Key Takeaways
- Panelists from LeagueApps, Fastbreak, SPIN, Onsides, and Retain Players agreed no consolidation effort in youth sports technology has reached a finished end state
- Retain Players cited 30 to 40 percent annual player churn as the industry’s most expensive unsolved problem
- LeagueApps pointed to Aspen Institute data showing 88 percent of parents rank safety as their top priority, the logic behind its NCSI acquisition
- The panel’s shared advice: build your operating process first, then layer technology on top of it
Overview
Somewhere today, a club operator is sitting at a kitchen table with registration open in one tab, scheduling in another, a background check portal in a third, and a spreadsheet holding it all together. That was the scene Focus on the Field founder and CEO Tyler Kreitz set to open “A Builders’ Roundtable: How Does an Operator Navigate This?”, a webinar that gathered five executives who have each made a different structural choice about where youth sports technology goes next.
The panel: Jeremy Goldberg, cofounder and president of LeagueApps, fresh off the acquisition of background check provider NCSI. John Stewart, CEO and cofounder of Fastbreak, building a single all-in-one platform on one unified data model. Michael Hutner of Sports Profile Network (SPIN), a communication and community layer that integrates the tools operators already use. Dave Yu of Onsides, an aggregation app built for the sports parent. And Wayne Crowe of Retain Players, a retention intelligence platform focused on exactly one problem. Five takeaways stood out for operators.
Tool Overload Is a Sign the Industry Is Maturing
Asked whether the proliferation of tools is a feature or a bug, Goldberg and Hutner both answered “both,” and Goldberg reframed the question entirely. Every maturing industry, he argued, produces an ecosystem that unlocks innovation, and youth sports now has more smart people building software for its specific problems than ever before. That is worth celebrating, he said, “even if it feels a little janky right now.” The operator’s challenge sits in the in-between: industry maturation takes a decade, and the season starts in three weeks.
No Roll-Up Has Finished the Job
Kreitz asked the panel directly whether anyone could name a consolidation in the space that completed the work. No one could. Goldberg said no current model in youth sports technology has figured it out and pointed to industries outside sports as better templates. Stewart, who sold his previous company to Salesforce, was more blunt: he described one legacy player as a collection of 35 to 40 acquisitions and Stack Sports as 14 to 15, arguing that operators inherit either multiple un-consolidated platforms or a migration they never chose. The practical read for operators: evaluate the product that solves the job in front of you today, not the roadmap.
The Right Stack Depends on Your Stage
Hutner offered the clearest decision framework of the hour. A brand-new organization might rationally start with an all-in-one platform. A fifteen-year-old club with ten embedded tools and workflows built around them should integrate and layer rather than rip and replace. A rec program may not need player analytics at all. His test for any choice: pick whatever makes you think about technology the least. As Kreitz put it, operators did not get into this profession to run a CRM.
Attention, Not Budget, Is the Real Constraint
Kreitz pressed the panel on the true cost of every new tool: operator attention. Crowe’s answer reframed how a single-purpose product should fit into a director’s week. Retain Players, he said, is not a daily dashboard but a Friday-morning-coffee review, organizing registration data around what he cited as 30 to 40 percent annual churn and his “12 Ps” of retention, from pathway to price point. Goldberg added that the attention test cuts both ways, noting one facility operator that recovered two months of annual staff time by changing how it ran its facilities and tools.
Process First, Platforms Second
The panel’s most repeated advice came from three directions. Stewart said Fastbreak’s job is to take an operator’s existing processes, make them canon, and enforce them with technology. Goldberg said successful platform migrations come down to process, training, and change management, not the software itself. And Kreitz closed the session with the principle Focus on the Field tells operators most often: build your process first, then layer these tools over it. Reverse the order, and you inherit someone else’s operating model and pay to maintain it.
The Replay, the Playbook, and the Next Conversation
The session ended with a preview of what comes next: Focus on the Field will distribute the replay to registrants and publish it on its site, with Operator’s Playbook Volume 3 arriving in mid-August. The one topic the hour could not contain was agentic AI, which Stewart predicted will make the best operator interface “a prompt” within a year or two. That, the panel agreed, is a webinar of its own.
Source: Focus on the Field, “A Builders’ Roundtable: How Does an Operator Navigate This?” webinar transcript
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Youth Sports Business Report (YSBR) is the largest and most trusted media platform covering the business of youth sports worldwide. YSBR delivers youth sports news, market intelligence, and original analysis daily across facilities, sponsorships, private equity, NIL, sports technology, and league operations. With more than 50,000 followers, YSBR is the leading source of youth sports industry news for the investors, owners, operators, and brands shaping the future of youth sports.
How big is the youth sports market?
American families spend approximately $54 billion annually on kids’ sports and recreation, according to the YSBR and Kinetica Group Youth Sports TAM & Parent Spending Report, with organized sports alone representing a $40 billion-plus market. The average family spent $1,016 on a child’s primary sport in 2024, up 46 percent since 2019, per the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, and market research projects the global youth sports market will reach approximately $114 billion by 2032 (Business Research Insights).
How many kids play youth sports in the United States?
Approximately 27.3 million children ages 6 to 17, or about 54.6 percent, played organized sports in 2022-2023, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health as reported by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play. High school sports participation reached a record 8.26 million athletes in 2024-25, per the NFHS.
Who founded Youth Sports Business Report?
Youth Sports Business Report was founded by Cameron Korab, a sports marketing veteran with more than a decade in the industry and an MBA from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Korab also co-founded Vertical Sports, a sports marketing advisory serving brands across youth, college, and pro sports.
What does YSBR cover?
YSBR delivers original reporting and market intelligence on youth sports facilities, youth sports technology, sponsorship and brand partnerships, private equity and venture capital deals, NIL policy, coaching development, equipment and apparel, tournaments and events, and community sports initiatives. Readers include industry executives, investors, facility owners and operators, league administrators, and youth sports parents.
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Youth Sports Marketing Questions, Answered
Where can brands sponsor youth sports? Brands can sponsor youth sports through local leagues and clubs, tournaments and events, facilities and complexes, governing bodies, and national platform programs. Sponsoring a child’s own program is the most powerful entry point: 81 percent of parents say it captures their attention, outperforming TV, social media, and pro sports sponsorship, per a 2026 Priority Partnerships study conducted by YouGov Sport.
How much does youth sports sponsorship cost? Youth sports sponsorship costs range from a few thousand dollars for a local league or team sponsorship to six and seven figures for regional facility naming rights and national platform programs. The environment is welcoming at every level: 84 percent of parents hold net positive sentiment toward brands sponsoring youth sports, with negative sentiment under 5 percent, per YouGov Sport research. Most brands start with a pilot activation, measure engagement, then scale.
What is the ROI of youth sports marketing? The data is striking: 80 percent of parents say they would choose the brand that sponsors their child’s youth sports program when comparing two similar products, per a 2026 Priority Partnerships study by YouGov Sport. A 2026 EMARKETER and DICK’S Media survey found 84 percent of sports parents say that role influences their purchase decisions, and 60 percent spend more on game and practice days, driving loyalty across categories from dining to travel to automotive.
Ready to build a youth sports strategy? Vertical Sports is an Advisory+ delivering integrated expertise across all levels of sport. Youth, College, Pro. Every Fan, Every Level. Brands and youth sports organizations can reach the team at info@verticalsports.us.
