Private Equity / Youth baseball thread

Oh Wow, thread got wacked?

Wonder what Karen spoke up about spending 25K a year on lil Johnny and how he's going to be the next MLB player from Louisiana

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Why did the thread get whacked?

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i dunno why it got whacked. was wondering why there was a new thread suddenly

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Our local HS, Lake Travis, is a 6A top 20 program in Texas with multiple D1 commits. There isn't 1 kid on the team from Freshman to Varsity that did not play select baseball.

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ill be honest, that is how barbe, sam houston, catholic are. hell been years since it was different. even the AP schools who have a viable LL are like that.

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The head coach of the team even has partnered with a local select organization that charges $4k per season per player as sort of a funnel into the high school program. It's a huge business. We're talking multiple millions of dollars in revenue a year for this single organization.

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LT outlaws or LBC I am assuming? because wildcatters & MBG too knew in that area.



but thats less a private equity thing. the PE stuff they were talking about was really USSSA and PG getting PE investment.

but half the stuff in the video doesnt even really apply to texas and louisiana other than cost of tournaments and equipment and much of that can be negated. Even the great teams around Austin/LT arent really traveling a ton. once to the houston 1000, once or twice to DFW area adn then maybe 1 other time. rest everyone comes to them. LA has 2d which minimizes travel for most teams if they choose to stay and play select series.


the real expense is fricking high school travel ball. even the local 2d tournaments that the school summer teams play in are 2k a pop. go play the big events in the summer in GA and florida and hoover for a national team...that is where it gets expensive

as far as PE in with PG...PG has gotten crazy with the cost of the tournaments but they are only providing a service where there is demand.

Texas Mustangs actually. They currently have 26 teams.

PG actually has their own fields out in Dripping Springs and one of the owners of Mustangs is a PE investor in those fields. They have 12 fully turfed fields. Massive complex.

Select > LL with the poors

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what do you want them to do?

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Honestly, I don’t know. I do know that people are and have been making money off of minors and with what’s happening in college athletics it will only get worse.

Travel teams are the worst thing to ever happen to youth sports. Separating dumb parents from their money. Everybody did just fine when there were just rec leagues and that’s where the MLB talent came from. Now millions of kids are blocked from playing because they cannot afford travel ball and the rec leagues are almost gone. The talent that slips through the gaps is large.

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as far as PE in with PG...PG has gotten crazy with the cost of the tournaments but they are only providing a service where there is demand.

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PG is a money making machine. They make money on the registration fees, the hotel buyouts, merchandise, apparel. Their biggest moat though is the number of facilities that they control. In some markets, like Houston, V Tool and USSSA can’t compete because they can’t access fields to host tournaments.


The biggest thing though is supply and demand, if people are going to pay it, then someone is going to charge it. Everything is expensive though, the tournaments, the coaches, the practice facilities (dependent on region), the uniforms.

It’s not isolated to baseball either, my wife coached volleyball. $4,500 a year for 2 practices a week Oct-Apr; 6 local 2-day events and 2 national qualifiers (1 local and 1 travel). Their top teams were like $6k+ which would make some of these big baseball organizations flying players all the country for free blush

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Everybody did just fine when there were just rec leagues and that’s where the MLB talent came from

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There's also less kids playing sports is my understanding, hence the need for travel leagues.