The Bill Nobody Actually Adds Up 💸⏱️🪫

GAME PLAN

Good morning. Two things change here starting today. THE FACEOFF is becoming a conversation: from here on, the lead slot goes to the people actually building in youth sports, one founder at a time, on the record about what they got wrong before they got it right, and what an operator should do with it Monday morning. We're also adding THE HIRING HUDDLE, a standing look at who's hiring across the business of youth sports.

This week: the $40 billion families spend on youth sports and the part of it almost nobody adds up, Texas teams answering the state's new heat rule with midnight football, and reading what athlete behavior is actually telling you.

THE FACEOFF

A Q&A edition — a conversation with the builder of an app that shows families what youth sports really cost.

The registration fee is the number families can see. Almost nobody adds up the rest — the gas, the hotel weekends, the replacement cleats, the private lessons, the hours. Parents now spend more than $40 billion a year on youth sports in the US, nearly $1,500 per child once every sport counts, and the survey range ran from $0 to nearly $25,000 (Aspen Institute Project Play).

Alec Bantel is trying to add it up. By day, he's a product leader in Detroit's auto industry. By night, he's the solo founder of ACTIQO — an app that coordinates everything around a kid's activities, then shows a family what each one is actually costing in dollars, hours and energy. He got there through a failed product. And he answered our questions the same week Sam Altman got roasted for pitching a daily AI-generated podcast about your kids.

You're a product manager in Detroit by day. How does that turn into youth sports software at night?

“As my kids began entering activities, I saw how quickly a simple practice or lesson created an entire chain of work around it. The activity itself was only one small part of the experience. The real burden was everything required to make participation possible. That was a product problem I understood professionally and was beginning to live personally.”

Before ACTIQO there was CaddyIQ — an AI golf swing coach that didn't make it. What did the failure teach you?

“That a product can be exciting in a demo and still be difficult to deliver consistently in someone's actual life. Even something that sounds minor, like asking a golfer to keep multiple sensors charged, can become enough friction that the product stops being useful. The biggest lesson was that technology should remove effort, not create another responsibility.”

Aspen says families average $1,016 a year on a kid's primary sport. What's the most underestimated line item?

“We are still early, so I do not want to claim that we have enough user data to publish a meaningful ACTIQO average yet. What becomes clear very quickly, though, is that the registration fee is only the beginning. Families remember the large payment. They are less likely to total the equipment, uniforms, tournament fees, meals on the road, hotels, private instruction, parking, team collections, and repeated small purchases throughout the season.

“But the most underestimated cost may still be time. A one-hour practice can require preparation, driving in both directions, waiting, meals, schedule changes, and coordination with another parent or caregiver.”

What actually wears families down?

“Families can often handle being busy when the expectations are clear and predictable. What wears them down is fragmentation. One update is in an email, another is in a team app, another comes through a text chain, and a last-minute change appears somewhere else. The calendar is not always the real problem.”

What tells a family it's time to quit versus push through a rough patch?

“One difficult week is not necessarily a reason to quit. Kids have bad practices, challenging coaches, and periods when progress feels slow. The more meaningful signal is a pattern. When enjoyment keeps declining, exhaustion keeps increasing, and attendance becomes a struggle, it may be time to pause and have an honest conversation. The first step should still be asking the child what they think.”

Our readers are the ones collecting those payments. What do clubs get wrong about the parent experience?

“Retain Players recently cited 30 to 40 percent annual player churn as youth sports' most expensive unsolved problem. But churn is a lagging indicator. Registration software may tell an operator who did not return. It usually cannot explain why the activity stopped feeling sustainable.

“For operators, the first step is greater transparency before registration. Give parents a realistic picture of the schedule, travel, total cost, equipment, volunteer expectations, and communication process. Parents are not always looking for the easiest or least expensive program. They are looking for an experience they understand, believe in, and can realistically continue.”

Sam Altman just got roasted for pitching a daily AI podcast about your kids. You build family tech. Where's the line?

“AI can help parents remember what matters. It should not tell them how their child feels. Technology can organize information, preserve feedback, and reduce mental load. It should not manufacture the conversation. The goal is operational relief so parents have more capacity for the human part of parenting, not less.”

It's Monday morning and an operator just read this. One thing they can do this week?

“Send families one complete message for the following week. Include the dates, arrival times, exact locations, required equipment, expected costs, and anything that has changed. Put it in the same communication channel every week. A coach may only be changing a practice by 30 minutes. For a family, that change can affect the entire evening.”

The takeaway:

Alec wrote your Monday assignment for you: one complete message, same channel, every week — send the first one today. Then, before your next registration window opens, put the whole bill where parents can see it: schedule, travel, gear, volunteer hours, the real total. If you want to know what your families are computing on their own, run your program through ACTIQO's free youth sports cost calculator. ACTIQO is currently available in web early access at actiqo.app, with the iOS app approved by Apple and planned for launch on August 16.

Building something for youth sports families yourself? Hit reply — we read every email.

LOOKING AHEAD

Next week, THE FACEOFF hands the mic to one of the biggest voices in youth soccer — perspective from the touchline on players, parents, coaches, and where the game is headed. Got a question you'd want us to put to them, or a story from your own sideline? Hit reply — the best ones make the issue.

THE SCOREBOARD

Everything else that moved across youth sports last week, in one line each.

RULES & CONDUCT

• Texas's new heat rule met its first week of practice — and teams answered with midnight football (KSAT).

• Oklahoma is the 3rd state in eight days to put an instrument between a coach and a practice (KJRH).

• A Florida head coach was suspended a week before school started — over an unsupervised overnight lock-in (Athletic Business).

• 89 of the 93 private schools in Alabama's state association just met to organize a rival one (Stateline Sports Network).

• The 23-year-old agreement governing junior hockey players crossing the U.S.–Canada border has lapsed  (Junior Hockey).

• A Georgia track coach spent eight years inside the booster account, and what finally caught him was kids without uniforms (Sportico).

• NCAA Division II just replaced the four-season clock with a calendar one, matching Division I (Sports Illustrated).

MONEY & DEALS

• Cape Coral's $24,002 field-fee increase died in a workshop, before it ever reached a vote (WINK News · WINK News, Aug 4).

• Lawton, Oklahoma published what a city actually subsidizes: $459,800, or 34% of its youth sports authority's budget (The Lawton Constitution).

• The next commissioner of MLS is a private-equity veteran who led with youth development (CBS Sports).

FIELDS & FACILITIES

• Clearwater is being asked to turn a city golf course into a sports complex on a $566M impact claim (Tampa Bay 28).

• A California city is paying twice to light the same youth ball fields (Ceres Courier).

• Jefferson Parish wants a $70–75M Olympic natatorium — because its swim team drives an hour to compete (Athletic Business).

• Two small Washington cities went to their county for pool money together rather than bidding against each other (MLTnews)

NIL WATCH

• North Carolina's annual high school NIL report puts the state at 24 deals (WRAL).

• Indiana's high school NIL rule reached its first full season and one athletic director says not a single athlete has asked about it  (Indiana Public Media).

TECH & PARTNERSHIPS

• The YMCA is embedding mental health support across 2,600+ locations with the Jed Foundation (GlobeNewswire).

• Renée James — ex-Intel president, Ampere founder — launched an AI athlete-discovery platform (PR Newswire).

• Scorability hired Garrett Sparling as CFO/COO and Allan Keller as VP of engineering (Scorability · Sportico).

ON THE FIELD

• High school softball pitchers can wear an earpiece starting in 2027 (KHSAA).

• Oberlin cancelled its varsity football season after eight players showed up to mandatory camp (News 5 Cleveland).

• A Long Island school shut varsity football for two years after its new head coach quit five months in (Sports Illustrated).

COACH'S FAVORITES

One thing we'd actually use, and why it earns the pick.

COACHING — LeadtheGame

Sam Powell is the founder of LeadtheGame and believes the real ROI of youth sports isn't measured by scoreboards or scholarships — it's measured by who athletes become. After nearly 20 years helping people develop leadership in high-pressure environments, she now helps parents, coaches, and organizations recognize what athlete behavior is really communicating so they can intentionally develop the performance behaviors that improve performance today and build stronger leaders for tomorrow.

leadthegame.org · LeadtheGame's Locker Room on Substack · the parent-and-coach track opens with a free 20-minute Next Move Assessment!

THE HIRING HUDDLE

Open roles across the business of youth sports — who's hiring and where to apply.

• Regional Director — Perfect Game · Hoover, AL · One person to run PG's entire Alabama tournament operation: scheduling, staffing, vendor payouts, field acquisition, plus 10–15 weeks a year of national travel. (Posting →).

• Program Manager — EL1 Sports · Ambler, PA · Full P&L ownership of a baseball/softball training facility: budget, staffing, curriculum, sales. Requires verifiable college or pro playing or coaching experience, which makes it the classic ex-player-to-operator bridge role. (Posting →).

• Head of Goalkeeping — Barça Residency Academy · Casa Grande, AZ · Own goalkeeper development for every keeper in the U15–U19 MLS NEXT program, with academy meals and possible on-campus housing included. Needs a USSF goalkeeper qualification, and the posting is unusually blunt about the coach it will not suit — read that part twice before applying. (Posting →).

This week's crop comes off TeamWork Online's youth sports board. Hiring for a role our readers should see? Just hit reply.

WHAT WE'RE WATCHING

Elite youth, high school and college events streaming this week plus the pro game worth building a team night around.

• ⚾ Little League Regional Championship Week · Tue 8/11–Fri 8/14 on ESPN and ESPN2 — all ten Williamsport berths decided this week, with five straight elimination games Friday from 1:00 PM ET (Brackets and times →).

• 🍌 Banana Ball at Coors Field · Fri 9:00 PM ET on truTV/HBO Max, Sat 8:00 PM ET on ESPN/Disney+ — the best argument a burned-out ten-year-old will ever see that baseball is supposed to be fun (Schedule →).

• 🏐 FIVB Girls' U17 World Championship · knockout rounds Wed–Sun on VBTV, gold match Sun 7:00 PM ET — the age group that fills your club gym every Saturday, playing for a world title (Match schedule →).

• 🎳 USBC Junior Gold Championships, U18 finals · Tue 7:00 PM ET on CBS Sports Network — nearly 3,500 entrants down to four teenagers and an hour of national television (Broadcast slate →).

• ⛳ U.S. Amateur at Merion · Wed–Sun on Peacock and NBC, 36-hole final Sun 4:00 PM ET — match play where the name on the trophy is usually someone who was playing junior golf eighteen months ago (TV schedule →).

• Also this week:Cincinnati Open · MLP Newport Beach Playoffs · AUSL All-Star Cup · LPGA Portland Classic (amateurs tee it up with the pros) · UEFA Super Cup · AVP Manhattan Beach Open · DGPT Doubles Championship · Bassmaster at Lake Champlain · PBR Teams in Nashville.

COACH'S CLIPBOARD

One drill you can run at Tuesday's practice. This week: ice hockey, 10U.

Firefighter 1v1. One faceoff circle, 1v1 inside with six to eight players ringed outside, 30-second shifts, 10U (Squirt) and up.

Run it. Ring a faceoff circle with a firehose, sticks laid end to end or a rolled tarp work, so every pass in or out has to be lifted over it. Net on each side. Two players inside, everyone else on the ring with sticks down. The puck carrier can't just shoot: saucer it out, get open, take the return, then attack either net. Steal it and the same rule binds you. Thirty-second shifts, keep score, next pair in.

Coaching point. The hose is doing the coaching, so stop narrating. Say two things: lift the pass, top hand away from the body, roll it off the toe of the blade and your feet get you open, not your stick. Squirts pass and then freeze. The drill lives in the two seconds between giving the puck up and getting it back.

Why it works. USA Hockey once put a stopwatch on this: at 12-and-Under, a player possessed the puck for 38.4 seconds across a whole 45-minute game. Ten minutes of this beats that, and every possession holds a pass, a change of direction and a shot. Compare the loop-out-of-the-corner warmup most Squirt practices open with, which USA Hockey's own 10U Q&A asks coaches to retire, because it gets one player moving.

The honest part. A team that has never saucer-passed will flub this for four minutes. Start the obstacle low, one stick shaft, not a full hose and have ring players rotate a spot after every pass they touch. Only one net? Run USA Hockey's Tight Circle Game instead: page 19 of their free Small Area Competitive Games handbook.

THE LOCKER ROOM

Something to end on.

A message from every hotel that ever took a youth ice hockey team tournament block:

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The Coach's Board by Paul Variano
The weekly executive roundup for youth sports leaders.