They Won’t Quit Your Club. They’ll Quit the Game. 🙅‍♂️🙅‍♀️⚽️

GAME PLAN

Good morning ☀️ One change starting after today: THE FACEOFF 🤼 is getting its own day. Beginning this week, the conversation moves to a separate Thursday edition, so Mondays stay the full roundup. NUMBER OF THE WEEK #️⃣ THE SCOREBOARD 🏆 COACH’S FAVORITES ⭐️ THE HIRING HUDDLE 🕵 WHAT WE’RE WATCHING 📺 THE CLIPBOARD 📋 and THE LOCKERROOM 🙊. This issue is the handoff, and it still carries both. Settle in like it's the sixth inning of a tee ball game: it runs long, nobody's leaving early, and there's a snack at the end 🍿

NUMBER OF THE WEEK

THE FACEOFF 🤼

This week’s FACEOFF is a conversation with the man who has spent four years asking club directors and coaches the questions parents are too polite to ask.

Dallas just hosted nine World Cup matches, including a semifinal. The tournament is over. The registration tables are not.

There are 5.3 million American kids aged 6 to 17 who want to play soccer and don't. This is a $2.7 billion annual participation opportunity, with roughly 142,000 of them inside an hour's drive of Dallas alone (YSBR). Some of them walked into your club this month. Soccer parents already pay 69% more than they did in 2019, and about 70% of youth athletes quit by 13.

Ian Babcock, Founder & Host of Chat by the Pitch, has spent almost four years and 180-plus episodes handing a microphone to club directors, coaches, professional players (MLS, Serie A Women, USL to name a few - plus the academy side of the EPL) and sport psychologists asking what happens to those kids. He's a product owner for a major airline by day, sits on the board of a North Texas youth soccer league, and came to the sport the way most of our readers did — his kid picked it.

You do this as a parent, not a reporter. What does that cost you?

"Here's the honest one: it could cost my kids. I haven't come across it yet, but it's a real fear of mine — that something I say on this show could cost one of my kids a chance with a team or a club. A reporter doesn't carry that. They don't have kids in the game they're covering. I do."

Across four years of these conversations, what's the thing club directors believe about their own club that isn't quite true?

"Here's what's actually true: the club isn't what the director says on my microphone. The club is whatever each individual coach is doing week to week.

"A parent doesn't experience 'the club.' They experience their kid's coach — and their kid's coach's group chat. If that coach is great, the club is great. If that coach checks out partway through the season, the club checks out with them. Directors believe they're running one club. Most of them are running as many clubs as they have coaches…"

What's the question a parent should ask on a club visit that almost nobody asks?

"Are you chasing a club, or are you chasing a coach? Those are different questions.”

"If you're chasing a club, the question almost nobody asks is: 'How does movement work inside this club?' If they're on a lower team and develop, is there a real path to the higher team, or is the roster set in stone? A club that develops players has players moving. A club that collects players has players locked in place."

The World Cup just put a lot of new families into the sport. What are those first-time parents about to get wrong, and what are clubs about to get wrong in how they sell to them?

"What first-time families get wrong isn't picking the wrong club — it's letting themselves be pressured into picking ANY club before they've seen anything else.”

“So slow down. If you live in a market like mine, you have options — the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex alone has more than 80 clubs and 70-plus rec organizations. Any club that tells you otherwise is selling scarcity that doesn't exist.”

"Now the clubs — and this is the part I'd beg every director to hear before fall registration. These World Cup families are brand new. Their kids just fell in love with something on TV. The worst thing you can do is convert that spark straight into a multi-thousand-dollar commitment.”

"If a kid is just getting into the game, encourage the family to find out if they truly love it first. Point them to rec — that might be under $200 a season. Invite them to a few weeks of training sessions before anyone signs anything. I know that sounds like telling clubs to turn away revenue. It's the opposite — it's the difference between collecting a check for one season and earning a family for ten.”

"Here's the idea that changed how I see all of this — it came from a guest of mine who goes by Socccer Dave (yes, three c's), and I'll paraphrase him: our job is to teach kids to love the game so they can survive the sport. Sell them the dream too hard, too fast, too expensive — and they won't quit your club. They'll quit the game."

On the tech side — cameras, streaming, analytics. What gets promised versus what a club ends up with?

“There are two really great camera options right now, and full disclosure on both: XbotGo I have no financial relationship with — I’ve interviewed them and I just really like the product. Reeplayer is a different story: they’re a partner and a sponsor of the show, and they compensate me for cameras I sell. I love their camera and features too. I want that on the record, because my actual recommendation is neither of them — it’s whichever one fits YOUR need.”

“And that’s the real gap: the technology isn’t the problem — the missing question is. Clubs and families buy the promise before they’ve decided the purpose.”

“If your kid is chasing college soccer, they need video — but not just a highlight reel. What the people evaluating your kid actually want to see is the two seconds after they lose the ball. A highlight reel is what a parent wants to watch. Full game film is what a coach wants to watch.”

What actually predicts a kid staying in the game — the club, the coach, or the cost?

“Joy. The club matters, the coach matters, the cost matters — but they matter as inputs to one question: is this kid still finding joy?

“And be careful with that word — people hear ‘joy’ and think ‘happy.’ That’s not it. Happiness is five seconds. Joy is a long-term destination.

“Here’s the test everyone should watch for: wait until puberty. That’s when you find out who a kid really is with their sport. The kids who were only in it for reasons besides the game itself — a lot of them walk away right there. The kids who found real joy in it? They stay.”

It's Monday morning and a club director just read this. What should they change this week?

"Be honest — to the point it's painful. Be honest about fees, be honest about everything going on. There's nothing worse than signing up for a club and getting nickel-and-dimed all the way through the season.

"And honesty only works if it actually reaches people. Communication is king — but sending an email every day is not the same thing as communicating effectively. Flooding people's inboxes just trains parents to stop reading, until the one email that actually matters gets missed completely. Tell people what they need to know, when they need to know.”

The takeaway. Pull up your fall registration page on your phone, the way a World Cup parent will see it, and find the total. Not the deposit — the total: fees, uniforms, tournaments, travel, and roughly the hours committed for an athlete playing at each level. If a family can’t find that number in under a minute, that’s this week’s job. Then add the sentence almost no club will print: if your kid is brand new to this, start in rec. You’ll lose a few deposits in September, but you’ll keep those families for decades — while protecting the joy and fostering the love of the game.

Run a club, coach a team, or build for the people who do? Hit reply — we read every email.

LOOKING AHEAD

Later this week, THE FACEOFF 🤼 is about the room you can't book. A founder who sits on a school board breaks down what an empty gym is actually worth to a school's budget, why the theater down the hall might out-earn it, and what a club needs in hand before anyone says yes. Fighting for field time this fall? 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 🧑‍⚖️

• AAU sanctions 760,000 athletes and never built the child-protection system it promised in 2011 — investigators found eight banned coaches still working its events (Washington Post).

• The SafeSport ban list now tops 2,500 coaches — and AAU isn't bound by any of it (ProPublica).

• Linemen are roughly 90% of football heatstroke deaths, and Kansas and Missouri both declined to mandate the NFHS's lineman-specific heat guidance (ESPN via FootballScoop).

• A Lake Travis (TX) senior died after collapsing at an 8 a.m. practice, three days into a season Texas spent the summer writing heat rules for (CBS Austin).

• Mississippi's new concussion protocol requires full return-to-school before return-to-play begins (Mississippi HSAA).

• A Texas coach lost his entire 2026 season over six May workouts in shoulder pads — and his own district turned him in (SI).

• A Texas coach under state investigation for a student's death — a 17-year-old crushed by a 700-pound telephone pole — was hired by another district and is coaching this fall (SI).

• A Pennsylvania superintendent resigned over a football hazing case that has produced ten criminal charges (CBS News Philadelphia).

• Two Washington administrators were criminally charged over a 53-day delay in reporting an athlete's sexual assault — the law gives them 48 hours (Athletic Business).

• A Massachusetts youth soccer referee — who was also the club's referee assigner — was charged with possession of CSAM (WHDH).

• Little League disqualified a second Tulsa team, a judge let it play, then reversed himself a day later — the alleged violation is a fake Challenger Division registration (News On 6).

• A Pennsylvania district is moving to bench any athlete with a single failing grade (Gettysburg Times).

• A booster-club treasurer was sentenced after roughly a decade of theft — $64,481.12 repaid, 90 days in jail (Iron Mountain Daily News).

MONEY & DEALS 💰

• 70% of parents earning $100,000+ have a kid in organized sports; for lower-income parents it's 40% (Fortune / AP-Ipsos).

• A free-play model says it will reach 30,000 kids in 2026, and its NYC fall registration is open now (NY1).

• A volleyball tournament-software roll-up is going from 20% to 80% market share in one season — Otto Sport AI bought SportsWrench, Demosphere and University Athlete (Buying Sandlot).

• A Texas district of 23,000 students is charging $175–$315 per high school athlete this fall, with a $32 floor for free-lunch families (CBS Austin).

• A California board voted 3-2 to add $3.9M to athletics while its own superintendent said the money doesn't exist (KPBS).

• A New Jersey township is inventing $200–$250 per season field charges for youth leagues that previously paid nothing (Shorebeat).

• A Delaware district added gate admission to sports that were free — including middle school games (Delaware Public Media).

• A D.C. tennis nonprofit's gala raised $1.09M for tuition-free youth programming (PR Newswire).

FIELDS & FACILITIES 🏢

• Two Texas districts committed $91M and $2.4M to athletics facilities in 48 hours (Athletic Business).

• Marion County, FL is studying a $13.9M softball park expansion built on a 3× tournament projection (WCJB).

• Kern County handed a 13-diamond public complex to a travel-ball operator for $7,500 a year in rent (KGET).

• A Memphis-area district is spending about $5M to put a roof over a football practice field (Athletic Business).

TECH & PARTNERSHIPS 📲

• Kansas put its entire high school activities association — 348 high schools and 408 middle schools — on one platform for background checks and registration (Startland News).

• Hudl signed Volleyball Canada as its official performance technology partner, reaching 80,000+ participants down to the club level (Hudl).

• Sprocket Sports embedded Ankored's compliance platform — background checks and abuse-prevention training now run inside the club software (Business Wire).

• Google Gemini is now the official AI partner of Overtime Elite and Overtime Select (Sportico).

• Agassi Sports Entertainment is putting USTA Coaching's curriculum inside its IBM-built AI coaching platform — a multi-year deal that gives USTA Pro and Pro Plus members free access at launch (AccessNewswire).

• Only 30% of youth sports organizations stream their games, up from 22% — and 75% of those just use YouTube (Buying Sandlot).

• A single crew streamed 750+ youth rugby matches off 15 fields in four days, and the founder says the bottleneck is training, not gear (Sports Video Group).

ON THE FIELD 🏟️

• A Florida state semifinalist lost 21 players to transfer in three weeks and cancelled varsity — after the FHSAA fined it $500 and put it on probation through May 2027 (On3).

• Michigan varsity players told their own coach they didn't feel safe playing — and the season was cancelled the same day (On3).

• A 1,000-student Illinois high school dropped varsity football eleven days before its opener, forfeiting nine games (WCIA via BroBible).

• Hawaii's Big Island is running high school volleyball on nine referees where it needs more than twenty (West Hawaii Today).

• An Ohio district is moving girls flag football from club to varsity with the whole equipment bill donated by four local businesses (Ashland Source).

• The Patriot Games put 120 teenagers through military-style endurance circuits for $250,000 in scholarships, with an ESPN/ABC primetime slot (Front Office Sports).

COACH'S FAVORITES ⭐️

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

LISTEN — Chat By The Pitch

Ian Babcock has published 180-plus episodes since December 2022, most of them 40 to 60 minutes with a club director, a coach, a sport psychologist or a parent who has been through it. This week's FACEOFF is what four years of that sounds like compressed into one page. The show is where the rest of it lives.

What earns the pick isn't just the interviews. It's the infrastructure around them: chatbythepitch.com runs an open tryout listing board and a camps and clinics board, plus a written companion, The Sideline Read. For a club director, that's a free distribution channel you can post into, not just another thing to listen to.

Start here: Why Pay-to-Play Youth Soccer Is Failing American Players with Alex Lubyansky, the XbotGo AI-camera episode that sits behind his answer above, and The Cappis Family on raising a pro without pushing.

Listen Apple Podcasts · Spotify · YouTube · chatbythepitch.com
Follow Instagram · X · TikTok · Facebook

THE HIRING HUDDLE 🕵️

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

• Account Executive, New Camps — US Sports Camps · Remote, U.S. · Sell the Nike Sports Camps platform to the people who want to run their own camp: college coaches, academies, skill trainers, clubs and facility operators and own the whole cycle from first call to signed agreement. (Posting →).

• Senior Product Manager — IMG Academy / NCSA College Recruiting · United States · Build the products families actually use to navigate college recruiting: NCSA and SportsRecruits, wired into a network of more than 40,000 college coaches. (Posting →).

• Senior Accountant — LeagueApps · New York, NY, remote-friendly on Eastern time · Own full-cycle accounting for one of the platforms the youth sports industry runs on — monthly close, reconciliations, AP/AR. Reporting straight to the Controller, with a mandate to automate what should be automated. Benefits include a home-office stipend, gym and cell subsidies, and subsidized sports leagues for you and your kids. (Posting →).

• Senior Retail Buyer — Unrivaled Sports · Remote, East Coast preferred · Director-level buying across a $10M+ merchandising business: apparel, headwear, accessories and co-branded product for 15 venues plus e-commerce and event retail, spanning Ripken Baseball, Cooperstown All Star Village, Big League Dreams and Sports Force Parks. A rare corporate seat inside one of the fastest-moving portfolios in youth sports. (Posting →).

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 Baseball World Series, opening rounds · Wed 8/19–Sun 8/23 on ESPN and ESPN2, Sunday's 1:00 PM game on ABC — twenty teams, four games a day from Williamsport, first pitch Wed 1:00 PM after the 11:00 AM opening ceremony; Sunday's slate starts at 9:00 AM to clear the evening for the Classic below (Schedule and bracket →).

• ⚾ American Legion World Series · semis Mon 4:00 and 7:00 PM ET, championship Tue 6:00 PM ET, all on ESPNU from Shelby, NC — the 19-and-under title, and the last summer baseball most of these kids play before college ball (How to follow →).

• 🥷 American Ninja Warrior: National Finals, Night 2 · Mon 8:00 PM ET on NBC, next day on Peacock — the field narrows in Vegas on the three-lane head-to-head course, for the $250,000 a lot of your athletes think is the real prize in sports (Where to watch →).

• 🏈 ESPN High School Football Kickoff · Thu 8:00 PM ET on ESPN2, Brentwood Academy at Baylor School (TN); Sat 1:30 PM Battle Ground Academy at St. Michael Catholic (AL) and 5:00 PM Gainesville at Buford (GA), both ESPN2 — the first nationally televised high school football of the season, a full week before college Week 0 (Full slate →).

• 🍌 Banana Ball, two cities at once · Fri 8:00 PM ET — Bananas vs. Coconuts in St. Louis on ESPN2/Disney+, Tailgaters vs. Clowns in Oklahoma City on truTV/HBO Max; St. Louis again Sat 8:00 PM ET on ESPN2 — pick your feed, either one is the best argument a burned-out ten-year-old will see all week that baseball is supposed to be fun (Schedule →).

• ⚾ MLB Little League Classic: Braves at Brewers · Sun 7:10 PM ET on ESPN, Historic Bowman Field, Williamsport — the ninth edition, all twenty LLWS teams in the stands, big leaguers on a minor league field for an audience of twelve-year-olds. This is the team night (Game details →).

• Also this week:Premier League opening weekend (Arsenal–Coventry Fri 3:00 PM ET, Newcastle–Liverpool Sun 11:30 AM, across NBC/USA/Peacock) · BMW Championship (Golf Channel Thu–Sat, NBC/Peacock Sun 2:00 PM ET) · FIVB Boys' U17 World Championship opens Wed in Doha · FIBA U18 Asia Cup and U16 Women's EuroBasket, free on FIBA's YouTube · Minto Cup, Canada's Junior A box lacrosse title, all week in Calgary.

COACH'S CLIPBOARD 📋

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

Pass, Cut, Layup: two players, one ball, six reps each side, ages 8–12.

Run it: One player at the top of the key, one on the wing. Pass it, then take one hard step away from the ball and cut to the rim off that step. Catch it in stride, finish. Swap. No dribbling.

Coaching point: The step away is the drill. "A quick jab-step or a couple of steps away from the ball" is what buys the half-step — and at this age a half-step is a layup. Cut from a standstill and you get ridden out of the lane.

Why it works: The youth default is pass and watch. Ten minutes of this and the kid who passes is the kid who scores (the only argument that ever gets an eight-year-old moving without the ball…)

THE LOCKER ROOM 🙊

Something to end on.

Somewhere between a used futon and a snowblower, a Division I basketball court turned up on Facebook Marketplace:

$69,500, just listed. Somewhere a club director is already measuring a warehouse. 

Then a mom set out to film one cute clip of her son's last T-ball game, and got this instead:

1.4 million likes for the one shot she wasn't trying to get. 

And a Little League catcher gave a postgame interview while his teammates stacked their gloves on his head:

Better composure than most of the adults in the parking lot. 

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