[Jacobin] Private Equity’s New Venture: Youth Sports. PE bought up $40B worth of youth facilities and leagues and rapidly consolidating baseball camps, flag football, etc. Even bought the iconic baseball megacomplex in Cooperstown. Prohibiting parents to record games to buy their streaming service
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everyone responsible for this needs to be in prison man
What’s next? Sportsbooks at your local baseball fields?
Just gross
The commodification of life continues to steamroll us all.
We live in hell
They have more money than they know what to do with so they’ll just end up buying up everything
What happens when there’s nothing left for PE to suck the life out of?
Private equity and sports gambling go hand in hand as two of the worst things in American society rn
Private Equity is the cause of like 90% of the worlds problems rn fr
Thank god. I was worried something in America wouldn’t be ruined by private equity.
I feel bad for kids and their families who straight up can’t afford to play youth sports anymore. Everything is astronomically more expensive than it was when I was a kid, the schedule is more demanding, and it seems the adults involved only care about how to make more money off these programs and camps they run.
What % of minor league teams are owned by that one group by now?
The worst part about private equity is if you talk to any guy that works in PE they think they’re doing the world this great service and that nothing would happen if not for them. These people are truly the most delusional and vapid people on the planet and when there is nothing left for them to trim the fat from they’re gonna ask us to pay a subscription to thank them for ruining the world.
The MBA and its consequences have been a disaster for the human race
Imagine if you couldn’t take pictures/videos at a MLB game, rather forced into subscribing to whoever streams John Fisher’s fucking baseball team. This is insane, and the idea it’s worth 40 billion reflects PE being completely out of their minds.
A spot I live near in AZ charges to park, charges for admission and sells beer at the youth sports park
Members of my family work for an ice rink run by Blackbear. They are so utterly incompetent at running a company idk how the hell they haven’t gone bankrupt yet.
Oh and not a single one of them actually enforces the no cameras policy.
You ever wonder how much good, how much relief, you could spread with $40,000,000,000?
Me neither.
Private equity: let’s take things that people need and don’t cost a lot and gouge the prices. Make profit! Genius.
Can’t video a game. Maybe then you sue them for using your kid in a stream.
Youth sports have become a disgusting mess anyway with travel ball and stuff. Private equity sucks, but if they’re going to kill off travel sports I would consider it a net positive.
“Prohibiting parents to record games” made me tear up. Just awful.
For what it’s worth, the private equity firm mentioned in the article, Unrivaled Sports, did not purchase the actual “iconic Cooperstown baseball complex” that you’re thinking of.
The OG Cooperstown tournament is the Cooperstown Dreams Park. Unrivaled bought the Cooperstown Allstar Village. It’s newer and less competitive tournament than the CDP. All the best teams go to the OG.
Still, it’s bullshit. I fuckin hate private equity with a passion.
Sports only for rich kids to play, for rich assholes to wat h and bet on.
Poors get to pay for the stadiums though.
If anyone is interested in reading more about how private equity is slowly taking over society, the New York Times did a great interactive piece on it. The craziest thing is this was published NINE YEARS AGO.
[https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/02/business/dealbook/this-is-your-life-private-equity.html](https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/02/business/dealbook/this-is-your-life-private-equity.html)
I can only imagine how much worse it’s gotten since then.
Honestly, if I had a child, you aren’t going to stop me from recording my kid’s game lmao. Private equity can get fucked.
Make a dollar a different way. Why the fuck is everyone in this country so damn obsessed with ruining everything good to make money? It’s a daily commitment by some
It’s gonna be funny when fewer people show up to play baseball for these private equity bs teams because they are priced out.
Forget the kids and families trying to get into sports, has anyone considered the SHAREHOLDER VALUE??? Sorry little Timmy, the board needs to approve another $500m raise for the CEO