Key Takeaways
- NFL Flag has grown from roughly 200,000 kids to more than one million since RCX Sports took over the program in 2019, founder and CEO Izell Reese said.
- Brand Velocity Group, the firm Eli Manning is involved with, acquired RCX Sports weeks before the Youth Inc. taping, with both sides framing the deal around access rather than margin.
- RCX absorbs insurance, uniforms, referees, field space and background checks for YMCA and Park and Recreation partners that cannot staff those functions themselves.
- Three or four more sports are coming. Reese named volleyball, lacrosse and cricket as the categories generating the most demand.
Greg Olsen used a single Youth Inc. episode to work the RCX Sports acquisition from both ends of the table, first with Eli Manning, whose firm Brand Velocity Group bought the company, then with Izell Reese, the founder and CEO who built it. What emerged is a deal defined by one number: NFL Flag has gone from roughly 200,000 participants when RCX took the program over in 2019 to more than one million kids today, according to Reese. Reese said the acquisition closed a few weeks before the interview.
Why Olsen Wanted Both Sides on the Record
Olsen framed the conversation around a real tension. Private equity money is arriving in youth sports at speed, and the coverage of it has not been kind. Rather than pick a side, he put the question to the investor and the operator separately and let the answers stand next to each other.
The two men have known each other for years, which colors how the deal came together. Manning said he met Reese four or five years ago while coaching the NFL Pro Bowl flag football games and needed advice. Reese said the relationship goes back five years and that he and Manning can finish each other’s sentences.
That history matters to the story Olsen was chasing. This was not a firm scanning a category and buying the first asset with recurring revenue. Manning said Brand Velocity Group had its eye on RCX for a long time, and that the company hit what the firm looks for: youth sports, consumer experiences and culture.
What Does RCX Sports Actually Do for a Local League?
The most useful part of the episode is the plainest. RCX is not a club, a facility owner or a travel circuit. It is the operating layer beneath rec sports.
Manning walked through what RCX takes off a volunteer’s plate: insurance, uniforms, referees, securing field space and background checks. Those are the exact functions that break a well-meaning parent trying to stand up a league, and they are the reason a YMCA or Park and Recreation department says yes.
“Most youth sports are run by volunteers, a mom or a dad trying to put a league together, and it’s hard for them to manage,” Manning said.
Coaches stay volunteers under the model. The infrastructure behind them does not. Manning said the process looks the same whether a kid is playing NFL Flag in Charlotte, New Jersey or California, and that the standardization is what allows the experience to hold up at scale.
Manning also pointed to a gap RCX is trying to close on the coaching side, one that will sound familiar to anyone who has watched a tackle football dad try to coach flag. The rules are different, and what a six-year-old can execute is different from a 10-year-old. He said the platform aims to supply playbooks, video and suggested progressions so those coaches are not improvising.
The compounding effect shows up on the ground. Reese said local partners who see RCX run one sport well come back asking for the next one, which is how basketball entered the mix. Manning described the same pattern from the investor seat: RCX might start with NFL Flag for a YMCA, and the YMCA then asks whether the company can run basketball too.
From 200,000 to a Million: How the Flag Football Engine Was Built
Reese’s path into this predates RCX in its current form. He ran the Rivals camps and combines tour for close to a decade, a free camp and combine series that he said caught the NFL’s attention. The league asked him to run a camp at the Super Bowl in Houston in 2017 and told him 100 kids would make it a success. Reese said 500 showed up.
The NFL Flag request for proposals landed on his desk in 2018. RCX took over in 2019 and grew participation through the pandemic to the current figure of more than one million kids. Reese said the NFL launched NFL Flag almost 30 years ago with the intent of giving kids an affordable outlet, and that his job was to build the league-based model around it.
“I jokingly tell people that we are like Little League Baseball meets Fanatics,” Reese said, citing Little League as a mission-aligned global brand that has existed since the late 1930s, and arguing that every sport needs an equivalent.
Success with the NFL produced inbound interest from everyone else. Reese said the NBA approached RCX around 2019 and 2020 to build Jr. NBA and Jr. WNBA leagues on the same chassis. The NHL conversation produced NHL Street, a ball hockey product Reese traced directly to his own childhood in Alabama, where ice was never an option. MLS GO followed, and RCX is in its third year running Major League Baseball’s Pitch, Hit and Run, which Reese said is free nationwide.
Manning connected the growth to the leagues’ own interests. Kids in NFL Flag wear jerseys branded to NFL clubs, he said, which builds fandom early, and that league backing brings sponsor resources that help keep entry prices down.
The Private Equity Question, Answered by Both Sides
Olsen did not soften the question, and neither guest ducked it.
Manning named the charges directly: junk fees, trapping parents in long-term commitments, promoting specialization and driving up costs. He argued RCX runs the other way on each. The company works with YMCAs, Park and Recreation departments and local communities. The target range is roughly six to 14 years old, the multi-sport stage. And the incentive shared with the professional leagues is participation, not extraction.
“We aren’t trying to figure out how to squeeze the profit line,” Manning said. He said the plan is to hand Reese capital, relationships and operational experience, then ask where the firm can help.
Reese gave the answer of someone who has done this before. He said he previously worked at another private equity backed company, and that RCX itself was originally created under a private equity umbrella before spinning off as a standalone brand. For him, the acquisition is business as usual with a stronger support group behind it. He said Brand Velocity Group’s message has been consistent: accelerate the vision, add sports, pour in operational resources, open the network.
Olsen also pressed Manning on the vetting. Manning said the trust RCX has earned running youth programs for multiple professional leagues was the biggest draw, and that the alignment on mission is what closed it.
Volleyball, Lacrosse and the Cricket League Reese Would Not Rule Out
Reese said a second wave of three or four sports is coming with notable brands, and would not name them. He was candid about where the pull is coming from. Volleyball surfaces constantly at the rec level, and Reese said he sat on the USA Volleyball Foundation board for years. Lacrosse comes up. So does cricket, which he noted is one of the largest sports globally and will be on the program at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.
Flag football has its own Olympic runway. Reese said inclusion in the 2028 Games, alongside new professional men’s and women’s leagues, has legitimized the sport, and that the college level is expanding fast. The pathway now runs from a rec field to a college roster, a pro contract or an Olympic team, plus a widening set of coaching and officiating jobs. Reese said the youth foundation built through NFL Flag is what made all of it possible.
Olsen closed by telling Reese he would be back on the show the day RCX launches an American youth cricket league. Reese said he looks forward to it.
Source: Youth Inc.
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