All right, welcome back to the Buying Sandlot podcast. I am Kyle Scott, founder of Buying Sandlot. On today's episode, I'm joined by Brian Litvak, the co founder and CEO of LeagueApps, the software platform powering thousands of youth sports organizations across the country. Under Brian's leadership, League Apps has become the operating system for clubs, leagues, tournaments and facilities, helping organizers manage everything from registration to scheduling, payments and communication for millions of young athletes. He spent the past decade building one of the most important infrastructure companies in youth sports, and he's also been one of its most thoughtful voices, advocating for access, equity, and the long term health of the ecosystem. We'll talk about where League Apps is today, what he's seeing in youth sports overall, where technology and investment are heading next, and even just some bigger picture thoughts on youth sports overall. So stay tuned for an interview with one of the leading voices in the space.

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Okay, before we get started, I want to take a second to plug our Buying Sandlot Youth Sports Business conference next April in Philly. We're still working on finalizing the dates which may get released before this podcast is out. So when you're listening to this, head on over to buyingsandlot.com for the latest details. We're aiming to bring together everyone from operators, club owners, event organizers, investors, tech founders and service providers in the business of youth sports for an amazing two day event in an amazing location in Philly the next spring. So stay tuned for that. Make sure to go to buying sandlot.com for the latest. Subscribe to our newsletter. It goes out three times a week, Monday, Wednesday and Friday. And we will definitely keep you up to date all about our event. Now on to the interview of Brian. All right, Brian, welcome to the show.

What's up, Kyle? Thank you for having me here.

So we tried to do this a couple of times in person. One of them I couldn't get to New York and then the other was going to talk to you at your event and we had a. We had a noisy office and then we had to leave to catch a train. So I'm glad we're finally able to do this.

Yeah, October has been a big month for us. I know we were trying to meet for a while. Everybody saw your newsletter and said, oh, I got to meet this guy. And then I think we connected on LinkedIn. So it's good to be spending some time here together.

Yeah, likewise. So I always start these off and I ask a lot of our guests to explain what their business does. I think pretty much Everyone listening to this knows what league apps does is possibly a customer. So I'm not, I won't ask you to give the full overview, but maybe like a quick 2 to 3 sentence elevator description of what you guys do and then maybe like a feature or a use case for league apps that you think is underrated or something you guys have coming down the pipe that you think maybe, maybe people should know about. Let's start there.

Sure. I want everyone to know we're more than just a registration platform. We often get lumped into that, but we really want to be the operating system and the partner of youth sports organizations, helping them with all the tools and the software that they need to make sports happen in their communities. So that's often registration and payments, messaging, communication, reporting, schedules, program management, websites and mobile apps. One of the things we're building now that we shared at our conference last week that we're excited about is really thinking through how the development of players through coaches can be more efficient. There was always this issue in youth sports where the coaches are already are kind of start for time and don't really have the patience to write out reviews throughout the season. But it is something that many of the operators and families would love to see how their players are progressing or developing through the year. So we're using some AI tools and we're going to make that kind of voice dictation. They can better take the information that coach could say. So now in the car ride home in the game, they could be talking about different players on the team, how they did different that throughout the season and really organize those notes and feedback for the families, for the players to see how they're progressing and improving. We believe sports is a big part of this is social and emotional development. And we saw this during COVID that it is a big part of youth development. And when kids commit to sports and continue to play, you can usually see that growth. And now we have an ability to help use technology, use software, use AI to make it easier for that to be more front and center for. For parents, families and kids.

Yeah, it sounds almost like a report. I mean, it's almost like a report card for sports. Right. You know, my kids, you know, there's too much stuff we learn on their report cards, but there's never really been one for sports at the youth level.

That's exactly right. And I think part of what, you know, we are impartial to the operators. We see how much and how hard they work to make sports happen, how much they sometimes are unsung hero in their communities. And sometimes they're getting grief for, you know, the fees in youth sports. But at the end of the day, communities that have the best sports programs usually can be traced back to operators who really cared, were really passionate and who really wanted to make a difference or impact in their community. And we've often thought about this specific use case of how can you help better enable report cards or evaluations. And there was just this like friction point that we would hear all the time from operators of just, oh, it's just how would I ever get all my coaches to do this? Right? I can't pay them more. They don't have the time. And this is like one of the first really exciting use cases of AI in our platform of a way to enable something that otherwise like couldn't really get done within the, you know, organizational model of a sports organization. So we're excited for how we can apply AI as well as software and data to help make sports experiences better, help make sports more fun and enjoyable, and how to make sports happen. And I like to say I want the way we can apply AI tools to help an operator have a second, third, fourth or fifth employee, or to have more part time employees or to do things that are more sophisticated than they can do in their current organizations.

Yeah. And it feels like, I mean there's a lot of experimentation with AI across the board, but it feels like this is one of those use cases where it's like, it's pretty certain to work. It's like really good at dictation and parsing text and being able to kind of put that in a neat package for everybody.

Yeah. You know, I believe sports operators are very practical. Right. What their best skills are often these organizations and just figuring out how to make the events happen and therefore their buzzwords and the fancy stuff doesn't really have much of an impact on them. But, but if you can save them time or create a better experience or help them accomplish something, they'll grasp at it and know it immediately. We've kind of stayed away from just promoting AI for the sake of saying AI and are trying to really build tools, whether it's how to write a newsletter for a rain out in a certain tone of voice or whether it's the evaluation tools that we mentioned. What can we take from all the advancement in technology across AI and apply it to youth sports in a way that's actually practical, efficient and makes sports better? I think that's where we take pride. Right. We have our team of 40 or 50 product. And engineers are the only ones in the world other than, you know, some others that are working on this that are really going to focus on how do you apply AI to esports. And I think that gets into vertical SaaS and now it's being called vertical AI of get really specific to the market that you serve and do it really well and that's how you can be valuable and that's what we're trying to accomplish.

Yeah, I think we're just scratching the surface there. We've seen some ideas recently. I can't remember the name of the companies, but one is doing like AI dictation for scorekeeping, which is, which is, is kind of interesting. I could, you know, see being a little, little buggy and then somebody else was doing almost like a, like a combine for youth sports, like 13 to 17 year old kids, like actual combine. So you have this sort of, you know, standardized data almost like an SAT score for speed jump height. So it feels like the AI voice dictation for coach scouting reports player development feels like it fits nicely into that general trend.

You know, we've been doing this for over a decade. We have a long list of things we have not gotten to yet. And one of the exciting aspects of the evolution of technology like AI is it becomes more realistic. So when we think about things like field space allocation, how can you efficiently program every single field or rink or playing space most appropriately? AI is a great helper to enable that to happen. Or how can you think about best matching up referees or trainers with athletic facilities or complexes? Or how can you look at more ways of reducing churn of kids who stop playing at a certain age. I think all of these things that have been like almost too hard to solve by just automation and workflow might be more accessible to solve with AI safety, accountability, credentialing, all of that as well. We're all looking at as new areas that we can apply technology to to help create better experiences to that point.

I mean you guys do a lot. I mean one can reasonably run their whole organization or facility on your platform. A lot do, right? But there's, you're now seeing like lots of these tech forward kind of smaller individualized businesses of a single product or service that's coming to compete maybe with some element or area of your business, right? How do you guys balance new competition in certain spots versus integration and being able to work, you know, allow new products and services to work with you guys within your platform. And then how do you think about maybe acquisition? Somebody develops A really cool product or feature that you guys haven't thought of or developed yet, and you're like, hey, maybe we can pick that up and roll that into what we have.

Yeah, I generally like the tech ecosystem is developing and I look at other spaces of softW in verticals of SMBs like restaurants or field workers, and you see that if tools are really well built as point solutions, there's value to that. And then how do we connect that back to a platform like league apps that we're trying to be? So one I think it's like one of the ways to show the development of the youth sports ecosystem is to see new tools that are very specific come out that solves a certain use case. We look at that in all the ways you just mentioned. Is it an integration partner? And we have a platform and probably have a dozen plus integrations where we're connecting into tools. It's usually from the requests or the adoption of our partners who are saying, hey, this is very specific and solve something that we're looking to do. We've made two acquisitions earlier in the year in these types of point solutions. One was a platform called Rectimes in the facility scheduling space, and one was MOD11, which kind of focused on club soccer leagues. That was very specific software that we thought can be valuable to our overall partner base. So we want to see that continue to happen. We think there's a lot of entrepreneurs and kind of passionate founders that are building something in this space that they care about a lot and how can we enable them or how can we help them or how can we work with them or how can we even compete against them? I like that this is a space and hopefully you saw this at a conference where everyone is very much united in a mission and has a higher purpose to what we want to accomplish. At our conference, we saw some newer tools or software companies or ventures that I'm still not sure if we're going to partner with them or compete with them or, you know, maybe one day merge with them. But I like that they were there and we try to kind of make them feel welcoming to be in the league apps community.

Yeah, you mentioned model 11, so I mean, it's soccer specific. Some of the conversations I've had around again, newer. I'm newer to the space. You've been at this a lot longer than I have, so. But you know, a lot of people who are new to space are thinking about there's so much fragmentation. Consolidation is inevitable. And I think probably to a point it is But a lot of the pushback I've heard has always centered around these specific edge cases or different use cases in either a certain age group, a certain sport, even a certain area of the country. Right. So mod 11 is maybe a good example. Here's somebody who was like, specializing in soccer. Do you think there's, you know, there's challenges there in consolidation because there's like, there's so many differences between sports. I mean, you guys are kind of sport agnostic, but there are individual solutions for sports. And like, how do you think about that with general consolidation?

Yeah, consolidation and aggregation are buzzwords right now. Oftentimes there's at some point in different industries, a trend where that happens at the core. Youth sports is something that happens locally within a community, in the kind of physical presence. I think that's one of the beautiful things around, is that in any community you go to the fields and it's one of the last places where people are coming together, you know, no matter what their race or religion or political persuasion is. Right. That they're just kind of playing sports together. So if any type of aggregation or consolidation happens, it has to work at that local community level. If it doesn't, it kind of falls apart. And there's such passion, someone else will come back up and start that next program or next league or next esports organization. I would love to believe there's going to be more efficiency, there's going to be more valuable tools. As those things happen, then it kind of differentiates programs from what traditionally has been built in local communities and can create more value in communities. And if that happens, there should be some level of aggregation. I like to believe League Apps has done that to some degree with thousands of organizations across the country using one platform. And what can we do to continue to invest in that or to build, take some of that data and provide insights, or even to build conferences and communities and bring organizations together. You know, we have this kind of idea that, you know, youth sports should be all about team, and those are the lessons you learn from team. It's also people working together. And if you are an individual who has a small youth sports organization, you should be able to learn and share best practices and get the benefit of what other organizations are doing that might not directly compete with you within your community. We have something at Leaguex called Fun Play foundation, which has spawned out of out of League Gaps, announced its own 501C3. We're very proud. We give the same software that we give to some of the leading youth sports Organizations in the country or in the world to organizations that are in underserved communities are most in need. It's the same functionality. And when we build new features like the AI tools that we talked about for, you know, the cutting edge, you know, sports organizations, we're giving those same tools back to underserved communities and sports operators who are doing this almost solely around mission. And it's been neat to see them say, even think about how they apply it differently. Some of the mobile features, they're proud, they're excited because no one in these homes own computers or that the ability to do AI helps with things like language translation. So it's neat to see that you could be building something for one community and have the ability to impact or affect hundreds or thousands of communities across the country.

Yeah, yeah. You talked about the community piece and I call it like the ground game. Right? You need to. It struck me at the conference, I kind of knew to expect this, but it struck me at NextUp just how many local operators are there. And I think maybe a lot of people who are newer to the space don't realize that ground game that's needed on the local level to really make everything work at scale. Super clear at your event, talk about how maybe the event itself. Next up. I think this was year seven. You guys said, how has it evolved? How has it stayed the same? I know there's maybe a little bit more of the investor, investment banker types who were at the last conference or two, but talk about the event in general, how it's evolved, because I was struck by how many just like on the ground operators or there was a vast majority of people, I'd say yeah.

So I give my partner, Jeremy Goldberg a lot of credit for having the vision for this. Our first next step was in 2019. We wanted to bring the whole league apps community together. One of the privileges of being in this space is just how passionate everyone is in what they do and how much they care about. And we said if we can get everyone in a room, that can be a lot of fun and there's a lot of kind of cross pollination best practices that we can share with each other. So we had the first conference in 2019 and it was just really exciting to see us get to meet many of our partners for the first time, to see partners meet each other to be league apps as more than just a vertical SaaS platform and as a teammate in a company that really wants to help you do what you do to make sports happen. I think we've Had a lot of discussion over the years why we make this a youth sports conference, not like an industry conference and not as much a league gaps conference, is because we want to put the mission front and center of creating amazing sports experiences for all and want to be welcoming and inviting so that we could have different types of perspective and different types of kind of participants in the youth sports ecosystem to come to the event and not just make it exclusive to league S partners. And we've always kind of tried to do that balance. We want to show our appreciation for the partners and the operators that we work with, but really create an event that can be open to anyone who's interested in learning more or being part of esports.

One of the themes I picked out at the conference was advice, maybe for lack of a better word. I know you guys talked about it during one of the panels about how, hey, a lot of the folks in the audience are all of a sudden going to have to start learn, maybe learn terms like ebitda, right? And think about whether they're, they're taking an investment or getting acquired. And people are. I talked to someone who said they're getting emailed every week by somebody who wants to invest or acquire them and it's just completely new to them. You guys took a pretty large investment from Excel KKR last year. I mean, how has life changed for you? I know you had Rob Palumbo, who's the co managing partner there, I believe also Kohner, the Buffalo Bills. He spoke a lot about culture and why it was important and I think maybe you know, even more so in sports based businesses. You know, there's only so much culture you can have in accounting or finance or whatever. But in these like local, especially these local operators who maybe are thinking about partnering or getting acquired by someone. Talk about some of the advice that you guys gave at the conference and then maybe how important why the culture piece is really like extra important in.

This type of business. Yeah, there's a lot there.

Yeah, sorry, that was a terribly long question.

We've been fortunate to work with AKKR. We had had been venture backed for 15 years and thought as we were going to a new phase, the right type of capital partner who can help us through growth and had experience in that phase would be valuable. And AKKR, I think kind of has majority investment in over 80 software companies all of a similar size. Most of them are B2B. So they give us a lot of respect for understanding and having insight into youth sports at the market we're in. And they're really great at understanding how to partner with vertical SaaS companies in the different functions of go to market or product or roadmap or kind of operational efficiencies. So it's been about a year again. We've been able to do a few acquisitions. We've been able to we call it at LeeGapps, our winning era and the scoreboard matters. And I think the focus and the focus on execution has been good for, for our business and hopefully good for our partners and the product that we put out there as well. I led a panel on helping operators better understand what is happening because as you mentioned, many of our top or many of our sports, we call them partners or sports organizations or operators are now getting solicited or getting cold outreach from investors that are looking or platforms that are looking to say, hey, rather than go at this alone, would you like to be part of our platform? And you know, this has happened in other SMB verticals. It's happened for plumbers, it's happened for dentists, it's happened for doctors, it's happened for different types of kind of field or service workers. But I think this is new in youth Sports. Up until 20 years ago, there weren't even that many for profit organizations in youth sports. So this idea that you've built a business or you've built an organization that has equity value is a newer concept. And I think most sports operators don't really know how to evaluate this or don't even know the questions to ask or don't know how to understand what's right for them, what they're trying to achieve. So we tried to break it down more simply of like how can you have this conversation intelligently? What are the questions you should ask? What are the ways you can present your business so that you can, you know, have the most opportunities or options for what you want to do or what you want to accomplish. I've said I've, I've used this at league apps. We've made 10,000 calls a month probably for the last 15 years out to sports operators. Sometimes we call them a few times. But what we learned is you have to have the face to face conversation if you're going to build any trust. If they want to kind of evaluate our software, it's just that's what we've, that's what is probably one of our major insights is the conversations matter. And every month I like tracking the substantial conversations we have. And I asked three questions. I've done this in 2010, 2011, every year since that helps me understand how a sports operator thinks and believes and what they care about. The first is how did you get involved in organizing or operating sports? And they all have a story, whether it's from their family or coaching or some kind of passion driven reason why they started working in sports. The second question is what makes your organization unique? And you see their eyes light up because they're very proud of something that you might not even recognize or realize. And it's usually not their profit margins or ebitda, but it's something that they do in their organization around development or community service or our community that they're often most proud of. And it's where do you want your organization to be in five years? So they're looking forward so you can understand if they have growth mindset or they have another mission that they care most about. And when I ask those three questions, I kind of have a sense of how league apps can help them from a software partner perspective, but also what they're trying to accomplish. And I think they need to ask themselves those questions and a few others to figure out what route to go down in this ever evolving, changing landscape of youth sports that in the last few cycles, especially coming out of COVID has been evolving more than ever before.

That's good. Where do you think all this investor interest goes? How long does it last?

Yeah, I don't quite know. This question was asked to me of who wins and I thought it was such an interesting question. I said I hope the kids are the ones who win. I hope youth sports is better for the next generation of all this capital coming in is efficiently put to work so that kids are having better experiences, playing longer, having different types of experiences, not just having to be pushed towards competitive, can play different sports, can sample it can have all these great ways in which sports helps communities and society. I believe what investors are seeing is a lot of spend in youth sports that is kind of recession resistant, that is all over the country and that kind of continues to accelerate. And you know, we used to be real proud that league apps would be recession proof. And then a pandemic came and our revenue went down 96%. It was like, oh, we didn't know we had to be pandemic proof all But I think that the fact that in our business, you know, we start seeing registrations begin again that summer of 2020, I think youth sports is being looked at as a category that is very resistant to some of the kind of macroeconomic factors and that even in a world where Kids are using devices and screen time more. Sports is something that's kind of being carved out as something that's sacred. You know, I don't necessarily believe that sports is just like always going to be there, and team sports are always something kids are going to do. I talked about in a presentation I gave, kind of history of sports. This is something that started in the Industrial revolution. So it's really only been around for 120 years in the whole scheme of things. So it's a bunch of generations. It feels like it's been forever and will be forever. But the way it will continue to be vibrant is if it's a great experience for kids. For it to be a great experience for kids, we need operators who can understand what kids want and can continue to deliver engaging, safe experiences. And in our corner of the world, a lot of that, as I said before, is software, data technology, AI, relationships and service. And for the local operators, it's like what is actually happening on the field each week to make sure that it is something that is super compelling. And I think the difference between youth sports today and esports, you know, a few generations ago, is that kids can do other things. Kids can be on a device and see the whole world and have other types of interests. And if the sports experience isn't as compelling, there's more competition than ever before. So I would like to see youth sports thrive in terms of participation and in terms of enjoyment, in terms of excitement, in terms of appropriate experiences for kids, no matter what type of sport or, you know, physical activity they're interested in or kind of catches their fancy.

Yeah, no, that's good. And, you know, I have one of these, like super macro takes, that is, you know, who knows where AI is going to take humanity, right? I mean, some of it might be overblown, A lot of it's. A lot of it's not, you know, but health and wellness sports competition are one of those few things that frankly keep you human. Right. So I personally believe over the next 10, 20, 30, 50 years, you'll see people will have more leisure time. We have more leisure time now than we did 20, 50, 100, certainly 150 years ago. And a good outlet for that, certainly for kids, is healthy, competitive sports. But to your point, it could go the other way. If the focus of all the investment doesn't create more fun, safe, quality entertainment for kids, then there's, there's plenty of alternatives for them. How would you react to. So I, I've written this like, you know, I think a Lot of people maybe come into the space and they see AI tech data, the high end stuff, you know, like the IMG side of the world, athlete development, more money going to college players. So you know, there's, that's a whole side of the industry. And I say this to a guy who runs the tech companies, but you know, I'm looking around, I'm like, man, there are just so many incredible business here. Businesses here that aren't really based in like the flashy.

Right.

It's insurance, it's, it's ticketing, it's just like the infrastructure to operate sports. To me that part feels the most recession proof of anything because it's like if the kids are showing up and playing, you're gonna, you're guaranteed to have registration dollars changing hands. You're guaranteed to need insurance, to need equipment, things like that that maybe aren't super sexy, but they literally are what makes sports go. How do you like sort of react to that? Am I off base there?

Yeah, we believe it's a $75 billion economic spend in the US and team sports. And we believe that off of our own data, there's not really great data out there in the market. Some of the research reports of it have it pegged a little bit lower than that. Once you guys have the definitive research report, you'll, there's like two reports.

Everybody cites same two reports.

So we see all this spend and right now there's, there's kind of scholastic and we're starting to learn more about scholastic. We now are kind of connected to Arbiter, which is a sport in the high school space which both Excel, KKR is also invested in and that we're getting to know really well. And we have the non scholastic sports and the money kind of flows in different ways in both of those. I think one of, one of the things I like to see is not just charging parents more as a way to fund youth sports. And how do you come up with more creative business models, financial models, kind of funding models for youth sports so that the experience kind of creates more, there's more efficiency so things. So in some ways that brings down cost and then there's different ways it's funded. Right. I recently my son actually broke his leg playing flag football the day after the conference. It took 45 minutes for the ambulance and the stretcher to get there. It's like a super traumatic moment. He's doing okay. A lot of video games lately. But you know, one thing it just made me realize is school sports does a Pretty good job of having a trainer at the field and making sure that the right kind of safety protocols are there. And that's something that all of you sports can get better at. Right. So I think there's. There's. There's a lot of things that have to happen for sports to actually occur in communities in the right way. Right. And therefore, there's a lot of actors or there's a lot of players, as you mentioned. There's just a lot of different parts to it. I kind of sometimes try to talk about the complexity of a sports operator as someone who's running like 15 different mini concerts all over town, you know, and had to make sure that the sound system's working and that the weather's there and that they're selling tickets at all the venues and they have the right security. Right. And that's kind of what's happening at, you know, sports within communities. So, yes, there's a lot of different roles. Everyone has to do it well and do it efficiently. It has to work all together. And if that happens, you have this, like, really healthy, beautiful sports experience where everyone goes home happy. Most people don't realize everything that went into it, from how to make sure that the fields were, you know, proper conditions and the permits were there and the ref shows up on time and there's a trainer there and everything that kind of checks the box. But that's often, you know, the role of the operator. That's. That's who we've decided to partner with to say that's the way we can have the most impact in esports.

There's a guy there. Do you know? I think it's Andrew Hayes with Go4. Yeah. He's got 25,000 athletic trainers on his platform.

He's an awesome entrepreneur. He was actually one of our first ever customers when he worked for a lacrosse program called NXT in your neck of the woods in Philly.

Yeah, he's an Interact guy in Philly. Yeah. Yeah, he was. I mean, he was saying, hey, like, all these fields need an emergency action plan. They all need a trainer on the sideline. To your point, 45 minutes is. Is not. It's not good.

Right.

What are. What are some other revenue. Like, what are some other new revenue streams you're. You're bullish on just in general in youth sports that can maybe subsidize some of the participation costs if these businesses are, you know, run well enough. I think in a lot of ways, it's almost like the media, business media. You know, you have A one side of the spectrum subscription, right. Where you're your readers or audience is paying for content. Newspapers went through this. And on the other side you have completely ad funded. Right. And it feels like. Or you have things like events that can fund the business. You can put out free content. You know, largely youth sports. On the for profit side is subscription. You pay to register and play. But if there's new revenue streams, it might go to subsidize at least some of those participation rates. What do you think are some interesting months?

Yeah, first, there's an interesting aspect of these organizations is which they're not fully able to maximize their revenue based on the influence they have. So if you're a club and a parent is signing up for your club and then they're participating in your club and they're getting all of their schedule in from your club, they often have to go out and do a chain of events. You know, buy hotels for a stay. If you're going to a tournament, get the right uniform, get the right equipment, get the right cleats, right. Get the right, you know, nutritional or medical supplies, the right transportation. So we believe a lot more of that should come through the organization who is really the influencer in making that happen instead of going in all different ways and being kind of spent outside of the organization. So I think that's an opportunity to help organizations better fund the sports programs that they produce. You know, it is. Talk about fragmentation. I started my career in college sports and as soon as these conferences and kind of rights holders were able to aggregate, it became more attractive for brands who can then spend on, you know, all they could put their field goal nets up at all the different stadiums in one sponsorship deal instead of having to go out and do 100 sponsorship deals. So, you know, if there's two or 300 major colleges, there's thousands of youth sports programs. But I think if you get on the similar technology platforms or similar data platforms, you can standardize some of this and you could be more attractive to brands or to companies that want to reach families in a much more intimate way than other forms of advertising or sponsorship. I do believe there is government funding out there that should go directly to youth sports. That's what happens in most other countries in the US for various reasons, which is another history lesson going back to 1978. Tom Ferries talks about this. Well, it just doesn't. It goes through usoc, which is much more focused on Olympic sport like gold medals than it is on sports participation. So I think there's different Ways of reimagining sports that can create the right experiences at the right price points for kids.

There's some. I know it's New York, maybe New York. I mean there's definitely a handful of, of states we've covered a few of them, I don't know, off top of my head that have tried to push forward this subsidy tax rebates for youth sports. And there's really compelling data in terms of like for every. I forget what it was every hour, every year of youth sports participation was good for like three and a half years on the back end of life, something like that.

Yeah. There's also health cost to obesity if kids play sports. So yeah, there's a. I think it's called the FIT act is one that's getting some, some attention that would give tax breaks for youth sports activities. You know, Funplay foundation led by Jared Cooper here has unlocked funding for youth sports, often in many states on a levy on sports gambling. So in New York and Ohio and a few other states, like 1% of all the revenue from sports gambling goes back into youth sports. So there are definitely creative or new ways of contributing to sports experiences and programming.

What do you think the industry can do to raise the overall. I think the overall participation rate's like mid-50s. I know there's a goal somewhere to get into the 60, you know, 60, 61% by 2030, 2032. What can the industry do to just kind of grow the tam of youth sports? The actual participants, never mind all the growing, the opportunities within.

I think two things I think of often is business models that are more compelling that aren't going to the elite levels. So how can you create if you're dead set on building a esports business right now? Oftentimes you're going more to club and travel and elite as quickly as you can. Because that's kind of the business model that allows you to do this full time. But are there ways where you can have mass participation models that has cheaper price points and more kids? And I think there are. We had someone at our conference land Smith, a next level sports that really does flag football program once a week at affordable levels. Calls it competitive. Wreck and his mass participation I think has 90,000 kids. So I think there's different business models is one way. And then look, the more and more compelling your youth sports experience is, the more kids will play. You know, I'm coaching a second grade flag football team and I said the number one goal is so that all 15 of these kids want to play Again next year, right? So that they none of them churn out. And this is the last time I saw one kid was crying on the sideline. I'm thinking myself he's never going to play again. It's because of my coaching, right? How can I allow that? And wanted to make sure that he left the game with a smile and a good experience. Because what you see is starting at 9 and 10, it's almost like these kids stop playing and by 12, there's a big drop off. And that's silly to me. Kids should be able to play sports for as long as they want in some type of environment that's appropriate. I think on the girls side, this is really a problem after 12, where it's like if they're not going after a college scholarship or playing at a competitive level, you almost like drops off their ability or potential to participate in an experience that is just fun or team building or good physical activity.

I love the idea of competitive, professionalized rec, right? I mean down to the really young level, you have i9, you have youth athletes united, right? They're doing with soccer stars and amazing athletes. But to your point, up past age 9, 9 through 13, 14, where it feels like if you're not great, maybe you're sort of destined to just sort of drop off. I've said this a few times, it's a dumb analogy, but I feel like it makes sense. There's money to be made in entertainment. Disney is an entertainment business, but families are willing to pay a premium because they put out a good, safe, fun, quality experience. It doesn't always have to be about going pro or preparing for IMG or preparing for D1 or D2 and you know, there's balance there. And I think sometimes you have people pay more money just to have fun sometimes.

I agree. I think there is a level of entertainment and education where a child or a youth can have like a wholesome, positive experience, have some type of development playing sport that doesn't have to lead to, you know, them being on a pathway to a college scholarship that parents will find valuable and be willing to fund. And if it has good mentorship or leadership, if it has kind of engaging experience to get kids off of devices. You see this often with like summer camps that become like valuable experience for kids. You know, is there a new version of like the boy or girl scouts combined with sports that can say we're here to teach you life skills, we're here to help you be on a team, we're here to have a really good Experience and like, let them lean in. And for the few that really want to, they can go play a competitive 10 month a year travel season. But for those who don't, there's a way they can do that as well. You know what I mentioned next level sports, and I see this in flag football, same time every week. Positive experience, cool team, like no pathway to having to get to the next, you know, the next plateau. And something that I think families are really enjoying. So one theory I have is as parents who play club sports and aged out are now having kids that are playing club sports, they might have a different perspective or expect different things out of it. I think over the last 10, 15 years there was a lot of parents who wish they could go to all these different events and venues and are kind of living vicariously through their kids. And in many ways that's positive. In many ways it's left kids at a certain age quitting and parents saying, wait, what was the. And I think a lot of times parents aren't, it was, it wasn't worth it. It's just like, oh, what my kid got out of that was like overcoming adversity or working really hard or being part of a team or learning rejection. Not necessarily a college scholarship, which is the numbers don't pan out as much. So I think there's more ability for that to be a pathway that is valued than potentially it is today. And some organizations do this really well where they're putting their core values front and center and saying, this is why you're part of our club. Sometimes parents listen, sometimes they don't. But I think that's an important aspect of the future of sports is different types of experiences for different kids.

Yeah, I heard someone describe, it's usually not the player, it's usually not the coach, it's often the parent. And I my like rule of thumb for, you know, kind of detecting this dynamic. If you watch baseball in particular, because there's so much downtime in baseball. Parents I do it. I coach and parent for baseball. You're compelled between pitches to like bark out an instruction because the action stops and you feel like, I have a chance to give advice. But I always look when I see the kids who look back at their parent between every single pitch, right while they're at the bat, you know, did they make the right decision to swing or not swing? That's usually when like I can detect someone who's like, parent seems like they're trying to live vicariously.

Yeah, I noticed that too. What I kind of Watch. I've never publicly said this, so there you go. There it is, exposing everything on the buying Stand Alike podcast. But when my kid scores a goal, I have a 9 and 7 year old, 3 year old, 2, but a 9 and 7 are playing more sports. Right. When my kid scores a goal, I'm kind of rooting. He doesn't look at me and it's just the joy of the moment and high fiving his teammates and not feeling the need to get my approval is, is one of the things I'm measuring. It's, it's. Yeah, the different. You know, I think oftentimes youth sports doesn't create, you know, all this bad behavior. It's just, you know, this is a, it just shows different types of, you know, values in society and it just like exposes it a lot more than if you're just walking down the street. Right. So there's not right or wrong ways to parent. There's not right or wrong ways to co. I mean, there are potentially at these studies, but I think it's like, I would encourage parents to be really intentional about the way they root for their children, the way they talk about youth sports with their children, the lessons that they want their children to learn. I'm a big telling my kid before every game, it's about sportsmanship and fun and that's what matters. And then I often ask them, how do you want me to root for them? Like, do you want me to yell at your name a lot? I'll say, like, do you want me to yell your name between every pitch and say, go, Graham. And undoubtedly it's like, no, they do not want that. That's the last thing they want. They make that very clear to me after the game. I try not to bring up the game unless they bring it up. These are just like ways that hopefully allow me to allow them to enjoy their sports experience in the way that they want to, not in the way that kind of. I want them to. It's hard because they're like, you know, my favorite athletes in the world ever. And I've really rooted for some sports teams over, over my life. I think oftentimes you see that with parents, they're just so exuberant and excited to, to root for their kid that they don't really kind of think about it as, as intellectually and more just kind of emotionally.

Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it was at your conference or somewhere else. I heard someone said they always ask their kid before the game, do you want me to be dad or coach today, and then like you make that decision and then we'll go from there. Was that you or was that.

No, yeah, that. That was. That was said. I thought that was said. Well, and maybe it was Michael Skolnick, who's. Whose child was in the audience, but. Okay.

Two more quick ones for you and back to back to league apps. You guys, real quick. You had mentioned you kind of like you're in your. I think you called it your winning hour, your winning phase. Right. Good sports analogy there. So what's the end game? Right? What is winning for you guys? Where do you see yourselves in 2, 3, 5, 10 years? You know, what's. What do you. What are you working towards?

Yeah, I remember we had a. We call our team meetings at league ups Otas. We just had OTA 20. We used to do it twice a year. Now it's once a year and then a smaller group and OTAs, I think it was 17 was in February of 2020. So right before COVID and we were in this tight little yoga studio with 60 or 70 people and we put up a slide and we said, me and my partner Jeremy said, we want you to be the most impactful organization in all of you sports by OTA 25 or something. I forget what the timeframe was. And I like to show that slide on each OTAs and say, we're not there yet. You know, maybe we're a little closer, maybe we're a lot closer, but we're not there yet. So. But I think that is one of the things we look at is how can we be the most impactful organization in all of esports? It's bold and it's kind of out there, but how do we keep on having more impact? I shared at our conference what we believe an amazing sports experience is. It doesn't just happen, you know, it's safety, it's the kids first. It's being a team. It's how does technology be adapted in the right way? It's accessibility that enables or allows sports experiences to be amazing. And, you know, what we have to do is achieve our goals week by week, month by month. We have this idea of partners forever. When they sign up with league apps, we want them to be on our platform for generations in their community. Right. And when we have a churn partner, as much as it hurts the metrics, it's like, man, what didn't we do right that this organization isn't going to partner with us for the next generation of kids within their community? So we still have very bold ambitions for what we can accomplish. We're excited to be part of this. In some ways, we love the competition because we see others in this space helping to make that same mission happen. And I think it is a fun space and that whether they're your partners or competitors or new players in the space, I like to believe that everyone is pretty in line with the mission to make these sports better.

All right, so in that vein, I mean, who are. I always like to ask guests this at the end. Who is some from another company or person in the space could be a competitor. It doesn't have to be that you. Do you personally admire. You know, look to like, hey, they're doing a good job. They're, they're, they're living by the mission you guys talk about, but also just providing good product or service.

Yeah, I'll answer that a few, A few ways. I really love. I'm a kind of a geek when it comes to vertical SaaS. So I love learning about companies like Toast in the Restaurant space or Mind Body. Really in the early days in the, it was in yoga and fitness Shopify and what they do for e commerce entrepreneurs. So I look at how they look at their markets, how they talk about the way that they partner with their customers and often either think like, oh, that's going to happen in this market or you know, let's, let's borrow with flattery some of the things that they're doing. Well, I'm a big fan of Tom Ferry. He came into this space early on and said, let's put some true thought leadership around it. I think Tom does a good job of telling a story. He was a ESPN reporter at E60 and some of like the journalism and wrote a book called Game on in the early Days. I think he really clearly explains what's happening to the story. Some of the things I mentioned about why youth sports is the way that it is, I've learned from talking with him and seeing him. And now he has something called 63 by 30 where he brings a lot of leaders across sports together to try and improve esports by 2030. So I've appreciated kind of how he's put a narrative and a conscious around esports. And then look, the heroes to me are these operators. And I have, I'm proud that I have many of them in my cell phone and I call them friends. We had a dinner after that first night where we had about 40 of the operators in a few rooms where we just got to talk and spend time together and you see how much they care, how passionate they are, how important they feel like their influence and their communities are with their families and how practical and kind of gritty they are in making sports happen. And I think they often don't get all the credit and people think they're getting rich off of these high margins. But, you know, I'm getting the calls. You know, we're getting the calls on Friday night when something isn't working exactly as it should be for Saturday morning. And there's all kinds of chaos going on and, like, the having to deal with parents and with field space and with conditions, whether during COVID or whatnot, that are just, you know, stacked up against them. So I often feel like we have the best customers or partners of any software company could ever ask for because of just how much they care about what they do and how they impact their communities.

Awesome. I think that's a good place to end it. Brian, I appreciate you joining. Why don't you plug away the people in our audience who aren't using League Apps? Right. Why don't you plug away? How can they find you guys? How can you guys help them?

Yeah, sure. We like to be friendly. So you can just go to League Apps and either send us a note or request a demo or find me on LinkedIn. I'm posting often these days. Or just send me an email to Brian at Legapps and I'll put you in touch with the right person on our team to help you figure out the ways that we can be helpful.

Brian, thanks so much for joining.

Thank you for having me.