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:
💰 That’s A Lot Of Economic Impact
We’re not breaking any news here by pointing out that youth sports tourism is big business.
Still: Some of the numbers in a new report published by Sports ETA, a sports events and tourism trade association, are staggering.
The sports tourism industry generated about $275B in economic impact each year, according to the report.
Participatory sports tourism (amateur and youth) accounted for about $150B of that total — a figure greater than the GDP of about 70% of the world’s nations.
$60B in direct spending
About 228M total travelers
Over 880K jobs supported
Over $11B in state and local taxes generated
What we know about the inputs: These are big numbers. Economic impact is of course fuzzy and lofty (though that doesn’t mean inaccurate!). Let’s focus on the direct spend number in “participatory sports tourism”, though. That $60B figure is larger than published reports on the total youth sports market! But as you see, it includes adult rec and also lumps in collegiate tournaments.
Measuring the true economic impact is beyond just heads in beds estimates, and something the industry is working toward.
EventConnect (with a well-timed sponsorship today!) CEO John D’Orsay says his company is trying to better quantify these impacts.
"Coming out of our panel at the Buying Sandlot Summit, one thing was clear— while the industry continues to highlight massive economic impact, there’s still a gap in how those numbers are consistently measured and validated,” D’Orsay said. “That’s exactly why we built Quantism at EventConnect. It’s currently in MVP with a small group of partners helping us test and verify the model ahead of a broader release in the coming weeks.”
Meanwhile, spectator sports tourism generates just over $125B in economic impact, according to the report. About 111M travelers account for $51B in direct spending, supporting over 730K jobs and generating over $9B in taxes.
Some months ago I did a deep dive into how big just the youth sports travel segment of the market is, because I think Project Play’s $40B total youth sports market number vastly undersells things. Never mind that it leaves out other travel inputs beyond transportation and lodging. I never published my piece because there are inputs of varying quality (as outlined by D’Orsay here)— but perhaps I should have.
What I came up with was that the youth sports travel segment accounts for $24B per year in direct spending, inclusive of travel and lodging, food and beverage, recreation, and retail.
I took Project Play's “travel and lodging” number ($11B) and benchmarked it against Sports ETA's similar bucket to determine youth sport’s share of participatory sports travel. And then I applied it to other travel categories that Project Play doesn’t take into account. The most conservative estimate pencils out that about 41% of the sports participation market comes from youth sports (Sports ETA lumps in adult rec and collegiate tournaments, which are substantial inputs). Others have commented that youth sports makes up about 65% of the travel participation, but only half of the revenue.
So applied to this latest report from Sports ETA:
$60B x .41 is… $24.6B
So if direct travel spending alone makes up nearly $25B per year, that means even the most conservative estimates on the youth sports market (ahem, Project Play) fall well short of where things are. Project Play’s data, coupled with the larger travel market, would mean a $54B total youth sports market even with the most conservative data. Kinetica data actually had the market at $54B as of two years ago(!). And at the Summit, LeagueApps President Jeremy Goldberg said it was $80B.
Me? I’d say we’re safely between $60B-$80B and that the Project Play number needs to be taken out of the game.
📆 EventConnect Exists To End Tournament Chaos— For Organizers And Families*
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):
Centralize the weekend workflow: registration, rostering, payments, lodging, and real-time reporting.
Organizers can run end-to-end on EventConnect or integrate the systems they already use— no rip-and-replace required.
Either way, the data lands in one place so operators aren’t stitching together reports from multiple tools.
The “moment that changes outcomes”:
HousingConnect embeds hotel booking directly into checkout— capturing rooms at peak intent instead of sending families to a separate portal later.
Results can be up to 30% more room-night reservations and 24% savings on team hotel costs.
Proof of scale:
EventConnect powers 5,000 events and connects 30,000 hotels across 800 destinations.
Learn more about how EventConnect can help power your tournament right here.
*Sponsor
⚾️ Perfect Game Tabs New Global Lead
The youth baseball and softball platform has hired Kash Shaikh as its CMO and Head of International.
Shaikh will join PG’s executive leadership team and "[oversee] global marketing, brand strategy, creative, partnerships and sponsorships." He will also lead international P&L and expansion.
Shaikh was the co-founder of Baseball United, a pro league focused on the Middle East and South Asia. He also served as league chairman and CEO and created the Arab Classic, a tournament featuring teams from countries in the region.
Shaikh also has stops at Procter & Gamble and GoPro, founded marketing agency BSB Group International and has experience as a leadership speaker.
PG has not been shy about its global expansion ambitions, but this is still a notable move.
The bulk of PG’s international strategy so far has centered around the Asia-Pacific region (which also includes Canada and Mexico). PG has made significant investments in Australia and Japan and revamped its 15U Pacific Baseball Championship event with eyes also on China, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.
I’d imagine India will enter the picture sooner rather than later — we previously wrote about how its youth sports industry is emerging and baseball already has some traction there.
It’s worth noting that the Sports ETA report also highlighted opportunities around international sports tourism.
⚽️ TouchLynk Launches Mobile App
The sports analytics service has rolled out its app for Androids and iPhones.
The soccer-focused platform generates video highlights, stats and performance data from uploaded game film. The new app harnesses all features of the desktop version.
TouchLynk catalogs film by player and play type for coaches and produces individual highlight reels for athletes; capturing all players on the field. The platform can also be used by fans and parents.
🏎️ SPIRE Academy Goes For A Spin
The sports-focused high school near Cleveland will be the lead sponsor for Kaulig Racing’s No. 16 car in a NASCAR race in May.
Spire will be featured on A.J. Allmendinger’s Cup Series ride for the Cracker Barrel 400 on May 31 at Nashville Superspeedway.
The sponsorship is an extension of the $6M brand deal Spire struck with Venture Employer Solutions in February — one of the biggest ever in youth sports.
🧊 It’s Not Easy Being Icy
The National Sports Center Super Rink in Blaine, Minnesota, has eight ice sheets. It has 2M visitors each year and generates $100M in economic impact. The U.S. women’s Olympic hockey team is one of its tenant.
And the place is still falling apart, according to The Star-Tribune — yet another reminder of how complicated and difficult the economics of ice facilities have become.
One saltwater pump is corroded, another bulging and held up by a sophisticated support system of plywood and bungee cords. An empty space occupies where a swing pump should be, acting as a backup in case the pipes break. The cylindrical tank running horizontally across the far wall, labeled “R-22,” desperately needs replacing — its contents are no longer legal to import or produce in the U.S. because of air quality and environmental concerns.
If the system malfunctioned or a pump gave out, ice where the U.S. women’s Olympic roster, Bethel University and a handful of high school and youth hockey teams skate would melt in fewer than 24 hours.
The venue’s desperately-needed improvements are about a decade overdue, according to the report.
Adding insult to injury: The Minnesota Amateur Sports Commission, which oversees the venue, also operates a grant program allocating funds to local public rinks in the state. But the Super Rink’s situation is so dire it wouldn’t be able to meet the program’s reimbursement and matching prerequisites, forcing MASC to ask for about $30M in direct funding from state legislators.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
A tennis non-profit in New Orleans has a non-binding agreement to turn a local playground into a 30-court complex and assume a 25-year lease. The Split Sets Foundation would need to raise $16M in six months to move forward; the proposal has generated community opposition.
The St. James has formed a partnership with Ajinomoto Foods North America, a specialty frozen foods manufacturer. The deal includes activations and program support for the youth sports and lifestyle platform near Washington D.C. as well as products in its on-site restaurant.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) has introduced a bipartisan bill that would require cardiac screenings for high school athletes to prevent sudden cardiac deaths. Gottheimer has introduced several youth sports-related bills in the past.
💼 Youth Sports Transactions Wire
Maria Abernathy is Fastbreak AI’s new GM and SVP of payments. She will "oversee the financial infrastructure that connects every transaction" across the platform while building and leading Fastbreak's embedded payments strategy. Abernathy was most recently Waystar's SVP of payments.
👮♂️ Controversy in Delaware
Youth sports leaders are sounding the alarm about the city’s of Wilmington’s new safety policy … and the mayor is more or less shrugging his shoulders.
All leagues must hire off-duty cops for events
Rule comes after fatal shooting at youth football game last fall
Mayor John Carney’s office says budget is too tight to cover the cops
Private company operates process for city, takes a cut
Some city council members are pushing back on the rule
One operator said it will cost an extra $30K to hire the cops — an expense his league may not be able to afford. Other critics say the policy is a overreaction to an isolated incident.
Quick Take: Off-duty cops are becoming a bigger line item for many in the industry. We wrote last year about a Texas league that raised its registration fees 24% to cover security at all events; there was also a basketball tournament in Nebraska that officials threatened to boycott unless armed guards were hired.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.