🥎 RAF Acquires Major Youth Wrestling Tournaments

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The professional Olympic-style wrestling promotion is investing further in the sport’s grassroots and has acquired World of Wrestling.

WOW operates three of the nation’s top youth wrestling tournaments — Tulsa Nationals, Reno Worlds and the Kickoff Classic. The events will now become part of a feeder program for RAF’s Next Gen youth circuit. The Roller family, which founded World of Wrestling, will remain involved.

RAF CEO Chad Bronstein views Tulsa Nationals as youth wrestling’s version of the Little League World Series.

“That’s what we’re going to make it feel like,” he told Buying Sandlot. “We’re going to grow it. We’re not going to dilute the product, we’re not changing the name; it will be ‘World of Wrestling powered by RAF.’ We’re going to produce it, add the content flair to it, the experience, bring in some more sponsors.”

Bronstein said he would like to add a handful more events to the “Trinity” series, but there is no set number. He does have one bold concept already in mind, though — he would like to create an event where Tulsa Nationals winners compete in Dagestan, a region of Russia renowned for producing elite wrestlers and MMA fighters.

RAF will hold its first international Next Gen event in Abu Dhabi next weekend; Bronstein said it is sold out.

“Wrestling is so different,” Bronstein said. “The cultural experiences and what you gain from going to these places is really cool. I think we will see a lot of U.S. people and parents that will want to go to Dagestan, and will feel safe to go to Dagestan if we’re having an event and we have everything set up.”

The Abu Dhabi event will be the fourth for the Next Gen series. The fifth will be held in Chicago over Thanksgiving weekend and then the top-ranked wrestlers will meet in a showcase event on Long Island in December. Bronstein said he expects RAF will acquire around 25 wrestling clubs in 2027 once it opens its flagship club in the Tampa area.

Quick Take: RAF has a chance to really be a leader in the youth sports experiences space. Not everyone will want to go visit the Caucasus, obviously, but wrestling affords itself to really unique things that other sports do not.

Related: We covered TKO Group’s earnings call in our sister publication, Buying Sideline, yesterday. TKO, which owns UFC and WWE, is bullish on international demand for wrestling.

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In recent weeks, we’ve seen youth sports hackathons to develop AI tools for operators. But just how much experimentation is happening among what is generally considered a non-technical audience?

More than you think.

We’ve ran two polls on the matter, and each came in higher than I (Kyle) expected.

Last week, 42% of 59 poll respondents said they have already built their own tool or agent.

In our survey of 234 operators, more than 50% said they are either experimenting with or using AI tools.

It’s worth noting most of the answers to the second survey came 5-6 months ago.

Quick Take: This will be a big topic in 2027.

U.S. Center for SafeSport’s jurisdiction is limited to organizations under the purview of the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee, but it will take new steps to reach beyond its mandate.

The organization is launching a new campaign to bring public awareness to the safety gaps in youth sports — the latest response to media reports detailing major compliance failures inside the AAU.

Most notably: SafeSport said it will start notifying organizations outside the Olympic movement if it becomes aware of a sanctioned individual that is coaching or working with kids.

SafeSport is also launching a new video message from SafeSport CEO Benita Fitzgerald Mosley and promoting its disciplinary database as a resource available to all youth sports orgs.

The PlayOn Sports-owned ticketing provider announced users will now be able to use Cash App Pay within the platform.

The partnership will extend across PlayOn’s portfolio, including MaxPreps.

GoFan is the first national high school ticketing service to integrate with Cash App.

PlayMetrics has sold eCamps Sports Network to an investor group led by CEO Charley Biggs.

Stack Sports had previously bought eCamps prior to its own acquisition by PlayMetrics. The sale occurred as "the result of PlayMetrics' broader review of the entire portfolio, conducted to determine which businesses support its focus on its core youth sports operations platform."

ECamps has hosted over 250K athletes across a national multi-sport portfolio in its history.

No city is too small to enter the Arms Race.

Case in point: Pratt, Kansas.

The town, about 90 minutes west of Wichita, only has about 6.5K residents. But it has broken ground on a 109K-square-foot indoor complex with a projected price tag of $14.4M.

Officials said they hope to attract regional events for both college and youth sports; projections suggest a single weekend tournament could generate $300K in local economic impact.

The USOPC (US Olympic and Paralympic Committee) is exploring a partial sale of Team USA’s commercial rights, according to Sky News.

The Raine Group is advising the process; the report said any deal “would be aimed at providing additional resources for Team USA athletes and their governing bodies, particularly in sports which were traditionally less able to attract significant external capital.”

Sky News said the rights would likely be worth billions; the USOPC could also pursue a debt raise rather than selling a stake.

Quick Take: This story is a good reminder Congress sends a grand total of $0 annually to fund the USOPC — and begs the question of how Capitol Hill will react if and when private equity steps into a space it has left vacant. Not to mention the fact that NGBs deploy many of the same youth sports business practices that lawmakers decry.

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