Key Takeaways
- Oakley Icon Alliance grew from an 8-team tournament in 2025 to 16 teams across two regionals, with expansion to 70+ teams planned across four countries.
- Rosen said Oakley evaluates partners on audience access and authentic integration, pointing to NFL Flag’s community of more than 800,000 young athletes.
- The brand’s girls flag football investment began with a specific product gap: elite club teams arriving at national championships without high-level reps.
- Internal success metrics blend sales and social engagement with direct community feedback, which Rosen called complicated but essential.
Jake Rosen, Senior Brand Manager of North American Team Sports at Oakley, joined YSBR’s Jr. Sports Marketing to break down how the eyewear brand approaches youth sports sponsorship, from building its own competition IP in girls flag football to how it measures a category where not everything is a commercial opportunity. Rosen was hired as Oakley’s first team sports brand manager following the brand’s 2019 NFL partnership and has spent four and a half years shaping its team sports strategy. Five takeaways from the conversation stood out.
1. Owned IP Is the Center of the Strategy
Oakley Icon Alliance, the brand’s proprietary girls flag football platform, launched as an 8-team tournament in 2025, grew to 16 teams across East and West regionals, and is now expanding to more than 70 teams across the United States, Canada, Mexico, and Panama.
Rosen drew a direct line from his earlier career at Game Seven Marketing, where he worked on Nike’s New York vs. New York platform from its first event. He pointed to that program and Nike’s EYBL as proof of what a brand-owned property can become: something ownable internally and externally that can eventually carry apparel and product sales on its own name.
2. The Program Started With a Competition Gap, Not a Media Plan
The origin of OIA came from listening, not brainstorming. Rosen said Oakley’s sports marketing team spent time with club organizers and kept hearing the same problem: elite girls flag teams were traveling to NFL Flag championships in Canton, Florida, and Las Vegas without facing high-level competition in the run-up. Teams arrived cold, got two competitive games, and went home.
OIA was built to close that gap, giving girls a platform to compete against top teams, be seen, and be recruited. Rosen said one of the strongest signals of the program’s first year came from a USA Football national team athlete and her father, who told him it was the best-run tournament of her roughly 13 years competing.
3. What Does Oakley Look For in a Youth Sports Partner?
Two things, per Rosen: audience access and authentic integration. NFL Flag, for example, connects the brand to more than 800,000 young athletes worldwide under the credibility of the NFL name. Oakley’s current partner roster includes NFL Flag, RCX Sports, and USA Football.
The second filter is the one operators should note. “We’re not looking to just logo slap,” Rosen said. He described the brand’s preference for partners who want Oakley endemically integrated into the property, and said the evaluation is not always about money or deliverables.
4. Scale Requires Different Playbooks, Not One Template
Oakley shows up at the governing body level, the tournament level, the club level, and the athlete level, including NFL players like Justin Jefferson and his signature series eyewear. Rosen said each level represents a different consumer base requiring its own approach, coordinated across PR, paid media, partnerships, and commercial channels down to retail and email.
“It has to be the right product, the right moment, with the right athlete,” he said. The connective tissue is the brand’s creed, everything can and will become better, rather than a repeatable activation template.
5. Measurement Mixes Hard Numbers With Endemic Feedback
Rosen was candid that measuring youth sports investment is complicated. Sales matter when the brand invests in new audiences. Social engagement and impressions from the first OIA events showed what he called a clear appetite for girls flag football content. But he weighted community feedback heavily as well, arguing that hearing “this is what we need” from organizers and families is itself a KPI.
He also named the unsolved problem: balancing brand-building opportunities against commercial ones without losing sight of either.
Seventy Teams on an Olympic Runway to LA28
Rosen framed the next few years as a sorting period for the category. “Who’s in it for the love of the game and who’s in it to actually make a difference… versus just try to make a quick buck and get out,” he said. With flag football making its Olympic debut at the 2028 Los Angeles Games, in the backyard of Oakley’s headquarters, Rosen said the brand’s stated goal is to be the brand in flag football. The 70-plus-team international expansion of Oakley Icon Alliance is the first measurable step on that timeline.
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About Youth Sports Business Report
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.
Youth Sports Business Report resources
- Newsletter: Subscribe to Youth Sports HQ, the most-read newsletter on the business of youth sports, delivering curated youth sports industry news and analysis to thousands of industry leaders every week.
- Research: Read the Youth Sports TAM & Parent Spending Report, an exclusive YSBR and Kinetica Group analysis of market size, parent spending, and marketplace opportunities.
- Jobs: Browse the YSBR Youth Sports Job Board, the most comprehensive destination for careers in youth sports, with hundreds of active listings across facility management, league operations, coaching, sports technology, and marketing.
- Services: Find vetted partners and solutions for your organization in the YSBR Services Hub, connecting youth sports operators, brands, and investors with verified providers across the industry.
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Check out Jr. Sports Marketing on YouTube or Spotify
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.
