Water Wings Swim School touches on two current youth sports trends.
1) The hot franchise space
2) Participation funnels for Olympic sports that require infrastructure
Water Wings began franchising in May under the Unleashed Brands umbrella and has already sold 20 locations set to open in Q1/Q2 next year.
Franchise startup costs are about $1-1.5M— locations are either new builds or repurposed retail spaces (think Party City, Rite Aid, etc.).
Those schools will join 13 corporate-owned locations and give Water Wings a presence in 12 states — California, Colorado, Delaware, Idaho, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.
The growth comes at an interesting time for youth swimming, which is still digging itself out of a significant participation decline triggered by pool closings during the pandemic.
USA Swimming membership was flat in 2024 after a nearly 5% dip in 2023 and NFHS participation figures have declined each of the last four years. But past post-Olympics participation spikes have hit double-digits, buoying the industry ahead of Los Angeles in 2028.
Water Wings does not field its own competitive teams, but links with clubs in each market and exposes kids to the sport starting at three months of age.
“We’re kind of a feeder into where your local swim team needs to be,” said brand president Avi Shafshak, who co-founded Water Wings with his wife Tracy in 2003.
“Local swim teams will get kids that try out and maybe aren’t ready to join their team and will send them over to us; we have kids that max out our program and it’s time for the next step.”
This introductory level is proving to be a lucrative franchise space. Both i9 Sports and Youth Athletes United (Soccer Stars) are aggressively expanding here, as the opportunity to offer quality experiences at the rec level is sometimes overlooked.
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