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In the email today:
🧢 C-Suite Moves At Unrivaled Sports
COO Wade Martin has been named Unrivaled’s president — a new position in the platform’s hierarchy.
Chairman and CEO Andy Campion announced the promotion late last night on LinkedIn. Martin “will lead all baseball, softball, flag and action sports businesses and all functions company-wide.”
Campion also broke his own news — he will step back from his current roles early next year. Campion said he will become a senior strategic advisor while remaining a member of Unrivaled’s board, an investor and a shareholder.
“The transition also creates greater capacity for me to invest and build across a broader portfolio of businesses with the potential to have positive impact on others at scale," he wrote.
Campion said Unrivaled will close 2026 with over 20 properties nationwide, plus programming in all regions. The platform is projected to serve about 1M youth athletes and 3M guests.
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📺 ICYMI: Webinar With Ankored Is Now Live
We sent this out yesterday, but our recent webinar in partnership with Ankored on compliance and safety in youth sports is now available to all subscribers. You can listen in podcast form here.
🇳🇴 It Always Comes Back To Norway
NJ.com continued its reporting series on the industry by taking a trip to America’s Favorite Youth Sports Nation.
The headline: “N.J. youth sports are tainted by corruption and greed. We found the cure — 4,000 miles away.”
I (James) am going to recuse myself given my 10 years of service for Tony Soprano’s hometown newspaper.
All you, Kyle!
These are actual, honest-to-goodness paragraphs from this article, yet another which offers up Norway as a solution to all our problems:
Imagine how camping at fields and eating chicken stew shoulder-to-shoulder in a large gymnasium so your kid can participate in a tournament would be covered in the US by publications like NJ.com or the NY Times.
Norway does lots of good when it comes to youth sports. I want to make that very clear. We can learn some things from them. And they can also learn some things from us about hospitality. But, as we’ve written before, using its nationally-subsidized model in a country the size of South Carolina simply won’t work here for various reasons, including sheer amount of money, the fact that we’re a republic, and literal physical size.
But I’ll go further.
Here’s one more paragraph extolling the virtues of Norway:
“So how did Norway build a system that not only is inexpensive for parents but has also produced elite athletes like soccer superstar Erling Haaland, Olympic champion runner Jakob Ingebrigtsen and professional golfer Viktor Hovland?
"Why does a country with 5.6 million people — or 3.7 million fewer than New Jersey — outshine far bigger nations with no sign of letting up?”
First of all, Norway “outshines” the US in a narrow band of sports that aren’t the priority in the US— largely, Olympic sports, WHICH ARE A NATIONAL PRIORITY FOR NORWAY, and, more recently, this one time, because Erling Haaland is a giant outlier, soccer.
How does Norway do in other sports? Does their sum output of stars outshine the US, or even New Jersey, which has produced: Mike Trout, Carli Lloyd, Karl-Anthony Towns, Jalen Brunson (born in New Jersey), World Number 1 golfer Scottie Scheffler (born and learned to golf in New Jersey) and, ironically given his involvement in youth sports, Greg Olsen. If NJ.com were to do this literal article about its own state it would be left wondering what is in the water there to gestate such generational talent.
But nope, Norway, which is a more fun destination on an expense report, produced Viktor Hovland, the current 13th ranked golfer in the world (love Viktor, by the way), behind nine Americans and some guy from the real sports powerhouse of Northern Ireland.
🏈 RCX Sports, U.S. Bank Team On NFL Flag Events
The Brand Velocity Group-owned operator is expanding its ties with the bank, which is an official NFL partner, through 10 NFL Flag regional tournaments.
The first four tournaments will be hosted in the markets of the Bears, Browns, Chargers and Raiders; the Cleveland-area tournament kicks off tomorrow in Canton, Ohio.
Six more tournaments will be held in 2027; dates and locations are yet to be announced.
U.S. Bank will have on-site activation and content across NFL Flag digital channels as part of the deal. The bank also recently launched collaborated with the NFL on a $250K partnership with GenYouth; that pact includes donating NFL Flag kits to 400 schools nationwide.
ALSO: iFlag has announced a new competition structure for its youth tournaments. It will operate recurring events across five markets — Dallas, Las Vegas, Tampa and Northern and Southern California — feeding into regional tournaments and its national and world championship events. These are separate events from iFlag’s partnership with MaxPreps.
🥏 TeamSnap’s ‘Brand Sampling’
Want to get your product in the hands of youth sports families?
TeamSnap says it can help.
The management platform has launched TeamSnap Sampling, which it says gives brands “unprecedented” ability to reach consumers with physical products through both local activation and national campaigns.
TeamSnap said it has already had over 2M samples handed out.
The program runs through TeamSnap’s Activation Network, which includes leagues, tournaments and over 40 partner facilities. Spooky Nook Sports in Manheim, Pennsylvania and Scheels Sports Park at Legacy Point in Springfield, Illinois, are among the network facilities.
TeamSnap also said it has reached over 100M people in its sponsorship network and 40M through the facilities.
Quick Take: TeamSnap is furthering its platform ambitions. It’s recently added live streaming as a core feature of TeamSnap ONE and is doubling down on brand partnerships and activation. There’s plenty of competition for this agency layer, but scaled tech platforms have a built-in distribution advantage. TeamSnap SVP of Brand Solutions Nicole McCormack told us in March: “But to be honest, when I was working with brands, there was a little bit of, ‘We love your audience. We love this youth sports audience. We love reaching parents through this passion point of youth sports, but what can we do beyond digital advertising? And in conversation with some of the CMOs and brand partners, it was, ‘This is an amazing audience, but how can we engage with it in a way that’s more authentic, more impactful, more, um, you know, grassroots,’ I would say, and hyperlocal.” TeamSnap Sampling seems to be an answer.
⚾️ Perfect Game’s New Events System
PG is rolling out a new classification system aimed at bringing greater clarity to its almost 10K annual events.
The baseball and softball developmental giant has established five classes:
Flagship: Highest level, carry most weight for rankings
Premier: National scope, one rung below top level
Signature: State, regional competitions
Classic: Local, non-travel pathway events
All-Star: Invitation-only individual events for elite players; similar to Flagship level
The new classes will take effect this fall. PG said all events will be classified by Jan. 1.
Quick Take: We talk a lot about youth sports as a media property, and PG embraces media more than most major players in the space. But explaining why a travel baseball tournament matters to a casual consumer is much tougher than explaining a high school state championship game. Moves like this one will make it easier to grasp the stakes, which could in turn fuel media value.
🏀 Overtime Gets Backing From Pro Sports Owner
The digital media company has completed a strategic investment round led by Los Angeles Dodgers co-owner Todd Boehly’s Eldridge Capital Management.
The investment is “is expected to support Overtime’s initiatives across content, commerce, technology and live sports properties,” according to SBJ.
Overtime operates the Overtime Elite (boys) and Overtime Select (girls) basketball platforms and the OT7 football platform. It previously raised $100M in 2022 and recently secured a multi-year extension with Adidas.
🤦♂️ Parents Behaving Badly
A former Indiana men’s basketball star received probation after pleading guilty to a hoops coaching scam.
Todd Leary bilked a parent out of nearly $50K over a year after pledging to train his son and start an AAU team. Leary also falsely claimed he had been hired by Purdue coach Matt Painter.
Leary was initially charged with 10 felony counts, but only pleaded to one as part of a deal. He also must pay $5K in restitution to the parent. Leary previously served prison time for an escrow fraud scheme.
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