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:
⚽️ A Sports Academy Without Sports Teams
Pairing elite youth sports competition and training with non-traditional academics is nothing new, from IMG Academy to upstarts like The Bennett School.
But while these platforms can differ drastically in their approach, most all share the common thread of offering their own sports teams with students competing under their name.
Pathway Schools goes in the other direction — it is a South Florida-based academy network for elite soccer players that purposely does not have any soccer teams.
“We’re club neutral. We’re not going to compete against them,” CEO Daniel Villegas told Buying Sandlot. “That’s not our goal. We want to give them supplemental training. If the coach calls us from X club and says, ‘This kid needs to rest today,’ perfect. ‘Hey, I want you to work with him on this.’ Perfect. We don’t have an ego. We’re here to make the kid better so that when they go back to your team, they’re performing at their peak.”
Pathway evolved out of a training program for homeschooled kids with several iterations over the years. But it launched its current form about three years ago when it became a certified private school with accreditation and government funding after growing dissatisfied with Florida’s state-run virtual public school offerings.
Physical school locations -- 4 in Miami area, 1 in Atlanta
Grades 3-12, over 300 students
In-person schooling and training, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Certified teachers, project-based learning, focus on life skills
All students play for outside clubs; no boarding component
“The moment we become a club, we lose the best interest of the player and we have to make sacrifices now for the team,” said Villegas, who played professionally and is also a Soccer Shots franchise owner.
“In our environment, I can do what’s best individually for [a student] and every other kid here. I don’t have to worry about the team or a collective.”
Pathway students only play soccer; the academy does cuts in eighth grade and all high school athletes are college and professional prospects.
Villegas said Pathway is looking to scale and seeking funding, but is not interested in a franchise model. Pathway is looking at new markets in Florida as well as Tennessee and Texas. Future plans could include expanding to other sports.
“Yes, they want to come to us because of soccer,” Villegas said. “But we’re piquing their interest in education and piquing their interest in our non-traditional way of teaching and understanding school is outdated, it hasn’t changed and we’re kind of disrupting in that matter. The demand is there and we’re just trying to scale now.”
This is yet another take on a trend of academics and athletics coming into balance in education. Whether it’s, as we wrote here, IMG and upstarts like the Bennett school, or recent PE-backed clubs looking to partner with academies and Pathway Schools… there’s lots of new ideas taking shape on how to combine education and sports as part of a curriculum. I continue to believe the macro theme of AI taking over everything underpins many of these theses: as AI compresses traditional academics, education models that reallocate time toward what makes us human - sports, arts, experiences - will gain traction.
We’ll see lots of trial and error here, but some big winners will come out of it. I do worry, however, about some of the most newfangled AI learning concepts - like Alpha School - and what negative effects from them we’ll learn about in 5 years.
🤾♂️ The Easy Button For Youth Sports Operation*
That’s how Focus On The Field Founder and CEO Tyler Kreitz described his company to me when I (Kyle) met him at NextUp in October. The easy button for youth sports operators.
What does that mean?
Well, the professionalization of youth sports is leading to inefficiency, burnout, and turnover among youth sports organization. Part-time administrators, coaches and volunteers are loaded with full-time responsibilities. Current solutions only add to the administration glut.
That’s where Focus On The Field comes in.
They offer fully-outsourced, affordable, turn-key support for operators, including:
Administrative tasks
Registration
Communication
Website and tech stack management
Or, more fun:
This includes tasks like coach onboarding, schedule building, legal entity tasks, compliance, email communications, website maintenance, and tech integration, among many other things.
Most youth sports operators got involved because they love the game, not managing back-office tasks. FOTF quite literally wants you to keep your focus on the field and let them handle increasingly-complex administrative tasks.
Find out how Focus On The Field can help you right here.
*Sponsor
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Session Details: Streaming: How Hardware, AI, And Adoption Are Driving A Boom In Youth Sports Streaming
We’ll bring together leaders from some of the largest tech and streaming platforms to discuss how technology is enabling a ton of new use-cases and how they can scale beyond software and hardware to look like media companies.
👷♂️ LeagueApps Launches Team Builder Feature
The youth sports management platform’s latest tool is live after being rolled out last year for partners.
It’s designed for operators who handle a large volume of single or small group registrations — think recreational leagues, showcases, etc. — and need to quickly make teams while keeping them balanced and adhering to family requests and other specific criteria.
LeagueApps CEO and co-founder Brian Litvack said new capabilities will be added soon and teased a potential “fantasy draft” function for making youth teams.
I could use this for building out the Buying Sandlot Summit panels. So many great players on the roster, limited positions to put them. Do I put the COO of this tech co. on the sponsorship panel or the streaming panel? Does this BIG DAWG get a fireside chat or a focused panel discussion?
Side note: I do enjoy competitor CEOs liking Litvack’s post. The Platform Wars™ may be real… but there are clear allied powers in this digital realm.
📰 Sportico Op-Ed Throws Cold Water On Industry
The sports business outlet published a guest column -- Youth Sports Is The Safest Investment In The World -- Or Is It? -- written by Michael Fealey, a British "sport systems consultant.”
The piece is heavy on em-dashes, "it's not X, it's Y" and skepticism that youth sports is "recession-resistant, culturally permanent and structurally immune to decline” ——— indicating a heavy or complete use of AI to write it.
The catchy headline gives way to a wildly underwhelming thesis.
Yes, it is interesting that youth sports costs rose about 50% while the U.S. birth rate declined 15% in the same span. And that could portend future trends. But the only real-life example Fealey provides to buttress his argument is a wild mischaracterization.
Fealey positions the Future Legends Sports Complex debacle in Windsor, Colorado as a bellwether for what happens when there is not enough demand to meet supply.
The truth is a bit different — developers consistently overpromised and underdelivered for years, became mired in financial and legal woes and then local officials shut the place down when the bathrooms literally stopped working, among other safety issues.
I have no idea what Sportico is doing here rolling out this drivel. My stance has nothing to do with the negative tone in the post— but the fact that it’s:
1) Clearly written by AI
2) Factually wrong
3) And woefully uninformed.
An excerpt: “Youth sports doesn’t just sell games. It quietly builds the next decade of players, coaches and fans. That process takes time—often 10 to 15 years from first participation to elite outcome. It depends on repetition, volunteer labor and sheer numbers. Take away enough kids at the entry level, and the machine starts to wobble. A modest 3% annual decline in entry-level participation compounds to nearly a 30% reduction in the base cohort over a decade. That doesn’t just thin the pipeline at the top. It makes every layer more expensive.”
Obviously the free version of ChatGPT. And this hypothetical goes against every piece of data and incentive the country has. Participation has actually ticked up slightly, according to most recent Project Play data, and the country has stated goals to reach 63% participation by 2030. So imagining a scenario with a 3% annual decline is akin to saying if the ocean goes dry, it’ll be a desert.
I can’t fathom why Sportico would run something like this.
⛹️♀️ Spotlight On ACL Tears In Girls Sports
The New York Times Magazine and Associated Press both recently examined the rise in ACL injury rates among high school athletes — and that data shows girls are at least twice as likely to suffer tears than boys.
One study even puts the disparity at 8x, according to the AP.
Various warm-up exercises that are proven to reduce the risk of an ACL tear by as much as 80% have been around for decades. These tools lack widespread adoption — often due to a lack of education.
But that is beginning to change as more experts push for ACL injuries to see a prevention push similar to concussions.
🩻 More Youth Sports Injury News
Early specialization is connected to increased injury rates in college athletes and NFL players, according to research presented at the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons’ annual meting.
The studies showed that repetitive stress from focusing on one sport from a young age can have negative, lasting effects on the musculoskeletal system, potentially making them more prone to hip dysfunction, reduced function, and surgical intervention in young adulthood.
Researchers found:
Multi-sport athletes suffered 31% fewer major injuries per 1K plays
Overall injury rate per 1K plays was 29% lower
Early specialists are over 10% more likely to quit primary sport due to injury
Early specialization associated with higher rates of surgery for hip conditions
Female athletes had higher rates of surgical and non-surgical treatment for hip conditions
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