🥎 Professionalized Rec Market Continues To Grow

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The Canadian multi-sport franchise platform will soon launch a corporate-owned franchise in the Dallas area, CEO Quinten Griffiths told Buying Sandlot.

The franchise will be based in Plano, growing its U.S. footprint to eight locations across five states.

Sportball is in its 31st year; it was acquired by Good Capital in 2023 and has over 900 locations across Canada, India, Singapore and the U.S. It views itself as a pipeline to competitive youth sports and places heavy emphasis on coach training and developmentally appropriate, non-competitive programming.

Classes start at 16 months — Griffiths calls it an “unfair advantage” to build relationships with families — and about 80% of its participants are in the ages 1-5 range.

About 80% of Sportball’s U.S. business comes through partnerships with day cares, Montessori schools, preschools, etc.

The other U.S. markets are Boston, Brooklyn, Phoenix and the Los Angeles area. A previous corporate-owned franchise in Seattle closed after a “false start” due to the pandemic, Griffiths said.

“The U.S. has just got so much runway for us,” he said. “We’ve been in the U.S. for 20 years now, and we only have eight markets. Within the last year is been the first time in the company's 31-year history that we spend a dime on trying to market to attract franchisees. We have somebody who's a franchise development person taking phone calls. … We are just so bloody excited to just spend all of our time there.”

We will have much more with Griffiths in an upcoming Buying Sandlot podcast.

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”:

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

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Juggernaut Capital — a major investor in the youth sports platform — has launched a new sports investment platform in partnership with former soccer star Gareth Bale.

Juggernaut Diversified Sports “will focus on high-growth opportunities across the rapidly evolving global sports ecosystem, including domestic teams, leagues, international football clubs, women's sports and youth sports platforms."

The announcement comes a few months after 3Step reportedly tabbed Goldman Sachs to explore a sale. But this move suggests a capital raise may be the more likely outcome (Juggernaut is not the only firm with a stake in 3Step; Fiume Capital is also invested).

A press release indicates the new fund will build upon 3Step and other Juggernaut assets. Juggernaut founder John Shulman told SBJ the fund will be above $500M but under $1B and seeks to “buy larger pieces of organizations with upside."

Also: 3Step has partnered with Junior Volleyball Association to launch Final Set — a boys volleyball event brand that will bring together The Point Series circuit, regional tournaments and national events.

Quick Take: Gonna need a 3Step Sale-O-Meter.

Real American Freestyle continues to expand on its youth-to-pro pipeline.

The unscripted professional wrestling platform announced it will establish RAF Clubs, a “national network of elite wrestling clubs designed to connect athletes, coaches, and families directly to the broader RAF ecosystem."

The network will kick off by partnering with the Tampa-based Beebe Trained Wrestling Academy.

RAF said it plans "additional acquisitions, affiliations, and strategic partnerships."

The announcement comes a month before RAF launches its Next Gen tournament series in Milwaukee; the events will be held a day after each professional card in the same city.

Trend Watch™: Youth-to-pro pipelines in fringe and emerging sports continue to be a thing. RAF, LOVB are examples. More are on the way. This creates an integrated pathway for sports that, historically, don’t have great “pro” upside.

The elite sports school network — TSA operates on Alpha School’s AI-powered, two-hours-a-day academic curriculum — will open Texas Sports Academy Flag Football this fall.

Designed for girls in grades 6-12, the academy will intentionally limit enrollment to approximately 20 founding families during its inaugural year, creating an exclusive, highly personalized experience that combines competitive flag football training with customized academic environment unlike anything currently available in youth sports.

Frisco’s Elite Performance Training facility will host the school. Loryn Goodwin -- who plays for Team USA -- will be the inaugural head coach. Former NFL star receiver Anquan Boldin is involved as well.

Quick Take: Texas is dragging its feet on sanctioning girls flag at the high school level, so there is definitely a local opportunity here. The big question is likely how quickly scholarship opportunities begin to accumulate at the college level, especially in D1. That will likely play a big role in how much demand there is for such a specialized academy.

The Hillsborough County (Fla.) Board of Commissioners is expected to advance a proposed $70M fieldhouse at Tampa’s Museum of Science and Industry today.

The project would have an 18-month construction schedule and would be designed to host tournaments.

Plans call for a dozen basketball/volleyball courts; the venue would also hosts events and educational programming.

American Economics Liberties Project’s Katie Van Dyck — one of the industry’s loudest critics and a Let Kids Play Act supporter — commented on BASE Sports Group’s recent partnership announcement with Elite Tournaments as an indicator youth sports have become “a luxury good most families cannot afford.”

At the same time: BASE co-founder Carrie Gamper announced the firm will donate a portion of every sponsorship deal in 2026 “directly toward lowering the barrier of participation in youth sports."

"While our sponsorships are already helping to lower participation fees for families and improving the onsite experience at events, we are always working to do more," Gamper wrote on LinkedIn.

Quick Take: A recent Axios report noted the global ad market has hit the highest share of nominal GDP on record and "advertising has become a critical tool to subsidize consumer access to digital services in the mobile era." There is no reason to believe it cannot be the same case for youth sports.

Yariv Alpher is LeagueApps’ new VP of marketing. He joins the platform from Everplans, where he was its marketing director. Alpher was also previously at Kaplan Test Prep.

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Good game.