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:
Charlotte Breaks Ground On $67M Complex
Officials believe the 29-acre Eastland Sports Campus will generate significant sports tourism for the North Carolina city as a regional hub.
The complex will sit inside the city-owned Eastland Yards mixed-use district.
100K-square-foot indoor facility with 10 basketball courts
Can also host volleyball, other sports
6 multi-purpose outdoor fields
Academic learning center, STEM lab
Health, wellness offices
Concessions
Green space, trails open to public
Project leaders say the complex could generate about $169M in annual economic impact, creating 500 new jobs and generating 130K hotel nights each year.
The complex is in the Edge Sports Global portfolio; the group was recently in the news because it operates the Rhode Island ice rink that was the sight of a fatal shooting during a high school game.
📆 EventConnect Exists To End Tournament Chaos— For Organizers And Families*
Tournament weekends have become mini supply chains: teams register, rosters change, schedules shift, hotels fill, and parents scramble.
Too many events still run things on spreadsheets, portals, and last-minute calls.
What we do (and why it’s different):
Centralize the weekend workflow: registration, rostering, payments, lodging, and real-time reporting.
Organizers can run end-to-end on EventConnect or integrate the systems they already use— no rip-and-replace required.
Either way, the data lands in one place so operators aren’t stitching together reports from multiple tools.
The “moment that changes outcomes”:
HousingConnect embeds hotel booking directly into checkout— capturing rooms at peak intent instead of sending families to a separate portal later.
Results can be up to 30% more room-night reservations and 24% savings on team hotel costs.
Proof of scale:
EventConnect powers 5,000 events and connects 30,000 hotels across 800 destinations.
Learn more about how EventConnect can help power your tournament right here.
*Sponsor
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Sponsor And Speaker Announcements Coming Soon
We will roll out yet another list of speakers on Wednesday. The currently announced lineup of speakers and panels is here. If you don’t see someone you were expecting to see… well, you will soon.
We’re now at around 200 attendees, and I’ve heard of at least two organizations making plans for shoulder programming around the event.
As a reminder: Our evening networking event will take place on Tuesday, April 14 at 5 PM at Ballers, and it will include dinner, open bar, and fun.
🧱 Another Big Project In The Southeast
The former Six Flags amusement park in New Orleans is set to become an indoor-outdoor youth sports complex and water park resort (!).
Developers said they are about to close on $300M in financing for the site, which has been dormant since Hurricane Katrina. The project plan also calls for hotels, dining and retail. Developers are seeking $60M in public funding.
Eastern Sports Management will operate the sports complex; it will also subcontract with Hank Aaron Sports Academy to attract college baseball tournaments and training.
ESM is projecting 2M annual visitors to the complex. The firm operates 11 other venues across seven states.
🏈 Fanatics Flag Event Moves To LA, Adds Team USA
The apparel and collectibles giant officially announced it will move its upcoming flag football event to Los Angeles from Saudi Arabia due to the war in the Middle East.
The Fanatics Flag Football Classic is still scheduled for March 21 and will keep its broadcast deal with Fox. But will now be held at BMO Stadium, the home of LAFC and Angel City FC, a little over two years before the sport debuts at the LA Olympics in 2028.
In a making chicken salad out of chicken scratch move: The men's national team will now compete against two teams of current and former NFL stars, as well as celebrities.
Saquon Barkley, Tom Brady, Joe Burrow, Rob Gronkowski and Logan Paul are among the players tied to the event -- a round-robin tourney between the teams, followed by a championship game, under modified Olympic 5-v-5 rules.
There will be a draft to select the teams on Wednesday. It will be intriguing to see the names who actually make it on the board -- especially the active players.
Their participation made sense initially given the assumption the Public Investment Fund was writing checks so big they would offset any contractual losses if injured.
But will the money stay the same now that the event is in a soccer stadium in LA and not in Riyadh?
Nevertheless: This is an even better outcome for the sport’s commercial growth.
The broadcast times will be much better for U.S. fans -- likely increasing exposure.
Throwing Team USA into the mix also makes the event much more newsworthy — it’s no longer a made-for-TV spectacle; we are now going to see how pro players do against elite flag players.
That is a much easier sell to get air time on platforms like ESPN’s First Take before and after the event. And it will tell us something — although likely not everything — about what the roster should look like for the Summer Games.
🏐 AIM Sports Group Partners With Nike Circuit
The recently-launched AIM+ platform will be used at all Nike Circuit youth volleyball events — boys and girls — through next year. AIM is now also the operator’s exclusive digital partner.
🇺🇸 An Aussie Vote For The American Model
An unlikely philosophical competitor has emerged for Norway!
Nick Riewoldt — an Australian Rules football Hall of Famer — recently praised how the U.S. does youth sports, claiming his family had a much better experience during a stint living in Texas than they’ve had Down Under.
"[Kids'] sport over there — I’m happy to say it — I felt like it was a better experience. It felt like real sport. The over-emphasis here on participation, and everyone gets a trophy ... over there, they keep score, they have ring ceremonies, and the kids love that stuff. We had some of the most incredible sporting experiences over there where all the parents were all in.
“I don’t know, I just felt like coming back here, playing under-10s footy and we don’t keep score, I don’t know. At least my kids, they don’t resonate with that as much as they did with the sports in the US.”
It’s hard to argue with the ice cream, though.
🔦 Community Spotlight: Legacy of Legends
Every day, parents across the country open their phones and search for the best youth sports programs for their kids. Most of the time, the best programs never show up.
Legacy of Legends was built to fix that.
The platform directly connects families actively searching for youth sports camps, academies, and programs with the programs that deserve to be found by sport, location and standard. Every program on the platform is vetted against three core criteria: Coaching, Culture, and Communication. Not everyone gets listed. That selectivity is exactly why families trust it.
The platform just launched a completely reimagined experience. New homepage, new subscription plans and everything designed around what programs actually need to grow. Get listed for free and start getting discovered immediately, no credit card is required. Step up to Pro at $79 a month for enhanced visibility, lead generation, and priority placement in front of families already searching. Additionally, there is the Legend plan, a full-scale partnership for programs that want to scale at a larger level.
Legacy of Legends recently partnered with Florida Gators Soccer Camps. The families are already on the platform. The only question is whether your program is the one they find.
As a reminder, Buying Sandlot premium community members can feature their business, product or service in an upcoming Community Spotlight. Join here.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
🤳 Follow Buying Sandlot on Social
We’re new— help us build up our social media accounts by following along:
Good game.