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In the email today:
⏱️ Curve Sports Is Testing Its Tests
Athletic and performance testing data and metrics have become critical for all stakeholders in youth sports — athletes, parents, trainers, coaches, recruiters.
Curve Sports has tabbed the latter two groups to help craft its ambitious plans and protocols. The baseball development platform has partnered with assessment and certification firm Prometric to survey coaches nationwide in order to refine its Curve Testing program with a focus on fairness, standardization and validity.
Hundreds of coaches at club, middle school, high school, college levels will be asked to participate
Coach input will help establish importance, weighting of various test components, but will not be sole determining factor
Test components will be field-tested, statistically evaluated for consistency, relevance, validity
Three testing category scores — brain, body, ball — will inform composite, standardized athlete scores
Curve’s goal is to make standardized testing more accessible within the environments athletes already compete and train in while ensuing consistency and validity for coaches, families and recruiters. Prometric Chief Assessment Officer Nikki Eatschel said a frequent refrain of Curve CEO Sandy Ogg — that talent is equitably distributed, but opportunity is not — drives the process.
“You have a lot more opportunity when you've got something like this to get objective data available that you then can get in front of different colleges, different recruiters,” Eatschel said. “It all rests on having objective, valid data that coaches can trust, that recruiters can trust and that parents can trust.”
Curve aims for quarterly testing, head of testing Rachel Becker said. But it has found high school-aged athletes are interested in more frequent testing to track their progress more closely.
“You never really know if you're improving unless you're tracking it and you're testing it,” said Becker, a former Oklahoma State softball player who now plays in AUSL. “Being able to see in the data what your strengths and weaknesses are, and being able to really tailor your training and development to improve metrics in those weaknesses, I think it’s huge on the development side and the coaching side.
“From the recruiting side — college coaches most of the time have no idea where these numbers they're getting are coming from or how they're collected. And so for us, having standardized testing protocols, proctor training and all of these things which allow our data to be valid when it comes out, it’s huge for college coaches to be able to look at a curve test report and say, ‘OK, I know that this is accurate. And I am willing to go out and watch this kid play because I know this data is true.’”
There are currently four clubs/facilities with permanent testing capabilities — Power Baseball in Florida, Pitch2Pitch in Minnesota, Illinois’ ITB and Knights Knation in Louisiana. Curve also has a mobile test center and team for one-off events.
The platform uses tech from Proteus Motion, Senaptec, Trackman and Universal Speed Rating. Becker said a full team can be tested in about an hour; it’s about 2-3 hours for a few dozen athletes and Curve can test about 300 over a 2-3 day period.
Curve plans for all clubs to eventually have access to local testing facilities or the event-based model.
One cool and quick note: Curve’s brain component includes cognitive and vision testing.
That obviously makes a lot of sense for baseball, but it is also something that could even translate into education and inform learning approaches and strategies. It would not be surprising to see the next wave in performance testing be metrics that have value beyond sports.
🌎 Perfect Game Continues International Expansion
PG keeps spanning the globe.
The baseball and softball developmental giant has launched the Country Partner Program initiative, which is “designed to expand Perfect Game’s international presence while creating new opportunities for aspiring athletes around the world.”
It the latest step in PG’s ambitious international expansion strategy.
Annual exclusive licensing agreements with select organizations in various countries
Each partner org manages local PG operations, grows platform in country
Emphasis on building relationships with local stakeholders
PG provides marketing, tech, training, scouting support
PG profiles for all international athletes
All events run on PG’s management platform
PG said the program will enable more brands to activate within its ecosystem — both large, multinational partners and country-specific ones.
“There are more than 500 million baseball fans and 65 million baseball and softball participants around the world. But there’s never been a unified international platform for competitive baseball and softball players to get scouted and recruited by the best schools, programs and leagues in the world. By extending Perfect Game’s best-in-class events, media, data, and scouting platform across the world, now there is. We will create more opportunities for more kids in more countries around the world.” — PG CMO Kash Shaikh
Shaikh — who also heads up PG’s international efforts — previously built Baseball United, the first pro league in the Middle East and South Asia. PG said he has worked with dozens of event operators and federations across five continents and many of those relationships will be leveraged in the program.
⚽️ New Youth Soccer Access Initiative
Soccer Shots and Trust & Will have launched the Soccer Shots Community Grants Program, which aims to "help expand access to youth sports and enrichment opportunities for children and families in communities across North America."
T&W, an online estate planning platform and existing Soccer Shots partner, will make a $30K donation to kick off the initiative. The grants “may be used to serve underserved communities, establish partnerships with schools and childcare providers, or support other community-based efforts that remove barriers to participation.”
Soccer Shots has over 300 locations across North America. The youth soccer enrichment franchise serves kids ages 18 months to 8-years-old.
Grant applications are now open for Soccer Shots families and partners.
🥤Arizona Athletic Grounds Partners With PepsiCo
The beverage behemoth will be the mega-complex’s official soft drink provider through 2033.
Exact terms were not disclosed but the seven-year deal “carries a multimillion-dollar value,” according to a release.
Broad lineup of Pepsi products throughout 275-acre complex
Digital, signage, IPTV inventory
Year-round activation rights at AAG events
The Mesa-based complex said it has welcomed 1.8M visitors so far this year, up 6% YoY; it had just under 3M in 2025.
AAG said the Pepsi deal will "further improve its world-class facilities while continuing to keep prices reasonable and attract top national events."
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
Three men face criminal charges following the Pittsburgh-area youth football melee that went viral this week.
One coach — who appeared to be the aggressor in video of the incident — was charged with disorderly conduct and harassment. He has since alleged players were using racial slurs and the game officials refused to intervene.
The other two coaches received summons for disorderly conduct and harassment. Seven total coaches have been suspended by the league.
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