Day one of NextUp 2024—the Youth Sports Management Conference—was a success!

The energy in the room was buzzing, as NextUp is one of the very few (perhaps only) opportunities to be in the same room as youth sports leaders from all over the industry, from all different sports. We heard from a number of inspiring speakers, including but not limited to:

• Melissa Ortiz, Olympian and Soccer Anchor
• Julie Foudy, Olympian, Former Captain of the USWNT, and EPSN Anchor
• Swin Cash, former WNBA player and SVP of Basketball Operations at the New Orleans Pelicans
• Justin Nihiser, Operating Partner at Garnett Station Partners
• George Barrios, Founder and Co-CEO, Isos Capital and Former President of WWE
• Billy Welcome, CEO & Co Founder, All In Athletics
• Alex Day, Content Creator and Former Overtime
• Benita Fitzgerald-Mosley, Olympic Gold Medalist and CEO of Multiplying Good

The conference opened up with our first-ever Women in Sports Brunch—a room of female leaders mentoring and learning from one another. Safe to say a couple of LinkedIn (and real life) connections were made.

In the afternoon, we split off into breakout sessions to get more specific about certain areas of youth sports—like developing an online presence, going beyond the star athlete, finance & accounting, and defining your sponsorship portfolio.

Without further ado, here are some of the main takeaways from the conference that you can refer back to when your friends, family, and colleagues ask how the only youth sports conference of its kind went.

The conference kicked off with a high energy intro by our Founding Fathers Brian Litvack and Jeremy Goldberg, the co-founders of LeagueApps, where Brian the “youth sports historian” walked through the history of youth sports.

Then, we jumped right into the MainStage sessions which had the room captivated for hours. Here’s the TL;DR.

Business of Youth Sports & Business of Youth Enrichment

When George Barrios started at WWE, they were bringing in $300 million in revenue and $50 million in profit—when he left it was bringing in over a billion dollars in revenue and $300 million in profit.

How?

• Intense focus on building the brand
• Focusing on data to build closer connections with fans
• Storytelling—bringing life to what happens off the court/ ring
• Global nature
• Good leaders and managers

“If you are trying to do something big, there are going to hard, dark days while you are getting there. Conviction will help you push through,” George Barrios says.

Winning On and Off the Field, Delivering Amazing: Youth Development

Julie Foudy came to the stage with Melissa, Brian, Jeremy, and Dean Jacobson, Managing Director of AKKR. Everyone on the stage had a special connection to youth sports and how it shaped who they are—like Julie who learned lessons that shaped her future and Dean who used sports as a way to feel a part of a new community when he emigrated from South Africa.

There are so many apps and technologies out there working to make the youth sports experience better—and as a result the role of technology in sports is always changing. LeagueApps is working to influence and partner with organizations who want to affect the right changes.

But what are the right changes?

Well, Julie hopes things can be simplified. Jeremy thinks there’s a huge opportunity around driving access to youth sports. Swin Cash thinks there is too much  emphasis on early recruiting and cultivating talent because it’s not allowing kids to actually develop and enjoy the sport.

Lessons From the European Development Model

We heard from Zelimir Stevanovic, who has had his eyes on all aspects of youth development in basketball both in the US and Eastern Europe.

There’s a different youth model for basketball in Serbia, he tells us. The focus is on training and development training 5 days a week with only one day a week.

The mindset and motivation for kids is different—it’s less transactional, and not as much hype around the sport itself. Serbian attitudes to winning are just different, he says.

His observations on the US system are that the talent is unbelievable, but the foundation is different. Kids and parents are constantly worried about the short-term on the court—thinking about creating the right habits and all that goes into being an athlete.

The Secrets of Scaling, Principles of Business Success

Greg Kaistoff, Partner at Young Strategic Ventures, discussed scaling your business quickly by making the customer the hero, using technology and social media, and listening to consumers and adapt to the market need.

In five years, he massively scaled the number of events he was running by focusing on the fundamentals:

• Accommodation
• Interpersonal Relationships
• Trends

Day two is bound to be just as great as day one… Maybe better. See you there and don’t forget to bring your badge!