42 TOURNAMENT,
How to raise $2500 for Each Team in 25 Days
LEAGUE & CLUB LEADERS YOU NEED TO KNOW
4 Secrets to Cutting Your League’s Theft Risk
Sports Facility SPACE RACE Champion of the Other Big Apple
Top 10 Youth League Management Systems
TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 KEYNOTE CAL RIPKEN JR. Your Role in the $15B Tourney, League & Club
team captains home games Fit for road warriors playmakers role players key players record breakers The Zenefits platform makes HR more intuitive and efficient for every member of the team. So your people jell, and work moves. See how we can help your business thrive at zenefits.com
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THE LEAGUE NETWORK FOUNDING TEAM the LEAGUE
NETWORK FOUNDING TEAM
Anne-Sophie Whitehead, Founder Anne-Sophie Whitehead founded League Network based on her 14 years’ experience as Trustee and Treasurer of New Jersey’s 6-sport Mountain Top League. Anne-Sophie has 15 years’ experience as Chief Marketing Officer, co-founder and director of B2B media and service firms, including Winning Media, Triathlete Magazine, Outsourcing Today, Employee-Service.com, SharedXpertise Media, Corporate Responsibility Magazine and the American Distilling Institute/Distilling.com. Anne-Sophie earned her MBA in International Business from Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium) and her BA in International Business Marketing from Institut Commercial Nancy (France). Jay Whitehead, Co-Founder, President & Publisher Jay Whitehead sports parent of 3, marathon runner with 72 finishes, and a serial media and business technology entrepreneur who has founded and led 12 B2B media companies in North America, Europe and Asia. Jay has raised $100+ million in investment capital, generated $450+ million in sponsorships for his media companies, raised $10 million for 104 charities and realized 5 liquidity events. Jay earned a BA in History from UCLA, and a Strategic Finance certificate from the Harvard Business School. Erik Adamonis, Digital Marketer & LeagueGrowth.com Fundraising Captain
LEAGUE NETWORK MAGAZINE
The voice of North America’s Youth League Managers Better Leagues, Better LivesTM Founder: Anne-Sophie Whitehead Publisher & Editor: Jay Whitehead Business Development David Goldberg Digital Marketing: Erik Adamonis Art Director: Bryan Raynes
Contributors: Leigh Steinberg, James Lincoln, Richard Adamonis, Mariel Concepcion Interns: Tim Coleman, Ruta Vetra, Mohamed Bendari, Osa Isevbuwa, Riley Walsh Cover Photo Credit: Associated Press
Legal Representatives: Fox Rothschild, Elizabeth Sigety-partner Accountants: Eisner Amper, Alan Wink-partner
Erik Adamonis built League Network’s original digital marketing assets. Erik is certified in Inbound media marketing and social selling, and has deep experience building modern B2B social and digital marketing, media and sales campaigns. Erik earned his BA in communications and marketing from Ramapo College in New Jersey.
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Published by League Network PBC, NJIT EDC, 211 Warren Street, Newark, NJ 07103, LeagueNetwork.com. Printed in the U.S.A. by Shweiki Media ISSN Number Applied For All contents copyright 2016 League Network PBC. Contents cannot be used or otherwise reproduced without written permission from League Network PBC.
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Fundraising Nirvana! Said. No one. Ever.
By Anne-Sophie Whitehead, League Network Founder Don’t know about you, but I did not decide to run my local youth sports league to shake-a-can at Dunkin Donuts on a cold November morning. I did not sign up to organize a banquet. The waxy chocolate bars we bought for sport league fundraisers would stack from here to the moon. And I could giftwrap my house with fundraisers’ overpriced wrapping paper. Nope, I signed up to coach, guide, equip, encourage, build, and somehow, with my limited abilities, make the world a better place, one team at a time. So we launched League Network to deliver free best practice guidance for Tournament, League, Club and Team leaders so they can build better leagues and give our kids better lives. In fact, that became our trademarked mission, Better Leagues, Better Lives ®. We kicked off League Network in spring 2016 with an event at the San Diego Hall of Champions, with about 120 coaches and league managers in attendance. To help shape the face of this new platform, we polled them. The first question: “What is your biggest pain point?” An amazing 87% said “Fundraising.” We did other larger online polls. There was #1 again: “Fundraising.” Turns out, 80% of teams have to raise money to stay alive, and while league leaders hate it, they have no choice. The alternatives are no sports, or kids must pay more to play. Both alternatives limit access. Lower access, our kids suffer, and so do our communities. Kids at the short end of the income spectrum are hurt the most. Yet they are who needs sports the most, to help them cope with the pressures they face. Even controlling for socioeconomics, many studies have shown that kids in communities with strong youth leagues get involved in less crime and have higher high school graduation rates. So we spent the rest of 2016 and early 2017 perfecting a fundraising platform optimized for youth sports. League leaders told us it had to do 3 things better than all other solutions: be easier for teams to use, faster than anything else, and higher yield—that means meeting the team’s seasonal fundraising needs with as close as possible to 100% certainty. In summer 2017, we launched LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising®. We solved for easy by having our expert fundraising Captains run the team campaigns on our new online platform. Team leaders tell us that because our Captains do all the work, the campaigns cost team leaders less than 3 hours, and nearly zero time for the players and their parents. For speed, we complete the whole campaign under 25 days. And for surety, so far 94% of teams hit their funding target. And because we earn a small fee on the funds raised, so there’s no up-front cost. A pretty good start. But we’ll get better. And much, much bigger. We continue to build out the League Network media platform with events such as the TLC Sport Summit December 11 at Ripken Stadium in Aberdeen, MD. It’s the first-ever master clinic for best practices for leaders of Tournaments, Leagues and Clubs (that’s where “TLC” came from). If you missed it, you can buy a recording of the livestream or podcasts at www.TLCSportSummit.com. Expect to hear about our 2018 lineup of multiple TLC Sport Summits soon. And you can always get great free content on www.LeagueNetwork.com. We’ll also be adding new fundraising features on LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising to make the experience better and to raise more funds easier, faster, more securely. Our goal is to make LeagueGrowth.com the new team funding habit, every season. Here’s the new routine: Once your roster is set, cue that LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising campaign. Your reward is that less than 25 days later, your season’s money worries are solved. Join us, and create Better Leagues, Better Lives ®.
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Founder of League Network
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the tabl e of
CONTENTS VOLUME 2, ISSUE 1, THE TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 EDITION Published by League Network, a Public Benefit Corporation, from its headquarters in Newark, NJ.
TLC SPORT SUMMIT
GROW
CONNECT
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The Tournament, League & Club Revolution
Youth League Theft
Sports Agent’s View
20 The Youth Facilities Space Race
CNN Heroes—Max Levitt of Leveling the Playing Field
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1099 vs W2
A Bite of the Little Apple
24 The 2017 League Management System Top Ten
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TLC Sport Summit 2017 Speaker Biographies
$2500 in 25 Days—Youth League Fundraising Breakthrough
42 TLC Sport Summit 2017 Sponsors
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43 Screening Reality
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44 The Last Word—Heroes of the TLC Revolution
Discover more about how to use LeagueNetwork to make better leagues and better lives at www.LeagueNetwork.com
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SPORTS AGENT’S VIEW LEIGH STEINBERG Sports Agent Leigh Steinberg Sports agents Leigh Steimberg was the inspiration for the lead character in the Tom Cruise film Jerry Maguire. Over four decades Leigh has negotiated over $3 billion in contract deals representing premier athletes including Steve Young, Troy Aikman, Warren Moon, Bruce Smith, Thurman Thomas, Ben Roethlisberger, Erick Karros, Dusty Baker, John Starks, Lennox Lewis, & Oscar De la Hoya. He is the author of Winning with Integrity and The Agent.
A Sports Agent’s Surprising View on Youth Athletes By Leigh S teinber g
Some years ago, my nine-year-old daughter Katie and her soccer team had just lost an elimination game in AYSO soccer. She was crying and looked distraught. I ran out on the field to console her and said “Don’t feel bad, you will have many more seasons to win”. She looked at me and said “I’m not crying because my team lost, Dad. I’m sad because I won’t get to see my friends on the team all the time”. In that moment I started to rethink the differential in parental perception and goals from that of their athletic children. The first involvement in youth sports, usually soccer can be a time of extraordinary empowerment for young people. It can also be a time that crushes self-esteem. This is the first experience in organized sports for children. It is the first time that they see real differences in comparative athletic talent. They may be on the same field with kids who have started a year or two late with larger bod-
ies and more developed skill sets. What is the goal in their participation? No one issues parents a driver’s license to advise their kids in their sports experience. Do we tell young people to be like young ” Vince Lombardi’s” and win at all costs, or is participation and having fun the key? When a child is not getting much playtime, playing a position they don’t like, the team is constantly losing, or they do not like the coach, what do we advise them to do? Be stoic, keep trying and learn character—or assert themselves and complain in an effort to improve their situation? Type A parents are intervening across the country with behavior that ranges from screaming criticism from the stands, to yelling at coaches, to physically attacking coaches and umpires. They worry about their own pride, because their child’s performance is a reflection on them, or insert adult ambition or an-
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ger into the situation. Children may listen to parent’s admonitions, but more importantly they carefully watch how a parent acts. They may be uncomfortable or embarrassed by how their parent is behaving. Many kids quit youth sports because they don’t like the pressure and drama. Having represented professional athletes for forty years and watching how hyper-competitive athletes do everything to win but treasure the experience, win or lose, provided a certain perspective. I spent years hitting ground balls, throwing the football, and kicking the ball with my kids and rooted for them, but that was it. I just tried to support them. Unless I was willing to coach or referee myself, I kept my opinions to myself. I tried to always remember–this experience is for them, not me. They learn valuable life skills in sports—real life will provide years of competition soon enough.
THE TOURNAMENT, LEAGUE & CLUB REVOLUTION Is Time’s September 2017 cover “How Kids Sports Became a $15B Industry” our “tipping point?” More and better tournaments, leagues, clubs and facilities will drive youth sports to $41B by 2023. We have met the TLC Revolution, and it is us. By Jay Whitehead Nobody who has visited the Ford Center at The Star can deny the TLC Revolution. After all, it’s a 12,000-seat, 510,000 square foot indoor $1.2 billion facility shared by the Dallas Cowboys, the City of Frisco, Texas and Frisco ISD’s high school. It sports one indoor and two outdoor practice fields--one turf, one grass--and the largest video board in high school sports; 2,270 square feet outside, and 1,824 square feet inside. Once you’ve seen events there, it will forever change your perception of youth and high school football and soccer games. For marching band competitions too. The Ford Center at The Star in Frisco, TX on a high school football game day.
The Ford Center is extraordinary in every way. But it’s just one example of ever-bigger and better facilities in North American youth sports. Hundreds of new private and public facilities have been built since the boom started in 2014-2015, and hundreds more upgrades will go online in the next couple years. For a deeper dive into the Youth Sports Space Race, see the article by the same name on pages 22 and 23.
Wintergreen Research’s Susan Eustis pegs today’s US youth sports industry at $15.3B, growing to $41.2B by 2023.
While ever-bigger and better facilities are the most visible manifestation of the TLC Revolution, they are only one of the drivers behind the industry’s growth. ENTER THE ANALYSTS Folks on Wall Street and Silicon Valley share the common view that until a market is covered by a respected analyst, it doesn’t really exist. For youth sports, that all changed in September 21, 2017. That’s when Wintergreen Research’s Susan Eustis published a sprawling $4200 report with 633 pages and 288 charts entitled Youth Team, League and Tournament Sports: Market Shares, Strategies and Forecasts Worldwide 2017-2023. Importantly, Time Magazine writer Sean Gregory was given early access to Eustis’ report for his September 4 cover story “How Kids Sports Became a $15B Industry.,” and cited it often. Eustis’ report is a landmark in the TLC Revolution. Like a doctor hunting for a cure, she meticulously dissected the causes of youth sports’ rapid rise as a social and commercial megatrend. She followed the move from backyard sports to travel teams, the link with team sponsors, new software and payments technologies that manage data and money, mergers and acquisitions, the rapid evolution of equipment and footwear, the rapid rise and proliferation of tournaments, the facilities space race, and the increasing focus on hotels, motels and air and ground travel companies courting teams.
But more important than the actual numbers were the several conclusions about the sweeping impact of the TLC Revolution on kids, families and communities. Among them: ·
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The rapid rise of travel teams and tournaments and showcases has resulted in rapid segmentation of the youth sport industry into new specialties such as recruiting, specialized training, facility management, software and apps and video, payments, footwear and equipment and wearables, insurance, fundraising,
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background checking, and tournament, league and club management. Competition in each of these segments continues to intensify, resulting in greater customer awareness and use of new products and services.
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Inexpensive and easy to use cloud software applications have become increasingly important for making more-organized team play easier to manage. This has led to increasing pressure on tournament, league, club, team and facility leaders to adopt these technologies and train on their use.
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Youth sports facilities are now at the heart of many communities’ development programs, both for local use and for building a sports tourism business. Family sports tourism is one of the fastest-growing segments of the giant travel business.
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Communities have found it cheaper to invest in youth sports programs than to deal with problems caused by kids that grow up without guided activities and veer into crime.
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Pro teams are investing in youth athlete development at ever-younger ages, both to improve the numbers of potential pro athletes, but also because they know that the most ardent fans are those who played as kids.
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Private and large company foundations are investing in youth sports programs and tying them both to fitness to combat healthcare cost increases and to educational initiatives to ensure a more-educated future workforce.
HBO REAL SPORTS & TIME MAGAZINE GET IN THE GAME “It has become the modern American family pastime. Traveling the country to participate in youth sports...An industry designed to cater to their obsession and lighten their wallets,” said anchor Bryant Gumbel on the August 24, 2017 edition of HBO Real Sports. The network’s 13 minute segment shined a new light on the TLC Revolution and families spending $10,000+ per year or more on travel practice and play. The segment focused particular interest on facility-packed communities such as Myrtle Beach and the 400-acre megaplex in the city of tiny Westfield, Indiana, which now offers 31 outdoor soccer fields, 3 indoor soccer fields, and 26 baseball and softball diamonds that in the most recent 12 months generated 1,200,000 visits and local visitor spending of $145 million. HBO Real Sports’ Youth Sports Inc. segment from August 24, 2017.
green Research report: the nation’s youth-sports industry has grown 55% since 2010. “The numbers have been catnip for investors,” he wrote. Sports Illustrated Play’s CEO Jeff Karp cited the fact that in the past year, $1 billion in venture capital has poured into the space. And while only 2% of high school varsity athletes go on to play in college, the NCAA’s $3 billion of scholarships are a giant carrot chased by parents, coaches and athletes. Sites such as www.middleschoolelite.com rank players as young as 8. The privatization of youth sports had become a thing. PRIVATIZED OR PROFESSIONALIZED? About the same time, the Aspen Institute’s Project Play 2017 report came out calling for an 8-point agenda to get kids involved in sports regardless of ability or zip code, to balance some of the trends driven by the TLC Revolution. Their data shows dwindling youth team sports participation, from 41.5%
Two weeks later, Time Magazine writer Sean Gregory’s piece “How Kids Sports Became a $15B Industry” hit the newsstands and mobile devices of 26 million American readers. His scoop, based on exclusive access to Susan Eustis’ Winter-
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Jon Solomon, Editorial Director Aspen’s Project Play
in 2011 to 36.9% in 2016, with the disparity getting markedly worse at lower income levels. Some individual sports such as gymnastics, flag football, hockey and lacrosse are growing, and others falling. The TLC Revolution’s drive to organized tourneys, leagues, clubs and teams has eroded free play and sports experimentation. And while paying to play is the norm, the vast majority of youth coaches are untrained, adding to the field’s foundational risk profile. The Institute’s Jon Solomon puts it this way: “We’d say that youth sports is not professionalized, it’s commercialized. If it were pro, coaches would be trained, which the data shows
they’re mostly not. Finding volunteers means you’re not going to get pros, and not going to get all training and motivational skills. Our 8 play agenda is a path toward participation, which includes more free play. Yet when kids play on a team, there’s a need for more professionally trained coaches.” While the Aspen Institute’s Solomon’s stands squarely in favor of physical play, he also gives a nod to the eSports world. “There are ways to get kids to play online and want to go out and physically play it. There are mechanisms that get kids to go out and play,” he says. Solomon continues, “Kids often play Madden Football online before they ever touch a real football. And remember, Paris may add eSports to the 2024 Olympics. Angela Ruggiero the USOC board member says she’s open to including eSports. We have to meet kids where they are and bring them into sports. Look at the NBA 2K sports league. It will convert some kids into fans and players.” Solomon is among a growing number calling for an end of the trend toward sports specialization and recruiting young. “Does it really create a good 13 or 16 year old player to specialize a 10 year old?” he asks. He also calls out the growing tension between high school and travel programs. “There are no institutions who are trying to build bridges. In fact, there are counter-moves by high schools. In Arizona now they are allowing year-round practices for football. Coaches don’t have any other way to access their high school teams. Its root cause is chasing scholarships. College coaches such as Urban Meyer don’t want to have to recruit so early and to see so many onesport athletes, but to compete, they feel like they have to.”
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CNN HERO MAX LEVITT When Max Levitt became equipment manager for the Syracuse University football team in 2009, he can remember feeling awe. “I’ll never forget walking into the equipment room,” he recalls. “Shelves full of the nicest cleats, shoulder pads, training gear, all top of the line.” Then, at the start of the season, he was asked to discard everything and replace it will allnew gear. The light bulb went off. There was a better use for all this gently-used equipment. In 2011, Levitt realized his college vision of sharing used sports gear with teams whose players could use a “food bank for sports equipment,” which is how he describes his invention, Leveling the Playing Field. From his 4,000-square-foot Maryland warehouse, Levitt has grown the organization to distribute $1 million worth of sporting goods to needy teams. Most donations come from local teams and individuals, with the occasional windfall from manufacturers or retailers updating their inventory. In October 2017, Levitt was nominated as a CNN Hero for his contribution to his community’s youth sports leagues. “Every kid should have the opportunity to play on a team,” Levitt says. “You learn work ethic, structure, sportsmanship, perseverance. You learn so much that will shape the person you become.” His biggest surprise since starting Leveling the Playing Field is how much used and new equipment is sitting in storage and is rarely or never used. “We’ll regularly get entire container-loads of never-opened gear, in the original packaging,” he notes. “I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of the joy of giving this stuff to kids who need it.”
Max Levitt
Founder, Leveling the Playing Field Info: Silver Springs, MD 2017 CNN Hero Nominee Distributed $1 million in 2nd-hand sporting goods to needy teams in 2017 BA, Sports Management, Syracuse University 2011
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Levitt’s organization is supported by a combination of cash donations from foundations and individuals, and a growing e-commerce business that remarkets new equipment. He considers Leveling the Playing Field first and foremost a way to ensure more kids can play, especially those in Title 1 schools, after-school youth programs and those engaging low-income kids. But along the way, he acknowledges that he may be a bit of a disruptor in the sporting goods business. “If giving gently-used equipment to kids who otherwise wouldn’t have it is being an industry disruptor, I’m all for it,” he smiles.
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YOUTH LEAGUE THEFT Of the 1,100 youth league leaders that have gone to jail for theft since 2009, here are 6 mug shots, and the 4 secrets to cut your risk of getting ripped off by 96% By Anne-Sophie Whitehead
Bank robbers rob banks because that’s where the money is. Since youth sports grew into a $15 billion business, now there’s plenty of money here too. Want proof? Here are 6 mug shots of recent convicted former youth league leaders who stole. Their stories are below. They are remarkably similar. You can cut your risk of being ripped off by 96% by doing 4 things—which you can see the infographic on the next page.
David Wells, 48, Hanover, New Hampshire Wells was the former treasurer of two Hanover-area youth sports leagues, the Hanover Soccer Club and South Western Youth Lacrosse. He was also a financial advisor for Counsel Trust Group which provides wealth-management and trust services. He embezzled over $604,719 from the soccer club accounts over a six-year period. The president of the soccer club, Tim Swingler, alerted police in December 2016 that funds were missing from the club account. He stole an additional $23,681 from the lacrosse club. Then he stole an additional amount from his clients at Counsel Trust Group, to bring the total to $758,001.19. Hanover Police Detective Marci Mead wrote that “Wells wrote a large number of checks to himself and
withdrew money, most of which did not appear to be related to (soccer club) business.” Swingler, the club president told the local paper, “When you have someone highly regarded in the community, you don’t question (their motives).” Cheryl Ritter, 53, Chapman, Pennsylvania Ritter was the former treasurer of the Moore Township Athletic Association, according to the Lehigh newspaper. She stole more than $11,000 from the association’s account and $4,000 from the parents’ auxiliary account. Ritter used debit cards for the two accounts between June 1, 2015, to April 29, 2016, to buy goods and services at 40 businesses. The money she took was earmarked for youth sports equipment,
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fees paid by parents, and proceeds from the group’s snack stand. Northampton County Judge Emil Giordano sentenced Ritter to four and a half to nine months in prison followed by five years of probation. She pleaded guilty to theft. Ritter said during the hearing she suffers from multiple sclerosis, according to Assistant District Attorney David Ceraul. But the judge felt the crime warranted some prison time despite her health issues, Ceraul said. Jeffrey Alan Rosenthal, 64, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Jeffrey Rosenthal, 64, was so beloved in the community that one of the 14th Ward Association ball fields was named for him. He was the league’s executive director. In September 2017 he faced felony charges of theft, forgery and
receiving stolen property. Police also charged him earlier in connection with the theft of $85,000 from the Taylor Allderdice Alumni Association. An investigation began in 2015 when Taylor Allderdice High School’s parent-teacher organization prepared to take over the alumni association. The new treasurer noticed checks written from the alumni association to the 14th Ward Baseball Association and from the baseball association to Rosenthal, investigators said. According to an affidavit, Rosenthal wrote 745 checks to himself totaling $288,000 between September 2009 and October 2015. When interviewed by investigators, he claimed the money was used to fund trophies, T-shirts, equipment and a new roof for the 14th Ward’s concession stand, authorities said. He said he wrote the check to reimburse himself for purchases he made for the league, according to a criminal complaint. Rosenthal did not use his own money to make purchases for those groups, the complaint states. He is accused of using the money to pay credit card companies, BMW Financial and other businesses. The 14th Ward league is described on its Facebook page as a “nonprofit youth baseball league run by community volunteers in
Pittsburgh’s East End.” Kerry Avery, 41, Placer County, California. Avery was the volunteer treasurer of Newcastle-Ophir Youth Soccer Club, the Newcastle Parent Teach Club and the Mid-Placer Little League. The investigation began when the soccer club account was reported as overdrawn by the club’s bank. She was booked into the Placer County Jail on a bail set at $100,000, investigators Timothy McCloud, 46, Green, Ohio McCloud, a former Green Little League president received an 18-month suspended prison sentence and two years of probation for grand-theft, a fourth-degree felony, for stealing from the league. Along with the suspended prison sentence and probation, Judge Christine Croce sentenced McCloud to 250 hours of community service and ordered that he have no contact with any charitable youth organization during his probation. Investigators found McCloud co-mingled his personal funds with league funds and used more
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than $27,000 in league funds for his personal use. The league had insurance that covered the theft, court officials said. Green Little League is a separate organization from Green Baseball Softball Federation, which has been in the community since 1958. Michael DiFlorio, 49, Williamstown, New Jersey DiFlorio was the former treasurer of the South Jersey Elite Invitational Youth Football League, and pleaded guilty to a charge of third-degree theft by unlawful taking after authorities say he stole $56,777. According to the state Attorney General’s Office, the Williamstown man had access to the league’s bank account through his role as treasurer, where he was responsible for paying bills on the organization’s behalf. Authorities say between July of 2014 and June 2016, DiFlorio made some $10,000 in cash withdrawals and purchases using the debit card and wrote more than $32,000 in checks made out to himself and -- in one case -- a friend. He also admitted stealing
THE SPACE RACE Fifteen years ago, who imagined how to build today’s $9 billion youth sports tourism market, and how to triple it in a few more years? Get ready to meet the smartest person in youth sports.
estate taxes, restaurant sales and additional development.” Local properties, by contrast, are paid for by taxes and park and rec budgets, which are dwindling, and are much less recession-proof than the tourist destinations. “But the magic comes,” Pathik continues, “when the tourist facilities can be used to serve the local market. That way, the facility is not draining the town budget, and is paid for by tourist fees and tourist-related taxes. That’s a win.” In today’s youth sports market, the direction is up
By Jay Whitehead
Dev Pathik thinks big by knowing many small things. “Did you know that privately-managed youth sports facilities don’t pay nearly as much for cups and toilet paper as city governments do?” “Did you know that short field 6-v-6 and 7-v-7 are the most profitable games you can play on a soccer field?” “Did you know that the number of door swings in and out of a town’s youth sports facility directly correlate to the body mass index of its residents?” Turns out, in youth sports facilities, small things add quickly. And nobody understands the math better than Dev Pathik. In 2003, he and his partners founded Sport Facility Advisors/Sports Facility Management, SFA/SFM for short. Since its inception, SFA has advised on $8 billion worth of youth and amateur complexes, and since 2014, SFM-managed facilities have hosted over 50 million visitors. He’s got nearly $1 billion in new facilities in the pipeline. In many ways, the TLC Revolution is the house that Dev’s math built. SFA/SFM’s Dev Pathik from the HBO Real Sports segment “Youth Sports Inc.
In the August, 2017 HBO Real Sports segment “Youth Sports, Inc.” Pathik coined the term “tournification” to describe youth sports tourism’s rise. And while sports tourist destinations such as ESPN Wide World of Sports and the Myrtle Beach complexes get the headlines, local facilities such as Drive Nation are also growing quickly. But the economics of tourist and local facilities differ greatly. “Sports tourist destinations are an economic development tool, like convention centers used to be,” Pathik explains. “They produce visits from outside folks, generating hotel bed and real
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One of the more remarkable of Dev Pathik’s mathematical insights is the correlation between facility door swings and local BMI. It calls on research from Johns Hopkins University professor Bruce Lee showing that if American kids exercised 25 more minutes three times a week it would result in 340,000 fewer obese kids with high-Body Mass Index, a 4 percent drop. “Every time the door swings on a youth sports facility, that’s more kids exercising, which leads to lower BMI,” he concludes. “What’s more, when mom drops the kids off, she typically spends money in the facility or at businesses close by, which means better local economic health as well. That’s a summary of our mission. The health and economic vitality of the communities we serve.” In Time Magazine’s September 4, 2017 cover story “How Kids Sports Became a $15B Industry,” Dev Pathik worried about the rising cost of play, lower access and declining youth participation. That concern is why his firm is partnering with LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising for easier, faster and surer financial support for the tournaments, leagues, clubs and teams who play at SFA/SFM-run facilities. “Pay to play is here to stay. And travel sports is the shining star of the youth sports scene,” he argues. “But it’s on us to set up programs such as LeagueGrowth.com and other shared service agreements to give more kids access. That’s why we’re so excited about openly promoting LeagueGrowth.com in cities where we’re working. We see it as vital to engaging kids to play at all levels.” Pathik’s great passion is the science behind privatized youth facilities such as Rocky Top Sports World in Gatlinburg, TN and Myrtle Beach Sports Center in Myrtle Beach, SC. “In Myrtle, we forecasted $7 million in year one revenues and we did $31 million,” he smiles. “And at Rocky Top, we forecast $10 million in economic impact and it did $17 million.” To get to such great results, Pathik employed an equation with 4 variables: Versatility + Frequency of Use + Density + Capital Costs. “Versatility means things like pouring con-
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Rocky Top Sports World from the air.
crete floors strong enough to support a lift so you can move equipment and portable surfaces and nets and walls,” he explains. “Frequency means filling off-peak hours with schools and corporate training. Density means packing more paid activities in each square foot, which even means laser tag and video arcades. And capital cost means ensure your debt service doesn’t eat your lunch.” In Dev Pathik’s mind, the future of youth facilities lies in two areas: user experience and technology-generated data. The realm of experience includes thinking about video and music, signage, menu and pre-trip prep and setting new standards of excellence. “Those are all things, for example, that Ripken Baseball does really well,” he says. He continues, “It also involves integrating character-building and leadership development, teambuilding, and athlete education into facilities, which Bo Jackson Elite and Upward Sports in Spartanburg South Carolina are both great at.” The future facility’s other defining features involve technology. “That means RFID balls and movement tracking, rebounders that get data on striking power and ball speed, smart registration systems, sports analytics and livestreaming. All of those technologies generate user data, which will more deeply engage athletes before, during and after play,” he predicts. “That matters a lot because advertisers in the future will not reach young athletes through stadium naming rights. They will reach young athletes via their data feeds, which will generate more revenues for the facilities, and help support more access.” A grand vision. But who would doubt the smartest person in youth sports?
Myrtle Beach Sports Center volleyball tournament.
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1099 V W2 The IRS got the TLC Revolution memo. As far as it’s concerned, youth leagues have gone pro. Recent IRS and state tax decisions have treated coaches, referees and league officials as W2 employees. What’s a league official to do? By Jay Whitehead
As any payroll or HR company such as Zenefits will counsel you, whether it comes to coaches, referees or league officials, what the IRS really cares about is “control.” Specifically, 3 types of control: behavioral, financial and type of business relationship. If your sports organization exerts one or more of them over the worker, then he or she is a W2 employee, and your organization has to pay payroll taxes on their wages. It’s a slippery slope. But here’s why the IRS is cracking down. IRS officials tell us that their data shows that up to 65% of organizations, for profit and non-profit, formed for youth sports either aren’t regularly filing tax returns or never file one. The Fredericksburg (Maryland) Area Soccer Club got hit in 2013. That was when the IRS determined that its coaches were employees, complete with federal and state payroll tax contributions. Since then, FASA raised its player fees by $50 to $100 per season to cover the $30,000 to $50,000 cost hike. FASA administrator Pete Cinalli told SoccerWire.com that the IRS determined the league was “controlling” its coaches’ behavior by telling them where and when to work, financial control because the coaches were not taking a profit and loss risk, and type of business relationship because they were eligible for certain work benefits. Bingo. Payroll taxes. McLean (Virginia) Youth Soccer felt the sting in November 2010. The Arlington (Virginia) Soccer Association in 2008. And Fairfield (Connecticut) United Soccer Association in 2007, when it was forced to pay over $10,000 in back taxes. Diane Oden, the Arlington finance manager, speaking of her coaches, said “I’ve yet to see any organization convince the IRS that they should not be employees.” Louise Waxler, the executive director of McLean Youth Soccer, who has worked as a soccer administrator for more than two decades, noted that her organization realized it could lose its nonprofit status if it does not comply with IRS regulations. But the IRS is not just picking on soccer. Volleyball felt so much pressure to clarify the dreaded “20 question” test for “employee” status that it drafted a list of tactics that would help leagues avoid having W2 status forced upon them. Among them:Avoid telling coaches where and when to practice. Let them set their own practice schedules and rent their own facilities.
Don’t train coaches directly, send them to a third party. Clubs or parents pay coaches a lump sum for a season rather than an hourly or monthly rate. Clubs shouldn’t provide coaches equipment. Don’t reimburse coaches directly for travel. A new agreement each season to avoid the appearance of an ongoing relationship. Only hire coaches who have outside jobs or other clients. Draconian? Yes. Impractical? For sure. Effective in avoiding a 1099 audit? Far less than 100%. At the very least, if you’re paying your referees, coaches and other league or tournament officials as contractors, have them complete W9 forms and at the end of the year, issue a 1099 form showing how much you paid them. Oh, and file your tax returns on time. A League Network survey of operators of 5 of the top 12 youth tournament operators in major team sports shows what 4 of the 5 are now paying their referees as W2 employees. It’s good business, they say. 3 of them even offer perks and benefits that keep the refs loyal to the tournament. And all say that building payroll tax costs into their fees avoids the anguish and disruption of an IRS audit. Bottom line: The best practice is to pay payroll taxes. Do it yourself with Quickbooks or Xero, or go with a service such as Zenefits. The next best practice is to pay your people as independent contractors, make an effort along the lines of the volleyball guidelines above, require W9 forms and file 1099s at year-end.
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LN TOP TEN LEAGUE MANAGEMENT SYSTEMS (LMS) 2017 This League Network Magazine Top Ten ranks the League Management Systems (LMS) now used by youth and amateur leagues to run their operations, in order of reported numbers of users. By The Editors of League Network Magazine
In 2017, League Network Magazine reported that 48% of youth and adult leagues surveyed report using a League Management System to track players, practices, coaches, games, registrations, payments, standings, and communications. But here’s what’s strange. We travel the country running LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising campaigns for teams. When we ask groups of individual team coaches how many of them use an LMS, often fewer than 15% raise their hands. And when we collect team and parent rosters to start LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising campaigns, most teams submit the lists on manually-created spreadsheets or Word documents rather than system-generated reports. What gives? Could it be that even though an LMS system are being implemented by half of leagues, that down in the trenches, the majority of team leaders are still using spreadsheets, phone lists and index cards? Or are teams simply using pieces of the LMS platforms, such as TeamSnap’s free communications tools or Shutterfly’s free photo-sharing, rather than the entire systems? At the very least, we know that LMS helps with theft control. League Network has tracked stories showing that since 2009, 1,100 youth league leaders have gone to jail, mostly for theft, yet the pace of theft arrests is anecdotally down. Electronic payments are easier to track and harder to steal than cash and checks. One leader in New Jersey says her league revenues jumped 7 percent without any price or participation increase, simply because her 400-team organization went from taking cash and check payments to all-electronic payments via an LMS. In youth sports, old habits die hard. As a result, the LMS market is still in its early days. But LMS providers are quickly gathering increasing numbers of users, even if the users are only accessing a portion of each package’s capabilities. BILLIONS AT STAKE Youth tournament, league, club, team and facility registration fees this year will total over $10.5 billion. On that $10.5 billion, LMS providers can earn several percentage points in transaction fees, an amount worth fighting over.
Here are 3 reasons that this 2017 Top Ten in LMS looks like the story of an arms race: 1) Today, we count 92 different League Management System (LMS) platforms that promote their ability to help youth leagues organize themselves and handle registrations and player payments, team and player communications, game and practice and field scheduling, tournaments, showcases, coach scheduling, referee scheduling, and even background checking. 2) Since mid-2015, nearly $1 billion has been invested to build, acquire and market LMS systems. 3) The 10 largest LMS systems report users totaling over 89 million. That’s roughly twice the sum of all organized U.S. youth and amateur sport players and coaches. Obviously, that means users are often counted several times as they play, parent, or coach for multiple teams. Several youth league leaders who are also sports parents tell League Network that their family alone represents 20 or more LMS system accounts.
Check out the LN Top Ten chart on the next page for the full details. Here’s how they rank: 1. Blue Star Sports
2. SI Play
3. TeamSnap 4. ACTIVE Sports
5. Dicks’ TeamSportsHQ
6. SportsEngine
7. LeagueApps 8. GotSoccer
10. Oasys Sports
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9. IM Leagues
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PRICING With the exception of Dick’s TeamSports HQ, which is free forever based on the system’s sponsorship by Dick’s Sporting Goods, the pricing of LMS platforms generally includes two pieces. First, a monthly or annual software rental or website development fee which may be a flat fee or cost per registration. And second, cost of credit card transactions that range from 1.5% to 3.0% plus a per-transaction charge that might range from $0.10 to $0.30. Many leading systems have a free trial period before the software fees kick in. And contract terms run from month-to-month to multiple years. While 48% of tourneys, leagues, clubs and teams now report using an LMS, about 70% say they plan for their leagues to be online by 2018. User attitudes on pricing vary widely, as users of free LMS features vastly outnumber those who use paid features. However, users collecting registration fees via an LMS are less worried about fees than about receiving registration funds quickly and not having to track of receivables, cash and check payments. While most LMS platforms remit registration payments every two weeks and take their fees every month, some are offering innovations that pay quicker. The 7th-largest LMS provider, LeagueApps, recently announced that it had booked its $500 millionth dollar in payments. Other platforms have been less forthcoming with their total payments volume, but it’s reasonable to expect that other providers who claim many more than LeagueApps’ 1M users, are doing larger payment volume by several times. THE NEW TOP TEN FASHION ACCESSORY: BACKGROUND SCREENING If you’ve ever attended a software conference, you’ve heard the phrase “feature creep.” That’s when software makers include ever-more features in their software, hoping to get an edge over the competition. You know this as an owner of a smartphone that’s loaded with a bunch of apps or accessories that you pay for (but probably never use). In LMS, the newest “feature creep” accessory is background checking for coaches or volunteers. Five of the LN Top Ten LMS providers have now incorporated screening into their LMS platforms, most in the form of a plug-in from a large background checking company. You pay for the screenings on a per-use basis, just as you do if you buy checking services directly from a screening company. Now, the functionality is often built right into your LMS rather than being a separate function. Our LN Top Ten providers tell League Network that are now or soon will include features and partnerships that deliver decorated apparel, active and passive fundraising, insurance, coaching and video analytics, and recruiting tools. CAN AN LMS DRIVE PHOTO SHARING AND SPORTING GOODS SALES? LMS systems are fundamentally a productivity tool for very busy YLMs, most of whom are volunteers with day jobs and family responsibilities. Yet several enterprises are experimenting with using LMS systems as loss-leaders to sell photo storage and printing services or sporting goods. Whether either of these approaches has worked as a significant user-driver is still unclear. An example in the photo storage field is Shutterfly, a company that is taking advantage of the coincidence that sports parents are freakishly frequent picture takers, and often serve as coaches or YLMs for their kids’ sports teams or leagues. Shutterfly users interviewed by League Network say that having a LMS that’s built into a photo app they’re already using is a convenience. The trade-off is that the LMS features may be less robust than those in a dedicated LMS application. In the sporting goods field, in 2012, Dick’s Sporting Goods acquired the LMS Blue Sombrero, which then became the first free LMS. In return for free software, users see offers and coupons from Dick’s. “It’s like broadcast TV,” one user told us. “I tolerate the ads because it’s free.” LN Top Ten in LMS--Honorable Mentions These systems, while just below the Top Ten in total reported users, have significant numbers of users. ManageYourLeague.com | Leagueworks.com | Teampages.com | Fieldateam.com | Ourteamapp.com Easy-league.com | Sportsleaguesites.com | Teamstuff.com | Teamsideline.com | Sportsorganizer.com SportsPilot.com | Mysportsite.com | Scorebook.com | Leaguemanagementapp.com | Shutterfly.com Sportsavvy.com
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When you put in the work, you’re ready to take on anything. Get the gear your team needs to be ready at www.sklz.com.teams-coaches. © 2016 Pro Performance Sports, LLC
FUNDRAISING’S FUTURE: 25 DAYS TO $2500 OR MORE Put raffles, candy sales, banquets, and tricky tray auctions in the rear view mirror. The future of $3B in youth and amateur team fundraising is online, and you’ll never sell candy again. Today, 80% of youth and high school team sports leagues, clubs and teams must fundraise to cover the $3 billion shortfall between actual season costs and player or school funding. For the 20% who never fundraise, count yourself lucky and turn the page. This piece is for the rest of us. League Network Magazine’s 2016 survey of youth sport leaders showed that 87% count fundraising as the most painful part of running their tournament, league, club, team or facility. In fact, fundraising is a top reason volunteers
quit, or avoid volunteering in the first place. But if it’s not done, teams fold, and kids can’t play. Since 2015, team fundraising has seen 3 big changes. First, digital and phone cameras have killed 75%-85% of team photography programs. From 1990 to 2014, leagues funded 3% to 12% of their annual budgets with team photo commissions. But cheap and ubiquitous cell phone cameras changed all that. In September 2017, Sportography, the perennial team photo market leader ceased operations. Bye-bye photo money. Second, ordering online spirit wear for fundraising is now easier and more productive than ever, with online spirit wear innovators such as Squadlocker and GTM/Hanes now adding 10% to 20% of online sales to team budgets. Third, enter online crowdfunding. Market leader GoFundMe recently made headlines when Houston Texans’ J.J. Watt raised $37 million for 2017 Houston hurricane relief. Earlier it raised $11 million for Las Vegas shooting victims and $8 million for Orlando’s Pulse nightclub massacre. And while youth sports teams started using GoFundMe in 2014-2016, League Magazine’s late 2016 survey of results from team campaigns on GoFundMe revealed that 76% failed to raise any money. Why? Because a self-serve crowdfunding campaign on GoFundMe
is hard work. In the words of 4-time Super Bowl champ, NFL Hall of Famer and youth sports advocate Ronnie Lott, “No coach ever got into youth sports to be a good crowdfunder.” From 76% failure to 94% success, easier, faster, surer To solve the problem of high sports team campaign failure on self-serve crowdfunding platforms, League Network founder and 15-year youth sports league leader Anne-Sophie Whitehead teamed up with app development pioneers Kiwitech to build an easier, faster, surer team solution. She calls it LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising, and it now claims 94% success in hitting team campaign goals that average $2500 in 25 days. “Rather than 100% do-it-yourself, our expert Captains run the campaigns,” Anne-Sophie Whitehead explains. “It took lots of work to make LeagueGrowth.com this simple: Our Captains plus our technology equals easier, faster, more secure fundraising.” LeagueGrowth.com now counts several tournament operators, the largest youth sports facility operator, and two major team registration systems among its partners. “Our goal is to raise over $20 million for youth teams in 2018, and hit 9 figures by 2020. We won’t fill the entire $3 billion fundraising hole,” she admits, “but we’ll punch above our weight.”
Campaign WHY RAISE WITH EASIER, FASTER, BrandsUS? % Cost Value Proposition SURER. Duration
Type of Team Fundraiser
15% 1st, 10% 2nd+
LeagueGrowth.com Captains run campaigns, resulting in 94% success hitting team campaign goals.
25 Days
Self-Service Crowdfunding
7.9% + $0.30 per donation
Inexpensive, but difficulty of selfservice crowdfunding means 76% of team campaigns fail to raise >$1.
9-12 Weeks
Sports Team Fundraisers
25%-40%
Only high school & college campaigns, no youth. High pressure.
9 Weeks
Banquets
50%-75%
High expense, low yield. 40%-to-65% of banquets fail to hit funding goals.
12 Weeks
50%
Requires significant selling effort for 50% yield.
10 Weeks
Product Sales
75%-80%
Requires significant selling effort for 20%-25% yield.
12 Weeks
Passive Shopping
80%-95%
Easy and passive, yet slow to generate funds and yields 5%-20%.
26 Weeks 0
LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising
Raffles
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A BITE OF THE LITTLE APPLE
ecommerce of their time, proved to
You know Nike CEO Phil Knight from his book Shoe Dog. You’ve seen Kevin Plank’s UnderArmour on Any Given Sunday or The Wire. You’ve watched Reebok founder Paul Fireman host major golf tourneys at his Liberty National Golf Club. But what about youth sports apparel action coming out of “the Little Apple,” Manhattan, Kansas? By Jay Whitehead
Manhattan, Kansas is the answer to one of the great tackle football trivia questions of all time: “Where was the ‘wildcat offense’ born?” The answer is Kansas State University. Wildcat coaches Bill Snyder and Del Miller made a run at number one in 1997 and 1998 by snapping the ball to running backs and receivers and using quarterbacks as runners. Coach Urban Meyer later borrowed it for his Bowling Green team (and for a bigger paycheck at another Ohio school), as did NFL star and coach Steve Spurrier. With its 24,000 students, K-State is the largest employer in this town of 60,000. Another big Manhattan employer, GTM Sportswear, was acquired by $6 billion sportswear giant Hanes Brands, owner of Champion, in late 2016. The 650-employee company’s founder, Dave Dreiling, spent time with League Network Magazine’s Jay Whitehead before the TLC Sport Summit 2017. His story and thoughts on the past and future of youth and high school sports, are worthy additions to the colorful history of American sports apparel.
LEAGUE NETWORK: Dave, your journey into youth and high school sports came after you’d found success selling decorated apparel into fraternities and sororities. Tell us how you discovered the youth and high school niche, and what are the big trends you’ve seen?
DAVE DREILING: It’s Greek to Me started in 1989, selling to college fraternities and sororities. In January 1993 we got a call from a small high school golf coach. We had a relationship with Charles River for a pullover jacked selling big in the greek market. I wondered if that would be an entry item into high school sports.
I hired a team dealer. We randomly picked 100 Kansas high schools for whom we made samples. We called them, to find Mr. or Mrs. Spirit. We showed samples around in March 1993, knowing we needed to sell 6 for each sample to break event. By June, we’d sold 15 for every sample so we knew we were onto something. Phone and catalog, the
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be a better model than putting reps on the road.
In the mid-1990s the high school and youth market was only served by independent sporting goods dealers or screen printers. We found a factory in China for warmups, and now we’re 100% of that factory’s business, bypassing wholesalers. At the time, warmups were $79 to $99, and orders took 2 to 4 months. Because we cut out all those layers, we were at $49 and we could ship in 2 weeks, and do fill-ins. Customers started finding us.
LEAGUE NETWORK: Coaches and team leaders are your customers. What’s your secret with them?
DAVE DREILING: For coaches, the apparel process is painful. They just want to coach. If something is not done correctly, their lives are miserable. We now ship coaches free “shopping samples” for the kids
to try. To be selected over the local guy, we need to be super easy to do business with.
LEAGUE NETWORK: How did you come upon the youth market?
DAVE DREILING: High school coaches also run youth programs. So in the late 1990s, as the greek market leveled and high school and youth teams increased, we dropped the “I” and became GTM. Today, youth and high school are each half of our business. I expect that the youth market will outpace high school in the future. Youth is a bit more price sensitive than high school.
LEAGUE NETWORK: For your customer-facing people, what’s your ideal personality profile?
DAVE DREILING: Of our 650 people, about 150 are in sales or customer experience. Personality trait number one is empathy. A lot of our business is cheer and dance, Empathy is a big deal in cheer, because cheer moms are not bashful about their issues.
LEAGUE NETWORK: What do you think about the big predictions about youth sports spending?
they’d rather wear something more personal.
J37
LEAGUE NETWORK: When a company like yours gets acquired by a giant like Hanes, what are the most important things for your staff and customers to understand?
DAVE DREILING: Nike, Adidas and UnderArmour have all done endorsements that inflate prices. We run the store for Kansas State with $100 Nike jerseys that cost $10. In my lifetime, we’ll see backlash. Teams will find it offensive to spend twice as much money on a brand that’s not theirs.
DAVE DREILING: For 25 years we experienced 24% annual compound growth, which means we rarely lost a customer. We have to continue that, and now have is a world class supply chain. We’re the face of Champion, inventors of the hoodie, the mesh short and the sports bra. There’s lots of authenticity there.
LEAGUE NETWORK: What’s the future of the decorated apparel experience?
DAVE DREILING: A pivot toward mass customization. People want to go online and design their own fanwear. Then there’s the Amazon Effect. If buying is more than 2-to3 clicks away, you’ll have trouble. That means software, a transition to online user experience from human interface. But we found that something as complex as custom and team orders continue to require the backstop of a live voice.
DAVE DREILING: I think youth sports spending is recession-resistant. The best example is in the big recession in 2008, we doubled in size in a 3-year period. If you’re a youth sports mom, you’ll cut a lot of things before your kids’ sports. Travel has impacted decorated apparel spending a lot. When events are local, parents are fans for an hour. But if it’s across state for a weekend, fan wear becomes more important. Parents wear colors from their college or pro team. But they realize
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LEAGUE NETWORK: What are the trends in price?
LEAGUE NETWORK: What about your relationship with the TeamSnap platform? DAVE DREILING: It changes the dynamic when TeamSnap and others with the registration relationship can offer up apparel solutions to tournaments, leagues, clubs and teams. LEAGUE NEWORK: What’s your team and decorated apparel best practice advice to tourney, league, club and team folks? DAVE DREILING: First, start early. That’s how you get great pricing, quality, and service. You can’t get all 3 if you’re late. Second, ask about fill-ins and return policy. That saves a bunch for teams who a 2-to-3 year rotation and not buy each year. Third, work with someone you can trust, who has your back, because team apparel is a thankless job. Your company needs to have your back. Because in team gear, the best you can hope for us is peace, even if you did it perfectly.
TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
LaVar
Arrington
Xtreme Procision and Xtreme Prevention
3-time Pro Bowler with NFL’s Washington Redskins 2000-2005. On “The Mount Rushmore of Penn State Football,” famous for his “LaVar Leap” vs. Illinois. Broadcaster on Comcast SportsNet and NFL Network. Now works in training and youth sports with Xtreme Procision and Xtreme Prevention and All Mammal 7on7 football.
Bob
Azar
World Pre-Collegiate Championship Showcase
Invented the World Collegiate Soccer Championship 1984-1992, and is reviving the series in 2018 alongside the World Pre-Collegiate Championship Showcase for ~300 international youth teams in Texas. A member of the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame (shown here with his grandson at his induction ceremony).
Tom
Berkman
Hotels4Teams/ THS
Pioneer in sports travel since 1992, Tom invented the Sports Housing Service specializing in amateau tournaments, handling the in-bound housing for 2,660 amateur tourneys since inception. Hotels4Teams books hotels for travel teams and their families.
Joetta
Clark Diggs
Joetta Sports & 4-time Olympian (1988, 1992, 1996, 2000) in the 800 meters and 1500 meters. At the 2000 US Olympic Beyond Trials, member of the first-ever family team to qualify 3 members. Her book “Joetta’s ‘P’ Principles” has guided thousands of track and field athletes, and her Foundation promotes sports for school-aged youth and opportunities in sports and entertainment. NJbased Joetta Sports & Beyond delivers messages of health and fitness.
Anthony
Corleto
Pop Warner & Wilson Elser
As a partner at CT law firm Wlson Elser, Sony acts as General Counsel of Pop Warner Youth Football and Cheer, and is on the Board of Directors. Counsel for the National Sports Concussion Coalition, advancing concussion management in youth and adult sports. Expert in youth sports insurance and risk.
Brian
Delahant
US Amateur Baseball
President of United States Amateur Baseball (USABL), which was founded by Brian’s father. USABL was the first youth and adult amateur travel baseball league in the NY-NJ-CT area and was established in 1985. Now has over 2,000 teams playing Spring, Summer and Fall Baseball.
Dave
Dreiling
GTM Hanes
Founded It’s Greek To Me (IGTM) in 1989 selling logowear to frats and sororities, which evolved into GTM, the largest decorated apparel and spirit wear inside-sales organization for youth and high school teams in the US. Acquired by Hanes in late 2016, GTM Hanes is rapidly expanding its youth and high school sports high tech spirit wear business by partnering with leading LMS platforms.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Dave
DuPont
TeamSnap
Cornell engineer and Harvard MBA, deep in international energy and digital storage technologies. In 2009 took the helm of youth sports online and mobile app leader TeamSnap in Boulder, CO, which has grown to serve 300k+ teams and 15M users in 130 countries. Has run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain more than once.
Susan
Eustis
Wintergreen Research
Founded Wintergreen Research in 1985 and published hundreds of cutting-edge industry research reports, including the definitive Youth Team, League and Tournament Sports: Market Shares, Strategies, and Forecasts Worldwide 2017 to 2023 that pegged today’s youth market at $15.3B.
Dominick
Ferraro
College Select & All League Baseball
Founder and CEO of SC-based College Select, home of the well-known College Match Technology, and producer more scholarship funds for students than any other education entity in the college planning industry. Long-time youth tournament leader founded All League Baseball, a 350-team tourney associated with USSSA in SC.
Bonnie
Goldberg
Capitol Hill Vol- The Mizuno Capitol Hill Volleyball Classic brings leyball Classic 1,000 girls youth VB teams to the DC Convention
Center each year. VB Mid-American All-Conference at Eastern Michigan and played pro at Kussnacht in Switzerland. Also runs American Volleyball Camps. With husband, American U VB head coach Barry Goldberg, has 3 kids who all played college sports.
Terry
Hasseltine
Named 2017 Sports Tourism Executive of the Year Maryland Sports Authority by NASC, he leads the Maryland Sports and is VP
of the Maryland Stadium Authority. Maryland Sports is responsible for over $1 billion of economic activity, much of it in youth and amateur sports. Its MarylandSports.us and TEAMMaryland.us sites are among the best state youth sports directories.
Eric
Hutcherson
NBA
Used a master’s degree in sports management from U Mass-Amherst to migrate from Foot Locker to PR Director for the Boston Celtics to become CHRO for HR consultant Mercer then Chief HR Officer for insurance giant Marsh. Married sports and HR in 2015 as SVP HR at the NBA, where he also serves as a motivational speaker and also on the Board of Trustees for the Hun School of Princeton, NJ.
Lenny
Kaplan
NJIT
Since coming to NJIT from Manhattan College in 2000, he has grown 13,000-student NJIT athletic program from D2 into D1 for 14 NJIT teams as part of the 8-team Atlantic Sun Conference. He was honored as ECAC D1 Administrator of the Year 2015 and instrumental in the building of the school’s new $102 million Wellness and Events Center, which opens in late 2017.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Greg
Kristof
Zero Gravity Basketball
A 4-year varsity hoops star and 2-year captain at Brandeis University, he forewent a Wall Street career to coach at The Brimmer and May School, won 120 games in 6 years and put 7 players on NCAA D1 teams. He founded Zero Gravity, which now manages 70 basketball events nationwide, some over 600 teams. For Adidas, he manages hoops events for NYC-area HOUSE OF SPORTS, and leads the prestigious All Academic Camp, Prep Classic and Scholar Roundball Classic.
Max
Levitt
Leveling the Playing Field
Founded Leveling the Playing Field in 2012, an grew it into a 2017 CNN Heroes nominee. The non-profit collects and redistributes new and used sporting equipment to over 400 youth sports programs in underprivileged communities in the DC and Baltimore metros. Now doing over $1M/year, and shooting for national expansion.
Greg
Ludke
TeamSnap
A Marquette math major who developed new tech products for HomeSpace.com, Agency.com and Intuit, he is now Director of Product at 15M-user TeamSnap. That means designing and developing the market’s best registration, rostering, scheduling and payments apps for youth and amateur sports tournaments, leagues and clubs. Oh, and being dad to twins.
Ken
McDonald
TeamSnap
A Dartmouth math major with a Stanford MBA who built LifePics from 4,000 users to over 12 million. Then wrote the book about how to do it (“How to Acquire Your First Million Customers”) and applied the formula to TeamSnap as Chief Growth Officer and grew the youth sports app leader from 500k users in 2012 to over 15 million today.
Chris
Meade
SportsRecruits
A Wesleyan LAX player who in 2008 leveraged his experience to found LacrosseRecruits.com to help young athletes get recruited into college programs. Then in 2010 evolved his LAX experience into SportsRecruits.com which operates VolleyballRecruits.com, FieldHockeyRecruits.com, and SoccerRecruits.com.
Dale
Nalls
Fierce Nation Lacrosse
For over 21 years, the Chairman and league director at Fierce Nation Lacrosse in Alexandria VA, serving LAX leagues with 600 high school 100 youth athletes. And because that’s not enough LAX for a true addict, he’s also Varsity Head Coach at South County High in Lorton, VA with 80 student-athletes and 13 conference championships.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Roman
Oben
NFL
12-year NFL veteran of the New York Giants, Cleveland Browns, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Diego Chargers, NFLPA union representative, broadcaster with Fox, MSG and SportsNet, and founder of Oben Flag Football (USA Football), he became the NFL’s Director of Youth & High School Football in 2014.
Dev
Pathik
SFA/SFM
Founded Sports Facility Advisors in 2003, responsible for the planning of $8 billion of youth sports facilities, and co-founded Sports Facility Management, which manages facilities hosting 15 million visitors/year. Facilities include Rocky Top, Drive Nation, Myrtle Beach, et al. Featured recently in Time Magazine and HBO Real Sports segments on youth sports, and in this magazine as well.
Laura
Petrillo
Youth1 Media
As President of Youth1 Media, she covers over a dozen youth sports for a digital audience of over 500,000. Also recently launched ACT, a nationwide standardized fitness test for youth athletes available at hundreds of certified locations nationwide.
Atwaan
Randle El
Big Ten Network
Multi-sport athlete in high school and college at Indiana, NFL Super Bowl Champion with the Pittsburgh Steelers who played 8 years in the league. Retired to be athletic director at Virginia Academy, and covers college football for the Big Ten Network.
Cal
Ripken, Jr.
Ripken Baseball
Major League Baseball’s all-time leader with 2,632 consecutive games played, MLB Hall of Famer, World Series Champion, 19-time All Star, 2-time AL MVP. Also a youth sports entrepreneur who owns 3 multifield baseball and softball facilities, runs the Ripken Baseball league and owns a minor league team. Best-selling author of The Ripken Way.
Gabby
Roe
YSC Sports Marketing
Former GM of Pro Beach Volleyball who moved into action sports marketing with ASA Entertainment, then to YSC which owns and operates properties such as Philadelphia Union and its Academy, Urban Dance Education Foundation, CID Sports, APL Soccer Tournament.
Barry “Slice”
Rohrssen
Univ. of Kentucky
Former head basketball coach at Manhattan College, assistant at University of Kentucky (national championship team under coach John Calipari), UNLV, St. Johns and Pitt. Also has several acting roles to his credit including Glengarry Glen Ross.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Amy
Rusert
Rocky Mountain Rugby & Air Force Academy Rugby
A Virginia Tech field hockey captain in college who has parlayed her collegiate experience into success in coaching high school and college rugby. She leads the US Air Force Academy Women’s Rugby team and the Palmer Terrors High School Rugby team, and is an advocate for womens’ sports.
Tom
Sclafani
Coaches Choice
As a psychology undergrad, was assistant womens hoops coach at Scranton, where he caught the basketball bug. Since 1989, he has run Coaches Choice USA basketball camps and tournaments, and serves as a management company for former pro athletes and coaches. Also ran the large NJ facility Hoop Nation and THR Video which does highlight reels for student athletes.
David
Shapiro
Steel Sports
After playing hoops at UC Davis, and spending 10 years in ascending roles at Jim Thompson’s youth sports advocacy and education non-profit The Positive Coaching Alliance where he remains a Board Member, joined investor Warren Liechtenstein’s Steel Sports as CEO in 2015. Steel Sports acquires an operates youth sports platform companies such as Baseball Heaven.
David
Sims
JAMZ Cheer & Dance
Started his cheerleading career at Wake Forest and was an NCA Collegiate Grand National Champions at NC State in 2001. A leading judge and advisor to the cheerleading industry for over 14 years, has held the role as JAMZ Legal Counsel and Advisor since 2008. Is also a practicing litigation attorney in San Francisco and Los Angeles.
Lance
Smith
Next Level Sports
A varsity LAX player at UC Davis, he transitioned into the video game business with GameStrata and GameFly. Then advertising tech with GraphScience, where in 2011 he started his non-profit Next Level Sports in youth flag football and soccer around the Bay Area at 3 other locations, San Luis Obispo, Salinas and Nevada.
Jon
Solomon
Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program
Following a 17 year career in reporting for the Washington Post, the Birmingham News, and CBSSports. com, he joined the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program as Editorial Director. Produced the 2017 Project Play to promote health and inclusion in youth sports.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Jim
Thompson
Bo Jackson’s Elite Sports
Since 2007, has served as the President of Bo Jackson’s Elite Sports, with two spectacular indoor training and education centers, one in Lockport, IL and the other a 114,000 square foot facility in Hilliard,OH, both supporting baseball, softball, football and summer camps. He also serves on Bo Jackson’s Give Me A Chance Foundation.
Glenn
Valis
CRJ Inc
A 21-year veteran of the Baltimore Police Department, 11 years ago he retired to a job most people in youth sports can only dream about: running Ripken Baseball/CRJ Inc., the youth and amateur baseball empire of MLB Hall of Famer Cal Ripken, Jr., and supporting the fundraising and fulfillment efforts of the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation.
Jen
Vescio
Oath/Verizon
Starting in 1992 coaching soccer in the Olympic Development program in PA and NJ and at Carnegie Mellon and Princeton, she embarked on a star-studded media development career in tech and sports with Monster, Yodlee, Yahoo!, CBS, ESPN, TeamSnap (BoD), PGA Tour and now Global Head of Development at Verizon’s Oath (sports, news, tech, finance), and along the way a UCLA MBA.
Ashley
Wells
EDP Soccer
A credentialed and British-born and trained soccer tournament, player development and operations professional with leading roles at United Soccer Academy, Jersey Blues FC, New Jersey Soccer Group, Sofive and now Director of Tournament Operations at MSSL/EDP, the East’s largest soccer tournament and showcase operation.
Anne-Sophie
Whitehead
League Network
Her 15 years running NJ’s largest 6-sport youth league as a volunteer taught her there’s no single source of youth league best practices and fundraising. Armed with 25 years’ tech and media startup experience, an MBA, and a partner who can raise money, she launched League Network and LeagueGrowth.com Assisted Fundraising, with the trademarked mission “Better Leagues, Better Lives.”
Jay
Whitehead
League Network
His experience launching 17 companies with 5 exits in media, IT and fundraising makes him a good complement to League Network’s founder’s skills. A lifelong multisport athlete with 72 marathon finishes to his credit, he believes that next to family and education, youth sports are the best thing you can give a kid.
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TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 SPONSORS The TLC Sport Summit 2017 would like to thanks its pioneering sponsors for making this event possible.
TITLE SPONSORS
PRESENTING SPONSOR
PLATINUM SPONSOR
GOLD AND SILVER SPONSORS
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SCREENING REALITY
Remember where you were when Subway spokesman Jared Fogle was arrested on child porn charges in July 2015? I do. I saw it on my phone at a youth soccer game. I immediately remembered two statistics: the average “seducer” molester victimizes 120 kids before he is caught, and for every serious incident reported, 10 go unreConvicted child sex offender Jared Fogle ported. Fogle came up again in June 2016, when a judge denied his argument that he was innocent because all he did was watch child porn supplied by the executive director of his foundation. Yeah, Jared, the very same executive director YOU HIRED. Remember the first time you heard about a big youth league theft? I do. I was fifteen, and it was the Little League in my home town, Carmel, California. Someone endangered the season by stealing $3,000 (it was 1974…$3,000 was Your best 2-point program to prevent abuse and theft from visiting big money then). There have been tens your league of thousands of youth league thefts since then and each one of them devastated BY JAY WHITEHEAD its league and community. What can you do to protect your league from Jareds and thieves? Background screening is a great start. Bebankruptcy or a 10-year-old drunk drivcause screening data availability from ing conviction? How does your league federal and state databases has imdraw the line, and what do you do with proved so much in the past five years, the information? After all, there is alyou can significantly cut your league’s ways the threat that by leaking somerisks by screening folks who haven’t been thing embarrassing, the league could previously screened. get sued. (Directors and Officers insurWhile screening is now better and ance coverage, aka “D&O,” often covfaster, it’s still politically complicated. ers lawsuit costs but not always.) You’re screening your friends and neighAnd youth league volunteer screenbors. Sure, if you find a serial check-thief ing is pricey, from $9 to $35 each time or a convicted sex offender, you saved you pull a report. That means that if your league from near-certain victimyou have 250 coaches and a board of ization. But what if what you discover is 20, that’s going to run you somewhere merely cringe-producing, like a missed between $2,430 and $9,450. That’s the child support payment or a personal cost of several teams’ tournament entry
Background Checking: Got a Jared Fogle on Your Team?
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fees, travel to those away games, or replacement of old equipment that’s damaged and dangerous. So what’s the best practice? Here is your 2-point short course. 1. Have your league decide to screen volunteers of certain types, including your board, once, then again at least annually for newcomers. Then, follow two basic rules: First, disclose to everyone (on you website, for example) that list you screen volunteers, and the offenses or findings that would disqualify an applicant or current volunteer. Second, collect the minimum amount of information necessary to accomplish the goal, and don’t keep the info around so it can be accidentally released. 2. Pick a background screening company. Starting August, 2016, on the LeagueNetwork.com Buyer’s Guide, you can pick from several dozen screening companies who serve youth leagues and volunteer organizations. In the meantime, check the National Association of Background Screeners, www.napbs.com. Stick with companies that confirm to the Fair Credit Reporting Act or FCRA, and who do both federal and local (at least state-level) checks. The services that may be satisfactory for your league offer “minimalist” screens, and example of which is the “red,” “green” scale. While not giving you the specific reason for the designation, these scales allow you to set the “red” level, or what is “unacceptable” for your league, such as a conviction for sexual molestation or financial theft or violence against a sports official. “Acceptable” or “green” would be everything else, the specifics of which are not shown on the reports to protect you and your league from inadvertent disclosure.
THE LAST WORD Celebrating 8 heroes of the TLC Revolution. By Jay Whitehead Every revolution has its heroes. George Washington in America. Napoleon in France. Lenin in Russia. Mao in China. Che Guevara in Cuba. Our tournament, league and club revolution has heroes too. None with a picture on money. But they made modern youth sports what it is. You will meet one of them at the TLC Sport Summit 2017. Others, past, present and future, will be celebrated at TLC Sport Summits in 2018, 2019, 2020 and beyond.
Here are 8 heroes of the TLC Revolution, in no particular order, with words of recognition. Cal Ripken, Jr.
His endurance record of 2,632 consecutive games combined with his Ripken Way to teach more diamond sport coaches and players than any single individual ever. His youth complexes, league and charities set the modern standards for excellence.
Bill Rasmussen
The founder of ESPN, whose daily influence on youth coach, parent and player behavior cannot be overstated. Responsible for Sports Center, the video highlight reel, youth, high school and college player rankings and ESPN WWOS sports tourism.
Michael Jordan
A cultural icon for youth athletes, coaches and parents beyond basketball. Created the shoe-dominated economy in youth, high school and NCAA tourneys and showcases. Set fashion and behavioral standards for 3 generations of youth athletes.
Pele
Single most-important influence in making soccer the world’s most popular sport. By playing late-career in the US, made the beautiful game a top-4 youth sport across all genders and cultures in N. America.
Patsy Takemoto Mink
The Hawaiian congressperson who in 1972 introduced the Title IX law mandating girls’ school sports parity with boys, and after whom the law was renamed in 2002.
Mo’ ne Davis
First girl to pitch a shutout in the Little League World Series (2014). First Little League baseball player to be featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated. “I Throw Like a Girl” became a thing after Spike Lee produced a TV documentary film about her.
Billie Jean King
Empowered the grandmothers and mothers of today’s female youth athletes to not just play, but play to compete and win in sports far beyond tennis. And broke barriers by coming out as a gay athlete.
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar
Invented youth sports’ most iconic aspirational move, the basketball dunk—banned because he was so good at UCLA. First baller to use a Muslim name, an example for 3 generations of young African-Americans. Also made safety goggles cool.
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42 TOURNAMENT,
How to raise $2500 for Each Team in 25 Days
LEAGUE & CLUB LEADERS YOU NEED TO KNOW
4 Secrets to Cutting Your League’s Theft Risk
Sports Facility SPACE RACE Champion of the Other Big Apple
Top 10 Youth League Management Systems
TLC SPORT SUMMIT 2017 KEYNOTE CAL RIPKEN JR. Your Role in the $15B Tourney, League & Club