🥎 The Economic Power of Youth Sports Parents

This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.

The energy at the Buying Sandlot Summit was, quite literally, palpable. We’re going to run it back next year, but our primary objective is to now extend the networking, collaboration, and fundraising (I had one person tell me they raised $10M on Day 1), through the remaining 364 days of the year digitally. In May, we are rolling out a completely revamped premium community for the purpose of connecting youth sports owners, operators, investors and service providers— and providing them with the data they need to make informed decisions.

The biggest request from our audience? Connecting operators seeking to raise capital with investors. If you’re an operator or investor, be sure to reply to the poll questions in this email to get started.

Let’s get to it.

Dick's Media -- the in-house advertising division of Dick's Sporting Goods -- recently published a report with eMarketer on the household spending habits of youth sports families.

The survey size is a bit small -- just 662 parents in the U.S. -- but some of the numbers are eye-popping.

Over 78% of sports parents placed some level of importance on buying from brands that "actively support youth sports."

About 50% of sports households earn $100K or more; only about 26% of non-sports households meet that threshold.

Sports households are significantly more likely to make bigger and more frequent purchases across automotive, dining and travel categories.

Youth sports families are over 50% more likely to patronize quick-service restaurants multiple times per week and to spend $300+ per month at QSRs.

Most Valuable Coach was launched by the Dick’s Sporting Goods Foundation and GC yesterday at the Project Play Summit in Boston.

The initiative is a collaboration with Center for Healing & Justice through Sport.

DSGF said it has renewed its relationships with Every Kid Sports, Good Sports, LISC and DonorsChoose.

Also: The Aspen Institute and Heisman Foundation have created the Aspen Institute Captains Leadership Academy.

The national initiative is "designed to develop high school team captains into civic leaders capable of driving change in their teams, schools and communities."

The initiative will launch this year with pilot programs. Heisman said it made the largest grant in its history and will also create a new Heisman High School platform in conjunction.

IMG Academy will support the initiative and host an annual gathering of select captains at its campus in Bradenton, Florida. It will also provide access to IMG Academy+ resources.

Amanda Shank has joined The Sports Facilities Companies as a partner and EVP.

Shank joins SFC after close to a decade with Unrivaled Sports and Ripken Baseball; she was most recently an EVP for strategic initiatives at Unrivaled, where she drove expansion strategy, venue development and more.

Shank also spent 11 years with the NFLPA earlier in her career.

Make that 20 states.

Girls flag became the Garden State’s 35th varsity sport following a landslide vote at the NJSIAA’s annual meeting, a few days after Kansas and Maryland also sanctioned.

Quick Take: There have been multiple numbers reported on the number of states that have sanctioned girls flag this week — we think even the NFL’s official tracker is not fully accurate at this point. We did the math a few times and New Jersey definitely appears to be No. 20, but the confusion is indicative of the “building the airplane as it flies” nature of flag’s explosive growth.

The sports tech platform will team up with the yogurt giant for a sizable youth soccer activation program this summer via the Fastbreak Connect platform.

Chobani will distribute over 40K samples across three events in the Dallas and New York metro areas.

Fastbreak will handle event selection, execution and logistics.

The NCAA is on the verge of ending restrictions on how much prize money youth athletes can accept before they compete in college.

The D1 Council has already voted to drop the rules, according to Sportico, but that decision is pending a settlement in a related class-action lawsuit. Attorneys representing some of the athletes suing the governing body have asked a federal judge to sign off.

NCAA rules previously said athletes could not collect over $10K per calendar year (with some exceptions) and maintain college eligibility. But there will soon be no cap. The change will primarily impact athletes in sports like tennis, but will apply to all sports.

President Trump signed a proclamation yesterday to reintroduce the test in public schools during a ceremony at the White House.

The move comes a year after Trump re-established the President’s Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition along with the test, which was cut in 2012 and replaced by the Presidential Youth Fitness Program.

Two-time U.S. Open winner Bryson DeChambeau and Florida men’s basketball coach Todd Golden were among the attendees from the sports world.

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Good game.