinking more acquisition and organic growth.
👨💻 The ‘Moneyball’ Of Youth Athlete Development*
True talent in youth sports is often missed amid a deluge of “eye tests,” inflated statistics and subjective opinions.
MPI Sports cuts through the noise.
Our company was founded on a simple premise: You cannot improve what you do not measure.
We do not train youth athletes, but serve as an independent evaluation body that quantifies their ability and empowers them to navigate their careers with clarity through professional-grade analytics that provide missing link between potential and performance.
Science and technology are at the core of our platform, creating an MPI score that serves as an audit for athleticism.
Standardized Testing: A battery of tests measures the three pillars of elite performance: Speed, power, and agility
Composite Number: The MPI Score aggregates physical data into a single, understandable number, similar to a credit rating
Percentile Rankings: Athletes don't just see their time; they see their standing in rankings by age, sport position, gender and state
Longitudinal Tracking: We create a digital passport for the athlete, tracking development and physical maturation and development season over season
MPI Sports’ industry-leading data creates value across the entire youth sports ecosystem. Athletes and families receive actionable roadmaps for growth. Coaches and clubs remove bias from roster decisions and can use the data to inform load management practices. Recruiters deal with proof, not hype, and become more efficient. And organizations can establish internal uniformity while creating new revenue streams.
MPI Sports is more than testing — it is transformation through truth. We give athletes the keys to their own development and provide the industry with the transparency it desperately needs.
Unlock the future of athlete intelligence. Learn more here.
*Sponsor
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Speaker Unveil
Each newsletter, we’ll unveil a speaker, as we aim to put together the most compelling list of speakers and panelists in the history of the youth sports industry.
Today, we’re happy to announce that Brent Wall, CEO of NIL platform Student Athlete Score, will be on stage in Philly April 14-15. Student Athlete Score is a leading platform for schools, brands and athletes to get intelligence on NIL deals and athlete-led social engagement. Increasingly, high school athletes are being targeted as brand ambassadors and micro-influencers. Listen to Brent on our podcast in the fall.
He will be joined at the event by previously announced speakers: John Stewart (CEO, Fastbreak AI), Aman Loomba (SVP Product, GameChanger), Jordan Baltimore (CEO, NY Empire Baseball), Jason Sacks (CEO, Positive Coaching Alliance), and Brett Marbut (Senior Director of Strategic Growth at PlayOn Sports).
Early bird tickets will only be available for a short while longer.
☘️ The Youth Sports Intangible We Don’t Consider Enough?
The Atlantic published a fascinating essay by author Alex Hutchinson that makes a simple, but very compelling, argument: Luck has a lot to do with athletic success — and maybe much more than we realize (or want to admit) alongside raw ability and work ethic.
You might think that the growing professionalization of youth sports offers an escape from this randomness — that by driving to this many practices and paying for that many coaches, you’re ensuring the cream will rise to the top. But the opposite is actually true, according to (author and investor Michael) Mauboussin. In The Success Equation, he describes what he calls the “paradox of skill.” Now that every soccer hopeful is exhaustively trained from a young age, an army of relatively homogeneous talent is vying for the same prizes. “Everyone’s so good that luck becomes more important in determining outcomes,” Mauboussin said.
Hutchinson notes this concept of luck is not an individual creating opportunities by hustling, but factors you have absolutely no control over. He suggests this reality — quantified by academic research — should inform the intensity with which families approach youth sports.
Another interesting take: A University of Toronto sports scientist believes youth governing bodies and teams should do everything possible to delay making decisions like roster cuts or devoting resources to elite competitors.
That take — and really the entire essay — meshes with a recent study that concluded adult peak performance is negatively correlated with early performance.
Researchers found the cohort of international-level youth athletes tends to be 90% different from international-level adult athletes; early success was often attributed to specialization and fast initial gains while long-term success was a gradual process. But luck can be mitigated by waiting to adapt based on those (likely unsustainable) traits.
I loved this piece.
What struck me most is luck’s outsized impact on sports results is universally accepted when it comes to team success. Every NFL fan knows the difference between going 6-11 and 11-6 often comes down to a handful of plays, for example.
But when someone suggests an individual athlete does not have complete control over their fate? Especially when it is your kid? There is much more resistance.
It is definitely not all luck. I played high school football with Denver Broncos fullback Michael Burton and he remains the hardest-working person I’ve ever encountered. He obviously has talent, but he built himself into an 11-year veteran that outlasted more gifted contemporaries.
But the Houston Rockets probably won two NBA titles in the 90s because a guy on another team decided to go play minor league baseball. Not really something they could have foreseen!
You can put yourself in a good position, but you can only do so much. And — as Hutchinson suggests — that reality should inform just how intensely families pursue youth sports.
🥍 Orgo Partners With Good Sports
The youth sports and family logistics platform will donate $5 from every new annual plan sign-up this month to the non-profit, CEO Zoya Lehrer said on LinkedIn.
Good Sports drives youth sports participation by providing new equipment, footwear and gear to kids in high-need communities.
$11.6M in donations last year (over 400K items in 28 sports)
Almost 600K kids served
80% youth BIPOC served
Over 10M kids served since 2003
Orgo — which launched a new UI last November — blends schedules, communications and travel times into a single workflow. Its offerings include conflict detection functions, real-time traffic data and carpool organization.
It started as a youth sports app but meshes with other time-sensitive activities and roles, like real estate professionals.
🔉 How Perfect Game Plans To Become The Next Jordan Brand
Perfect Game CEO Rob Ponger speaks to us about PG’s ambitious growth plans, brand building, international expansion, and much more. We’ll have takeaways from this one soon.
You can listen and subscribe to the Buying Sandlot podcast with the following links:
✋ Pump The Brakes
Bloomberg reported earlier this week that KKR — which owns PlayOn and Varsity Brands — will acquire sports-focused PE firm Arctos Partners for $1B.
The news was picked up pretty much everywhere on the internet. But Friend of Buying Sandlot JohnWallStreet tweeted last night he was told the report is "premature and entirely inaccurate."
Also: Unrivaled Sports co-founder Josh Harris’ 26North led a $1B raise for Bruin Capital, another sports-focused investment firm.
🧱 Youth Sports Facilities News
Brown Deer, Wisconsin: The projected price tag for a proposed indoor complex in the Milwaukee suburb is now in the $80M to $120M range; it was initially pegged at $50M. The project is still active, but the developer conceded there is “a gap to work through on the economics.”
Charleston, South Carolina: The city will partner with the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation and the Sandlot Initiative to build a $4.5M complex. It will have a regulation baseball field with lights, a 12U softball field and an “open-air training center.” Fundraising is underway.
Kalamazoo, Michigan: A $40M indoor complex is on hold after zoning officials asked for additional information on variance requests from the developers. Current plans call for the facility to be built on protected slopes and woodlands.
Owensboro, Kentucky: City officials said a new 88K-square-foot indoor complex will be named the Bluegrass Fieldhouse. It will have seven full-sized basketball courts that can be converted for pickleball, volleyball and other sports. Owensboro sits on the Ohio River across from Indiana; it is two hours from Louisville and Nashville and three from Cincinnati and Indianapolis. Quick Take: I (James) once spent a few days in Owensboro. They love their sports there.
Wicksburg, Alabama: Lodging taxes don’t only go toward major projects. Case in point — the $500K a small town near the Alabama-Florida border received to build a few new baseball and softball fields.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
🤳 Follow Buying Sandlot on Social
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.