High School All-Star Game

Once again we are going to be hosting the Sacramento-area High School All-Star Soccer Game. We will be posting information about the match coming up in the next few weeks, but we are looking forward to hosting the 3rd annual match in late November.

Last year over 30 seniors from a variety of high schools participated in the match. We are looking forward to another great game.

Be sure to visit www.elite-soccer.com to get more information.

An interesting day......

Yesterday I had lunch with a friend of mine. It had been sometime since I had seen him and it was good to catch up. The last time we had caught up he had just graduated with his MBA from Davis and was searching for a job in the real estate market. Since then, he has been hired by a national homebuilder and was really enjoying his job.

As the conversation continued, we talked about how we had met each other. At the time, he had just graduated from Stanford and was working with a start-up company called Core Youth Centers. It was an amazing company that focused on helping kids from the ground up -- athletics, college consulting, mentoring, etc.... In many ways, it was CORE that inspired me to start ESM. Sadly, CORE had a short fuse and made it only a year or so before their venture capital money dried up. But what we both remembered about CORE was the feeling that the kids had when they walked in the doors. To this day, I haven't seen a more passionate, productive and fun environment in our area for kids.

While my friend is convinced now that there is no successful business model that could sustain such an operation, I remain a little bit more optimistic. In fact, at ESM we have spent a substantial amount of time trying to tweak business models in order to find the right combination that would allow us the opportunity to bring CORE 2.0 back to our area. As our non-profit arm, Education Now, prepares for a huge undertaking -- a capital campaign to raise $5MM -- that will help us develop such a centre for kids that will once again give them an opportunity to grow mentally, and physically we realize what a challenge is ahead of us. However, I can honestly say that there is no issue more paramount to our mission than the completion of this proposed project.

As always, I am interested to hear about what others think? Would a multi-use sports facility that would house sports and academics be a successful proposition in Sacramento? and beyond?

Digital Recruiting and the Growing Internet Social Network

As I was sitting at Starbucks in the heart of the San Francisco's Marina district, I was reading the latest addition of Business Week. I was intrigued by the cover story, which claimed: "Learn how this kid made $60M in 18 months." Like a lot of media publications, there has been a re-focus on Web 2.0 companies in Silcon Valley that are being run by 20 or 30-something dot.com'ers who have used the profound leap in technology during the last few years to breakthrough and start companies focused on making life easier and more mobile.

At the heart of this revolution has been the Myspace.com and Facebook websites which have trailblazed the new era of social networking on the internet. As I read the article, I started to get really interested in some of the sites, but more importantly the people behind the ideas. Some of the individuals they spoke about were the founders of such companies like PayPal, Digg.com, and Yelp.com, as well as others. The more I read, the more I wanted to learn.

I jumped on my iTunes and tuned into the Business Week podcast that just happened to have the writers of the story discussing this topic with the help of their editor. The more I heard, the more I wanted to keep learning.

During the course of the day, I couldn't help but think about how the things I was reading about related to The ESM Group and our goal of helping kids achieve amazing things.

Our website SoccerProfiles.org, which we started two years ago, was an effort, and still is, on our behalf to help streamline the recruiting process for student-athletes who need assistance in building, updating and distributing their player resumes. What we found out when we launched the site is that there is an amazing connection in the soccer community between kids and parents. We saw that our traffic went higher and higher each day, as word slowly crawled across the country. Now in our 3rd year, we have registered users from 44 States, as well as India, Canada and Australia.

I guess the most profound lesson our team has learned is the that the barrier to entry is very little nowadays. Soccerprofiles.org was an idea of ours, and with a little consulting, a dash of web design and an internet connection we were able to grow our presence with little or no advertising. Now, as we enter a critical year for our growth, we plan to spend a substantial amount of money to grow our brand and take control of a very fragmented market.

The next wave of digital recruiting is going to come from a person or group who can find a way, like the founders of Web 2.0 companies, to make the process more enjoyable, mobile and connected.

The Health and Fitness Market

On my way to San Diego this weekend, I had an opportunity to read some great articles in various Business Journals from around the United States. I came across one article, which talked about Bunker Hill Capital's investment into a Sacramento-based fitness chain. Unlike national giant 24 Hour Fitness, the fitness chain known as California Family Fitness, focuses on building clubs that attract families. Their concept has worked, and they have built a strong chain of stores in the Sacramento area during the last decade or so.

What really struck me was, why are venture capital groups investing in fitness groups -- or more importantly, why are they investing in the health and fitness of kids? One of the concepts I have talked about in a variety of papers, blogs, and lectures has been this notion that youth sports in the United States is big business. No wonder then that vc groups are looking to cash in on the returns that are surely ahead for the youth sports and family market. With the flood of reports about the unhealthy lives our kids are engaging in nowadays it is clear that some are trying to find a market niche for profit.

Just the other day, I came across another article that talked about another vc firm leading the second round of funding for a high school sports website called Maxpreps (www.maxpreps.com). Its just another example of the money being thrown at youth sports both at the club and high school level.

In the wake of these readings, I have been thinking a lot about my book (in progress) titled The Sociology of Youth Sports: The Demise of American Amateurism, and the necessity to focus a lot more on the economics of youth sports and how that is also contributing to the changing landscape of how we view youth sports. A great deal of the book focuses on the culture and social dynamics of youth sports that have been a very profound influence in the way we deal with kids, both on and off the sports field.

I am interested to hear from others about their experiences with youth sports, and how big money is changing the way we think about this market segment.

Summer Ending, School Starting....

August 1 always signifies the end of summer and the focus back on school and fall sports. It seems that the last few days we have received a lot of calls from parents who want to know what they need to be doing in order to get their students back in the swing of school and start competing against the process.

Each year it seems that competition gets tougher and what we did last year, isn't good enough for this year. My only real advice to folks is that success during the school year is usually directly proportionate to the student's ability to stay focused throughout the year. Too many times kids go through ups and downs -- often times leaving a big hole to get out of with little time to do so. The cautious, hard-working, and detailed oriented student can find themselves within striking position of the grades they want as long as they stay in the game....

A couple of suggestions:

*Get organized. Have a separate folder for each class. Keep an assignment book so that all work due is logged.

*Work your teachers. It is never too soon to start building a relationship with your teachers. Often times, the difference between the B+ and the A- is a little bit of effort from the student.

*Get help. A lot of kids think that a tutor is a sign of weakness. It's not. The top kids across the country all get tutored to make sure that they stay at the top of the class. If you need help in a class, seek help asap.

I am sure that as the school year gets in full gear, I will begin blogging a couple of times a week. Please send me your comments or emails: bdowning@esmgroup.org