This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
I (Kyle) wanted to give you a quick State of the Email off the top:
We recently surpassed 5k subscribers - our checkpoint goal for the end of June - for a newsletter that didn’t exist on March 1. So thank you for all of your support and for reading. Buying Sandlot now lands in the inbox of many of the top people and companies in youth sports, along with countless facility owners, event organizers, startup founders, and so many others.
James came on board mid-May, allowing us to bring you many more first-party stories and break some news. Soon, we’ll begin rolling out more segment-specific deep dives, benchmarking reports, and other exclusive content.
We’ve soft-launched some of our premium features, but will launch the private community Slack channel this summer, which will allow for an unprecedented level of networking between youth sports professionals.
I am heading out on a long-planned vacation, so James will be holding it down for the next week. Feel free to copy him on any press releases, story submissions, or banter. [email protected].
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
🏈 Unrivaled Sports Preps For Major Girls Flag Football Event
Unrivaled Sports
Flag football is slowly taking over the world.
The inaugural Unrivaled Flag High School Girls Nation is this weekend in Canton, Ohio.
The two-day invitational event will be held on Saturday and Sunday at ForeverLawn Park by Unrivaled Sports featuring 5v5 and 7v7 competitions among eight of the nation's top high school programs:
Alonso (Fla.) High
Desert Oasis (Nev.) High
Hamilton (Ariz.) High
Maine South (Ill.) High
Mountain Vista (Colo.) High
Robinson (Fla.) High
Southeast Bulloch (Ga.) High
Tottenville (N.Y.) High
The top-2 teams in each division will earn bids to the 2026 Youth World Championships in Orlando.
Unrivaled will outfit players with swag, including custom Under Armour jerseys and rings for the qualifying teams. College scouts will be in attendance and there will be a live DJ performance.
Unrivaled, which owns and operates the venue, has also released renderings of the space.
Unrivaled Sports
As we have said and written approximately 789 times since launching Buying Sandlot: Flag football is exploding nationally ahead of its 2028 Summer Olympics debut in Los Angeles.
Unrivaled will have 81K youth athletes participate in its flag programming this year -- a 25% YoY increase
The number of Unrivaled flag events is up 77% YoY
Unrivaled has over 200 leagues in 21 states and programming in 33 states overall.
And let’s check that Google trends chart for “girls flag football”:
🧢 Dick’s Sporting Goods Will Be All Over Fanatics Fest
A lot of boxes will be checked later this month in Manhattan.
Dick’s will not only be the official sporting goods retail partner for Fanatics Fest NYC.
It will also be the presenting sponsor of the Fanatics Fest Kids Zone for the sports culture and collectibles event, which runs June 20-22 at the Javits Center in Manhattan.
Dick’s will be on the main show floor
Dick’s and subsidiary GameChanger will partner with Nike and RCX Sports on the Kids Zone
The Kids Zone will feature open play and combine-style training activities and professional athlete appearances
Dick’s will also participate in the Fanatics Games component of the event
YouTuber IShowSpeed will appear on behalf of Dick’s and produce content
Dick’s will sponsor a public viewing of the Paul Skenes Topps MLB Debut Patch 1-of-1 card
James’ take:
The logical next step for Dick’s as it goes all-in on youth sports.
Yes, Fanatics Fest is more for adults than kids. But it has become an integral part of sports culture in just its second year.
Remember: Tapping into said culture was a big talking point after Dick’s reached its $2.4B takeover deal with Foot Locker.
The Kids Zone presentation reaches young athletes and their families directly and presents an opportunity to further showcase the GameChanger brand.
Fanatics Fest tickets aren’t cheap, either — plus whatever is bought inside — so the potential customer base is quite valuable.
Dick’s is also building out special collectibles sections at some House of Sports locations — the Skenes card display promotes that.
IShowSpeed connects with the youth sports audience AND meshes with Dick’s strategy regarding its own media network.
Synergies on top of synergies. A synergy sandwich!
🤖 Fastbreak AI Launches Youth Sports Scheduling Engine
The AI-powered sports operations software company has launched an amateur sports tournament scheduling engine in its Fastbreak Compete product.
The tool "enables tournament directors to generate complete, competition-ready schedules in minutes, even for events with hundreds of teams across dozens of venues."
Fastbreak handles scheduling for several dozen professional leagues worldwide. The NBA and NHL are among its clients.
More from the press release:
Fastbreak's engine handles every major scheduling format – including bracket play, multi-venue and multi-day tournaments – automatically accounting for team preferences, time requests, coaching requests, blackout windows, rest periods, venue constraints and more. Once the schedule is generated, organizers can make manual edits using a drag-and-drop interface, with the platform providing real-time feedback showing the impact of changes to help prevent conflicts.
📺 New Streaming Deal For Texas HS Football Playoffs
Victory+ — a Dallas-bases FAST network — has secured the exclusive streaming rights for all Texas high school football state championship games through the 2029 season.
The streamer will also be able to show up to 20 additional UIL playoff games each year.
The deal was brokered by Dave Campbell Texas Sports, the state’s top high school sports media outlet.
It is the first time all state title games will be available for free and outside a cable bundle. Viewers will be able to access the streams from anywhere.
Victory+ emerged out of the Bally Sports bankruptcy and has regional broadcast rights for the Dallas Stars, Texas Rangers and Anaheim Ducks. It also has several junior hockey league media deals in the U.S. and Canada.
James’ take:
We threw out the idea of elite youth sports competitions becoming valuable mainstream streaming inventory a few sends ago.
We would argue Texas high school football could be the most valuable youth sports media property of them all.
There is already a deep cultural awareness due to Friday Night Lights.
The on-field product is excellent and occurs in an environment that looks a lot more like college or professional sports than high school.
And now it will be rolled out to a national audience with easy access.
It would not shock us if the next deal the UIL signs is with ESPN or another major streamer.
Or if there is a Netflix documentary series eventually in the pipeline.
📏 Youth Sports Complexes Are Becoming A Civic Measuring Stick
The American Dream used to be getting one big league club to set up shop in town.
Now it’s being able to attract 100 travel ball teams for a weekend.
Officials in Tennessee’s Hamilton County — which includes the city of Chattanooga — want to earmark $500K to study how to become a major youth sports tourism destination.
Building a new complex or upgrading existing ones are among the options that would be investigated by a committee.
For this to be known as one of America’s better mid-sized cities, one of the areas where we are really deficient in the Chattanooga area and Hamilton County, we are making progress but still deficient, at youth sports facilities. -- Hamilton County Mayor Weston Wamp
There are worse places to try to turn into a youth sports mecca, FWIW.
Chattanooga is the nation’s No. 86 media market and has a population of about 180K
Three interstates run through the city
The greater metropolitan region is top-100 nationally
Atlanta, Birmingham, Knoxville and Nashville are all a two-hour drive away
👨🦰 Parents Behaving Badly
Elizabethtown, Kentucky: A youth boys soccer coach faces assault charges after shoving a 13-year-old player on the opposing team during a game. The incident was caught on tape. The coach has been fired.
Pueblo, Colorado: A man faces felony assault and menacing charges after allegedly attacking a man with a bat during a fight at a youth softball game. Police said a second arrest is forthcoming— two people were injured, one seriously. The Runyon Sports Complex will remain closed until at least today due to an active investigation.
🗞️ Youth Sports News & Notes
We examined Zorts Sports’ flash facial recognition and athlete/coach/vendor verification program in Monday’s send. Ankored also offers similar compliance technology.
The U.S. Specialty Sports Association settled a federal lawsuit with two former executives who accused the amateur sports organization or wrongful termination and other allegations of impropriety, many involving former CEO Donald DeDonatis III. DeDonatis is also suing the organization for wrongful termination; that lawsuit is active.
Perfect Game recently hired two softball directors: Elizabeth Connor and Al Dahlgren will oversee the Charlotte-Concord region in North Carolina.
PLEZi Nutrition — co-founded by former First Lady Michelle Obama and backed by Stephen and Ayesha Curry — has partnered with MADE Hoops for a series of event-based activations. The deal was brokered by BASE Sports Group.
🔗 More Youth Sports Links
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.