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FRIDAY, OCTOBER 16, 2026 · SPECIAL REPORT

Read our full coverage: NextUp '26 →

On Wednesday, The Coach's Board was in the room at LeagueApps' NextUp '26 at Civic Hall in Union Square: the youth sports industry's own conference, with 420 people in the room and a day built for the people running programs. Here's the day in three stops, with every piece a tap away.

Morning. LeagueApps' Brian Litvack and Jeremy Goldberg opened by reading the last 60 days of headlines — affordability, capital, safety — back to a room where most operators are paying more for facilities, insurance and coaching and making less. Their counter: the U.S. underinvests in youth sports (peer nations spend about two and a half times the public dollars), the system is the most fragmented in the world, and most "sports problems" are business problems. Marc Lasry and Arn Tellem, two men who made fortunes in pro sports, spent 25 minutes telling operators not to run kids' programs like pro sports; Tellem became commissioner of West LA Little League to protect his own kids from the parents. SafeSport's Benita Fitzgerald Mosley asked everyone to search their coaches against the Center's disciplinary database, because standard background checks don't, and to keep every adult-minor interaction "observable and interruptible." And in the operating-at-scale breakout, growth broke in the same place every time: a process that lived in one person's head.

Midday. The Forces Reshaping panel put Overtime's Zack Weiner on NIL at 16, Youth Athletes United's Adam Geisler on a school rec league that asks parents for just two game days, and Varsity Brands' Justin Kentor on the cost headwind no club can defy, next to Sparrow's Kerin Hempel on the paradox of the day: people trying to give away $5 million or $50 million can't find a home for it, because the space is too fragmented. Then Rocket Youth's Eric Rapps ("we have capital, but we're not capital"), New York Empire Baseball's Jordan Baltimore and Willow Reserve Capital's Kelci Tyson agreed the entry ticket for investment isn't profit. It's a founder who can explain the business in numbers and wants to keep running it. Baltimore's line to keep: the spring registration money isn't yours until you've delivered the spring season.

Afternoon. The Beyond Registration panel produced the most copyable idea of the day: Tyson's club PTA, borrowed from her kids' elementary school, where 600 students generate about $60,000 a year from one or two fundraisers. GameBreaker's Mike Juels added the simplest one: if your league mandates mouthguards, sell them. The day closed on parents. The Red Bulls' David Jervis calls his 30,000 families partners and runs six touchpoints a season, answering every piece of feedback within 48 hours; Next Level's Lance Smith draws the boundary and will refund a family on the spot; and Erika Badan prescribes office hours every other Thursday, because the group chat is where the complaints go otherwise. BrainPOP's CEO sent everyone home with three things coaches can borrow from teachers: back-to-school night, a curriculum and visible progress.

THE FULL COVERAGE 🗂️

Eight sessions, in the order they ran on Oct. 14. Tap a headline to read it.

• 9:15 a.m. · LeagueApps' Map of Youth Sports: Eight Kinds of Organizations, One Business Problem — Brian Litvack and Jeremy Goldberg, LeagueApps, with host Suzy Kolber

• 9:15 a.m. · Marc Lasry and Arn Tellem: Let the Kids Have Fun, and Watch Women's Sports — Avenue Capital Group and the Detroit Pistons

• 9:15 a.m. · SafeSport's CEO to Operators: Check the Database, Then Join the Alliance — Benita Fitzgerald Mosley, U.S. Center for SafeSport

• 10:45 a.m. · What Breaks When You Grow: Uniforms, "Absolutes" and the M14 Way — FCA, Next Level Sports, the Harris Family Fund / Spire and M14Hoops

• 11:30 a.m. · NIL at 16, Rec at Preschool and $50 Million That Can't Find a Home — Overtime, Varsity Brands, Youth Athletes United and Sparrow

• 1:30 p.m. · "We Have Capital, but We're Not Capital": Rocket Youth, RISE and an Investor on Who They Back — Rocket Youth, New York Empire Baseball / RISE Partners and Willow Reserve Capital

• 2:45 p.m. · Start a Club PTA, Sell the Mouthguard: Five Revenue Ideas From the Beyond Registration Panel — Clubhouse Partners, 431 Sports, GameBreaker, Elkhorn Athletic Association and Willow Reserve Capital

• 4:00 p.m. · Parents Are the Customer. Three Operators on How to Lead Them Anyway. — Mule Media, the New York Red Bulls, Next Level Sports and BrainPOP, with host Suzy Kolber

Reported at LeagueApps' NextUp '26 Youth Sports Conference, Oct. 14, 2026, Civic Hall, New York. Thank you to LeagueApps for having The Coach's Board in the room.

LOOKING AHEAD ⏭️

Next week we're back on the regular schedule. Thursday's FACEOFF 🤼: James Kelly, the former Brooklyn middle school teacher who co-founded Learnyx and built LitZone, a sports app for kids in third through eighth grade that sneaks daily reading and math practice into kid-friendly sports news and fantasy football. It's Episode 4 of The Faceoff Podcast, and our first recorded in person, courtside at Brooklyn Bridge Park. Our next special coverage report comes from SBJ's Dealmakers in Sports conference, Nov. 18 in New York.

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The Coach's Board by Paul Variano
The community building youth sports.