🌊 The Wave of Money Flooding Into Youth Sports

Don’t know if you saw this or not, but here are all the networks and streaming services NFL games will be on this year. MLB has also now added its super popular Sunday morning window to Roku.

I feel like we’ve reached the point of over-fragmentation of sporting events. Thoughts?

NFL fans are being asked to fund the next Paramount streaming failure. Not Netfilx obviously, but most of the streaming outfits will fail. Just like any other new industry, you get 12 companies out of the gate then 3-4 make it. The NFL is in a great position to find its next partner, while fans are drained to their last nickel.

100% agree. It’s all sports, frankly. But this feels like very shortsighted register ringing on both sides. Streaming networks want to goose downloads and subscriptions, but how many people who signed up to watch that one NFL playoff game on Peacock stuck around? [I almost pulled a muscle canceling that sub.]

Netflix reportedly committed $600 million to show four games— even (Penn CEO) Jay Snowden thinks that’s too much. Meanwhile, the leagues are happy to cash the checks, but they are killing casual fans with death by 1,000 cuts.

It also does not hurt the NFL that almost no one can get a true viewership number today. Almost all of these games will look good on paper as they attract new paying subs to the streaming service. But similar to a new sportsbook bonus attracting a bettor, the retention rate will be awful. Once again the NFL wins, but at some point, too much football is a thing.

So, fun fact our readers might not know: we inquired about buying and then partnering with Deadspin to do just this four years ago. Union was an obstacle, so now they sold for pennies and the new guys are trying to do it. They’re pushing social casinos.

Here’s the problem: what made Deadspin great was its irreverent and unique content. From first look at the new site, the content farm generic sports content isn’t moving any needles, and the SEO game they want to play might be dead… like, it died last week as we’ve outlined here. Truly, almost hilariously bad timing.

TBH all unique and irreverent takes have moved to X and Youtube. Deadspin had an opportunity to capitalize on its brand by keeping the talent that made the site unique and growing its reach via social. The current version is like stumbling upon a horse and buggy after the Model T hit the road.

Good analogy. I’m a big brand guy, and Deadspin is the OG sports blog. It still has a shot— if they made it even 50% of what it was it would do OK. But I don’t think these guys who bought it, who are from Europe, know what people expect out of the Deadspin brand. This is my White Whale. One time I’m going to catch it and revive it into the once great powerhouse that it was. “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I'll go to it laughing.” - Moby Dick

There is nothing to revive…..the brand is dead, and the generation of readers has moved on. If the new Euro club kid owners want to recreate Deadspin, they should have grabbed some poets from the Ivy League encampments the other week and put them on a new TikTok channel called Deadspin that does nothing but complain about capitalism.

Haha. Could probably offer them some free spins.

Hey Kyle, do you have a 12-year-old phenom pitcher in your local baseball organization? If so, get ready to see these kids get pimped out like 5-star recruits as youth sports are about to get hit by a hurricane of money.

CAT 5! CAT 5!

No, but I do have a 5-year-old who I have long-tossing, using a weighted ball, and doing a complex set of lat workouts 3x per week because I think he can induce weak contact to the right side of the infield. Maybe I’m a bad parent.

But for real, ton of money coming into youth sports. I think the opportunity is greater than just “elite” athletes though. You will see consolidation of highly fragmented youth sports organizations into major national for profit organizations. One huge opportunity I see coming out of this is the ability to sell products and services (equipment, uniforms, whatever) to these orgs at scale, whereas before you had to go town to town which is very difficult to do.

Do you think this is gross or just the way it would always happen?

20 years ago, yes, I would think this is gross, but then Amazon changed the world and killed the local economy. What will be gross is the OFFICIAL killing of intramural sports. All levels will become a version of “travel” or AAU, for all ages. Take it from me, when the kids are not having fun, they get burned out early and bail on high school sports.

I’m torn. The for-profit camps my kids do are generally better run than the local rec leagues— the latter usually just consist of me and three other dads standing around commenting on the condition of the field like we’re turf managers at Augusta. On the other hand, I’d really rather Josh Harris not pocket 12% of my signup fee. But if someone shows me the business that is doing ads-on-jerseys at scale, I’ll invest site unseen. KPMG is just itching to move on from Lefty and sponsor the U12 Minors in Milford, Michigan— home of the Mavericks! I’m sure Michael Rubin has already made a blood oath to corner this market.

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