This is the Mandandalay Bay South

Convention Center. And for 3 days in

April, it turns into an unintentional

display of everything that's wrong with

American youth sports. The

transformation begins on Good Friday of

Easter weekend when crews turn the

massive Bayside exhibit halls into

uniform row after uniform row of

volleyball courts, 123 to be exact. The

next two days will be absurdly busy.

Every individual court will be played on

non-stop by a rotating set of eight

teams from 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 p.m.,

making for just under 1,000 teams in

total passing through the event. Each

team composed of on average 10 players,

two coaches, and at least an equal

number of parents and family members

means conservatively about 24 people per

team. So about 24,000 people at the

event. With all the whistles, squeaking

shoes, and screaming U11 to U15 girls,

it'll be uncomfortably loud. Without a

single window, with absurdly long

concession lines, and absurdly priced

concessions, to the uninvested onlooker,

it would all seem an impressive but

rather unappealing event to spend much

time at. But to the players, coaches,

and parents duking it out on the court,

this weekend means everything.

This youth tournament, the Red Rock

Rave, is sanctioned by USA Volleyball,

which as the sports governing body

grants the tournament status as a

national qualifier. And to everyone in

the club volleyball ecosystem, national

qualifiers are a big deal. Depending on

which division a team is in, if they win

or play second or third in some, they'll

get a bid to go to USAV Nationals in

either Indianapolis or Minneapolis.

Getting to play at nationals represents

a massive achievement for clubs,

coaches, and players. So, right now, for

every one of the 950 teams in Las Vegas,

a bid is the dream, even if there are

only 31 up for grabs in total. And

they're all paying a pretty penny for

the privilege of chasing the stream. For

the clubs, the regional host, the

hotels, the sanctioning body, this

tournament means big business. To play

in this tournament, each of these teams

paid $950. And that is just the tip of

the iceberg. Plastered on the court map

distributed around the event is the logo

of the company facilitating lodging for

this event, KC Sports Housing, reminding

each parent of the tournament that this

is what's called a staytoplay event.

This term is just what it sounds like, a

quidd proquo. Book hotel reservations

through a handful of options that the

tournament has partnered with and your

team will be allowed to play. In this

situation, it limits options to the

Mandandalay Bay, Luxor, and a host of

other gaming and non-gaming hotels while

still offering pretty competitive rates.

It's a pain, but it's hard to get around

when organizing massive events like

this. In other markets with more

alternatives like Airbnb, Verbbo, or an

extra room at a family friend's house,

stay can feel restricting, and the rates

can also feel artificially high. Whether

fair criticisms or not, stay to play

brings into focus the travel cost. There

are only a few teams here locally. The

rest are from everywhere. Colorado,

California, Idaho, Texas, Missouri, even

Hawaii. Three nights at a hotel then

along with airfare or gas and a mom and

a daughter are looking at a bare minimum

of $1,000, making their $95 share of the

tournament fee if split between 10 girls

easy to overlook. Throw in a sibling or

a spouse coming along, and the number

goes up to ballpark $1,500

for the weekend in travel. The costs

continue to accumulate. Outside food and

drink are prohibited, so if you don't

smuggle it in, you're resigned to $12

chicken sandwiches, $10 slices of pizza,

or especially popular with the kids, $16

asai bowls throughout the three days.

Tournament merch is critical for the

kids to proudly show off they've been to

a big tournament, so another $50 on a

hoodie. Should the parent actually want

to watch their kid play, there's an

entry fee of $27.50

plus processing or a $65.40 3-day pass.

For the rest of the family back home,

these games are streamed, but the

entry-level subscription for that

service is $44.85.

Then there are the coaches. While the

kids coaches are hardly compensated,

they're at least put up in a hotel and

given a travel stipend, which parents

are also on the hook for. They pay for

this as well as the tournament fee

through what are called club dues. Way

back in July, when teams were selected

after the tryyout window opened, parents

agreed that on top of paying for their

kid to get four to six of these

tournaments, they'd also pay their share

to rent gym space, compensate a coach,

cover the club's insurance, and

generally keep the lights on. These run

about $2,500 to $7,000 depending on the

club age group, and travel. While the

total may differ widely, what's common

in the space is for these club dues to

be pretty opaque. You're told the total,

but you're not exactly sure where that

money is going. Put all of this together

for a kid to play club volleyball with

the travel, food, entrance fee, and

every other nickel and dimeming that

comes with each tournament, and you're

looking at a $2,000 weekend at the very

least. Now, multiply that by four

tournaments, then add, say, $3,500 in

dues, and a pretty typical competitive

club experience is now nearing $11,500

for just the season. And if a kid starts

as a 12-year-old and ends up pursuing it

all the way through their 18's year, the

last as a junior, there are six more

years of these $11,500

seasons coming. It's an extremely

expensive investment for a budding hobby

or passion. But club parents aren't

treating this like any old hobby. Just

like the kid that's pursuing the ever

meaningful bid, the parent is pursuing a

dream, too. The dream of a college

scholarship. Of course, the odds here

are similarly small to the chances of

getting a bit at just this one

tournament. There are nearly the same

amount of players as there are in all

division 1 volleyball without even

considering how many are on scholarship.

But anything that could potentially help

cover costs of an education that's

anywhere from $25,000 to $65,000 a year

or beyond feels worth pursuing. There

are lower levels of college play, too.

Division 2, Division 3, NIA, but none

offer full scholarships that pay all

college dues and room and board. Not all

even provide partial scholarships to

cover the ballooning costs of college.

But the dream is too deeply ingrained to

look too closely at the numbers. The

people set to turn a profit off these

youth endeavors won't allow it. Drowning

out the less than stellar statistics

that fewer than 6% of youth volleyball

players will play in college and that

only 1.2% 2% will play division one are

the posts from tournament organizers on

how many college coaches will be in

attendance at this tournament. And it's

more than likely you'll run into any

reference to those slim odds when the

local club only brings up the college

players they have produced when trying

to secure a kid's commitment and their

parents' club dues. The dream is even

culturally perpetuated too as it's a

massive honor within a parent's social

circle to send a kid into college

athletics. Something they can boast

about, something they believe serves as

a badge of good parenting. This dream

shared by the kid, their coach, and the

parent is so pervasive, so strongly

held, and such a money generator that

private equity has now gotten involved.

Across Red Rock Ray's 123 courts,

there's an increasingly common, albeit

pretty minimalist and easy to miss logo

adorning jerseys. It reads LOV, but is

pronounced love, and it represents the

most dramatic private equity invasion

into the sport. League 1 volleyball is

technically a professional league with a

highly unique business model. Only 2

years old, the league has six teams with

a few more on the way. What makes it

novel is that this league also owns 90

youth volleyball clubs around the US.

This at the youth level is presented as

a real plus. It means that the league

supports the grassroots of American

volleyball. It means there's a direct

pipeline to the pros, furthering the

excited buyin from players and parents

alike. Love is equal parts aspirational

and empowering. The company is proudly

women-ledd and in their words committed

to empowering women both on and off the

court. And seeming likely each team in

the league is at least in part owned by

professional or former professional

athletes, also often female. For those

playing at, say, Club V and Salt Lake

City, well, the club's name hasn't

changed while the coaches and leadership

has remained the same. There's now the

common occurrence of one of the love

Salt Lake City players walking into

their gym. It's all very exciting

because it just makes the big leagues

feel more possible. But for Love, the

grassroots involvement isn't just

something they're doing out of the

goodness of their hearts. And it's

certainly not why they've received

private equity buyin. To run this

upstart professional league, Love needs

those club dues. And to maximize the

return, private equity needs to see

those club dues go up. The money that's

propped Love up has come through a few

different channels. It has brand deals

with Adidas and Ski. It has broadcast

deals with USA and ESPN. And it's been

backed by some major investments by

private equity firms. The league has

garnered somewhere near $200 million in

total funding led by the Atwater Group

and supplemented by Aries Management

Fund and Left Lane Capital, while some

individual teams are now owned by groups

like Synergy Sports Capital. To make the

private equity ties even deeper, Love

CEO Caitlyn Gao came from Bane Capital.

And what's brought all this private

equity interest into the space is not

the upside of the professional league,

but the confidence in a robust outlook

for the youth side going forward. In

Hatwwaterat's words, it's not just about

generating returns, but also leveraging

their experience in media and

entertainment to engage fans in exciting

ways and inspire the next generation of

exceptional athletes. Effectively, they

believe in love as a way to further

perpetuate the dreams that have parents

spending more and more money on youth

sports. This is private equity strategy

beyond volleyball, too. Because not only

is the space a $40 billion a year

sector, it's growing at 8 to 10% a year.

And most importantly, the system is

self-perpetuating. Parents are

increasingly finding themselves in a

spending war for more specialization and

more training time. So more money goes

into the machine. It all creates a flow

that looks like this. The most money and

the most players at the grassroots level

with a disproportionate amount of money

in comparison to the players rising up

the triangle. And because of this

structure, the incentives from the

perspective of the development of the

game are skewed. There's the most

pressure on youth sports not to teach

the game first and foremost, but to sell

dreams of bids and college scholarships

so that the gym stays full and the club

dues keep flowing in. Then, of course,

there's the issue of access in the first

place. As a player ages out of

introductory public programs and into

middle school and high school sports

that are publicly funded, these publicly

funded programs are so competitive and

carry so few players that a kid

practically has to play club to make the

team. And if club costs upward of

$10,000 a year, the sport immediately

turns a massive swath of the population

away. Beyond the cost, the travel and

time away from work is extreme. And then

there's the cultural factor that the

game begins to feel like it's only for

the wealthy and upper middle class. All

this has become so ingrained in the

American athletic consciousness that it

all feels second nature. But this

structure isn't the norm elsewhere.

This is called Lamasia. Located in the

suburbs of Barcelona, Spain, this is

hallowed ground in the soccer or

football world. This is the historical

youth training site for FC Barcelona's

upandcomers. Like at a competitive

volleyball club in the US, the kids here

were recruited and vetted and are

continually pushed to grow as players.

Unlike in the US, these kids, some of

which grew up to be Leono Messi, Andreas

Sinesta, Lamin, a few of the game's

biggest names in the past few decades,

do not pay to be here. rather the

opposite. They're being trained in the

club's ways while also getting paid. In

this situation, the financial aspect of

the triangle is effectively flipped. As

FC Barcelona is one of the world's

largest and most important clubs,

there's a lot of money coming in at the

top of the triangle, which it then

reinvests in its youth development to

ensure that the club is able to stay one

of the largest in the world by

developing worldclass talent. Perhaps

it's unfair to compare a startup

volleyball league in a country that

shown the appetite at the youth level

for the sport, but has never developed

its own domestic professional league

successfully with one of the largest

clubs in the world's biggest sport. So

instead, take baseball. It's America's

national pastime, and it's a profitable

entity at the highest level in the US.

And yet, the extreme financial demands

of youth baseball still exist in a very

similar manner to those in volleyball.

To keep up with your peers, you can't

just play at your high school or middle

school. You need to play travel

baseball. The dream here is alluring,

too. Perhaps even more so. A highlevel

high school player can get drafted

directly into Major League Baseball and

receive a multi-million dollar signing

bonus at 18 years old. For those that

aren't quite as promising, there's still

the college option and the everuring

scholarship. This isn't just a baseball

issue. In all American sports that

generate revenue at the professional

level, hockey, American football,

basketball, little of the massive profit

brought in from endless sponsorship and

massive broadcast deals is making it

down to the youth level to fund the

development of the next generation as

college athletics sever the connection

of the pipeline. This is a uniquely

American problem as the US's massive

expensive university system also happens

to be the dream destination for top

athletes. They want to play a sport in

college. Colleges offer scholarships,

stipens, and due to increasingly relaxed

rules over what is considered an amateur

athlete, some ways to make some money,

but they don't invest in youth programs

like FC Barcelona. And they shield the

major revenue professional leagues from

the pressure to invest in youth sports,

too. Rather than growing through a

development pipeline where the highest

levels water the grassroots with access

to the game, coaches, and further and

further training for those that show the

most promise, in the US, it's

increasingly on the drive of kids and

the pocketbooks of parents to begin

opening opportunities for higher level

play. It's all hyperindividualist,

hyperco competitive, hyper American. But

it just isn't working.

Across the sports landscape in the US,

there are indicators. At the highest

level of American sports, there's a

notable uptick in second generation

professionals. Ethan Holidayiday, who

signed the largest baseball signing

bonus out of high school, is the son of

legendary baseball player Matt Holiday.

Aio O'Neal and the sisters Madison and

Avery Skinner are dominant for the US

volleyball team and are daughters of

former NBA players. It's not nepotism.

These young athletes are all extremely

deserving, driven, and capable. Rather,

these second generation stars are

becoming more common because their

athletic advantages are matched by

financial advantages. They've had the

access through their professional

athlete parents to elite training and

high level coaching their whole lives.

In soccer, no country has more youth

players than the US, but because of

barriers to access, clubs incentivized

to turn a profit and compete for

meaningless tournament results rather

than player development. The US men's

side failed to qualify for the 2018

World Cup, while tiny Iceland held its

own against mighty Argentina. And in

2022, the men's team was knocked out

comfortably by the Netherlands, whose

population is slightly smaller than that

of the state of New York. Then there's

Norway. At the last Winter Olympics, the

nation of under 6 million stacked up 18

gold medals, six more than the US, and

41 total medals, eight more than the US.

In the US, it's common for older

generations of coaches and leaders to

lament the fact that everyone now gets a

participation trophy. Not only is this

not true, as youth sports have never

been more competitive here than they are

now, but the nation might benefit from

it. Norway's sporting success is largely

attributed to its youth model that

prioritizes finding joy in the sport and

an internal love for improving at the

practice rather than just focusing on

results and scores and finishing

positions. A naysayer might push back

and say that it is culture and heritage

pushing this tiny nation in front of the

US in the Winter Olympics. That'd be

wrong. Their best triathletes are the

best in the world. Their distance

runners are beating East Africans and

Americans alike. Even their best men's

beach volleyball partnership is better

than any the US can produce. The United

States is unapologetically a sports

obsessed nation. It's a massive nation,

too. And yet, in sports that the rest of

the world participates in, the US does

just okay. The talent is here, but it's

just not getting the opportunity. But

the problem is bigger than American

national teams and the highest reaches

of athletic achievement. It's a public

health issue. In a 2025 hearing, the

subcommittee on early childhood,

elementary, and secondary education

discussed the negative ramifications

that declining numbers in youth sports

has on kids. With 70% of all US kids

quitting organized sports by 13, there's

an everinccreasing number of kids losing

out on the benefits that sports bring.

Without sports, kids are more likely to

think negatively of themselves. They're

more likely to become obese. They're

less likely to succeed in school, less

likely to be an active parent and raise

an active child. Hyper specialization is

burning kids out. Hyperco competitive

resultsoriented approaches are leaving

too many kids in the cold. What seems

increasingly clear is that when we push

on our youth programs to produce wins,

winners, and more and more dollars,

we're setting ourselves up to lose in

the long run.

Miselline incentives and subsequent bad

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