Friday’s Buying Sandlot podcast kicked the tires on the growing trend of youth sports teams embarking on foreign competition tours.
The tires just blew out for several of them.
GoPlay Sports — a travel company based in Boston — has abruptly shut down, blaming cancellations and reduced bookings spurred by “the ongoing situation in the Middle East.”
The company reportedly told customers it would file Chapter 7 bankruptcy and a trustee would be appointed to resolve debts (it’s not clear if that has happened).
In the meantime: Families and teams are stranded — some mere days before they were scheduled to head to various European locales. And it seems likely GoPlay’s customers will be out millions when all is said and done.
A slew of news stories add up to at least $700K so far while the Massachusetts attorney general’s office told Boston.com it has received at least 25 complaints against GoPlay and its subsidiaries this year.
Making the situation even more strange: GoPlay CEO Brian Ainscough — a former D1 head soccer coach who previously owned a team in Ireland’s premier league — claims he has no idea how the company failed.
The NCAA recently passed legislation allowing college teams to take a foreign tour every year (it used to be once every four years for D1 programs).
(I’d imagine the ability to get around visa laws with over-the-cap NIL payments to international athletes while abroad helped move the ball there.)
But the more foreign trips that college teams take, the more trickle-down effect it will have on youth sports.
This feels like a major business opportunity for the industry’s various big dogs, all of whom are already eyeing international expansion.
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