This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
In the email today:
⚾️ Unrivaled Sports Announces Baseball Tourney Partnership
The youth sports giant is launching the Unrivaled Baseball Network — a national-level tie-up of regional tournament operators designed to "strengthen local programs and elevate youth baseball experiences across the country."
The network will feature USSSA-sanctioned events, as USSSA Baseball Director Kevin Hassett will helm the UBN.
"UBN provides enhanced operational expertise, resources, and national-scale infrastructure — ensuring stability and growth opportunities for tournaments nationwide," according to Unrivaled's LinkedIn post announcing the network.
"UBN combines the best of local leadership with Unrivaled Sports’ scale and innovation — creating a stronger ecosystem for players, families and communities."
Unrivaled already has Ripken Baseball and The Baseball Factory under its umbrella, as well as a slew of complexes and facilities nationwide. They will be looking to add more operators into the network.
USSSA sanctions over 35K events annually and has 4.5M participants in 47 states, ranging from youth sports to competitive adult competitions.
To be honest, lots of corporate speak here with little detail.
Here’s how I understand this from a personal example:
In my prior life, I ran a large local sports website in Philly, CrossingBroad.com. We scaled by acquiring other local sports blogs. But when buying wasn’t possible, we partnered with smaller, regional sites and helped them tap into advertising $ from companies like DraftKings and FanDuel. The result: a bigger audience for us, more revenue for the local sites, and a single point of contact for advertisers to reach millions of fans.
That’s essentially what Unrivaled is doing. They can’t buy every tournament operator, but they can bring their tech, marketing, and operational expertise to individual operators, helping them run more effective events while setting national standards for players and families. It’s a network play, not just an acquisition spree.
🎟️ Duesy is Reimagining the Youth Sports Tournament Experience — One Text Message at a Time*
98% of text messages are read, compared to less than 20% of emails and app notifications.
The typical conversion rate of a text message campaign is 30%, compared to less than 5% for email and app notifications.
The tournament experience starts at the gate. It's time to upgrade your gate experience from a transactional cash or credit card reader to a platform that engages attendees and streamlines your operations.
Duesy is a text-led ticketing platform that simplifies the gate experience.
That means:
Tickets are delivered via text
Attendees receive an automated welcome message once they are inside an event
Tournament operators obtain a verified mobile number for every coach and attendee
At a recent KC Sports World Series youth baseball tournament with over 100 teams participating, Duesy provided the infrastructure for more than 6,300 ticket sales.
Families not only received a tournament bracket via text message once inside the gate, but they also received a 20% off coupon to Academy Sports (a KC Sports sponsor).
This meant:
Families received added value for playing in the tournament
Academy Sports reached a highly-targeted and engaged audience
KC Sports activated a sponsor in an innovative and frictionless way
This is just one way Duesy is reimagining the tournament experience.
You can also watch our podcast interview with Duesy co-founder Tony Caudill right here.
Note: Duesy does not have a direct relationship with Academy Sports. The offer was delivered on behalf of KC Sports, who maintains the sponsor relationship.
*Sponsored
🎾 Tennis Tech Aims To Grow Participation
There were over 26M tennis players in the U.S. last year, according to the USTA — which means 1 in every 12 Americans played.
The sport has seen five straight years of participation growth — even amid the pickleball boom — and 45% of the new players are ages 25 or younger.
But access barriers and the sport’s reputation for exclusivity persist while dozens of college programs have been eliminated in recent years.
Fast Track Tennis founder John Davey believes his training system and the recently-launched 1-2-3 Method platform could help address those challenges.
The device:
FTT is a portable, lightweight net with an attached ball feeder
Can be used anywhere — driveways, basketball courts, etc.
Ball is delivered every 3 seconds
Associated apps with educational content, analytics/tracking capabilities and gaming platform
Davey said the tracking software provides more shot insights to users than similar tools like golf simulators
The platform:
1-2-3 Method is a 10-class curriculum designed to introduce tennis at low cost to school PE classes, community centers and underserved communities
Youth athletes can hit thousands of balls before ever stepping on a tennis court
Olympic Gold Medalist and former Wimbledon finalist Zina Garrison is a partner
“We lose so many players because it’s hard to learn,” said Davey, who played collegiately at Vermont.
“It’s hard to get out on the court to actually hit the ball over the net and see if you like it. It takes years before players can actually rally. I’m trying to compress that timeline, condense it and give kids the tools where they can go out and play, and to go bring tennis to places it has not been traditionally brought to.”
Davey said he’s sold about 5K units since FTT hit the market in 2022, ranging from individual families to D1 programs. It is available for $350-$399 DTC — tariffs have impacted the price — and program sales are about $3.6K; that price includes rackets and other equipment for turnkey use.
Tennis is one of the few sports people can truly play for their entire lives — and the health benefits of participation are real, Davey said.
And there is real enthusiasm, as evidenced by the participation numbers and how big events like the U.S. Open are from a cultural standpoint.
But it remains a difficult sport to access for myriad reasons — something FTT and the 1-2-3 Method are trying to address.
The strategy of taking a version of the sport to middle schools is also smart — see what Imagine Rugby is doing.
Also: A big factor in many colleges’ decisions to cut tennis programs is how many roster spots are held by international athletes.
The lack of next-level opportunities is another problem tennis has to face now. But if the sport continues to grow domestic participation, that could change the calculus.
⚽️ Utah Repurposes Olympics Venue For Youth Sports
The Western Sports Park — a 55-acre sports campus with six full-sized soccer pitches, two arenas with seating and 120K square feet of multi-use indoor space — recently had its grand opening in Farmington, Utah.
The venue was formerly known as the Legacy Events Center. It was used to hold the Olympic Rodeo Cultural Event when Salt Lake City hosted the 2002 Winter Olympics.
The project cost $70M and was publicly funded. The venue had been multi-purpose in recent years, but the growing youth sports demand led to the revitalization plan.
Utah is the nation’s fastest-growing state and a hotbed of youth sports activity.
Quick Take: Utah provides us more youth sports news items than perhaps any other state. Certainly more than fellow near-term Olympics host California.
🚫 MLB Institutes Amateur Scouting Dead Period
Major League Baseball is establishing winter windows where teams cannot scout or collect information on youth and college prospects, according to ESPN.
The new rules are called the Amateur Recovery Period Policy and are designed to prevent overuse and injuries
HS juniors and seniors cannot be scouted from Oct. 15 to Jan. 15
College players cannot be scouted from Nov. 15 to Jan. 15
Prohibited activities include in-person scouting and obtaining third-hand video, etc.
Unsolicited data must be immediately reported to the league office upon receipt
Teams are still allowed to meet with prospects at their homes. The rules do not apply to player agents.
MLB hopes the dead period will “alleviate the pressure on young players to forego rest and recovery, curb overuse, and keep players healthier as they strive for a future in professional baseball,” according to a memo obtained by ESPN.
After calling around — this new policy is unlikely to have much impact, if any, on Perfect Game and other youth baseball developmental platforms.
The youth dead period starts Oct. 15 — or two days after PG’s WWBA World Championships wrap up in Florida. That cannot be by accident.
While there are plenty of PG events (and other) events played in Q4, it is not a prime time on the calendar for serious scouting showcases. You have the holidays, football and basketball seasons, focus on skill refinement, etc.
Overuse injuries are a major issue in youth sports and especially in baseball, where so many athletes are blowing out their elbows younger and younger. But I am skeptical this policy will have much impact on that trend.
🐂 Upcoming Event: JohnWallStreet’s Youth Sports Summit
As we plan our youth sports business conference for next spring in Philly, I am excited to share that we are partnering with JohnWallStreet for their youth sports summit in NY next month.
If you would like to attend the event, you can register your interest here (spots are limited!).
JWS - which covers the intersection of sports and finance - was an inspiration of mine to start Buying Sandlot, so I couldn’t be more thrilled to be working with Corey and his team on this one.
🤼♂️ New Sport At IMG Academy
The elite sports school will start a wrestling program — the 11th sport offered at the powerhouse — next year.
Enock Francois — most recently an assistant coach at North Carolina — will be the program’s director. Francois was a three-time All-American and national finalist at Cal Baptist and a member of the U.S. Greco Roman National Team.
Francois also has ties to the Florida youth wrestling scene and a doctorate in educational leadership.
IMG plans to run wrestling camps in the spring and summer before the boarding program begins to start the 2026-27 academic year.
IMG is jumping into a sport where there are already several powerhouse academies and prep schools with elite wrestling programs, including Orlando’s Lake Highland Prep — last season’s prep national champion.
But IMG’s resources are unmatched. And top wrestlers tend to flock to each other once a program establishes itself. So this could be a fast rise.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
The NY Times is now soliciting student opinions on whether youth sports are too expensive— you can spot their chosen narrative from a mile away
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.