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:
⚽️ New Study On Soccer Specialization, Injury Risk
We have another data point for the eternal youth sports specialization debate — and an intriguing one.
There is no “statistical significance” signaling an increased injury risk in athletes who specialize in soccer compared to players who participate in other sports, according to a new study.
The research was commissioned by ECNL — the national club soccer developmental platform — and conducted by its chief medical advisor.
The study tracked 80 female athletes (all belonging to the same club) ranging from U13 to U18 over two competition seasons. No differences in injury incidence were found between soccer-only and multi-sport athletes after adjusting for training loads.
It is one of the first studies that has examined specialization in a specific sport, as opposed to a broad range of sports. ECNL said “the relationship between specialization and injury is likely different for different sports,” but concluded soccer may benefit from a lack of “repetitive stress” found in other sports.
[P]rior research has primarily found that specialization increases the risk of chronic, lower extremity overuse injuries, which were only a small subset of the injuries identified in this study. This may be due to the fact that movement patterns in soccer are very heterogeneous and may not lead to the same repetitive stresses that are thought to at least partly explain the association between specialization and overuse injuries in sports more broadly.
That’s not to say soccer does not have repetitive motions, but other sports tend to have more — baseball comes to mind.
ECNL said the study shows more sport-specific research is needed on specialization. Obviously ECNL has skin in the game since its athletes largely specialize in soccer, so it figures we may see similar studies from other sport-specific developmental platforms.
The big question is whether this study (or subsequent studies) do anything to alter the course of the general specialization discourse — one that continues to trend in the anti-specialization direction.
Case in point: Add Rob Gronkowski to the list of star athletes extolling the virtues of playing multiple sports.
A University of Iowa study about specialization and hip development we recently wrote about recently did mention “cutting motions” in soccer.
But girls are 5x more likely to have hip dysplasia than boys — the condition is generally detected during infancy, but sometimes can be diagnosed late if at all. So you wonder if that could be impacting the data — especially since so many girls in the younger age groups play soccer.
Also: The age group is important — it would be interesting to see what injury incidence looks like for specialized athletes in the ages 8-12 range.
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit: The Youth Sports Networking Event For The Ages
We teased this a bit on Monday, but I want to call out the Extra Innings Presented By GameChanger evening networking event after Day 1 of the Summit.
The conference will wrap around 4:30 and we’ll immediately head next door to Ballers.
Tuesday, April 14 at Ballers:
5-8 PM: Open Bar Happy Hour (cash bar 8-10)
5:30-7:30 PM: Catered Dinner
7-10 PM: Pickleball tournament, padel, golf simulators
We’ve had some people ask about having shoulder programming around the conference— would highly recommend planning these on either Monday evening (April 13) or Wednesday evening (April 15), as our aim is to make the Extra Innings event the talk of the industry.
You can get a good sense of how amazing Ballers is in this video:
Get your tickets for the Buying Sandlot Summit, which includes access to Extra Innings, before it’s too late:
📊 GameChanger’s Latest Numbers
Dick’s Sporting Goods reported its Q4 and FY25 earnings yesterday.
The GameChanger highlights for 2025 full-year (compared to 2024):
~10M unique active users (“~9M”)
Over 4M average monthly active users (“Over 3.5M”)
Almost 10M games covered (“nearly 9M”)
Over 1M teams created (same)
Over 6M livestreamed hours (“Over 4.5M”)— 33% growth here
Almost $150M in sales in FY25— slightly short of the $150M Dick’s said it was targeting in prior earnings reports
Almost 20B Dick’s Media Network impressions in total
Dick’s profits were down 57% YoY largely due to its $2.5B acquisition of Foot Locker, but the company believes most of those costs are in the rearview mirror. The report exceeded Wall Street’s expectations elsewhere, so the share price was up yesterday (but is down today).
Dick’s touted the success of a pilot program that has streamlined a handful of Foot Locker locations and said it plans to scale it ahead of the back-to-school rush later this year. It now anticipates keeping more Foot Locker locations open as a result.
Dick’s said it will open 14 new House of Sport locations in FY26, plus 22 new standard locations and 15 Golf Galaxy performance centers.
It’s now time for everybody’s favorite game— How many times was “GameChanger” mentioned on the earnings call?
As a reminder, all counts are unofficial until verified by the governing body of such mundane affairs:
Q2, 2024: 7
Q3, 2024: 11
Q4, 2024: 14
Q1, 2025: 24
Q2, 2025: 19
Q3, 2025: 5
Q4, 2025: 10
Streaming growth outpaced user growth, which furthers a point James has been making about adoption (especially vs. YouTube and Facebook) representing the biggest opportunity for the pure-play youth sports streamers. In other words, there’s plenty of market share to go around.
There was no marked change in how Dick’s positions GameChanger, though they seem to have pivoted away from the heightened language about it being a “media platform” which they used for a quarter or two last year— they referred to it in the earnings release this week as a SaaS platform that is “embedded in youth sports culture.”
But one quote from Dick’s CEO Lauren Hobart speaks to the media value of GameChanger— and applies to other youth sports tech platforms:
“And so [GameChanger] is a big asset for our DICK'S Media Network, and it's appealing to our brand partners as well as to our non-endemic partners who want to be a part of youth sports.”
What she’s describing is sponsorship opportunities outside of traditional sporting goods manufacturers— something GameChanger President Sameer Ahuja told us he believed would represent the next leg up in the youth sports industry.
🐴 N.J. Racetrack Could Add Youth Sports To Mix
A youth sports complex could be added to a New Jersey horse racing venue as part of a sweeping redevelopment proposal.
Monmouth Park Racetrack in Oceanport is owned by the state, but operated by a private development firm.
The firm has proposed adding five youth baseball fields and indoor tennis/pickleball courts as part of a mixed purpose district that would also include a casino, two hotels and close to 500 apartments.
The big catch: Developers will need a statewide ballot referendum to allow casino gambling outside of Atlantic City. That won’t be easy. A similar referendum was rejected by a 77% to 23% margin in 2016 and lawmakers have shown little appetite to try again.
Youth sports is the one part of this proposal this Jersey resident could see happening.
Monmouth Park has a ton of space and is within 90ish minutes of most parts of the state (traffic willing), plus the Philly suburbs, Staten Island, etc. It would work well as a complex location.
But the casino referendum is going to be a tall task unless voters can be convinced too much revenue is about to flock across the river to the ones being built in the Bronx and Queens. And the town — which technically doesn’t have a say — has politely opposed the apartments.
Big picture: The horses run from May to Labor Day weekend, so it’s another example of a venue with a fixed tourism season trying to optimize the rest of the calendar.
🏈 Flag50 Partners With Matt Leinart Flag Football
The flag tech platform will be used by the Southern California operation owned by the Heisman Trophy winner and his family.
MLFF offers K-8 camps, events and leagues in Orange County; it is connected to NFL Flag. Exact participation numbers vary, but Flag50 CEO Jeran Fraser said the partnership will support “ten of thousands” of athletes with its scorekeeping, streaming and management tools.
🧱 More Youth Sports Facilities News
Chicago: The NHL’s Blackhawks have re-opened their practice facility to be more public-facing. The venue has almost doubled in size and has four ice sheets, including a 2K-seat arena for the USHL’s Chicago Steel. It also has event spaces and concessions; it is expected to see 1.5M visitors annually.
Southport, Florida: The $13.9M Southport Recreation Complex opened last weekend. The venue has six baseball fields, batting cages and walking trails. The 37-acre complex is equipped with live streaming technology to host tournaments.
St. Charles, Missouri: Plans to turn a closed church into a youth sports club have generated controversy in the St. Louis suburb. Residents have expressed concerns about noise and traffic, but the developers behind the project say the venue would not host games and would operate solely as a training facility.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
A Rhode Island high school hockey player put his team in the state final with a game-winning goal in double overtime, weeks after losing his mother, grandfather and brother in fatal shooting at a game. The player’s father was the shooter and died of a self-inflicted wound; the player’s grandmother and a family friend were seriously wounded.
Wyoming has passed a law limiting how much school districts can charge for non-school organizations, including youth sports groups, to rent their facilities. Rental fees cannot exceed a district’s actual hourly costs to operate the facilities.
The governing body for high school sports in Oklahoma faces an uncertain future. Gov. Kevin Stitt called for the OSSAA to be abolished, arguing it has failed to keep up with state laws and the needs of current student-athletes. Legislative attempts to create a new organization or alter the OSSAA board have faltered so far, though.
Tony Zasowski is the new commissioner of the United States Premier Hockey League. He replaces Murry Gunty, who was interim commissioner the last two years. Black Bear Sports Group — a previous Buying Sandlot sponsor — operates the league. Gunty is BBSG’s founded and Zasowski is the VP of leagues and teams.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
🤳 Follow Buying Sandlot on Social
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.