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Anywhere there is money, making an everyday man some money, these pests creep in. I generally dislike what has become of recreational sports and how the parents

by srameshc 11mo ago

Anywhere there is money, making an everyday man some money, these pests creep in. I generally dislike what has become of recreational sports and how the parents are either forced to spend for things that really don't matter, when learning to play. But learning Private Equity is eyeing this give me creeps. There must be some guy who observed how families are spending and decided it would be the next destination for PE.

wahnfrieden 11mo ago
Just the free market at work edit: Would like to understand from downvoters how this does not meet free market principles?
- psadauskas 11mo ago
  A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. This is, of course, an academic ideal, similar to solving a physics problem that tells you to ignore friction. What we have here is a "capitalist market", where those with more power (capital) within the market leverage it to exploit the other participants. Private Equity uses their money to extract as much money as possible from a segment of the market, usually destroying it in the process. But for a beautiful moment in time they created a lot of value for shareholders!
  - surgical_fire 11mo ago
    > A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. So, a fairy tale.
- Libidinalecon 11mo ago
  It is a good example of neoliberalism gone completely insane and your comment is a good example of the religion of neoliberalism. It is this deluded idea that "the market is always right" so naturally to not let market forces at work in children's sports is equivalent to a type of moral wrong. The real insanity of neoliberalism is in convincing people like you that this is some kind of natural law like gravity, so to object is like objecting to the law of gravity to the point you can't even understand why you are being down voted. It is actually a form of scientism and the misapplication of the efficient market hypothesis to unwarranted situations. Convenient cover for ripping people off.
acessoproibido 11mo ago
The problem is mostly how unregulated gambling is in 2025. If you couldn't bet on everything I think sport would be much less infested by money. One more "great" use case that cryptocurrencies enable
- plorg 11mo ago
  Youth sports have been moving in this direction since long before sports gambling was a meaningful economic force in the US at least. I attended both a high school and a college that started football programs while I was a student because the leadership thought it was necessary to maintain enrollment.
  - Tangurena2 11mo ago
    We were discussing cheerleading at a break in one of the office meetings this morning. Varsity Brands, owned by Bain Capital, controls the "sport" of cheerleading in the US. If you want to compete, you must purchase current year's uniforms, pay to enter contests run by VB, stay at hotels that VB decides. A teenager involved in competition cheerleading can easily spend $5k-25k/year. This "sport" injures more teens each year than football does - and that's a high-contact sport with significant protective gear. >I traced Varsity’s market power to three basic maneuvers. The first was buying up most of the cheerleading competitions in the country, so that entering a competition meant dealing with Varsity. The second was secretly creating and running the nonprofits that govern the sport, such as the U.S. All Star Federation, which gave Varsity the power to write rules for and organize competitions, scheduling, camps, and ancillary services like insurance. And the third was cutting deals with gyms to block rivals. Gyms are where teams of cheerleaders train, and gym coaches tend to have control over what uniforms athletes must buy. The company gave gyms who bought their uniforms from Varsity preferential treatment and special rebates. >One key result of Varsity’s scheme is inflated prices to the end consumer, which is why Bain bought the corporation in the first place. If there was cash to grab, Varsity tried to grab it. For instance, Varsity makes it very hard for parents to watch videos of cheerleading competition except through the firm’s specific expensive streaming service. There was the practice of 'Stay-to-Play,’ where Varsity would force athletes to stay in a specific hotel if they wanted to enter a competition, with Varsity likely getting rebates from that hotel in the process. The net result is that today it can cost up to $10-20k a year to be an All-Star cheerleader. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-and-the-fall-of-a-cheerleading https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-and-the-fall-of... >I missed out on two anti-competitive practices in the industry. The first is called “Stay to Play.” For many cheerleading competitions, though not all, out-of-town contestants are required to stay at a specific area hotel or set of hotels, or they cannot enter the contest. This is yet another way to raise prices on cheerleaders, and parents hate it. The second is that Varsity tends to be very aggressive about takedown notices for cheer contest video. If you film your kid at an event and put it up on Facebook or YouTube, Varsity is likely to ask you to take it down because it’s competitive with their VarsityTV streaming app. As one parent told me, it’s basically Varsity preventing you from sharing your memories publicly with your family or friends. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/what-a-cheerleading-monopoly-says https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/what-a-cheerleading-monop...
potato3732842 11mo ago
Youth sports isn't like driving for Uber on the side. It's a giant money fire for the consumers that partake. I'm surprised it took PE this long to say "hey, there's a bunch of money on fire over here let's go get some"
lotsofpulp 11mo ago
The way the term private equity is used is meaningless. It’s just business, and the same thing happens anytime a business is sold, because the new owners have paid a 5x or more multiple, and the reason they would is if they think they can cut costs and increase prices. One should expect lower quality and higher prices anytime a business is sold.
- tw04 11mo ago
  >Really, one should expect lower quality and higher prices anytime a business is sold. They really shouldn’t. And the fact this is treated as common knowledge kind of speaks to everything that’s currently broken in our country.
  - wahnfrieden 11mo ago
    What’s the argument? Sounds like you’re sour on it
    - kurthr 11mo ago
      The assumption that "the new owners have paid a 5x or more multiple, and the reason they would is if they think they can cut costs and increase prices", is not universal and in many cases quite new. There are many new owners and buyers for which this is not the case. Your local bar, restaurant, hobby shop, gym, bookstore, daycare and others often transfer without the new owner looking to pay a 5x premium and maximize profits. It's only recently that doctors, dentist, veterinarian offices and other high margin social businesses are getting converted to PE. It's the enshitification of all the existing third places and extraction of social value for profit, because people will tolerate it due to lack of choice and social need.
      - surgical_fire 11mo ago
        > It's only recently that doctors, dentist, veterinarian offices and other high margin social businesses are getting converted to PE And this is the only logical consequence of unregulated capitalism. Line must go up, always. No matter the damage it causes. Price will always go up, and costs are always cut down. It sucks because it is supposed to, as long as profits increase.
SoftTalker 11mo ago
They have only discovered what lots of small operators in youth sports already knew. Parents will pay stupid money to have their kids participate. My kids played some travel sports, the tournament organizers were all in it for profit, they also had deals with local hotels and parents were required to stay at the "tournament approved" hotels. They were inevitably rather premium hotels such as Marriott brands and the room rates were high. The tournament organizer got a kickback on every room sold. Hockey is particularly expensive because the costs to operate a hockey rink are high. Costs to run and maintain chillers are high, especially if you are open in the summertime, and you need trained staff who can drive a Zamboni and otherwise maintain the surface, and you can't just switch that off if nobody's using it. Usually a community-owned ice rink runs at quite a loss to the municipality. A privately-owned rink will have to charge hundreds of dollars an hour for ice time and they often are barely profitable. There's no way to scale beyond about 12-16 hours a day where anyone wants to use the ice, and often 5pm-midnight is the only ice you can sell. Then there are the "academies" for the parents who think their kid is the next NHL or NBA superstar. They are private schools, operated at or near the sports facility, where kids go to school as well as play/practice their sport. The tuition rates are what you might expect: exclusive, to say the least.
- sam_lowry_ 11mo ago
  If you think hockey is expensive, you are lucky to have sons, otherwise you'd experience the wrath of ice skating. Not only it is individual sport unlike hockey, it is also elitist especially because it is completely shut off youtube because... not cp, no. Music!
  - 7thaccount 11mo ago
    Ice skating varies. The skates for someone into it range from $500-$1500. Those typically last several years unless you're skating like 4 hours a day and doing tons of jumps. It costs $20 to sharpen skates and that needs to happen every few weeks for competitive skaters I think. I like mine slightly dull and usually go a few months at a time. Lessons are like $200+ per month for group or $40+/hour for private. Travel + recitals + outfits + music, would be another thing too, but we don't do the competitive stuff. As a result, I pay a lot more for hockey for my kid. I could see figure skating being a little more expensive overall if we were competitive and did more private lessons. They're both super expensive in general though.

wahnfrieden 11mo ago

Just the free market at work edit: Would like to understand from downvoters how this does not meet free market principles?

psadauskas 11mo ago
A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. This is, of course, an academic ideal, similar to solving a physics problem that tells you to ignore friction. What we have here is a "capitalist market", where those with more power (capital) within the market leverage it to exploit the other participants. Private Equity uses their money to extract as much money as possible from a segment of the market, usually destroying it in the process. But for a beautiful moment in time they created a lot of value for shareholders!
- surgical_fire 11mo ago
  > A "free market" is one in which all the participants of the market have perfect information and act completely rationally. So, a fairy tale.
Libidinalecon 11mo ago
It is a good example of neoliberalism gone completely insane and your comment is a good example of the religion of neoliberalism. It is this deluded idea that "the market is always right" so naturally to not let market forces at work in children's sports is equivalent to a type of moral wrong. The real insanity of neoliberalism is in convincing people like you that this is some kind of natural law like gravity, so to object is like objecting to the law of gravity to the point you can't even understand why you are being down voted. It is actually a form of scientism and the misapplication of the efficient market hypothesis to unwarranted situations. Convenient cover for ripping people off.

acessoproibido 11mo ago

The problem is mostly how unregulated gambling is in 2025. If you couldn't bet on everything I think sport would be much less infested by money. One more "great" use case that cryptocurrencies enable

plorg 11mo ago
Youth sports have been moving in this direction since long before sports gambling was a meaningful economic force in the US at least. I attended both a high school and a college that started football programs while I was a student because the leadership thought it was necessary to maintain enrollment.
- Tangurena2 11mo ago
  We were discussing cheerleading at a break in one of the office meetings this morning. Varsity Brands, owned by Bain Capital, controls the "sport" of cheerleading in the US. If you want to compete, you must purchase current year's uniforms, pay to enter contests run by VB, stay at hotels that VB decides. A teenager involved in competition cheerleading can easily spend $5k-25k/year. This "sport" injures more teens each year than football does - and that's a high-contact sport with significant protective gear. >I traced Varsity’s market power to three basic maneuvers. The first was buying up most of the cheerleading competitions in the country, so that entering a competition meant dealing with Varsity. The second was secretly creating and running the nonprofits that govern the sport, such as the U.S. All Star Federation, which gave Varsity the power to write rules for and organize competitions, scheduling, camps, and ancillary services like insurance. And the third was cutting deals with gyms to block rivals. Gyms are where teams of cheerleaders train, and gym coaches tend to have control over what uniforms athletes must buy. The company gave gyms who bought their uniforms from Varsity preferential treatment and special rebates. >One key result of Varsity’s scheme is inflated prices to the end consumer, which is why Bain bought the corporation in the first place. If there was cash to grab, Varsity tried to grab it. For instance, Varsity makes it very hard for parents to watch videos of cheerleading competition except through the firm’s specific expensive streaming service. There was the practice of 'Stay-to-Play,’ where Varsity would force athletes to stay in a specific hotel if they wanted to enter a competition, with Varsity likely getting rebates from that hotel in the process. The net result is that today it can cost up to $10-20k a year to be an All-Star cheerleader. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-and-the-fall-of-a-cheerleading https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/antitrust-and-the-fall-of... >I missed out on two anti-competitive practices in the industry. The first is called “Stay to Play.” For many cheerleading competitions, though not all, out-of-town contestants are required to stay at a specific area hotel or set of hotels, or they cannot enter the contest. This is yet another way to raise prices on cheerleaders, and parents hate it. The second is that Varsity tends to be very aggressive about takedown notices for cheer contest video. If you film your kid at an event and put it up on Facebook or YouTube, Varsity is likely to ask you to take it down because it’s competitive with their VarsityTV streaming app. As one parent told me, it’s basically Varsity preventing you from sharing your memories publicly with your family or friends. https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/what-a-cheerleading-monopoly-says https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/what-a-cheerleading-monop...

potato3732842 11mo ago

Youth sports isn't like driving for Uber on the side. It's a giant money fire for the consumers that partake. I'm surprised it took PE this long to say "hey, there's a bunch of money on fire over here let's go get some"

lotsofpulp 11mo ago

The way the term private equity is used is meaningless. It’s just business, and the same thing happens anytime a business is sold, because the new owners have paid a 5x or more multiple, and the reason they would is if they think they can cut costs and increase prices. One should expect lower quality and higher prices anytime a business is sold.

tw04 11mo ago
>Really, one should expect lower quality and higher prices anytime a business is sold. They really shouldn’t. And the fact this is treated as common knowledge kind of speaks to everything that’s currently broken in our country.
- wahnfrieden 11mo ago
  What’s the argument? Sounds like you’re sour on it
  - kurthr 11mo ago
    The assumption that "the new owners have paid a 5x or more multiple, and the reason they would is if they think they can cut costs and increase prices", is not universal and in many cases quite new. There are many new owners and buyers for which this is not the case. Your local bar, restaurant, hobby shop, gym, bookstore, daycare and others often transfer without the new owner looking to pay a 5x premium and maximize profits. It's only recently that doctors, dentist, veterinarian offices and other high margin social businesses are getting converted to PE. It's the enshitification of all the existing third places and extraction of social value for profit, because people will tolerate it due to lack of choice and social need.
    - surgical_fire 11mo ago
      > It's only recently that doctors, dentist, veterinarian offices and other high margin social businesses are getting converted to PE And this is the only logical consequence of unregulated capitalism. Line must go up, always. No matter the damage it causes. Price will always go up, and costs are always cut down. It sucks because it is supposed to, as long as profits increase.

SoftTalker 11mo ago

They have only discovered what lots of small operators in youth sports already knew. Parents will pay stupid money to have their kids participate. My kids played some travel sports, the tournament organizers were all in it for profit, they also had deals with local hotels and parents were required to stay at the "tournament approved" hotels. They were inevitably rather premium hotels such as Marriott brands and the room rates were high. The tournament organizer got a kickback on every room sold. Hockey is particularly expensive because the costs to operate a hockey rink are high. Costs to run and maintain chillers are high, especially if you are open in the summertime, and you need trained staff who can drive a Zamboni and otherwise maintain the surface, and you can't just switch that off if nobody's using it. Usually a community-owned ice rink runs at quite a loss to the municipality. A privately-owned rink will have to charge hundreds of dollars an hour for ice time and they often are barely profitable. There's no way to scale beyond about 12-16 hours a day where anyone wants to use the ice, and often 5pm-midnight is the only ice you can sell. Then there are the "academies" for the parents who think their kid is the next NHL or NBA superstar. They are private schools, operated at or near the sports facility, where kids go to school as well as play/practice their sport. The tuition rates are what you might expect: exclusive, to say the least.

sam_lowry_ 11mo ago
If you think hockey is expensive, you are lucky to have sons, otherwise you'd experience the wrath of ice skating. Not only it is individual sport unlike hockey, it is also elitist especially because it is completely shut off youtube because... not cp, no. Music!
- 7thaccount 11mo ago
  Ice skating varies. The skates for someone into it range from $500-$1500. Those typically last several years unless you're skating like 4 hours a day and doing tons of jumps. It costs $20 to sharpen skates and that needs to happen every few weeks for competitive skaters I think. I like mine slightly dull and usually go a few months at a time. Lessons are like $200+ per month for group or $40+/hour for private. Travel + recitals + outfits + music, would be another thing too, but we don't do the competitive stuff. As a result, I pay a lot more for hockey for my kid. I could see figure skating being a little more expensive overall if we were competitive and did more private lessons. They're both super expensive in general though.