This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
I (Kyle) want to give some credit to Hub Orr and the team at Jefferies for a pretty star-studded event yesterday in NY with youth sports operators and investors. I have notes and takeaways which I’ll share next week. One immediate thought: Yes, Virginia, there is a wave of money sweeping over this industry.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
💰 New Takedown Of Private Equity In Youth Sports
You may not believe this, but a socialist publication hates that private equity is involved with youth sports.
Jacobin’s fall issue includes a report from The Lever — an investigative outlet founded by Sen. Bernie Sanders’ former senior adviser and speechwriter — about PE-backed Black Bear Sports Group that has generated plenty of buzz online.
Black Bear owns 42 ice arenas across 11 states on the East Coast and in the Midwest and operates youth and junior hockey leagues.
The report takes aim at its policies restricting parents from live streaming, posting or filming their kids’ games and its in-house subscription streaming platform — one that has sparked litigation with former partner LiveBarn.
It also serves as a general takedown of PE — something that is old hat for the publication based on its recommended links package inside the report:
The impetus for the report: Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut — a potential 2028 Democratic presidential candidate — recently claimed he was told his kid’s hockey team would be docked in the standings if he livestreamed a game at a PE-owned arena.
The report curiously did not establish whether the rink in Murphy’s anecdote was a Black Bear rink. Perhaps that follow-up will be in the upcoming Zohran Mamdani-focused issue.
OK, no more snark.
I suspect we are not getting the full story here. But the narrative is already established — greedy PE won’t let Mom film or take a picture* of her kid playing hockey.
And when people are sounding off about this report on TikTok and then that TikTok comes across my wife’s feed, it is proof the narrative has an iron grip for some.
We have reached out to Black Bear and will poke around for more context and to see how common, or uncommon, these alleged practices are and what the bigger picture takeaways are for the industry.
* — There was nothing in the report that specifically mentioned still photography being prohibited, but that was what a TikToker claimed so now parents may believe it.
🚢 U.S. Soccer Federation Thinks Everyone Is On Board
The U.S. Soccer Federation believes it is on the verge of establishing a unified vision for the sport’s national developmental ecosystem.
USSF CEO JT Batson told The Athletic the federation is working toward the launch of its “Pathway Strategy” and has secured the support of critical stakeholders from youth clubs to key sponsors to MLS, NWSL and USL.
Few details of the plan have been made public. But Batson told the outlet that "early-stage memorandums of understanding have been signed, with timelines and deadlines for actions to come into effect."
Focus on cost reductions for youth players
Goal of making soccer the country’s No. 1 participation sport
Men’s and women’s national teams capable of winning World Cups
USSF consulted coaches across the world, including Arsenal legend Arsene Wenger
Benchmarking to quantify what successful World Cup rosters look like
National campaigns against drunk driving and smoking were studied to learn lessons about messaging to all 50 states
Great timing: I (James) recently chatted with Justin Miller, the CEO of Rush Soccer — the largest youth club soccer in the world, which was recently acquired by Pioneer Sports, who also controls Surf Soccer.
More to come from the interview, but I asked him before the Athletic report: Who should be in charge of the fractured soccer ecosystem?
“It should be the federation. Everyone in soccer knows that. And they were making great in-roads with the [Development Academy] before they closed it in 2020. They were really starting to put a foothold there.
“Everyone wants some sort of aspirational goal. All of the leaders in youth sports, we all want to be aspirational and march in one direction. And clearly the only thing we can all get behind would be the American flag and U.S. Soccer’s badge and that logo.
“From a branding perspective: That is the only logo that can unify the entire country. Because everyone else has opinions on every other organization. That’s who it should be. Who’s really in charge? It depends on what region, what day of the week and who you are talking to, what gender.
“Who should be in charge? U.S. Soccer. Who is in charge? Unfortunately, no one. That’s why you have the wild, wild west.
“But’s it’s rumored the federation is stepping in and trying to force a clearer pyramid. You’ve got to give them grace and time. That entire leadership group is pretty new. And you can only hope they realize everyone here wants to be a part of something bigger than themselves and the only unifying factor is them. Hopefully they’re going to get us on a right path and marching toward one goal.”
🦚 Reading The SportsEngine Tea Leaves
Each report about Versant shopping SportsEngine has come with the caveat that a sale is not guaranteed.
An executive for Comcast’s new cable network spinoff company gave credence to that with recent comments.
Here’s what USA Sports President Matt Hong — who oversees Versant’s sports media rights — said at an SBJ event (via Sports Media Watch) about the company’s digital properties:
“I think where you’ll see us invest more and more are those digital businesses. So we’ll obviously continue to invest in our current sports programming; we’ll look for more top shelf sports programming. But in terms of where we’re trying to go and where we want our future revenues to come from, it’ll be those digital businesses that are synergistic to our sports programming.”
He also added:
“That’s the model for the rest of Versant: to continue to invest in the core business — which is television, which is linear television and sports programming — but to grow the adjacent businesses so that the mix of revenue is much more like the golf vertical. … We feel like we’ve got a pretty good plan for growing these adjacent businesses, these digital businesses that are adjacent to our current television businesses.”
Versant has hired Lazard to explore a SportsEngine sale; a valuation of $400M to $500M was floated in a recent Bloomberg report.
Hong spoke specifically about Versant’s golf portfolio and the 50-50 revenue balance it has struck between Golf Network and the GolfNow course booking platform.
Obviously the synergies there are more straightforward than a youth sports-focused business. But the comments are nonetheless worth noting.
Wild idea: What if Versant launched a youth sports network? Some games, some educational content (like Golf Network), a few informercials, greater synergy with SportsEngine. Voila.
🎥 Pixellot Raises $35M In New Round
The streaming tech company has added $15M in funding and $20M in venture debt financing from PSG Equity, CEO Doron Gerstel told SBJ last week.
PSG led a $161M Series D round in 2022, the last time Pixellot raised funds.
Pixellot expects to stream about 1.5M games across 15 sports this year with its AI-powered cameras.
It recently re-upped its partnership with PlayOn Sports and shifted to a new AIaaS business model
Quick Take: Both PlayOn and Pixellot seem to have a renewed focus on marketing themselves as major players in youth sports. [Not that they weren’t already.] PlayOn named a new CEO with a media-heavy background, and Pixellot hired its first North American President over the summer (Rob DeSalvo— a podcast guest). This interview with SBJ marked new CEO Doron Gerstel’s first interview since taking over about a year ago.
🔉 New Podcast(s): TeamSnap CTO and Former Phillies GM
Big week of podcasts here:
Reed Shaffner, TeamSnap CTO to talk about the all-new TeamSnap ONE
This is a significant tech lurch forward for one of the big dawg platforms in youth sports. Reed is the guy behind it all. Again, not many people better positioned to talk about youth sports tech than Reed.
Ruben Amaro, former Phillies GM and co-founder of Sluggball, which loosely refers to itself as the “Topgolf of baseball” (though “Pickleball of baseball” may be a better term without the severe markdown connotations)
I know we have a lot of baseball and softball people in our audience. Ruben is a true baseball lifer: MLB batboy, player, GM, coach, broadcaster, youth club co-owner and Sluggball founder.
You can listen and subscribe to the Buying Sandlot podcast with the following links:
💼 Youth Sports Transactions Wire
Fastbreak AI: Tom Kuhr has been named COO and Ben Brantly has been named CTO. Kuhr was previously Fastbreak’s SVP of Marketing; Brantly was the firm’s SVP of Product.
GoRout: Justin Kaufenberg has joined the company as an advisor. He co-founded SportsEngine and is currently the managing director of Rally Ventures. He will support GoRout’s broader growth strategy and business development efforts. Mike Rolih, GoRout’s CEO (on our podcast last month), explained yesterday at the Jefferies conference that the company is looking for an investment partner to help take them from $10M in ARR to $50M in ARR 😳.
Gotham Sports & Entertainment Holdings: Matthew Jolles is the new president and CEO. He was most recently the CEO of Premier National Sports.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
PlayOn Sports was recognized on the Deloitte Technology Fast 500 for the fourth consecutive year. The company saw 136% growth YoY across its properties, which includes GoFan, MaxPreps and NFHS Network.
A married couple in Alabama faces felony theft charges after allegedly embezzling from a youth football organization. Cops said a “significant misappropriation of money" was discovered, but no numbers were released.
A study conducted by researchers at Florida and Ohio State found most youth sports parents are realistic about their kids’ chances to play college and professional sports. But there is a “notable minority” with unrealistically high expectations with clear racial, ethnic and community trends.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.