Great book too @AriEmanuel

I don’t know why you’d subscribe to any other sports business publication.

Sports academies are a big deal right now.

This is why we formed @BuyingSideline to add to @BuyingSandlot. The combining of youth sports with pro experiences and hospitality is where sports is headed. Massive IRL trend in an AI-world. Sports keeps us human-- participation, fandom, travel. Youth sports, sports experiences, sports hospitality. These are 3 things, they're 1, and we cover them all at Buying Media.

Great time to be running a deep niche business publications @BuyingSandlot (covering the business of youth sports), @BuyingSideline (covering the business of sports hospitality), and soon...

There's lots of good with what Norway does for youth sports. But the media hysteria over aping their methods in a country with 340M people is overdoing it. Camping at fields because you can't afford a hotel room and eating "shoulder-to-shoulder in a large gymnasium" would receive incredibly aggressive negative press coverage in the US, and rightfully so. "Youth Sports Parents Are Forced To Sleep In Tents So Their 7-Year-Old Can Play Soccer" would be the NY Times version of this practice.

🥎 Big week at @BuyingSandlot. 🏆 So big, we're launching another vertical: @BuyingSideline, covering the business of sports hospitality and premium experiences. This summer, I had the opportunity to take my kids to World Cup matches and the MLB Home Run Derby with @onlocationexp-- the hospitality provider for some of the largest sporting events on Earth. It was an amazing experience, and it hit me: "This is just scratching the surface." With pro teams decreasing their reliance on local TV deals thanks to RSN struggles, private equity moving into ownership positions, and the tailwinds of an in-real-life (IRL) economy where experiences matter more than things, the "airport lounge-ification" of sports is upon us, at all levels. Pro teams are tiering the game day experience to address all of these demands. And colleges are rapidly adopting new revenue models to fund $40M payrolls by building out premium offerings and even entire tailgate cities. Oh boy are colleges investing in this. Sports hospitality is no longer just about the seat or club-- it now includes parking, transportation, food and beverage, access, and increasingly, travel. Through it all, there are rights holders, service providers, transportation companies, tech companies, food and beverage providers, and more who need to stay up to date. And that's who we aim to serve. Never mind the consumer demand for content to navigate a confusing, high-ticket Buying™ process that can't be fully outsourced to an AI agent. In many ways, sports hospitality resembles the youth sports market-- estimates peg it at ~$60B today and growing to almost $170B by 2034. From the beginning, my goal was to create a modern sports business publication from the ground up-- by going deep before going wide. Owning a vertical before moving on to the next. What does this mean for our youth coverage? Nothing. Our team is expanding to accommodate Sideline. But me, @JamesKratch @KylePagan_ and the gang remain focused building The Bloomberg of Youth Sports. We recently announced the dates for our Buying Sandlot Summit 2027 (May 4-5), are hosting a webinar for premium members on athlete safety tomorrow with Ankored, and continue to invest in first-party data, content, and conversations. As part of the launch of Sideline (which has actually been live for nearly two months now) we released in-depth videos and interviews today with the @PhilaUnion, touring both their gold standard youth facilities and premium hospitality spaces. I know there's lots of overlap between the people building and investing in youth sports and sports hospitality, and others solely focused on one or the other. And we look forward to serving them both. Separately, Buying Media is a fully self-funded venture, and we're not formally raising capital. But as the opportunity gets bigger, we'd be foolish not to consider strategic investors. If that's you, give me a shout. Otherwise, Good Game and See You On The Sideline.

There are two forces at odds in youth sports: - Tournaments and Travel - Local Play Both can win, but there are opposing forces. For travel, sports tourism and DMOs are creating supply (lots of large facilities) to bring families in for tournament weekends. This is a major tailwind we cover in every @BuyingSandlot newsletter with updates on 4-5 facilities under development. For local play, large groups like @ussoccer and well-capitalized proponents like @WeatherfordDrew @curve_sports and others are leading the push here. My Take: Sports tourism is only growing and will be a tough trend to buck. But I see the high-end of the market exploding - experiential events and national competitions - more than the random weekend in podunk Ohio. But there is clear parent demand for more local infrastructure that can support casual rec play, academies(!), and competitive local leagues. Will be interesting to watch this play out.

1) It's like baseball missed an entire generation by being anti-digital for over a decade. Alive and well with young people though, and I suspect numbers are even stronger with teens and kids. 2) Soccer crushing with main advertising demographic! 3) If you wonder why NFL is investing so heavily in flag football... look no further than the age breakdown here.

On @BuyingSandlot we keep talking about how there will be more sports and other extracurriculars in the day, not less. More time competing in, attending, and experiencing sports. Why? Well...

This is what we're doing with @BuyingSandlot and Buying Media Group. In just 18 months, we've grown to become the largest publication in the $60B youth sports industry with 20k subscribers and hosted a 450-person event just one year in. Next year, we're expecting to grow attendance, increase ad revenue, and 4x paid subscriptions with a team of 5 people.

Anthony is great and I largely agree with this deeply nuanced take on betting ads in sports. But 2 things are happening here: 1) Betting was legalized in 2018 almost at the exact moment where declining cable rights fees began to threaten many leagues and teams. Legalized gambling represented the first truly natural sports advertiser. Not something that sports fans like - like beer or cars - but something where the potential user itself has an almost 1 to 1 ratio with fans watching the game. So teams, leagues, and for sure media capitalized on this wave of capital in the form of advertising spend. But… 2) … they now rely deeply on it (hence all the official betting and prediction market partnerships). The data around problematic gambling is sufficient enough that there will almost certainly be some sort of major regulation around how it’s marketed. If this happens, it will blow a huge hole in sports-related budgets (leagues, teams, media) as this gambling revenue has helped ease the blow of RSN declines. If this happens, the next plug won’t come from media rights or sponsorship, but from tiered ticket sales, hospitality, and experiences. People will then complain about attendance prices - as is happening with the US Open this week - but it’s inevitable when advertising $ are no longer sufficient to subsidize viewing costs.