By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Mandy Holmes is a proud sports mom.
“We are in basketball, flag football and pickleball,” she said.
Her 12-year-old travels a lot for competition, and it’s expensive.
“We just knew it wasn’t sustainable, and so I knew I had to figure out a way to offset these costs while giving him every opportunity that he wanted to play his sports,” Holmes said.
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We’ll get back to that soon, but we have to talk more about the price to play, and some plans to try to level the playing field.
The rising cost of youth sports
“Youth sports has really become highly commercialized and highly pressurized,” said Jon Solomon from the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. “It’s gotten more and more expensive for many families, and unfortunately it leaves behind too many children based on income or ability.”
According to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, the average youth sports family spends more than $1,000 every year on one child’s primary sport. That includes rec leagues, school sports and travel teams.
“If you’re just talking about travel sports parents, or elite sports parents, that number can be in the tens of thousands of dollars a year,” Solomon said.
Lawmakers target private equity
Now, lawmakers are looking into youth sports. The “Let Kids Play” Act was introduced in May and would limit so-called “vulture” investors and private equity ownership of youth sports teams, leagues and facilities, targeting things like junk fees and lock-in contracts.
“We need to invest more in local, affordable, quality programming,” Solomon said.
Currently, Project Play is working on a report with the Boys and Girls Club of the Valley, examining barriers and opportunities for kids in Phoenix to participate in sports. It will be released in 2027.
A mom’s plan to offset costs
Let’s get back to Holmes’ plan to make her son’s sports more affordable. She said she found sponsors.
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“We’re not going for Gatorade. We’re not going for Adidas here,” she said.
Holmes says the key to sponsorship success is tapping into local businesses with a plan.
“Instead of asking for a fundraiser or a donation or sending a blind letter or email saying give me money for my sport, you’re approaching it completely different,” she said. “You’re approaching it as let’s form a marketing partnership, with our family and here’s what that could look like to bring visibility to your brand in our community.”
For example, that could include logos on uniforms or parent shirts, a shout-out on an email to a customer list or posts on social media.
“We’re doing one right now with a flooring company,” Holmes said. “What does flooring have to do with sports? Well, we’re going to go in there a bounce a whole bunch of different sports balls on all their different flooring.”
Other sports parents started asking Holmes for help, and now she shows families how to get similar sponsorships with a new digital class called Sponsor My Athlete.
“This is 7 to 17, any ability,” Holmes said. “Most of the time, local businesses are not sponsoring stats. They are sponsoring a positive role model in the community and a family that they want to work with.”
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