Podcast Edition — October 8, 2026
Level-Headed and Sometimes Stressed
Skye Eddy · Founder & CEO, The Sideline Project
Final Four Defensive MVP in goal. Then she stopped working on the kids and started working on the adults. Skye Eddy on The Sideline Project, what distracting sounds like from the stands, and a million certified adults by 2029.
Podcast Edition — October 1, 2026
The Third Wave
Rob Thompson · Founder, GamePlanU
All-American lineman. Helped take NFL FLAG around the world in the nineties. Now Rob Thompson is building GamePlanU, a commercial pathway for college athletes.
Podcast Edition — September 24, 2026
Everything But Nutrition
Gayle Jones · Founder & CEO, FuelBoxx
Four Emmys. Twenty-five years producing the NBA, the Olympics and the NFL. Then her daughter got cut from her club team. Gayle Jones on FuelBoxx, the pivot she didn't plan, and the thing youth sports professionalized around while skipping entirely.
Podcast Edition — September 3, 2026
Look Harder at the Coach Than the Logo
Sam Powell · Founder, LeadtheGame
Last month she was a Coach's Favorite. Then Sam Powell flipped the table and put our founder, Paul Variano, in the guest chair on Locker Talk, LeadtheGame's podcast for the parents in the stands. Her questions, his answers trimmed from the tape: why the coach now matters more than the club's history, why you should want your kid to fail, and the skill nobody names. The honest caveat: this week the founder on the record is ours.
Q&A Edition — August 27, 2026
The Forty People You Have to Pay Before a Whistle Blows
Kate Wellner · Founder, Tourney Direct
Two decades of enterprise product at the Red Cross, Oracle and AT&T — then she took over her husband's tournament-staffing side business and rebuilt it. Recruiting, assignments, GPS check-in, direct deposit, W-9s at signup and 1099s filed in January. More than $2 million paid to event staff across 275-plus events in 2025, and an AI ops manager named Teddy working the phones by text.
Q&A Edition — August 23, 2026
Every School Has a Gym Nobody Uses on Tuesday. Here's How to Get In.
Carlos Rivera · Founder, Subler
Schools have space they'd rent, clubs are desperate to rent it, and the two sides mostly can't find each other. A conversation with a founder who used to leave the same voicemails you do — on why the door to the school gym is locked, who else is bidding for it, and what actually makes a school say yes.
Q&A Edition — August 17, 2026
They Won't Quit Your Club. They'll Quit the Game.
Ian Babcock · Founder & host, Chat By The Pitch
The man who has spent almost four years and 180-plus episodes asking club directors the questions parents are too polite to ask — on what actually keeps a kid in the game, the two AI cameras clubs are buying, and the World Cup families walking into your registration this month.
Q&A Edition — August 10, 2026
The Bill Nobody Actually Adds Up
Alec Bantel · Founder, ACTIQO
The average family now spends $1,016 a year on one kid's primary sport — and that's just the part they can see. A conversation with the builder of an app that shows families what youth sports really cost them, and what a club should say out loud before parents compute it resentfully on their own.
The Faceoff — August 3, 2026
Girls Flag Football Is Having Its Pickleball Moment
From 8 Indiana schools to 108 in three seasons, Ohio sanctioned, and the NFL writing checks. The growth is real — the question is whether the infrastructure keeps up, and what a district should decide before it says yes.
The Faceoff — July 27, 2026
The Week Washington Attached Money to Youth Sports
Three times a coalition has taken a youth sports access bill to Congress. The first two died quietly. The STRONG Kids Act arrives with a funding source stapled to the front — $10,000 to $50,000 subgrants to local providers — and what it means for your operation.
