Key Takeaways
- IMG Academy’s new consumer platform starts at $10 per month, opening a boarding school brand to families priced out of Bradenton tuition.
- Student-athletes using IMG Academy recruiting services filled roughly 25% of open college roster spots in the 2025-26 class, per the company.
- The platform serves athletes as young as 8 with an on-demand library of more than 1,000 resources plus live one-on-one coaching.
- Recruiting tools are live online now and will integrate into the IMG Academy+ app by Q1 2027.
IMG Academy announced the launch of IMG Academy+ on October 19, 2026, a digital platform that delivers the athletic performance and personal development curriculum the company has built on its Bradenton, Florida campus for nearly 50 years. The IMG Academy+ digital platform is available on desktop, Apple, and Android devices and serves student-athletes beginning at age 8, according to the announcement. Entry pricing starts at $10 per month, and the company said the product is designed to remove the location, cost, and enrollment barriers that have historically limited access to its campus-based methodology.
Inside the IMG Academy+ Digital Platform: Three Membership Options
The platform launches with three tiers, each curated by IMG Academy’s staff of former professional athletes, professional and college coaches, Olympians, physicians, and performance specialists, per the release.
IMG Academy+ Essentials is the entry point: an on-demand library of more than 1,000 pieces of content covering leadership, habit building, and confidence, drawn from the same training methods used by the company’s boarding school student-athletes. It costs $10 per month.
IMG Academy+ Personal Coach pairs student-athletes with a live, one-on-one coach for nutrition and mental performance, delivered through scheduled sessions and direct messaging before and after practices, games, and tournaments. The company said additional coaching disciplines will follow.
College Recruiting is delivered by NCSA College Recruiting by IMG Academy and gives families a recruiting roadmap, guidance, and matching tools connected to a network of more than 40,000 college coaches, according to the announcement.
How Big Is IMG Academy’s Recruiting Footprint?
The recruiting tier carries the most striking number in the release. In the 2025-26 class, approximately 25% of open college roster spots were filled by student-athletes who used IMG Academy college recruiting services, the company reported. That figure reflects the scale of the NCSA and SportsRecruits businesses IMG Academy folded into its online portfolio, which now sit alongside the Bradenton campus and camps as one of three pillars in the company’s stated model.
Recruiting is live online today. The company said it will be built into the IMG Academy+ app by Q1 2027, which would put the content library, live coaching, and recruiting pipeline inside a single consumer product.
A Campus Business Reaches Down to Age 8
The launch extends IMG Academy’s addressable market well below its boarding school and camp demographics. By opening the platform to athletes as young as 8, the company positions itself at the entry point of the youth sports funnel rather than the elite end where its campus operates.
Chris Ciaccio, Chief Commercial Officer of IMG Academy, said the methodology “has largely lived on our Bradenton campus” until now, and that the platform means “a young athlete’s zip code no longer determines their access to a world-class development experience.” CEO Brent Richard framed the launch around reach, saying millions of young student-athletes could benefit from real sports education while “only a fraction of them have access to it today.”
One Brand, Three Price Points, and a Q1 2027 Clock
IMG Academy now sells the same development brand at three very different altitudes: a Bradenton boarding school and camps business, live online coaching, and a $10 monthly subscription. The structure gives the company a consumer-priced on-ramp that can feed its higher-touch products, with the recruiting network of 40,000 college coaches as the connective tissue. The next confirmed milestone is the Q1 2027 integration of college recruiting into the IMG Academy+ app. When that lands, a family could theoretically go from a $10 subscription at age 8 to a college roster spot without ever setting foot in Florida.
Source: IMG Academy, October 19, 2026, www.imgacademy.com
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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.
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Hosted by Cameron Korab, founder of Youth Sports Business Report, Jr. Sports Marketing features candid 1-on-1 conversations with the brands, athletes, leagues, and innovators building the future of youth sports. Each episode breaks down how the smartest brands are activating, building equity, and winning with youth sports families. If you’re an operator, founder, investor, or marketer trying to understand where this space is headed, this is your show.
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.
