This is Buying Sandlot — the only newsletter that focuses solely on the business of youth sports.
In the email today:
✅ Ankored Boosted By Rally Ventures Investment
The AI-powered compliance and safety onboarding platform has closed out a $4M seed round.
The funding was led by Rally Ventures and managing director Justin Kaufenberg — the co-founder and former CEO of SportsEngine. He will join Ankored’s board of directors.
Ankored - who has been a Buying Sandlot sponsor in the past - will expand product development and partnerships with the new funding.
Kaufenberg pointed to the evolution of best practices regarding youth sports safety — on and off the field — as an impetus. He told us:
“A background screening is a good start, but a totally comprehensive safety profile on a coach, a team manager, a locker room monitor, a bus driver -- that's really the standard now.
“You really need to know, 'Has this person completed their concussion protocol training? Their first aid certification? Do they have an up-to-date CPR certification? Have they passed their abuse prevention training curriculum? Do they have all of their continuing education credits? Is this person truly a verified and certified safe person to be around young athletes?’
“When we came to that realization, we really looked at what companies were doing that out there, and there was really only one -- Ankored -- and we got really excited about the business.”
The press release announcing the seed round cited two notable statistics via SafeSport:
There has been a 2,780% increase (not a typo) in misconduct reports since 2017
and about 155 reports are filed weekly in the U.S
“Sometimes a company gets created and they have to convince people it should be the new standard,” Kaufenberg said.
“In this case, parents and youth sports administrators have largely all independently come to the same conclusion — it makes perfect sense to protect youth athletes, we should take even further measures to protect youth athletes and even if it costs a few extra bucks to do that, we’re committed to doing it.”
It’s probably not a coincidence that two of our recurring sponsors have been Ankored and Zorts— safety and compliance is a hot, and potentially lucrative, space.
Why?
Myriad reasons, including: 1) 2018 SafeSport act requiring US Olympic Committee-recognized programs to have abuse prevention reporting standards, 2) as outlined here, claims have exploded as a result, 3) insurers demand screening, 4) local laws are layering in more requirements, 5) professionalization of youth sports means more is at stake, 6) tech enables better workflows and API integration (like Zorts’ API integration), 7) parents have higher expectations, especially of for-profit ventures.
If pushes for concussion detection are an indication, physical safety, like brain and cardiac safety, might be the next compliance wave.
🏋️♀️ Own A Fast-Growing Training Franchise*
D1 Training has over 150 locations across the US, with each location earning on average of $1.55M.**
This is significantly higher than the average revenue earned by facilities in our Great Youth Sports Facility Report.
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Owners get end-to-end support, which includes:
Site selection
Buildout
Launch and marketing plans
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Tim Tebow
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D1 is a standout in the crowded training franchise space. Here’s a breakdown of some of the most popular sports franchise brands, what they offer clients, and, more importantly, what they offer franchise owners:
Find out how you can join 150+ other franchise owners and open or convert your existing facility to a 7-figure D1 Training franchise.
Learn more about the D1 franchising opportunity right here.
*Sponsor
**Average revenue from locations open at least one year with complete financial data.
🗽 Sign of the Times (Square)
That there is youth sports equipment resale marketplace SidelineSwap advertising its customer-friendly return options at the Nasdaq.
We partnered with Seel to bring Worry-free returns to SidelineSwap.
Now you can shop used without having to worry about fit, condition, or anything else. When Seel is added to your purchase, you can return it no-questions-asked within 7 days.
I’m not sure who loves this feature more - our buyers or our sellers. Because when an item is returned to Seel, the seller still gets paid. SidelineSwap and Seel process the return for them. Win-win!
SidelineSwap has taken strategic investments from Dick’s DSG Ventures along with eBay, and they hold partnership events at Dick’s locations.
Quick Take: I (Kyle) love the concept of Seel - a third-party returns vendor - as it effectively provides liquidity for customers of retailers who lack robust after-sale operations. Also, add SidelineSwap to my unofficial list of YouthSports companies WhoHate spaces— I’m KeepingTabs on AllOf you at Buying Sandlot.
👨💻 Another Youth Sports Tech Deal
Accel-KKR has bought a majority stake in Arbiter, an athletics and schools management platform.
The company was created to book and pay sports officials, but has since expanded its scope to also handle other scheduling and payment functions as well as compliance, registrations, facilities management and website operations.
Serent Capital will maintain a minority stake. Arbiter leadership will remain unchanged.
Accel-KKR is also a LeagueApps investor.
🐂 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.
🏛️ Op-Ed: Government Should Be Involved In Youth Sports
A Chicago Tribune guest column calls for more government funding and support for youth sports, citing state-level initiatives in California and Illinois as examples.
Illinois has dedicated almost $14M to community-based youth sports programs in partnership with Laureus Sport for Good USA
Over 50 orgs have provided no-cost opportunities to over 40K kids in "77 high-poverty, high-violence zip codes"
Illinois also established a national-first state youth sports commission this year
California is currently considering the Youth Sports for All Act
The bill would create a commission tasked with investigating whether the state should have a centralized youth sports body
The commission would also create recommendations for reforms and access expansion
The column was co-authored by Laureus board chair Edwin Moses — a former Olympic champion hurdler and USADA chair — and Renata Simril, the president of the Play Equity Fund.
“By treating access to youth sports as a public policy issue rather than a privilege available to only elite kid athletes, Illinois and California are modeling what it looks like when government engages to uplift every child, not just the ones whose families can afford the fees, equipment and transportation,” they wrote.
🍁 Canadian Initiative Focuses On Girls Sports Participation
Canadian Women & Sport has launched a new campaign — Get Girl Coached — to keep youth athletes on the field.
Half of female athletes quit organized sports in Canada by age 17, according to the organization.
The project is partially funded by the Canadian government and will run nationwide in English and French. It will focus on implementing what girls say they need to remain in sports.
🐝 There’s Always Youth Sports In Utah
I (James) have been to 38 states. Utah is one of the dozen I am missing, but at this point it is only a matter of time before I can get Kyle to pay for me to go.
We have two more notable items from the Beehive State:
1) The city of Ogden has launched the Ogden Untamed Sports Academy -- a year-round municipal youth sports operation.
Athletes can play in-season sports and train out-of-season
Development pathway for city-sponsored Untamed U8-U14 teams
Academy participants do not need to be part of Untamed
Programming that encourages multi-sport participation
Qualified coaches who meet certain criteria
The most notable part? The cost. It is $25 a month for city residents and $40 for non-residents.
The academy currently has 120 athletes and is working to open more spots.
2) The Athletic published a lengthy profile of Utah Jazz and Mammoth owner Ryan Smith featuring several youth sports nuggets.
Five municipalities have taken up Smith on his offer of $500K to build hockey rinks so far
The Jazz and Mammoth set aside a significant number of heavily-discounted tickets for youth program members each home game (close to 10% of capacity for the Jazz)
The Mammoth’s new practice facility will have 4K square feet dedicated to community space and open its ice to youth hockey
There will be 4-5 youth hockey events each week during the Mammoth’s season
The Junior Jazz have 70K league members, the biggest NBA team-sponsored youth organization
The Junior Mammoth had close to 4K street hockey participants in Year 1 and are targeting 70K by Year 5
The Ogden concept is interesting — creating a program that offers many of the bells and whistles of club sports and private coaching and appeals to the clientele for both, but under a civic umbrella at a considerable discount.
One of the city officials quoted in the local newspaper’s report cited a “broader community goal” for Ogden to produce a homegrown Olympian.
Yes, that is probably a bit of optimistic hyperbole colored by the fact the city will host events at the 2034 Winter Olympics.
But this is also the type of program that removes access barriers and helps ensure athletes who have the potential to become elite competitors are not held back by lacking the means to be developed.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.