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:
🚨 Lessons From Rhode Island Tragedy
A woman and her son died and three people were seriously wounded in a shooting at a high school hockey game in Pawtucket on Monday.
The incident was captured on a LiveBarn live stream; the shooter died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound after being stopped by several spectators. The deceased were the shooter’s ex-wife and son.
The event occurred at Lynch Arena, which is operated by Edge Sports Global— a Boston-based company that took on “significant investment” from ASM Global in 2024. ASM is owned by Legends Global and manages some of the largest pro stadiums and arenas in the world. The investment was made as part of ASM’s push into the youth sports and sports tourism industry.
It is unclear if Lynch Arena has an Emergency Action Plan in place.
There are 2 major items at play here which impact the industry:
1) Safety and Emergency Action Plans
Go4 is best known for connecting companies, schools and organizations with athletic trainers. But it also provides a tool to create venue-specific emergency action plans for myriad potential catastrophic events.
"These plans are intentionally not injury- or illness-specific and are structured to guide coordinated response to medical emergencies, environmental hazards and public safety threats," founder and chief clinical officer Ellis Mair told Buying Sandlot.
EAPs encompass everything needed in a crisis, including:
Venue coordinates and maps
Emergency responder access, egress points
Nearest major hospital, urgent care facilities
Contact information for local authorities
Location/inventory of critical tools — defibrillator, bandages, etc.
Defined staff roles, communication pathways
Venues can download the generated plans or upload existing ones. All ATs contracted through Go4 are provided EAPs before reaching a job site.
"Effective emergency response depends on shared understanding and rehearsal with facility staff, event personnel and local emergency responders," Mair said. "In time-sensitive, high-risk situations a clearly structured, rehearsed and readily available EAP facilitates rapid transition from individual patient care to scene safety, triage and evacuation when indicated."
2) Video Rights
Incredibly, a hockey streamer yet again finds itself in the middle of a national news story.
LiveBarn - which is going through a reported $400M sale process to GTCR - was active in the rink and captured the shooting and its immediate aftermath. The video is everywhere, and provides open-and-shut evidence of exactly what happened.
The footage was presumably originally shared by a user and has since propagated all over social media. Mainstream news outlets have been asking users if they own the copyright to the video and if they’ll grant them permission to use it.
LiveBarn is replying to every one of these requests with an emphatic no.
We covered the video rights question in November - on the heels of a story involving LiveBarn rival (disclaimer: and current Buying Sandlot sponsor) Black Bear Sports Group. The short of it is that streaming platforms have wildly different copyright policies.
Major platforms that promote and encourage sharing clips - like TeamSnap ONE, GameChanger and Hudl - generally offload both consent and copyright to the organization or end user. This means a user would be free to share footage streamed or collected through the platform, because they own the copyright (with some limited exceptions).
Fixed camera streamers, like LiveBarn and Black Bear, claim ownership over the footage. Here’s LiveBarn’s TOS: You may not distribute, reproduce, republish, display, transmit or use any material for public or commercial purposes without the written permission of LiveBarn.
However, LiveBarn would have a very hard time litigating this as the Fair Use Doctrine generally allows for copyrighted material to be used in news reporting, and there is no question as to this being a newsworthy event.
LiveBarn is in a tricky spot here. On one hand, they should probably to read the room. This isn’t the time to draw attention to an aggressive copyright policy by blanketing social media with replies to news outlets about owning the IP.
On the other hand… they are going through a sale process that reportedly awaits approvals. As if ongoing lawsuits, discussions about video rights, and negative media coverage of youth hockey streaming practices weren’t enough, now their brand is at least mildly associated with a violent crime, even if it was helpful in determining what happened.
Without going into even more detail on this specific event, the issues at play here underscore the fact that with great professionalization, comes great responsibility. Or at least I think that’s the quote?
With private equity or even public company ownership, sports venues, platforms, facilities and organizations will be expected to not just have CYA compliance and insurance policies in place, but policies and procedures for dealing with dangerous situations during and after they happen. Not to mention having lots of foresight about high-profile edge cases regarding minor consent and video rights. This is all now table-stakes in the industry and a trend worth paying attention to.
📆 EventConnect Is A Partner Helping To Shape The Future Of Youth Sports*
I (Kyle) asked Eric Vardon, President of Buying Sandlot sponsor EventConnect, which has renewed with us to support the brand over a longer period of time, for some talking points so we could write effective ad copy for him.
We expected some bullets on how EventConnect bills itself as the “operating system for youth and amateur sports.” How their software helps event organizers grow room nights, end spreadsheet chaos, and keep every datapoint in one place. Or how they help increase room night reservations by up to 30%, while saving 24% of hotel costs for teams.
That sort of thing.
Rather, we received 4 bullets on why they saw Buying Sandlot as a valuable investment for themselves and the industry as a whole:
Investing in the Industry, Not Just Advertising: Supporting Buying Sandlot reflects our belief that strong industries are built through shared insight, transparency, and informed leadership. We believe the best companies don’t just build products — they invest in the conversations that move the industry forward.
Aligned with the Voices Shaping What’s Next: If you care about where this industry is going, you should care about who’s covering it.
It’s All About Community and Experience: EventConnect exists to improve the experience for athletes, families, organizers, and partners. Supporting Buying Sandlot is an extension of that mission — helping the industry learn from itself and make smarter, more connected decisions.
Showing Up Where the Industry Gathers: Whether it’s the newsletter or the podcast — including conversations with the leaders in the industry — EventConnect wants to be present where real dialogue is happening, not just where others place their ads or post their talking points on social media.
Where the industry gathers. Has a good ring to it. Might have to use that.
Support sponsors like EventConnect who allow us to gather in your inbox.
*Sponsor
🏟️ Buying Sandlot Summit Sponsor Opportunity
Main Speaking Hall
Sponsorships are filling up fast for the Buying Sandlot Summit. We just had an opportunity for our official AV Sponsor open up— this would include placements like logo behind the two stages where the panels will take place. A high-impact placement during the event in front of hundreds of leaders in the industry, and on images and videos after the event. Along with other physical, digital and in-app callouts. Also sponsor reads prior to panels.
This is one we need to fill fast. If your company is interested, you can simply reply to this email or email our partnerships manager [email protected] to lock it in.
🦚 On The SportsEngine Beat
This will be likely new news to some and old news for others, but USA Volleyball is ending its member management deal with SportsEngine later this year.
It does not look like there was a public announcement — we hadn’t heard back from USAV yet by send time — but members were informed a while back. SportsEngine has been USA Volleyball’s membership data provider since 2019.
This is notable for three reasons:
1) USA Volleyball has not named a SportsEngine successor. Two potential contenders floated to us: Volleyball Life — which has partnered with USAV on its beach events since 2023 — and newcomer everything platform Otto Sport AI, which has significant backing and a wealth of SportsEngine/volleyball industry veterans.
2) There are over 400K USA Volleyball members and (ballpark guesstimate) around 5K member clubs nationwide. All of them had to use SportsEngine for memberships, registrations, etc. and many of them used SportsEngine for all other needs out of convenience. That is a big market of potential free agents. One club operator told us they have received a parade of sales pitches from SportsEngine rivals looking to scoop and score.
3) It would seem likely SportsEngine is at risk of losing a significant number of users (and revenue via subs and transaction fees). That could mean many things for Versant’s efforts to explore a sale, but none of them would seem terribly good for the Comcast cable spinoff company.
🏈 World’s Biggest Youth Flag Event This Weekend
Unrivaled Sports is hosting the Youth Flag Football World Championships at Disney World from tomorrow through Sunday in partnership with Under Armour.
Buying Sandlot's Kyle Pagan will be on the ground doing interviews for us on Saturday -- reach out to him here to connect.
Billed as world’s biggest youth flag event
About 1K teams, 10K athletes
Teams from U.S., Canada, Mexico, England, China, Panama and the Bahamas
UA will outfit all teams
ESPN+ will carry top division championships games on Saturday and Sunday.
Team USA star Ashlea Klam and newly-elected Pro Football Hall of Famer Drew Brees are scheduled to attend. Klam recently partnered with Unrivaled; the platform also partnered with Brees’ Football N’ America last fall.
📝 Youth Sports News + Notes
IMG Academy was fined $1.7M by the federal government for accepting tuition from families tied to Mexican drug cartels. The Treasury Department said several dozen payments violated counternarcotics sanctions. IMG said it self-reported and has established new protocols to ensure sanctions compliance.
Ernie Adams — best known for being Bill Belichick’s mysterious coaching confidant during his time with the Patriots — was named the interim head football coach at Phillips Academy, their shared alma mater in Andover, Massachusetts. Adams told the Boston Globe he plans to hand the program off after this season.
A youth hockey coach in Colorado was arrested on a felony child abuse warrant after an on-ice collision with a 13-year-old player. A formal charging decision has not been made, but an affidavit cites a witness claiming the coach purposely tripped the player, who purportedly broke their arm. The coach’s organization has defended him and denied any wrongdoing.
🔗 Youth Sports Links
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Good game.