To better understand our partners, we’ve made a concerted effort to attend, participate in and lead as many conferences, symposiums, and roundtables in the youth sports space as possible. This past weekend our baseball experts headed to the Silver State to learn more about elite travel baseball teams and the best practices that have allowed them to rise to the top of the hardball heap.

The annual Premier Baseball meeting was held in the Red Rock Casino & Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Premier is a collection of 28 of the country’s most elite travel baseball organizations who boast their stat line across their website with over 11,000 college commitments, 2,000 players drafted, and 250 players who have played in Big Leagues. Once a year they gather to address the current state of travel baseball, the success of their events in the past year, and what they can improve moving into the New Year.

Premier Baseball is a long-standing collection of top baseball programs – in existence since 2004. Even though most own and operate their own clubs, they use the umbrella of Premier to run exclusive invite-only tournaments throughout the summer that have long been a staple for college recruiters and professional scouts. The combined tenure of the members easily eclipses the half-century mark. We were pleased to meet with five of our current Premier member partners including Midwest Nationals, Texas Stix, St. Louis Prospects, South Texas Sliders, and Nebraska Sluggers.

It’s amazing to think about the traffic that a group of these organization can bring. New Balance, Under Armour, Prep U, travel agencies – all just looking to have a few minutes of face time with the most influential programs in travel baseball. The scale and scope of youth baseball continue to grow and events like this should make stakeholders in the industry extremely bullish on the future.

As for the event itself, innovation and changing of the old guard were the main themes of the weekend. They voted in a new president, Jerry Daniels, who was one of the original founders of Premier and founded the original Rawlings Prospects program, which was once the largest travel ball organization in the country. Premier recognized they needed to collectively (and individually) think about what the youth baseball landscape will look like five years from now. It’s something that every organizer, no matter the sport, size, or location, needs to come to terms with.

For more from our on the road series, check out the latest articles in our community section.