This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
Let’s get to it.
In the email today:
🍦 Drip Brand Aims To Grow After Investments
Optimal Investment Group and former big leaguer Matt LaPorta have invested in youth baseball apparel and lifestyle brand Dirty Mids, Buying Sandlot has learned.
Terms were not disclosed. OIG partner Harris Roth said his firm and LaPorta’s Wayfinder Capital Partners will help build out staff, expand product line and distribution and explore potential acquisitions and growth into other sports.
Dirty Mids founder T.J. Candella will remain as CEO. He said several other potential buyers or strategic partners approached the company prior to striking the deal — proof of the growing interest in youth baseball and its drip culture. Candella said the vision laid out by LaPorta and Roth — and LaPorta’s ties to the college and professional levels — sold him.
“We’ve built a pretty robust, great business the last three years,” he said. “Things have gone bananas. We reached a natural inflection point where it has grown into a monster, but the question is now where do we go. The natural thing is to bring in the guys who have a whole lot of experience and wisdom. It’s a big day for us.”
The brand’s signature product are pants cut between the calf and ankle — a length traditionally only found in customized MLB uniforms — along with a full range of drip apparel and items.
Dirty Mids hit seven figures in pant sales within in its first year, Candella and Roth said.
Close to 600 Dick’s Sporting Goods locations carry Dirty Mids apparel. The brand is also in over 300 Academy Sports + Outdoors locations, is launching in close to 300 Dunham’s Sports locations next month and has deals with Scheels and other brick-and-mortar stores.
⛑️ In-Person Safety Is Now Table Stakes In Youth Sports*
Monday's newsletter reported on a youth sports bill up for consideration in Massachusetts’ state senate.
The proposed legislation would establish requirements for athletic trainers coverage -- the latest signal that in-person safety will soon become as prominent in the industry as background checks and SafeSport compliance.
Go4 can safeguard your event well before federal or state lawmakers — or insurance underwriters — make it mandatory.
The tech platform connects operators with certified athletic trainers for per diem, long-term and contract positions.
Over 26K certified ATs available in all 50 states
Works with 12K colleges, clubs, facilities, orgs, schools, tournaments
Emergency Action Plan creation, review, implementation
Risk intelligence, reduction
Injury evaluation, treatment
HIPAA-compliant injury documentation
All ATs carry personal liability insurance
You wouldn't ever play a game without coaches or referee. You shouldn't ever play without an AT.
Go4 can help.
*Sponsor
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⚾️ Perfect Game Partners With Doubted Athletes
The baseball and softball developmental platform considers itself a media company. Embraces it, in fact.
But what happens when a bevy of independent creators and unaffiliated media begin using its events for their own content?
PG has opted to put them in the lineup rather than eject them. The platform announced a media rights pact with Doubted Athletes today — its second such deal after partnering wth Youth Prospects in April.
“We’ve really handpicked two that we saw were already doing it with an authentic voice at a level that fits our brand that was good for our players, good for our ecosystem, good for our partners,” PG head of content Josh Gotthelf told Buying Sandlot. “They were really helping to shine a positive light on the journeys of these young athletes.
“They were on the other side of the fence, shooting through the fence. We saw it, we loved their work and instead of tightening up, we gave them a call and said, ‘Hey, how can we help you enhance your coverage? How can we get you from outside the fence to behind the curtain?’”
DA — which specializes in cutting full games into 20-30 minute condensed versions on YouTube — will have rights to select PG events. Gotthelf said PG will provide more access and help with scouting information and storylines to inform content decisions. The partnership also opens up sponsorship doors given high engagement numbers.
“We want to meet the kids where they are, meet the audience where it is,” Gotthelf said. “In this particular case, it’s the young athletes, the teen audience, the players in our ecosystem, that’s where they consume content.”
Gotthelf expects PG will likely form more partnerships in the future, but nothing is currently planned.
Different scenario, but this is a much better way of handling an IP question than, say, how Black Bear Sports did.
PG is savvy and understands influencer content can further its goals— much the same way the NBA did (and MLB didn’t) on social media in the 2010s. One embraced shareable clips, and the other issued takedown notices and the sport suffered as a result. MLB’s delay cost it a generation of cultural relevance that the NBA had, though the league has gotten much better about this in the last 7-8 years.
But this does serve as a reminder for players and families that youth sports competitions increasingly fall under someone else’s monetizable IP rights. With a thicket of cameras, streaming platforms, tournaments, and media platforms - sometimes rolled into one company - the one-off media rights questions will be many. Pro sports rights are all about broad distribution (literally broadcast), but youth sports is all about the long-tail of niche viewing across a range of platforms. PG embraced the opportunity here, increased access for the influencer, and got to define the terms— not all IP owners will.
🧢 Disney Teams With Every Kid Sports
Disney Jr. and ESPN will expand a partnership with the national nonprofit to provide youth sports access for income-restricted families.
Grants covering registration fees for kids ages 3-7
Preschool sports clinics
Launch of "Me & Mickey: Let’s Play Sports" shorts series with Positive Coaching Alliance
The program will operate in the eight markets where Disney still owns and operates the local ABC affiliate — the Bay Area, Chicago, Fresno, Houston, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and Raleigh-Durham.
🎥 New AI-Powered Streamer On The Block?
Sportway Media Group — a Swedish AI-automated streaming and media rights firm — reportedly has its eyes on North America following a recent funding round.
The company said it raised €20M (about $22.7M) and is now valued at around $105M.
Deals with dozens of federations, leagues
Over 2.5K cameras across 20+ countries
Over 250K live sporting events annually
Focus on grassroots sports; heavy ice hockey presence
Works with tech partners like Pixellot
Sportway currently operates in Europe and Oceania; it launched in the UK last year and co-founder and CEO Daniel Franck told Tech.eu he anticipates further international expansion.
Sportway has already made several acquisitions and is branching out into AI-powered coaching and training tools like other players in the space.
🤠 Facilities Arms Race: Big Plans In Nashville
Bachelorette parties, country music and youth sports.
Three pro teams — the NFL’s Titans, NHL’s Predators and MLS’ Nashville FC — want to partner with BLVD Capital and other firms on a proposed 233-acre mega-complex in the suburb of Franklin.
The plans for The Banks at Brownland:
100K-square-foot hockey facility
11 football/lacrosse/soccer fields
Golf course, driving range
Permanent facility for local religious non-profit
Grocery store, restaurants
Fitness, medical offices
Brownland Farm — which has hosted equestrian events for decades — would relocate its operations to make way for the project. Some land would also be acquired from a nearby church.
The Predators would operate the ice venue while the Titans and Nashville SC would manage youth programming in their sports.
🏟️ Curve Sports Keeps Growing
The baseball superclub platform has added Knights Knation to the fold.
The Louisiana-based organization is approaching its 20th anniversary; it was founded by current Los Angeles Dodgers national pitching crosschecker Jack Cressend, an ex-big leaguer, and has had over 1K alumni play in college.
The club's local leadership will remain in place while tapping into Curve's national infrastructure -- the blueprint CEO Sandy Ogg and Weatherford Capital have been utilizing as the platform grows.
Knights Knation also has a robust affiliate network — another emerging trend of Curve’s additions. The club has satellite locations across the Southeast and also boasts outposts in California, Indiana, Ohio and Texas.
💼 Youth Sports Transactions Wire
Av Doomchin is GameChanger’s new Director of Sales.
The industry veteran joins the Dick’s Sporting Goods-owned company after several years at SportsEngine, where he was most recently its director of enterprise, streaming and events sale.
Doomchin also had a pretty great LinkedIn announcement post to mark the occasion.
🗣️ Embrace Debate
There is a long way to go, but it looks like the U.S. Men’s National Team will have a favorable path to reach the World Cup quarterfinal round.
Kyle S. has pondered on the podcast whether such an undisputed historical success could change minds about the often-lamented American youth soccer ecosystem and prove that, hey, maybe we are doing something right?
Dallas Morning News columnist Mac Engel is already trying to cut that argument off, writing this romp through Group D is "a terrible development for America's kids, and their parents."
A 2-0 record and six points should be celebrated, but do not let the results serve as cover, or rationalization, for a youth development system that uses "Well, that's the market" to justify predatory exploitation practices.
(...)
Reaching the round of 16 does not mean it's working, or fixed. Because America's youth soccer system is legalized crime that is in desperate need of real oversight, because its mission and moral compass are shattered.
Engel adds youth sports should “exist to exist," and that breaking even or turning a "modest return" should be the ceiling.
A somewhat-related thing that has been on my mind:
Like many Americans, a not-insignificant amount of my soccer knowledge has been gleaned from Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham.
The latter’s latest season included a vignette about a player who has Premier League experience and is a member of the Welsh national team … and still struggles with spending much of his childhood away from his parents after entering a club academy at age 10.
Yes, there are many issues with the U.S. youth soccer developmental ecosystem. And one great run at the World Cup does not change that.
But — as Kyle often says — some kids do turn out to be elite, international-level athletes. And I would argue there are aspects to the U.S. talent identification process that actually may be superior to European models.
Like 10-year-olds not living with their parents so they can play a sport being a rare occurrence.
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