This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
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In the email today:
⚽️ Nike-Backed ‘Experiential Soccer Platform’ Launches
ExperienceXI says it is “designed to connect players, coaches and club leaders with elite training environments, coaching education, global competitions and the game's most meaningful moments.”
The Atlanta-based platform will work with Nike-affiliated youth clubs and offer “turnkey programming” across several areas:
Experiences at U.S. Soccer’s new national training center in Atlanta
Match day activations tied to USMNT and USWNT; global events activations
International programs, tournaments at Nike-aligned European academies
Domestic, international coaching education through licensing pathways
Custom programming for Nike’s top youth clubs
ExperienceXI said it has already had two events at the NTC with the local Concorde Fire Soccer Club. Additional planned events include symposiums tied to international matches in Atlanta and an 11-day U.S. Club Soccer training program with pro teams in London.
The company is “also building an operating model designed to extend the same framework to additional sport categories over time, with soccer serving as the foundation.”
This sounds fascinating and we will be efforting to learn more. A few quick thoughts in the meantime:
1) Rush Soccer CEO Justin Miller told us Nike was making a major push to be more involved at the grassroots level when his organization landed its new global partnership with the sneaker giant.
This new platform is more proof the Swoosh is serious about that effort. The press release notes one of Nike’s motivations is “moving the relationship with youth clubs from sponsorship into ongoing engagement and meaningful connection.”
2) International youth soccer junkets are not a new concept. But ExperienceXI is positioning itself as going beyond and offering “programming that is not commercially available through traditional soccer travel providers.”
Or, more bluntly: "We don't sell trips. We create environments that expand how people train, compete, lead, and essentially, how they see and feel the game," co-founder and president Phil Hill said in the release.
👩⚖️ Smaller STP Lawsuit Gets Tossed (For Now)
A Pennsylvania federal court judge dismissed a proposed class action antitrust lawsuit against a tournament operator regarding its stay-to-play policies, but granted the plaintiff leave to amend.
A Missouri woman claimed U.S. Junior Nationals — an elite girls basketball event circuit — denied her the ability to choose her own lodging for tournaments her daughter played in, causing her to overpay.
The plaintiff also alleged USJN portrayed its STP policies as beneficial to participants without disclosing revenues it generated from agreements with third parties.
Judge Mary Kay Costello of the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found the plaintiff failed to plausibly allege USJN has sufficient market power in the space to force families into its lodging; the monopolization claim failed for the same reason.
The judge also said the plaintiff could not, as pleaded, argue she was forced into STP by the operator while also claiming she chose lodging based on misleading information.
Two notable developments for the youth sports industry:
The judge found the plaintiff plausibly alleged that elite girls basketball exposure tournaments that draw college scouts are a product market with a national scope
The judge also said USJN’s STP opt-out fees — ranging from $250 to $1K — could be viewed as a legitimate business function in order to secure room blocks and venues
So what does this mean for the much-larger Team Travel Source lawsuit?
TTS is supposed to respond to the plaintiffs’ amended complaint by EOB today. It will be interesting to see if the USJN decision is referenced.
The plaintiffs in the TTS case could also have to adjust now. Their amended complaint leaned in more on the language of the Let Kids Play Act, including the coercion concept. But this ruling — albeit from a different judge in a different state — could make those sorts of claims costlier to make in court than on Capitol Hill.
🐙 More On Otto Event Rebrand
We mentioned in Wednesday’s send that OTTO SPORT AI has rebranded SportWrench, its volleyball management platform, as OTTO Event.
Otto Event head Eugene Tichenor said it was a bittersweet process at times after he spent close to a decade building SW, but “it definitely makes a lot more sense for the full structure of everything that we're bringing together.”
Otto also updated its AI-powered event builder and operations tools in conjunction with the rebrand, as well as launched a new public schedule experience. Tichenor said the aim is to "truly give the user the ability to capture and gather the data in the way that they want to,” regardless of whether they are at the event or tracking from afar.
“Whether you're on-site as a coach, on-site as a parent or you're a thousand miles away, it’s the same tool that everybody needs to be able to use,” he said. “You've got to be able to give the features, modules and activations to be able to let them navigate according to how they want to navigate it. It is one of the most difficult things to conquer because so many end users have their hands on it and want to do it in a way that they feel is native to them.”
Part of the public schedule experience will be providing users with easy link access to live streams when available. But Tichenor said Otto does not currently have plans to move toward streaming events itself.
“We understand what our niche is, and we understand what we want to be really, really good at,” he said. “And that's the event space specifically.”
Also: Otto CEO Luke Zaientz recently told Buying Sandlot the company has much more work to do in volleyball before it sets its eyes on significant expansion into other sports. But it does have some club lacrosse and soccer clients and Otto Event’s ticketing solution is now available for operators in all sports.
The ticketing platform is designed to ensure safety and security at youth sports events. The system references industry organizations’ banned persons lists and also utilizes facial recognition technology to verify attendees’ identities; that tech also allows ticket purchasers to use an app beforehand to receive almost instant access to their event.
Otto’s ticketing also has the ability to integrate digital sponsorships.
“We don't want to get in the business of selling tickets to Row M, Seat 7,” Tichenor said. “We want to get in the business of making your junior sporting event as safe and as secure as possible. … The days of accepting cash at the door unfortunately are just too dangerous in today’s society.”
📣 H.S. Sports Participation Rises Again
There were a little over 8.4M kids playing high school sports during the 2025-26 academic year, according to NFHS — a new all-time record and the fifth straight year with participation growth.
About 4.8M boys, 3.6M girls participated
About 150K more total participants from 2024-25; 1.8% growth YoY
75% of growth share attributable to girls sports
Girls flag football and girls wrestling drove the growth in large part. Girls flag participation was up 48.7% YoY and girls wrestling was up 20%.
Also of note: Girls basketball participation saw a slight participation increase after years of decline. NFHS said the sport had lost 100K participants over 20 years before adding about 6K last year.
Football (11-player) also had a modest 1.4% participation increase and remains the most popular high school sport. Golf saw the biggest participation spike among boys sports with an 8.3% YoY increase.
Girls volleyball continued to grow, breaking the 500K participant mark for the first time, and is on the verge of overtaking track and field as the most popular girls sport.
💈Hudl Teams With Sports Clips
The youth sports tech platform will work with the haircare franchise on regional and national partnerships for the fall high school sports season.
Sports Clips will run targeted ads across Hudl. The campaign is designed to connect athlete and families with local locations.
🦫 Facilities Arms Race: Skepticism In Minnesota
The National Sports Center in Blaine is one of the country’s most prominent and successful youth sports event hubs — dozens of soccer fields and eight full-sized ice sheets (albeit ones in need of significant updates).
What is going on outside the complex, though, is what has some people calling foul.
The city is providing close to $200M in subsidies for “The Farm,” a mixed-use district surrounding the NSC.
5K-seat minor league baseball stadium
250K-square-foot Scheels sporting goods store
Two parking ramps
Apartments, hotel
Entertainment, recreation areas
The issue, according to The Minnesota Star-Tribune: The city plans to pay for the project via sales taxes inside the district, but the state legislature has not signed off yet despite the fact construction has begun. So some fear taxpayers could end up being on the hook in the end.
There are also concerns about the project’s rising costs — the stadium was not originally planned, for example.
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
Des Moines, Iowa: A youth softball organization’s former treasurer allegedly embezzled about $76K over a three-year period. She faces four criminal charges in total.
Racine, Wisconsin: A man intentionally tripped a 9-year-old youth football player as he was about to enter the end zone for a touchdown during a game. Cops told WISN the man admitted to doing it on purpose; he was cited for disorderly conduct and banned from the league.
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