🥎 Perfect Game's Next Horizons

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

Let’s get to it.

Perfect Game has experienced exponential growth over the last eight years.

The development platform was solely focused on the high school level when current CEO Rob Ponger and President Rick Thurman took over in 2018. Participation was in the 100-125K range.

Today? PG is approaching 2M athletes — and has plans to grow even further.

Ponger, Thurman, COO Karena Kefalas and CMO Kash Shaikh identified two areas of emphasis — investments in softball and further international expansion — during appearances on the Buying Sandlot podcast last week at the PG All-American Classic in Philadelphia. MLB Hall of Famer and PG Ambassador Trevor Hoffman also joined the show.

“We’ve been dabbling in the (softball) space for a bit, trying to get an understanding of where we need to be and where we want to go. We’ve learned a lot of lessons,” Kefalas said.

“It’s taking the sport and putting it under the Perfect Game umbrella with a very cool spin. We believe the female athlete has just as much opportunity to shine as the baseball athlete in the men’s world. Taking a sport that has such class and coolness and flair as softball and really putting it into more of an institutionalized, standardized format with metrics, scouting and all of the bells and whistles we have on the boys’ side, we’re super excited about it.”

Ponger said PG will have about 5-6K softball teams under its umbrella this year. The plan is to construct the same infrastructure — player profiles, recruiting exposure, media — for a sports that remains a bit of a “fragmented conundrum.”

“It’s not necessarily all put together in a package,” Kefalas said. “We can take the Perfect Game model that we have and make sure we’re really embellishing what the softball space has and putting all our resources behind it.”

As for international growth: Shaikh said PG is on the verge of announcing a new international partnership program to build on recent investments in the Pacific Rim region.

“We’re going to have a much more concerted effort in specific countries around the world to build our whole PG ecosystem,” he said. “Everything from tournaments to showcases to a true international World Series-, World Baseball Classic-type of event at the amateur level. There are so many countries that are playing baseball at elite levels at the amateur levels.”

PG already has some level of presence across five continents — Australia, Canada, China, Colombia, Curacao, Czech Republic, Dominican Republic, Italy, Japan, Puerto Rico, South Korea, Spain and Venezuela were all mentioned by its leaders. Shaikh also mentioned India as a potential market; Mexico, the Philippines and Taiwan are also on the board.

“[These countries] have no Perfect Game system, and we have the opportunity to bring it out there," he said.

Tournament weekends have become mini supply chains: teams register, rosters change, schedules shift, hotels fill, and parents scramble.

Too many events still run things on spreadsheets, portals, and last-minute calls.

What we do (and why it’s different):

The “moment that changes outcomes”:

Proof of scale:

Learn more about how EventConnect can help power your tournament right here.

*Sponsor

The aptly-named club and apparel platform is launching a national sponsorship program in partnership with Priority Partnerships to provide “a coordinated approach that enables brands to engage soccer families more effectively across the country.”

Soccer.com was acquired by Varsity Brands/BSN Sports earlier this year as part of the Sports Endeavors deal.

The Rapid City (S.D.) Common Council has approved a $10M naming rights deal for its planned $50M indoor complex.

The pact with Sanford Health — which has its name on other sports venues in the state — will be for 20 years, starting next year. Sanford will pay $2M in Year 1. The council has already committed $5M in public funds.

A refresher: Rapid City went all-in on the indoor complex concept earlier this year after voters soundly rejected a $125M tax increment district to fund a multi-purpose development. The goal is to capitalize on the existing tourism infrastructure due to the city’s proximity to Mount Rushmore.

The venue — which will be managed by The Sports Facilities Companies — is expected to have a turf field and basketball, volleyball and pickleball courts. City officials hope to break ground next year and open in 2029.

Quick Take: This is a good reminder about the reality of naming rights, especially when it comes to facilities. The dollar figure grabs your attention, but these partnerships almost always take a long time to pay out.

Rhode Island became the 25th state to make girls flag a varsity high school sport on Monday (counting Washington D.C.).

The Rhode Island Interscholastic League unanimously approved the proposal after the New England Patriots played a big role in the push.

At least one more state is expected to sanction this year — Oregon has a vote scheduled in October.

Remember: We have a sanctioning tracker with information on where each state stands.

The athlete development platform is expanding from basketball into multi-sport with the new tech headlined by its AI-powered MTR — Move, Train, Recover — framework.

The app will integrate with prominent wearables brands like Apple Health, Google Health, Fitbit, Whoop, Garmin, Oura, etc.

The platform also expanded its partnership with NFHS in conjunction with the launch; the app will carry content certified by the national organization:

Ballogy says it has over 300K athletes, coaches and teams across North America on its platform. The app has a free model as well as subscription options that start at $4.99 a month for individuals.

The management platform for basketball trainers has moved into the European market with the club-focused Shot Team App.

Utrain was one of the first platforms we wrote about during Buying Sandlot’s early days; it added analytics and shot tracking to its main app earlier this year.

EQT AB has taken a majority stake in Melbourne Storm, one of the top clubs in the Australia-based National Rugby League.

Bloomberg reported the Swedish firm “builds on existing exposure through its ownership of IMG Academy ... an asset spanning athlete performance, sports science and youth development."

NRL is the world’s richest professional rugby platform by revenue; it has also dabbled in the U.S. market with showcase games in Las Vegas in recent years.

Officials in North Little Rock, Arkansas, have partnered with SNAP Soccer in an effort to attract more tournaments, according to Arkansas Money & Politics.

Arkansas Rising Soccer Club is also involved in the pact, which will focus on generating more sports tourism for the Burns Park Soccer Complex -- a 17-field complex that has 1.5K parking spots.

SNAP manages local and regional tournaments in the Southeast and has similar deals with other cities.

An offshore sportsbook caused a social media fury by setting championship futures odds for all 20 teams ahead of first pitch today in Williamsport.

Many people chimed in that this should be illegal — and it basically is!

The futures came from an offshore book headquartered in Panama. No legal U.S. prediction market or book is taking action on the LLWS.

Little League International released a statement condemning LLWS wagering last year. We’ll see if they do the same this summer.

The industry has not exactly showered itself in glory of late.

We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:

Follow BS on X

Follow BS on LinkedIn

Follow Kyle on X

Follow Kyle on LinkedIn

Follow James on X

Follow James on LinkedIn

Good game.