“Field of Fees: Private Equity’s Role in the Commercialization of American Youth Sports”
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House Education and Workforce Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Elementary, and Secondary Education U.S. House of Representatives
Follow its sittingsSuzanne Bonamici
Youth sports bring communities together and can give kids from all backgrounds the opportunity to learn, grow, and belong. More than 60 million children participate in youth sports in the United States annually, but today that opportunity has become a luxury for too many. The average family now spends more than $1,500 a year for one child to participate in sports, and those costs have risen dramatically in just the past five years. Registration fees, travel, equipment, lodging, exclusive streaming services, tournaments, camps, they've all turned what was once a community activity into an expensive industry that far too many families simply cannot afford. A major reason for this shift, in addition to the underfunding of schools, parks, and recreation programs, is the growing role of private equity and market consolidation in the youth sports landscape.
This subcommittee's last hearing on youth sports, where Ms. Van Duyne testified on the harmful effects of private equity in the youth sports sector, began this conversation and we are pleased to welcome her back today to discuss more important research in this area. We know private equity firms are buying up youth leagues, training facilities, sports venues, camps, and tournaments, consolidating control over the market and driving up costs for families.
And too often, the priority is not the well-being of children, it's profit. This isn't just happening in youth sports. We've seen similar patterns across the economy, including in healthcare, childcare, and housing, where consolidation leaves consumers paying more but getting less. And the Trump administration is not taking any action to rein in private equity, curb corporate greed, or protect consumers. In fact, the private equity industry owns more businesses than all of those listed on the US stock exchanges combined.
Youth sports are simply the latest example of how unchecked market power can make everyday opportunities less accessible for families. And in addition to private equity firms wreaking havoc on the youth sports industry, the Trump administration is hurting rather than helping with youth access. Their fiscal year 2027 budget proposes cutting 2.3 billion dollars from the Department of Education and more than 1.1 billion with National Parks and Recreation areas. These reductions directly contribute to the lack of accessible sports and outdoor programs. But fortunately, there are solutions.
Our democratic witness, Ms. Van Dyke, will discuss some reforms Congress and the administration should consider, including greater transparency around fees and business practices, robust antitrust enforcement, and increased public investment in community recreation and school-based sports programs so every child has access to affordable opportunities close to home. And speaking of close to home, in the district I represent, we have a very active and well-funded parks and rec district, Tualatin Hills Parks and Rec District. They partner with our local public schools. It's a great partnership to expand access to parks and fields. And I also want to make clear that there is a role for the private sector when the focus is on the well-being of youth.
For example, the Nike world headquarters, which is down the street from my office, their programs like the Nike Community Impact Fund provides grants for local nonprofits and schools and programs that offer coaching skills. Finally, this hearing is about more than sports. It's about protecting families from being priced out of the opportunities that help them thrive and not forcing parents to choose between paying their bills and allowing their child to participate in activities that keep them healthy and lead to success. So I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about how we can protect families, restore competition, and make youth sports accessible to every child in every community in every congressional district. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I yield back.
Kevin Kiley
Pursuant to committee rule 8C, all members who wish to insert written statements into the record may do so by submitting them to the committee clerk electronically in Microsoft Word format by 5:00 PM 14 days after this hearing. And without objection, the hearing record will remain open for 14 days to allow such statements and other extraneous material noted during the hearing to be submitted for the official hearing record. I'll now introduce our witnesses. Our first witness is Ms. Linda Flanagan, an author from Summit, New Jersey. Our second witness is Mr. Matt Kaczkowski, executive director of the Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association in Portage, Michigan.
Our third witness is Ms. Katherine Van Dyke, senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project in Washington, DC, and our fourth witness is Mr. Brian Finnerty, founder of High Velocity Sports in Wolverine Lake, Michigan. We thank the witnesses for being here today and we look forward to your testimony. Pursuant to committee rules, I ask that you limit your oral presentation to a three-minute summary of your written statement. The clock will count down from three minutes as committee members do have many questions for you. However, pursuant to committee rule 8D and committee practice, we will not cut off your testimony until you reach the five-minute mark.
I'd also like to remind the witnesses to be aware of their responsibility to provide accurate information to the subcommittee. I'll first recognize Ms. Flanagan for your testimony.
Linda Flanagan
Chairman Kiley and Ranking Member Bonamici, thank you for inviting me to testify today.
My name is Linda Flanagan and I'm the author of the book Take Back the Game. Over the years, I've spoken to parents, coaches, school administrators, athletic directors, sports medicine doctors, and many, many young people about the state of play. What I hear from them is anxiety about the pressure parents, families are feeling, worry about the future of school sports programs, and alarm over the surge in preventable injuries among kids at ever younger ages. What I've witnessed with investors, on the other hand, is giddiness about the growth opportunities in the youth sports industry. One leading executive said in March 2024, quote, "There is almost an insatiable demand for youth sports experiences.
What exists today is a fraction of what we think the potential is." Here's how kids' athletics have changed over the last few decades. They've moved from a participation model that's cheap, child-driven, and focused on enjoyment to a performance model that's costly, managed by adults, highly structured, and devoted to sports-specific skill development. Less than 30 years ago, kids often started participating in sports at age eight. Today, it's not uncommon for eight-year-olds to compete for national titles.
Consider that this is all taking place in a fragmented, largely ungoverned space. While governing policies and parenting culture play a role in how we got here, this morning I'll focus on commercialization. Business has always been involved in kids' athletics, but the nature and extent of it has changed. In middle and upper income areas, youth sports are dominated by private clubs, travel teams, extravagant sports facilities, and now high-tech gear and specialized sports academies. Adults depend on these jobs for their livelihood.
Kids' play is their source of income. More recently, private investment firms and other sophisticated investors have entered the marketplace, which insiders claim is valued at $60 billion. Private equity involvement is especially worrisome because it introduces sophisticated financial engineers with generally short horizons into children's activities that are best served by a long-term approach. And as with all investment firms, their first priority is investor return, not child welfare or development. At the same time, some companies provide vital services that benefit families and expand access to children.
Anchored, LeagueApps, and RCX Sports come to mind. As with most complex issues, nuance is called for. The greatest impact of today's commercialized environment has been a widening of the gap between the haves and have-nots. In low-income communities, participation rates have dropped from 35% in 2012 to 24.9% in 2024. In wealthier areas, children feel competitive pressure to pick one sport and specialize in it at younger and younger ages.
In my community, for example, the area soccer club offers a junior pre-academy program for U3s. That would be two-year-olds. The intensity has led to an epidemic of overuse injuries, a jump in the number of hours kids play, and the hijacking of family life. Sports matter because an avalanche of evidence reveals that age-appropriate exercise spurs good health and thwarts anxiety and depression. We should be doing all we can to encourage regular, moderate exercise and movement among children of all ages.
As for solutions, legal scholar Dionne Koller said it best. We've been hashing out these problems for decades. It's time to think about law and policy, not to micromanage, but to create real system change.
I would start by requiring all youth sports organizations to register with US SafeSport, expand athletic options in sports-starved areas, prohibit predatory business practices, and establish safety and training standards for coaches. Thank you for inviting me here to testify today and for your interest in this subject. I implore you to confront the problems in youth sports and to create solutions that best serve the children who play them.
Thank you very much. I'll next recognize Mr. Kiekebusch for your testimony.
Excuse me.
Can you turn on your microphone, please?
Matt Kaczkowski
Yes. Chairman Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify before the committee today regarding our experience as a community-based youth sports program. For nearly 50 years, I've been involved with the Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association as a player, a coach, a parent, hockey director, and now as its executive director. Five years ago, I assumed the role of executive director, and I took this role because of my long-standing commitment to public service and to serving the families and young people in my community. As KOHA prepared for its 60th anniversary season, and as I entered my fifth year as executive director, our organization was focused on building upon six decades of providing affordable and accessible youth hockey opportunities in the Kalamazoo community.
However, on September 1, the very first day of that milestone season, we were informed during a meeting with rink management that Wings West, our long-time home rink and the foundation of youth hockey in our community for decades, had experienced a significant mechanical failure and the ownership group would not make the necessary investments to repair the facility. On October 7, 2025, Wings West was acquired by Black Bear Sports Group. Our organization remained optimistic that we might eventually return to our long-time home at Wings West under the ownership and management of Black Bear Sports Group. However, the change in ownership marked the beginning of a series of events that would fundamentally alter our organization and create significant challenges for our non-profit youth hockey association and the families that we serve. For decades, our recreational teams have proudly represented our local businesses and community partners, allowing young athletes to skate under the names of neighborhood tire stores, dental practices, and restaurants, and other local sponsors that have invested heavily in the Kalamazoo hockey community.
This model not only helped offset costs for families, but also strengthened the connection between our players and the local business community. During our negotiations with Black Bear Sports Group, we were met with coercive and heavy-handed demands that demonstrated how they would like to control the essential ice hockey facilities and how they can be weaponized against long-standing non-profit organizations to abandon their identity, surrender community-based programming, and conform to a vertically integrated for-profit model that prioritizes corporate objectives over the families they served. These issues are not isolated to a single community; rather, we believe they reflect a broader pattern in which the acquisition of community sports facilities by a single operator is often followed by pressure on long-standing non-profit organizations to conform to a vertically integrated profit extraction model or risk losing access to the facility. As youth sports become more consolidated, long-standing community-based organizations face the prospect of losing facility access, organizational autonomy, and their historic identities. On March 3, 2026, Black Bear Sports Group evicted Kalamazoo Optimist Hockey Association from Wings West, leaving us without a home.
I believe this committee has a unique opportunity to bring attention to these issues and to ensure that youth sports remain centered on the development of children rather than the maximization of profits. The work of this committee can help protect community-based organizations, preserve affordable access to sports, and safeguard the local institutions that have served generations of families. Thank you again for the opportunity to testify.
Thanks very much. I'll next recognize Ms. Van Dyke for your testimony.
Thank you, Chairman Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the subcommittee. I'm Katherine Van Dyke, a senior fellow at the American Economic Liberties Project and a former attorney advisor at the FTC.
Katherine Van Dyke
I've represented consumers, small businesses and workers against powerful corporations, and a lot of my advocacy has focused on how corporate interests in sports harm families, fans, and athletes. I'm honored to be back here before you today. In December, I testified about how private equity has captured much of youth sports, raising cost and erasing opportunities for kids. Today, I will focus on why private equity's profit motives conflict with the public goals of youth sports, why guardrails to protect communities are failing, and how Congress can fix what isn't working. Going back decades, through Title IX, the Amateur Sports Act, and executive orders from Presidents Eisenhower to Trump, we have never, we have always called youth sports and fitness a national priority.
But we have never funded it. The US Olympic and Paralympic Committee, tasked with developing grassroots youth sports programs, gets most of its money from NBC broadcasts and spends under 1% of that on youth sports. Communities are left to fend for themselves, cobbling together state and local funding and donations. And when those sources were depleted in recent years, private equity filled the void. Private investors capture youth sports by rolling up competitors through dozens of acquisitions, then vertically integrating to capture the entire ecosystem.
Varsity monopolized the cheerleading market by controlling events, apparel, and the governing body. Black Bear Sports Group appears to be doing the same in youth hockey with ice rinks, leagues, and tournaments. 3Step Sports owns thousands of leagues and tournaments, including 70% of elite soccer tournaments and showcases in New Jersey. We call this model a flywheel, trapping families inside and locking competitors out. The extraction it allows is bad enough, but in an industry meant to serve kids, it is worse.
A business built to maximize short-term returns does not focus on kids' developmental needs, it focuses instead on keeping kids in their leagues, at their tournaments, and in their preferred hotels year-round. These conflicts create several barriers to access. First, cost. Youth sports participation is up overall, but parents are spending thousands of dollars a year to make that happen. As a result, the participation gap between poorer and wealthier households is widening as parents struggle to make ends meet.
Second, logistics. The current model replaces local games with endless travel and hotel stays. That is unachievable for a one-car family with parents working unpredictable low-wage hourly jobs. Children are shut out by time, distance, and transportation. Third, geography.
The availability of school sports and local clubs is the greatest determiner of whether a child will play sports. Basically, towns build public facilities that put a ball in every kid's hand, and private equity builds where the money is. No amount of scholarships can tear these barriers down. Private operators say parents sign up because it's what they want, but their profit motive can lead to deception about what their travel team can deliver. Parents are sold on promises of scholarships, when only 2% of high school athletes actually get them.
They also say year-round specialization is the best path to success, but it actually leads to alarming rates of ACL injuries and Tommy John surgeries. As retired NFL star J.J. Watt put it, specialization benefits the adults who profit at the expense of the child. Congress can fix this. You can ban extractive practices like vertical integration, stay-to-play, and junk fees, as the Let Kids Play Act does. Second, you can make the private investors behind the leagues liable for debts and safety violations.
Third, we can treat youth sports as a real national priority and fund it. Youth sports at their best can unify communities. Parents can share a sideline with their neighbors. Kids can play with their classmates and try new things. So as we celebrate our nation's founding this week, let's remember that it is possible in this great democracy to change course and get back to that model.
Congress can legislate to give kids opportunities they deserve and make youth sports about fitness and joy. Thank you. I look forward to your questions.
Thank you very much, and I'll next recognize Mr. Finnerty for your testimony.
Brian Finnerty
I am Brian Finnerty from Wolverine Lake, Michigan, and owner of High Velocity Sports in Canton, Michigan. Chairman Kiley, Ranking Member Bonamici, and members of the subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I've spent nearly 50 years in youth sports as a young athlete, as an 11-year professional soccer player, a coach, a parent, entrepreneur, and an investor. And for the past 25 years as the founder and CEO of High Velocity Sports, I've experienced youth sports from nearly every perspective. And that experience is what brings me here today.
My purpose today isn't to defend private capital, nor is it to criticize it. My purpose is simply to share what I've learned over nearly 50 years in youth sports. My perspective didn't begin with facility ownership or private investment. It began with a coach who believed in me. As a young boy struggling to keep up on a soccer field because I was overweight, one day while I was standing on the sideline, soccer balls kept getting kicked out of play.
My coach Mario Cuevas noticed I seemed to catch every one of them. While everyone else saw a kid who couldn't run very well, Mario saw a goalkeeper. And more importantly, he saw potential where others saw limitation. That moment changed the direction of my life. Mario taught me that youth sports weren't just about developing better athletes, they were about helping young people discover what they were capable of.
That lesson has guided every major decision I've made since. Years later, after my professional soccer career ended, I had the opportunity to build High Velocity. And like many entrepreneurs, I couldn't do it alone. My wife and I leveraged our house, cashed in our savings, and private investors stood with us to take a chance on me. Their investment helped create a community sports center focused first and foremost on serving local families.
Today, more than 80% of young people who come through our doors participate in the local recreation or youth sports leagues. We've also provided thousands of scholarships over the years because we've always believed that a family's financial circumstances should never determine whether a child has the opportunity to play. I've also learned something important over the last 25 years. Not all capital behaves the same. I've seen responsible investment strengthen communities by expanding access, improving facilities, and creating opportunities for children.
In my experience, the difference isn't whether private capital is involved, it's whether the mission remains centered on children. I've also seen business models that prioritize financial extraction over child development. I don't believe the question is whether private capital belongs in youth sports. I believe the question is whether it remains accountable to the mission of youth sports.
Kevin Kiley
Thank you very much. Under committee rule nine, we will now question witnesses under the five-minute rule, and I'll recognize myself for five minutes. Ms. Flanagan, thanks so much for your testimony and your work in this area. I just wanted to emphasize off the top, again, your understanding of the benefits for kids of youth sports participation, and particularly in the context of how concerning it is we're seeing this decline among access in lower-income communities, and in the context of the issues that we're all so familiar with related to phones and screen time and everything else going on in our modern world.
Linda Flanagan
Well, yeah, I think one of the most compelling reasons to support sports, to encourage them at every level, is that they keep kids off their phones. In every—I don't know of a setting in athletics where kids are encouraged to run around with their phones. And this is Jonathan Haidt, Lenore Skenazy, many others have spoken about how important it is, obviously, to get kids off their technology, and sports allow for that, in fact, enforce that. So to the extent that lower-income kids are denied that opportunity, it's going to be more harmful for them because, you know, more screens, the worse it is for them.
Kevin Kiley
That's right. And, you know, as well as when you look at rates of childhood obesity and some of the mental health trends that are very concerning in the country, I think youth sports are a tremendous antidote to all of these issues. And so that's why I think this widening gap is particularly concerning, and the reality that we see more and more families facing these financial barriers. So it seems to me there's a couple of related issues here. You know, on the one hand, we want to assure that every child has the opportunity to play, and so we have access, broad access to recreational youth sports.
But then on the other hand, you know, there are going to be some kids who want to play at a more competitive level and who will excel and who will want to seek out those opportunities, but you're seeing, you know, a lot of barriers for that as well. So how do we kind of balance those two things? How do we assure that every child has the opportunity to play while those who want to play at a more competitive level have that opportunity as well?
Linda Flanagan
Well, I think the issue of competition and when is it appropriate, it all comes down to what's age-appropriate. And because our system encourages early sports specialization, young kids are playing too much of a sport at younger ages and getting hurt, as I spoke of, we have an epidemic of overuse injuries. At the same time, we need to keep—everyone wants our kids to develop, those who have the ability and the potential to develop as well as they can. It's really a matter of when is it age-appropriate to start ramping up the intense competition, the tournaments, the year-round play. All of that in this country has been pressed to younger ages when developmentally it ought to be older.
There's virtual unanimity among sports medicine doctors that that's the case. So in a perfect world, we would just encourage a lot of participation among children. Again, I mentioned we moved from the participation model to the performance model. The most—one of the most successful countries in youth sports is Norway, and that's—it came up a lot during the Olympics because they did so well.
And their model is kind of the opposite of ours. They have encouraged multi-years of participation. 93% of the population plays. It's very cheap. It's not super competitive.
They don't keep score, they don't have rankings, which I think are a scourge in our system. Young children are encouraged to play for as long as possible, and then when they reach an appropriate age, it's early teenage years, that's when they pour on the resources. To the extent that we could emulate their model, our kids would be a lot better off.
Kevin Kiley
That's very interesting. And I guess the flip side of that is that I think for, you know, we may be cut off the opportunity to play in a recreational way too early for students who can't make the the competitive teams in high school or even junior high, then suddenly they have no opportunity to play soccer or whatever their sport might be. So, Mr. Finnerty, could you tell us a little bit more about this, you know, the role of private investment here? Because when we're talking about kind of the first category I was just referring to, broad-based access, you know, this of course should primarily be driven by our school system, PE classes, nonprofits, state and local governments, maybe there's a federal role too. But I think you rightly point out that there's a role for private investment as well.
So how do you keep that investment aligned with the goals that you've talked about about child welfare? And I think actually one example that we've seen is the professional sports leagues that have an economic incentive because the more young people who are playing their sport, that sparks interest, but they can, you know, and so the incentives are kind of aligned there. Is that how do you keep the incentives aligned in other types of investment?
Brian Finnerty
Yeah, I think from my experience it's been it's a both and. I think we've looked at these as polarizing things. It's either or. Either there's money in the sport or it's completely community-based. And over my 25 years, and I'd say 50 in the sports, they don't exist without each other.
So I think it's when we put community first, and I'm saying this as an investor and a facility owner that is not supported financially by our community, but yet in tandem with our community in Canton, Michigan, we do community programming, we do senior programming, we help manage outdoor fields when we're an indoor sports facility because we know what's good for us as an indoor sport facility in our community is also good for us from a sustainability perspective. And I think at the end of the day, if whatever we're doing is not sustainable, whether it's an ice rink or a soccer field or a baseball diamond, it's not going to be around for long if you can't sustain it. So you've got to have the capital to do that, and if you haven't put the community at the heart of what it needs first, I don't think it's very sustainable.
Kevin Kiley
Thanks very much. I'll now recognize ranking member Bonamici for five minutes.
Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again to the witnesses. I'm encouraged that there's a vast amount of agreement on both sides of the aisle with what we're talking about today. Ms. Van Dyke, you've written about how heightened scrutiny of all youth sports acquisitions can help rein in the practices of private equity in youth sports. In your testimony, you recommend that the Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general can scrutinize consolidation. I know the Wall Street Journal recently reported that senior leadership at the DOJ under the Trump administration has been steering the antitrust division toward settlements over litigation.
It's just not clear whether they will make this issue a priority, but I want to ask you what can Congress do, and I know there's the Let Kids Play Act is a I think a good starting point for discussion. What can Congress and state attorneys general do to fill the gap if federal antitrust enforcement isn't happening?
Katherine Van Dyke
Thank you for that question. Unfortunately, yes, our federal antitrust enforcement mechanism right now is pretty anemic. DOJ has only filed I think one lawsuit in the last in the first year of its administration and staff are reportedly being encouraged to avoid long investigations and trials. Youth sports, I think, is a really good example of why that sort of approach is so dangerous. When we aren't focused on what's happening today, it becomes very hard to unwind down the road.
In terms of what Congress can do, I think that we really need legislation that focuses on the serial acquisition strategy that these types of investors use, such that reporting acquisitions isn't triggered only by one large acquisition, it is triggered by the cumulative effect of smaller acquisitions. That and that sort of reporting requirement enables our enforcers and our state attorneys general to identify anti-competitive acquisitions sooner and stop them before they're set in stone.
Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you. And as a member of this committee and particularly this subcommittee, I've always submitted that supporting the health and well-being of our nation's children is the best investment we can make. And we know, we know that youth sports help kids learn and grow mentally, physically, emotionally, academically. We also know from our hearing in December that there's a, this is a quote from earlier testimony, great demand for kids to play sports and parents will spend money they don't have. And that's really concerning right now when people are struggling to pay their bills and we're having this conversation at a time when affordability is at the forefront.
You know, when parents express concerns about affordability in youth sports, they're not just talking about enrollment costs, it's all of the extras: equipment costs, hidden fees, transportation, gas prices, stay-to-play hotel policies, gate fees to watch their own kids play. You heard the story about Senator Murphy being told he had to pay to actually film his kids playing sports. And in your testimony, you talk about a false promise. And I want to ask you about this. I actually used to work at the FTC and one of the positions I had was regulating deceptive advertising.
So when you have this statement that there's this false promise that's given to parents that this will increase their opportunities to earn an athletic scholarship and that they will be watched by colleges, but in fact only 2% of high school athletes receive an athletic scholarship. So can you talk about what we can do to bring transparency to parents about the real and true costs of programs? I think that's a step. I mean, obviously stopping the practices are important, but we really need to get that information out to parents as well. What are some thoughts on that?
Katherine Van Dyke
I absolutely agree that some parent education there would be really helpful to really highlight the slim number of kids that actually not only get scholarships, but even play in college. A very, very tiny amount do play in college even without scholarships. Beyond that, I think a focus on enforcers on these sort of deceptive statements and digging into what promises are being made and what's being delivered and what they're actually capable of delivering is incredibly important to sort of dispel this myth that the athletic scholarship is the gateway. But of course, that's what parents view. You know, the cost of higher education is astronomical and people are desperate to find ways in the door and to pay for it.
Suzanne Bonamici
But if they knew only 2% actually get the scholarships. I want to go back to what Ms. Flanagan talked about with the Norway's approach. I recently heard from Dr. Rebecca Winthrop at Brookings that Estonia, which is a very tech-forward country, about 20% of their day is with technology and the other 80% is more hands-on interactive learning, which is analogous to active learning and activity. We're more flipped in this country where kids spend more time with technology and less time in that hands-on interactive learning that will keep them active. So I think we can have a conversation about that.
But real briefly as I yield back, Mr. I might mispronounce it, Kakabeke.
Kekebic.
Suzanne Bonamici
Kekebic. My family went to Western, so I know Kalamazoo really well. But you brought up a really interesting point too about the corporate branding when these companies come in and say now you have to be branded by our companies. That also, it doesn't just harm students and families, it harms the local businesses that had an investment in and a relationship with. And I just want to make that point.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Michael Rulli
Thank you, Chairman. Mr. Finnerty, I'd like to take a slightly different approach. The focus for me today is on my biggest city in my district, Youngstown, Ohio. There are communities all around the country that need outside investments, like poor rural towns throughout this USA. The Covelli Centre owned by the city of Youngstown had an old ice rink that was in dire need of replacement.
Repair just wasn't going to be enough, and they didn't have the money. They needed money for backup to make this happen. Black Bear Sports Group supported upgrades to the facility, roughly exceeding 1.2 million dollars, and continues supporting the Youngstown Phantoms, which is the minor league hockey team of Youngstown, and also the youth sports groups with a Give Hockey a Shot program. Within the Give Hockey a Shot program, it offers boys and girls the opportunity to try the sport of hockey free of charge, free skates, equipment included. So my question to you today, Mr. Finnerty, is do you think small communities would be able to renovate their facilities and support great programs like Give Hockey a Shot program without the possibility of private investments getting involved?
Brian Finnerty
I don't think it's an absolute question, but I do believe that it affords multiple communities the opportunity when they have access to that capital. But I'll go back to my beginning statement, which is the stewardship in the community if they're not present, because I don't believe it's present everywhere, but where it is present in Give Kids a Shot program enables them to have a chance and access to play. Then I think without that, there would be no hockey in that town. And I think we can name 50 towns like that across the country. But if first and foremost, it's not about the youth players in that city having a chance and access, then everything else doesn't really matter.
So I think when they put that first, that sounds like a win to me.
Michael Rulli
I think these are fascinating conversations. I know in the Mahoning County area, I was a product of late 80s and the 90s, and there was no hockey. And we had the Pittsburgh Penguins, who was owned by the DeBartolo family from Youngstown, so that was the first introduction to hockey within the area. Then all of a sudden this Covelli program happened. And I thought they did a good job, and maybe you could just take a second with the communication when you have hockey organizations like this in smaller off-market B and C cities where you could actually have an interaction with the high schools or the junior highs to get kids interested in something like hockey.
I know one of the people testifying today says we want to get them off their phones, we want to get them in an environment where they could actually experience life. Any comments on that?
Brian Finnerty
I'd say to give those kids access, and the city is, regardless of where the city is, if we can build a sustainable financial model, then that gives more kids access without having to ask those parents to pay for it directly. Right? And without it, if you don't have a sustainable financial model, the parents are going to have to foot the bill. And so again, I keep talking about this harmony and balance between the two. I think if you've got a supporting organization that could go from a professional sport like the NFL, which is doing their flag football programs, the NFL Play programs, and the Play 60 and Play 90 programs, which we've seen at our facility, that give access to hundreds of kids that wouldn't have it otherwise.
That's a really good harmony. We get to do outreach because there's a larger organization wanting to do more in our community. So I think whether it's football, soccer, or hockey, whatever it might be, you need those two to coexist.
Summer Lee
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If private equity monopolizing youth sports is what it takes to get Republicans on board with enforcing antitrust laws, then I welcome that. I will happily work with you to get private equity out of youth sports. But I would love if we could apply this same level of urgency to protecting all children, families, and workers. You can't keep passing bills that make it easier for corporations to exploit people, but then be surprised when they exploit people.
Whether it's children in sports or seniors in nursing homes, or when we prioritize corporate interest, people suffer. If we want more children to reap the benefits of sports, we have to invest in our communities. We need solutions that actually level the playing field instead of ones that will only improve things for the wealthy parents who are suddenly inconvenienced by private equity's outsized role in their kids' elite sports leagues. We need real antitrust enforcement because just like we've seen in so many other sectors, corporate giants are the ones who are benefiting from the extraction of wealth in youth sports at the expense of children and their families. Ms. Van Dyke, how has the consolidation in market shares trends in youth sports mirrored a playbook we've seen in other sectors like hospitals or nursing homes?
Katherine Van Dyke
So, I think those are really good examples to use up against youth sports because they're both industries that involve really vulnerable populations who are easy to take advantage of. There are private equity firms that are rolling up nursing homes and rolling up hospitals and rolling up all kinds of aspects of our healthcare. And when those firms do that in a vulnerable population, they are rolling up services and programs that the population they serve has to have, that are critical to their well-being, and so they're going to stay inside that flywheel that is built.
Summer Lee
Thank you. And what happens to the quality of public goods when private equity gets involved? In this case, is it lowering the quality of youth sports? Is it strengthening it?
Katherine Van Dyke
Yes, it is. So, in youth sports, we see when you have a private organization that maybe doesn't fall under SafeSport's jurisdiction, they aren't required to follow SafeSport's rules and reporting requirements, and they aren't subject to SafeSport investigations if there is some sort of reported abuse. When I was working on the Varsity case, there were reports of serious safety issues, for instance, holding competitions in venues that didn't have ceilings high enough for the stunts that they were doing and where there wasn't proper flooring. Varsity itself has had its own sex abuse scandals. So, you're absolutely right that quality is a very serious issue when a monopolist, when somebody monopolizes an industry because they don't have any sort of incentive to make their services better.
Summer Lee
And real quickly, your testimony also mentions how these profit extraction models promote year-round single-sport specialization starting at a young age. How does this impact children's development?
Katherine Van Dyke
Specialization, it is well known, is not good for children. It causes increased injuries, burnout, mental health problems. And so multi-sport play really is the best way to do that, as Ms. Flanagan referenced. That's what how they do it in Norway, that's how they do it in a lot of other countries. But here, because the pressure to compete is so high, this is what children are doing at earlier and earlier ages, so that if you don't specialize, you're going to be locked out forever.
My son, when we missed the window for baseball when he was nine years old, we learned, oops, we were supposed to try out for a club team last year, and now it's too late. That's how it works.
Summer Lee
Thank you so much for your testimony and for each of yours. It's clear that our livelihoods are at stake when everything from youth sports to healthcare is a luxury good controlled by profit-driven monopolies. All-said, stage capitalism is indeed crushing Americans.
This is the inevitable result of private equity in every single sector. I co-sponsored the Let Kids Play Act, the bill that would prohibit private equity and other predatory for-profit companies from investing in youth sports. If committee Republicans are serious about this issue, let's mark that bill up. And let's mark up bills that get private equity out of every sector where it's causing harm. Because just like families shouldn't have to go broke so that their kid can play soccer or hockey, they should be able to afford healthcare and housing and childcare and eldercare in the richest nation in the world.
We need to start putting people before profits, and this, I think, is a wonderful start, but hopefully it will actually lead us to some action across the board on private equity's takeover of all of our industries and sectors. Thank you so much, and I yield back.
Mark Harris
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to all of you on the panel today for being here and your expertise. It's obvious today we've come a long ways from the days I grew up in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in Northwest Forsyth Little League and Pop Warner football and all of the things that we did in our community. But it's no secret that participation in youth sports plays a significant role in the development of children across the country. We all know that over the years, participation in sports has provided those critical opportunities for children to stay active, build character, develop lifelong skills such as perseverance, leadership, and teamwork. And while many of these youth sports organizations continue to serve children and families exceptionally well, as we're hearing here today, the shift away from community-based programs along with rising fees, increased travel, and other factors have left many parents dissatisfied with the current state of youth sports.
In fact, I read recently a 2025 USA Today poll found that 73% of parents believe youth sports have lost sight of their core mission of fostering fun and developing teamwork, while 61% of parents reported that youth organizations now prioritize profit over purpose. So, Mr. Kekebie, based on your experience, what's the value of having youth sports organizations that are deeply rooted in their communities and accountable to local families rather than being controlled by outside operators who may be less connected to the communities they serve?
Matt Kaczkowski
Yes, Mr. Harris, that's a fantastic question, and it's passion. It's the passion that local leadership administering local programming that's invested in that particular community to ensure that these young children have the opportunity to enjoy whether it's soccer, hockey, lacrosse. So I think it comes down to the passion of the local volunteer-driven board of directors or the administrative staff of that particular club.
Mark Harris
Well, that's an important statement you make there, because another finding the USA Today poll that I found particularly interesting was that 63% of parents said their children's sports teams travel more than necessary, and nearly 80% supported reducing travel. So, Ms. Flanagan, let me ask you, you mentioned that encouraging multi-sport participation, increasing fee transparency, and reducing unnecessary travel are ways to better align youth sports with what keep kids engaged. How effective do you think these approaches could be in reversing some of the negative trends and concerns that we're discussing here today?
Linda Flanagan
I think if we could address those issues, it would fix a lot of the problems. In part because if you reduce, if we were able to cut back on the travel, that's the biggest expense for families. So if it were sports were more local, if there were no air travel involved or hotel stays, that would be an enormously important solution. Also, multi-sport play, as we've all spoken of, all the sports medicine doctors, medical associations, former professional athletes, everyone talks about the need for multi-sport play, and yet kids aren't doing it.
Obviously some are, but a significant chunk are not. If we could switch that and penetrate parents' brains who are unfortunately flamboyantly irrational about their kids, it would go a long way to fixing some of these problems.
Mark Harris
Thank you. Mr. Finnerty, as I read your written testimony in preparation for today's hearing, I appreciated the way you highlighted how quickly the short-term financial goals of investment in youth sports have become more important than the children and families those investments are intended to serve. You concluded your testimony by saying that the capital should ultimately be judged by the opportunities it creates for children, not the returns it generates for investors. What would it look like in practice for more operators and investors to embrace that standard, if you will, in the last 40 seconds?
Brian Finnerty
Sure, thank you. I think it would look more like a result than it would be a mandate. Are more kids playing sports? Are they getting involved and are the parents able to afford it? I think that's the goal at the end.
So when we put that at high velocity first and foremost, most businesses aren't profitable in their first five years, we made it there in year two and have done so ever since because we put our community first and we reinvest in our community. So we have to be profitable to be civic, but at the end of the day, without those profits, we don't get to reinvest, and without our community, we don't have any of that. So I think at the end of the day, by, I sound like a broken record, but by putting them first and what their desires and needs are, we can talk to the parents and educate them a little bit on not every eight-year-old's going to get a college scholarship or turn pro. And at the same time, if they're happy and healthy and ultimately want to play club hockey or soccer or baseball when they get to college, I think we've done our job.
Great. Well, thank you all for your thoughtful answers. Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Representative Adams of North Carolina is recognized.
Alma Adams
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here. Ms. Van Dyke, youth sports should be about children. They should be about health, teamwork, confidence, and giving every child a place to belong. But what we're seeing now is a youth sports market where families are paying more, community programs are getting squeezed, and a few large actors can control facilities, the leagues, the tournaments, the uniforms, the hotels, and even the streaming access. That is not just a youth sports problem, that's a competition problem.
And we talk a lot on this committee about the impact of corporate consolidation on consumers, but it's harder to see the businesses that never started, the small providers that never got off the ground, or the community programs that were pushed out before families even knew they existed. So let me ask you this: if there were fewer private equity interests in youth sports, what types of providers would be able to enter the market that are currently being blocked or priced out?
Katherine Van Dyke
Thank you for that question. I think that if we got back to a model that the model that we used to have and that it was funded, that there was government money coming into it, that it would allow these programs to get off the ground, as you said, because the way the model works now, when you have one large company controlling an entire ecosystem, part of that ecosystem is the players on the teams. And so when they control those players, that means rec leagues don't have anybody, the people who even have the resources and the will to get a community program going can't get players to fill the team.
Alma Adams
Okay, let me ask you also about what happens when one company controls too much of the youth sports experience. When a single company owns the rinks, the leagues, and the tournaments in a region, families and small clubs do not have many places to go. If they push back on costs, scheduling, hotel requirements, or unfair terms, they may risk losing ice time, tournament invitations, or access altogether. That's a lot of power over children, over families and coaches and community-based organizations. So when a single company controls the facilities and the programming, what happens to a family or small club that pushes back?
Katherine Van Dyke
Well, that's the, I think that's exactly what Mr. Kakabeeke talked about with his experience, is that when you have one large operator who controls every part of the youth sports ecosystem, they exert enormous power over the community. They control who gets to be on the ice or who gets to be on the field. They control which apparel company you're going to buy your uniforms from. They control which teams get to be in the league. And a lot of times those league owners also own teams and they get to write the rules to favor their own teams.
So you're right.
Speaker 14
So do you believe fear of retaliation is keeping families and coaches and small providers from coming forward?
Katherine Van Dyke
Absolutely, fear of retaliation is a very serious problem. Doing the work that I'm doing, it's very hard to find parents who are even willing to talk because they don't want their kid to get cut from the team.
Alma Adams
Well, finally, let me ask you about public-private partnerships. I understand that private investment can play a role in building facilities and expanding access. But public-private partnerships are not magic words. If they are not structured carefully, they can leave local governments and families wide open to opportunities by the private partner. And when antitrust laws are not enforced, the public can end up subsidizing a system where private actors control access and raise costs.
So can you speak briefly to why public-private partnerships must be paired with real guardrails, transparency, and antitrust enforcement? And what should Congress be looking for to make sure that these partnerships expand access for children instead of simply creating another opportunity for profit extraction?
Katherine Van Dyke
I really appreciate that question and I want to make clear that I'm not arguing against any private money in youth sports. There certainly is a place for it. It always has had a place for it. Organizations like yours are doing a great job. Corporate sponsorships for facilities and teams are incredibly important.
But there do have to be guardrails because otherwise, and when we talk about guardrails, we're really talking about structural and behavioral remedies that we're dealing with in antitrust. We want, if you are going to partner with a private company to operate your facility, you want to make sure they don't have a conflict of interest that's going to make them give their teams and their leagues all the ice time and lock others out. So it's those sorts of structural problems where we don't want conflicts of interest in our public, in our private partners that are going to harm the community.
Alma Adams
Certainly, I agree. Mr. Chairman, youth sports should not become another place where working families are told that they have to pay more just for their children to participate. And we should be protecting community programs, enforcing competition laws, and making sure that every child, not just the wealthy few, has a chance to play. And with that, I yield back.
Burgess Owens
Representative Owens of Utah is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I'll say first of all, it's great to see this bipartisan concern we have to care about our kids. Playing sports as a student was foundational for my development and personal growth. Decades of sports from Pop Warner sixth grade to NFL gave me the confidence to grow from a young man who was a very quiet introvert to a US Congressman representing hundreds of thousands of Utahns. I learned the importance of strong work ethic, teamwork, and loyalty.
One of the greatest lessons learned from sports is now exemplified on my congressional team. We cannot control the scoreboard, but we can control the hustle. Youth sports continue today to play an important role in physical and mental health development for our children. We unfortunately, though, are seeing a growth of an industry of bad actors who create a system that is pricing parents and their children out of the growth opportunity. We're seeing a growth of a system that's making it harder to access youth sports, depriving our youth from opportunities for self-improvement and important character-building life lessons.
Again, I'm grateful for this opportunity to have this conversation. Ms. Flanagan, you started off your statement with two things that kind of got my attention. One is predatory, and the other one is corporate return on investment, which has nothing to do with our kids, has to do with the investor's return. We need to keep both of those away from our kids, and I think this is the kind of conversation we need to have to start that process. Ms. Flanagan, in your testimony, you noted that name, image, and likeness, NIL, deals are now available to high school students in many states, which has increased the pressure on families to invest heavily in youth sports at young ages.
Given that many parents see early and expensive sports participation as a path to college scholarships or future NIL opportunities, how is this dynamic affecting the culture of our youth sports and the values such as teamwork, loyalty, humbleness, respect for authority, all that can be learned through sports?
Linda Flanagan
Thank you for that question. What comes to mind is a quote from the sports medicine doctor Nirav Jayanthi, who has said, "The more money, the more problems." And I think what also comes to mind is something called the commercialization effect, which you may already be aware of, but it's an economic concept developed by Fred Hirsch, the late British economist. And the theory is that whenever a good or service is supplied mainly on commercial terms, rather than on some other basis like obligation, love, or feelings of service, that it changes the character of the good or service. Commerce also crowds out those other values that might make someone do something.
And I think we see this in youth sports in that the appeal of perhaps getting an NIL deal as... when I wrote my book, it was really about I think parents felt an obligation or felt compelled to launch into this because they hoped for a college scholarship or access to a better college. But now with the specter of NIL, that's also changing sports, and I would argue that we're seeing the commercialization effect in youth sports. So that the values that what you gained when you played, the teamwork, maybe the leadership skills, maybe some confidence, that those kinds of values are being crowded out by market values. And for parents, it makes sense in a way. They're... if you're paying a lot of money, you know, I think the $1,500 number that's tossed around is probably low for many, many families.
They're going to want a return on investment. And so that then the issues of loyalty, will you stay with your team, will you... that becomes less important.
Burgess Owens
Thank you. I just want to make sure I ask a couple of other quick questions. Mr. Cokelbie, Black Bear says it's saving rinks and growing the game. I'd like to give you a chance to respond to that characterization. How would you describe Black Rock's impact on your hockey?
Matt Kaczkowski
Black Bear Sports Group's impact on the Cohasset Youth Hockey Association could simply be described as predatory. Within 30 seconds of meeting Scott Brandenwyn, the director of operations in Michigan, he'd unraveled 60 years of Cohasset history, demanding we change our name, our logo, all of our programming.
Was advised that the participant fees would be increasing while we would have to cut back services at the same time. So I think the heavy-handedness of those conversations and the fact that we pushed back made us uncomfortable to Black Bear Sports Group, which ultimately resulted in our eviction. It was easy for us to be removed from the landscape in the Kalamazoo community.
Burgess Owens
And I just want to say one quick comment before I let Ms. Fenerty. First of all, thank you. I think the importance to understand that investment's important, but it's when the mission are kids, not investors. And we're seeing too much of this. We're going to lose our soul of our nation if we don't get this right.
So I want to thank you, first of all, all the entrepreneurs out there that's doing it for the communities that care about their kids, investing, we're doing it the right way. We just need to make sure we keep these bad actors out. I just want to thank you so much. Now I'll yield back.
Mr. Mannion of New York is recognized.
John Mannion
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you to the ranking member. Thank you to the witnesses. This is, you know, such a critical issue and it's great to be able to dive deep into it today in a bipartisan way. You know, for too many families, youth sports is unaffordable.
We're hearing that today. Private equity and for-profits are consolidating our leagues, our facilities, and our tournaments, and at the same time, we're not seeing the necessary investment in recreational programs. That's part of the reason why I support Congressman Deluzio's Let Kids Play bill, which directly addresses ownership and the unfair practices that exist. I coached and refereed high school, youth, college sports for decades, and as was stated by many of you and many of the people on the dais here, that what youth sports builds as it relates to character, leadership, teamwork, loyalty to fellow teams, sportsmanship, is simply immeasurable. And we cannot limit participation of our youth in these sports because of the cost.
I want to reference an organization that has met this head-on in my district called Tilly's Touch. The name Tilly was named after the founder's mother, who was fully dedicated to youth in the neighborhood. This organization acknowledged and saw that there was a problem as it relates to poor children being able, not being able to participate in tournaments, traveling tournaments, because they didn't have the resources. Many of these children are refugees that come to Syracuse and Utica from around the world. Something we're very good at in upstate New York is that resettlement of people who are seeking opportunity, seeking the American dream, and fleeing oppression.
One critical piece to what they do is making sure that education and tutoring is a critical part of their participation in Tilly's Touch. Also, what is of assistance in that organization is connecting them to a variety of different community groups to make sure that themselves and their families have the opportunity to succeed. You know, and a lot of these organizations talk about how they want to make sure that they have the youth's best interest at heart and that education is a key part of that, but I've watched firsthand that no kid gets on that field without participating in the education and tutoring piece. And so I just wanted to acknowledge their good work, and it's unfortunate to hear how greed is getting in the way of organizations like that.
So I have a question for Ms. Van Dyke and then another follow-up question for anyone. The incentives for large for-profit providers are clearly winning the game at this point. And when a local nonprofit or public school runs an athletic program, the money that's spent often goes into the infrastructure to perpetuate those programs. But we know that the incentives, or the financial incentives for those private entities don't necessarily go there. Where do those dollars go?
Katherine Van Dyke
Well, I think that gets back to the importance of having public funding for youth sports because the large vertically integrated private equity firm is interested, their first priority is paying their investors in a short amount of time, whereas local, locally owned community-based programs are going to reinvest those dollars back towards the kids.
John Mannion
You know, I watched this with my own children and I was a volunteer coach. The coaches that are in these programs are community members. This is for anybody. So they're put in a very difficult position. But do you have any instances where those coaches themselves, in an effort to help recruit additional players to grow the program, are benefiting themselves financially that are just our neighbors?
Matt Kaczkowski
I would be hard-pressed to give you a yes answer on that. I still believe people like you and I do this to invest in kids. And there's no capital agreement beyond that.
John Mannion
I appreciate that response. That's what I've seen as well, but I've also seen what was laid out here today, which is people being put in very difficult situations and having to sell a bill of goods that many are not asking for. Thank you so much and I yield back.
Speaker 23
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to our witnesses for being here today. Mr. Kekuby, youth sports organizations like yours rely heavily on a network of local volunteers, parents, and alumni. In your view, how does shifting from a community-rooted model to a corporate-run model affect volunteer engagement and the broader sense of community ownership around youth sports?
Matt Kaczkowski
Yes, I believe that as we move more to a corporate-based structure, we will lose those volunteers, things that Mr. Owens had spoken about and the fact that we want mentors and mentorship in our communities. If we're completely focused on profit and profit extraction and maximizing your return on your investment by exploiting youth sports or a nonprofit youth organization like ourselves, we lose that ability to recruit volunteers. As a 60-year-old nonprofit, we're built on the back of volunteers. And I think the more local engagement we can have with our community and the adults that are willing to give back to the next generation just strengthens our community and our position in it.
Speaker 23
Thank you. Ms. Flanagan, you describe a growing divide between low-income communities where youth sports opportunities have declined and higher-income communities where families have the flexibility to spend on travel and specialized training. This disparity leaves the next generation of kids out of opportunities that could change their lives for the better. What is the impact on kids when they miss out on development and health benefits that come with participating in youth sports?
Linda Flanagan
You know, if you read the New York Times science section every Tuesday, I think every week there's another article about the advantages of exercise. And that pertains to youth as well. Sports, playing sports, and I want to add also that sometimes we conflate sports with exercise.
Kids play sports, we want them to play sports because they're fun and they're more apt to do that than go to the gym. But sports lower the growth of the body mass index, they help with brain processing, self-regulation, and obviously emotional problems of depression and anxiety. So this is why we want sports, kids to play sports at all levels. There's also some evidence that the most active adults are those who played sports, varsity sports in high school. So it kind of carries on once you start it when you're young and you develop an interest in it and it's fun, then you're more apt to keep doing that as an adult, which we also know is tied to health.
I also want to add, just the former question about the number of coaches, the Aspen Institute found that there was a drop of, I think it was 1.2 million fewer volunteer coaches in the last couple of years, you know, related to the issues we're talking about today.
Speaker 23
Also in your testimony, you mentioned the importance of injury prevention. Are you familiar with a program called Coaching Safely that provides online evidence-based training platform for youth coaches and helps them recognize and manage and prevent youth injuries?
I certainly am.
Speaker 23
What in your recommendation, what would be a recommendation on how to best get those tools, you know, to coaches across the country?
Linda Flanagan
Well, I think Jack Crow, who runs that program, is doing heroic work to get that out there. And it's been, that Coaching Safely model has been adopted by I think about six states now. It may be it has to be a state-by-state kind of approach where organizations are, the state mandates coach training for children under the age who are not in school, because we already have protections for high school and college kids, it's only the younger kids we don't. So I think if other states can look to the model that we see in Alabama and elsewhere, that may not be the best way, but I think it may be the quickest way at this point.
Speaker 23
Thank you. Mr. Finnerty, we heard today examples of how public or how private investment in youth sports has created barriers to opportunity. Thankfully, not all capital businesses operate the same way. We've also seen examples across the country where private organizations have partnered with local communities, schools, and nonprofits through initiatives like coach training programs, facility upgrades in public schools, and community-based access efforts to expand participation and reduce barriers for families. From your experience building and operating High Velocity Sports, how can private investment be used responsibly, including through partnerships with public entities to expand access, strengthen local programs, and create sustainable youth sports infrastructure?
Brian Finnerty
Good question. I think first and foremost, based on my experience with the public-private partnerships, it's, and my example at High Velocity where we're working with our township of Canton to find the inefficiencies that may exist in their current processes. So they may not be doing things efficiently and therefore they're more expensive, where we can come in and help them with those efficiencies and with that savings pour 100% of that back into kids who need more access or families that can't afford to play. So I think we have some infrastructure on things like organization efficiency, managing volunteer organizations, as Matt talked about, where we can actually create a better environment for those volunteers to get them more engaged, not less, which lowers the cost and gets more kids to play. So we bring that structure, and I'm giving you just our example, but we tend to look inside first, and if we can't help, then our community would say thanks but no thanks, but where we have been able to help, they've taken our assistance.
Thank you, and I yield back.
Raúl Grijalva
Representative Grijalva of Arizona is recognized.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Every parent wants the best for their kids, but sadly, every parent can't afford it. And more and more families with lower socioeconomic status are not able to let their children participate in a lot of these opportunities. I have three kids at home, so whenever I'm home, if I'm not here, I'm watching a play or at a school event or at a mariachi performance. I'm fortunate that my kids fell in love with activities that were offered at their school, that were provided by school.
But for many families, youth sports are becoming a luxury that public schools can no longer afford to provide and families can no longer reach. What used to be a local recreational activity has been transformed into a forty billion dollar semi-professional industry, twice the size of the NFL. We are in the midst of a true affordability crisis in 2024. The average family spent over fifteen hundred, and I agree that is probably a lot more than that, just so a child could play. A staggering forty-six percent increase since 2019.
Where parents see an opportunity to provide the best for their kids, corporations see an opportunity for profit. These corporations aren't just participating, they're dominating. They are wringing out working class families by buying up rinks and leagues, then charging predatory fees for things as simple as recording a child's game. That's unacceptable. The affordability crisis has bled into every access of our lives, and now it means our kids won't even have the chance to even try out a new sport, let alone play the sports they love, while massive corporations make profit hand over fist.
We need to end the commercialization of children's sports and bring sports back to public schools, and it starts with understanding how we got to this point and leading change from the top down. Ms. Van Dyke, while the focus of today's hearing is obviously with youth sports, changes in sports world at the college and professional levels obviously trickle have trickle down effects. How talent is scouted, how players are paid, and how athletes are able to train. What trends at the college level or even professional levels of sports in recent years have influenced how youth sports industry is structured today?
Katherine Van Dyke
Thank you for that question. First of all, as I said earlier, certainly the higher cost of education is driving a lot of parents' motivation to and willingness to pay the high prices that these commercial monoliths are charging. Second of all, the commercialization of sports in college, I think as Tom Farrey at the Aspen Institute often says, anything that happens in college trickles down to youth sports programs. So the commercialization of sports in college until very recently drove most of those profits toward coaches' salaries and outrageous facility spending. LSU just signed a contract with Lane Kiffin at the end of last year for over ninety million dollars.
My alma mater TCU just built a snow room at a big new fancy facility. Third, we are looking at a model where we are still not offering funding. So for instance, the Protect College Sports Act that just made it out of committee in the Senate. That goes after athlete pay. It doesn't go after coaches' pay.
It doesn't go after facility spending. And it doesn't provide funding for the Olympic and women's sports that it claims it wants to save.
Raúl Grijalva
Is there anything Congress can do to require that facility owners, especially those operating on public land or with public subsidies, keep their facilities open and affordable to the whole community, not just to the families who can pay the most?
Yeah.
Absolutely. I think if Congress is providing funding and facilities are being built on public land, that funding can be provided with conditions, such as prohibiting any sort of private operator that has a conflict of interest. Making sure that there are requiring equal access laws, requiring equal access and equal terms is not something new, and there's no reason that can't be applied to youth sports.
Raúl Grijalva
Yeah, I think that the one quote that you said earlier is making youth sports about fitness and joy, and we really need to focus more and more on that and less, you know, it should be a positive physical activity, working as a team, raising well-rounded young people that are going to be super successful in our communities, and less about a cutthroat environment. And we were talking middle and high school, but this is happening in younger grades as well, and it's really scary for those kids who are like, I just want to see if I, you know, to learn how to play the game, are getting pushed out. So I appreciate the time today and I yield back. Thank you.
Representative Moylan of Guam is recognized.
James Moylan
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks for this Field of Fees: Private Equity's Role in Commercialization of America Youth Sports committee hearing today. I thank the panel also for your testimonies and just have a few questions, first starting with Mr. Fernety. How can private investment expand youth sports facilities and programming without pricing families out, particularly in the rural, especially mine like Guam, and low and middle income communities, please?
Brian Finnerty
Well, I think that many people on the panel have talked about that, which is the combination of both public and private work together. I don't think that if we're only putting the onus on the public sector to do it, that will base everything from the size of your community to the tax base that may exist to the philanthropic people that live in communities like Kalamazoo, and it will ebb and flow. I think when those things are done in tandem, then you do have a requirement, speaking from the private side, that when on public land or working in combination with a public entity, you have a check balance that obviously you're serving that community first, and therefore being able to be in the profitability side to support that, I don't think those things are in conflict with each other.
Speaker 29
Excellent. If done right, it will work. That's right. Thank you. Mr. Kekebek, what safeguards help preserve affordable local youth recreation programs?
Matt Kaczkowski
What safeguards help protect? I guess for our club, those safeguards would be the appropriate public-private partnership. For example, in our community, we were very fortunate for six decades we had two families that owned the ice rinks in Kalamazoo, and they were heavily invested in the community and subsidized the fees and the ice rental of our community for generations. And now moving forward, it looks different. And the safeguard is to keep Black Bear Sports and private equity that come in and make these demands on these local nonprofits that have been there for generations to conform to their vertical integration to extract the profit from our families, which make sports much more expensive than it needs to be.
James Moylan
Thank you. It's really very true and I see that as well. Appreciate it. Also, sir, how can all local organizations remain competitive as commercial operators expand?
Matt Kaczkowski
By providing a world-class experience. We strive to do that at our club every day, and we would make ourselves more attractive by having the community involvement, our former pro players, our college players, having a large volume of volunteers with community investment to host Try Hockey for Free events, to host an 8U jamboree with a chili challenge cook-off, to make it a festival atmosphere, carnival-like every time you step on the ice. That's how nonprofits are going to survive in this marketplace.
James Moylan
Make it really fun and affordable for everybody to attend. Very good. You make me excited to come and see your games and stuff. Thank you for that.
You're welcome anytime.
Appreciate it. Ms. Van Dyke, would you like to add on to that, please?
Yeah, I think in terms of being able to compete, I think it's really important to make sure that we don't have these flywheels and these vertically integrated companies because that's really hard to penetrate. If we have facilities where a private operator owns the facilities, owns the leagues, and owns the teams, Mr. Kakabeeke's experience is going to be repeated for other organizations. If we enforce our existing laws and pass laws that prohibit these types of conflicts of interest, we will have competition.
Thank you so much. Thank you to the panel. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
The ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Scott, is recognized.
Robert Scott
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me follow up on that, Ms. Van Dyke. You talked about vertical monopolies where one company can own this rink, that controls the teams, the leagues, runs the tournaments, even live streams the events and gets revenue from that. How are these vertical monopolies even legal under antitrust laws?
Katherine Van Dyke
That's a great question. So our existing antitrust laws do actually address vertical monopolies. And when a vertically integrated company is harming competition, that's unlawful under the antitrust laws that we have. Unfortunately, they have been, I think, diluted a little bit by some of the judicial interpretation and also by the lack of antitrust enforcement under the current administration and the lack of, I would say, the lack of attention to the consolidation that has happened in youth sports over the last 10 or 15 years. But there are laws that exist that prohibit this; they just have not been enforced sufficiently.
Robert Scott
And what portion of this whole problem is due to the absence of other opportunities provided by local public schools and parks and recreations? It seems to me that for-profit entities would have trouble making much money if there were free or affordable options for families.
Katherine Van Dyke
I think that's absolutely right. You know, a lot of people that I talk to, friends, people that I talk to in my professional life, talk about, they say they've been sucked into it. They feel like they have no other choice. But if there is funding and there are programs at schools, that eliminates a lot of these access problems we are talking about. If there is a school-run team, it is most likely that your child's practice is going to be there.
Their home games are going to be there. When they have an away game, they're probably going to take the school bus there. And so all these barriers that we're talking about in terms of cost and time and travel and facilities go away very quickly when you have, when kids have a place to play and when there are not just varsity programs, there are junior varsity programs for kids who are newer to a sport or still developing.
So yes, I completely agree.
Robert Scott
And these for-profit companies, how much of their revenue is provided by fees paid for by the families? And is there any evidence of financial arrangements with hotels or restaurants they may use? How do they make their money?
Katherine Van Dyke
So when people cite that 40 that 40 billion dollar figure, I think almost all of that money is coming from parents paying enrollment fees and management fees and equip and paying for equipment and uniforms. As far as stay-to-play, that is a an enormous problem. It is the one that when parents will talk, complain about the most. The arrangements mean that what stay-to-play means is that a youth sports tournament requires any team participating to book their travel through their preferred travel agent and stay at their preferred hotel. They are told we got you the best rate.
That is rarely true. In today's age, it is very easy to look online and see on Expedia that you're paying a lot more and that there's a cheaper hotel down the road. Even USA Hockey has a stay-to-play policy for their junior hockey tournaments and if anybody on a team violates that stay-to-play policy, the team is fined 5,000 dollars. So it's a serious problem.
Robert Scott
Now, the gentleman from Utah, Mr. Burgess, talked about the value of sports. I don't think we need to debate that question around here. But you mentioned that part of the problem is public schools aren't doing all they can. How much money are we spending, how much money are public schools or federal government spending on sports? I know Title IV under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, it's we spend about three or four billion dollars a year.
There are about 50 million students at 2,000 a piece, that would be 100 billion dollars. It doesn't it seems like affordable numbers when you consider that we ran up 4 trillion dollars in additional debt in that big ugly bill that they are going to celebrate later this week. Seems like we have the money if we want if we will just make the effort. Do you have any comment about whether or not we can afford to solve this problem?
Katherine Van Dyke
I think that you make some good points about where we're spending our money. I can't speak to Title IV, but I can say that the US Olympic Committee or USOPC receives zero dollars of federal funding despite this being our an alleged national interest. And so when you look at what people's priorities are, I think it makes sense to look at where the money's going and none of it is going to our USOPC that's tasked with developing these grassroots programs.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Kevin Kiley
I will now recognize thank you to our witnesses for your excellent testimony and I now recognize Ranking Member Bonamici for a closing statement.
Suzanne Bonamici
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you again to all the witnesses for being here today and for your compelling testimony. What we've heard today reinforces what families are already experiencing. Youth sports have become harder and sometimes impossible for families to afford. And we know that choices have been made that contribute to this hardship: underinvestment in public facilities and K-12 programs and an environment that's increasingly shaped by consolidation and private equity where decisions are driven by returns for investors rather than outcomes for kids. Many exploitative firms are experts at insulating themselves from the consequences of their harmful practices, as is the case with Blackstone's Blue Star Sports, for example.
It's also very concerning that many of these private equity firms and their subsidiaries have been known to target businesses that serve lower-income populations. These consumers have little to no recourse or resources when quality falls and prices rise. And as Ms. Van Dijk's research makes clear, this is not an isolated problem. It's a pattern that we recognize from other sectors of the economy where fewer companies are controlling more of a market, and that leads to higher prices and fewer choices for everyday families. And when that happens in housing, in childcare, or healthcare, families suffer.
And when it happens in youth sports, kids pay the price through lost opportunities to play, to belong, to grow, and to benefit from sports. This isn't a partisan fight. I expect that every member of this committee has watched a child light up after scoring a goal or learning to resolve their differences and be part of a team. We should all want that experience to be in reach for every student, not just those whose families can afford the travel, the coach, the premium tournament package. Our constituents want and deserve fairness, and what we have heard today is anything but fair, what's happening.
So the path forward is within our control: greater transparency in pricing, real antitrust enforcement, renewed investment in public parks and recreation centers and school athletics, so opportunity isn't determined by a family's zip code or income. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I look forward to continuing the conversation, and I yield back.
Kevin Kiley
Without objection, I'll submit for the record statements from Mr. Kyle Scott, founder and president of Buying Sandlot, and Mr. Seth Lieberman, founder and CEO of Anchored. Both statements emphasize that the challenges in youth sports are more complex than private investment alone. You know, thinking back on my own upbringing, it's really hard to imagine it without youth sports. Youth sports are really part and parcel of childhood. And it's tragic and alarming that those opportunities are being lost for many kids in our country because of financial barriers.
You know, we all, we've discussed today the countless good and healthy habits that are formed through youth sports participation where kids are getting exercise, they're often getting outdoors, they're interacting with their peers, they're working with their peers towards goals, in other words teamwork, they're learning determination and resilience and grit, all qualities that pay enormous dividends in all facets of life. And so when we see this widening opportunity gap in access to youth sports, I think it's a terrible thing for those kids who lose these opportunities. It's also a terrible thing for our country if those benefits are not able to compound down the road for everyone. So today's hearing is an opportunity for us to really try to call for a renewed commitment to broadening access to youth sports for all kids, which means, you know, investing at all levels of government and creating those opportunities and the facilities and infrastructure necessary to make them possible. I think there's a role as well in our schools for, in some cases, more meaningful PE offerings in order to foster participation for kids at all age levels.
And then we've also looked at, and it should say by the way that when you have budget decisions that have to be made, when hard choices have to be made, for some reason it's always sort of kids who are the lowest priority. And so I think that's something we need to change as well. But we've also heard about how there's a constructive role for public-private partnerships in terms of trying to catalyze this broadening in participation and facilities. And we've heard a few examples like the National Recreation and Parks Association grants, the NFL Flag-In-School and Play 60 initiative, 63 by 30 Golf Alliance, Under Armour Project Rampart, the AZ Plays initiative, the Dick's Sporting Goods Foundation has done great things, Up2Us Sports.
These are all really good examples of how you see the private sector and the public sector working together for the benefits of kids. So today's hearing has been about youth sports. It's also been about the cost of living. When you have families who are paying so much in many parts of the country for gas, for electricity, for housing, for water, for groceries, and then you say, well, you have to pay $1,000 or maybe much more just for your kid to be able to play sports, that's a cost that far too many families can't afford right now. And so we need to have a renewed commitment to broadening participation and access in youth sports for all kids and to lowering the cost of living for all Americans.
With that, without objection, there being—
Yes, sir.
Robert Scott
I'd like to clarify the record. I used two figures. I used the figure $100 billion, $2,000 a piece for every public school student was $100 billion, and that's an annual number. The $4 trillion in additional debt was a 10-year figure. So I just want to make sure the record is clear.
Speaker 25
All right. Thank you very much. Without objection, there being now no further business, the subcommittee stands adjourned.