My son turns 18 today. He also plays his final water polo games with his school team today and tomorrow; today is Senior Day, and I’m a little emotional (fine, more than a little).
Last week, I wrote about running the New York City Marathon four days before he was born. This week, he’s legally an adult. I would like to speak to whoever approved that timeline.
We’re also looking at colleges. Touring facilities, talking to coaches, reading recruiting emails, and trying to find the right place for him to study and swim. The dad wants him to find somewhere he’ll be happy. The sports-business guy wants to understand how the place actually works. The internal dialogue is entertaining, heated, and full of good intentions.
All of this has sharpened a question I’ve been chewing on for a while: what should a high school’s athletic program actually deliver? Not just wins, a shiny facility, or a commitment graphic on Instagram. Good coaching. Appropriate competition. Honest guidance. An experience that still matters if the college offer never comes. High schools don’t need to become miniature college athletic departments. They need to professionalize the systems around students without professionalizing childhood. Families should not have to become the systems integrators for an education the school promised to deliver. I’ve had some great conversations with one of the best heads of school in the world, who happens to be my best pal, Kevin Plummer, who has found the secret sauce with Tampa Prep.
So this week, Builders & Platforms from a slightly different seat: the bleachers. Who’s making the experience better, who’s creating opportunity, and who found another way to invoice the parents?
Mainstream sports biz spent the week on LIV Golf winding down after its $300 million rescue walked away (Sportico), Liverpool’s owners kicking the tires on a $3 billion Cadillac F1 team (GPBlog), and the midterms putting the Protect College Sports Act on life support (The Athletic). Meanwhile, recruiting got a subscription tier, Cash App found the high school ticket booth, your athletic director picked up six new jobs, and John Wall wants to invest in prep schools.
That’s the beat. Welcome to Issue 010.
The Cap Table
1. LinkedIn, now with scholarship anxiety ·
Recruiting · Subscriptions
Scorability launched Advantage, a $199-a-year subscription that shows athletes which college programs searched for them, viewed their profiles, or added them to a watchlist, and lets them pick target schools and signal interest. The platform says 4,600 college programs, from junior colleges to Division I, use it across eight sports, with more than 1.2 million athletes in the database (USA TODAY).
The detail I like: the standard product stays free, and coaches can’t tell which athletes are paying. That’s a much better starting point than “your kid is invisible without a credit card.”
I get the appeal. Recruiting can feel like emailing a witness protection program. But a profile view is not interest, interest is not admissions support, and admissions support is not a roster spot. The test is whether $199 helps a family make better decisions or just check the dashboard more often (one is guidance, the other is a slot machine in school colors).
One limitation relevant to our household: launch sports are football, basketball, soccer, baseball, softball, and women’s volleyball. No swimming. We remain available for the aquatic beta.
2. Cash App found the ticket booth ·
Payments · High School
On Thursday, Cash App Pay went live nationwide on GoFan, PlayOn’s high school ticketing platform, and the deal includes marketing across PlayOn’s portfolio, including MaxPreps (Cash App).
Translation: this is a payments integration with a customer acquisition strategy riding shotgun.
The logic is clean. GoFan owns a transaction people already intend to make, and Cash App gets in front of students, parents, and fans on a Friday night instead of paying for another ad during an NBA game. For schools, easier checkout is useful. Nobody shows up to a high school football game hoping for a more memorable payment experience.
But faster checkout is a feature, not the whole value proposition.
My questions are about the full arrangement: fees, support, marketing permissions, and what the school gets beyond another way to pay. I love businesses that remove friction. I get skeptical when the friction disappears for the platform and reappears on the athletic director’s desk. The booster club sees a gate receipt. The platform sees a funnel. Both can win. Read the agreement.
3. Your athletic director has six other jobs ·
Operations · Media
Front Office Sports’ Ellyn Briggs spoke with about a dozen long-tenured high school and state athletic administrators about how the job has changed (Front Office Sports). At Ponte Vedra High School in Florida, AD Mike Harrison sells and programs ads for the videoboards, produces hype videos for big games, and manages promotion for athletes and teams across the school’s social channels. Others describe transfer churn (Florida reportedly saw more than 7,000 athletic transfers in 2025-26), rising family expectations, and sidelines full of private content creators hired by families.
Clear eyes, full hearts, full inbox.
This is where the “mini college” comparison gets interesting. Not because a high school needs a deputy associate AD for strategic brand activation (please do not print that business card). It needs clarity on who owns the work. A coach shouldn’t have to choose between fixing a kid’s technique and finding the streaming account password. A college counselor shouldn’t discover the recruiting timeline after the application deadline. And parents shouldn’t have to stitch four separate conversations into one usable answer.
For platform companies, that’s the opportunity: sell schools fewer disconnected tasks, not more software someone has to connect. The best product demo might just be a coach getting to practice on time.
4. John Wall likes the prep-school trade ·
Investment · Education
Asked on Forbes’ The Enterprise Zone where he’d put a hypothetical $10,000 loan, John Wall picked prep schools, pointing to top players, NIL, and schools like Poly Prep and IMG: “I think investing in debt, you’re going to get your money back quick” (Basketball Network). To be clear, it’s an opinion on a podcast, not an announced deal.
That last sentence is doing an impressive amount of underwriting.
I understand the attraction. A strong program gives a school visibility and a reason for families to take a closer look. But the investor’s thesis and the school’s mission have to coexist. What does the investor own? What generates the return? Who pays for the coaching, travel, facilities, and student support? And does the model still work when the star point guard graduates?
A school isn’t a scalable sports property just because a future lottery pick wears its jersey. Build an excellent institution with an excellent basketball program, and there may be a durable business. Build the institution around a handful of teenagers, and you have concentration risk with a graduation ceremony.
5. The roster is not the scholarship ·
College Pathways · Strategy
Background, not breaking news, but it’s in every recruiting conversation we’re having. In June 2025, the NCAA Division I board replaced sport-specific scholarship limits with roster limits at schools that opted into the House settlement rules, and those schools can now offer scholarships to every athlete on the roster. Schools designated current athletes whose spots would have been cut as exempt for the rest of their eligibility (NCAA).
Here’s what gets blurred on the campus tour: the roster limit, the number of scholarships allowed, and the number a school actually funds. A ceiling is not a budget. A recruiting email is not a commitment. (Write that on the whiteboard in the guidance office.)
I’m not going to claim every pathway shrank or walk-ons went extinct. The rules don’t say that. They do ask sharper questions. And while it’s not as cool and sexy as saying “I’m going DI,” Division II, Division III, and club programs have become legitimate, if not better, competition pools (see what I did there?). For high schools, that’s a service opportunity: get coaches and college counselors in the same room, and help families separate academic fit, cost, admissions support, athletic opportunity, and roster security. “Your kid can compete in college” is encouragement. “Here are the realistic options, costs, timelines, and tradeoffs” is guidance.
Fumbles & Vaporware
Seven coaches, one confused family. In the same FOS reporting, Pickerington North AD Colin Beemiller said, “A lot of families are paying like seven different coaches telling them, ‘Hey, your kid is going to be the next Ohio State recruit,’ when that’s just not the reality.” Another central Ohio AD said if your program doesn’t have highlight reels up within an hour of a game, “you’re behind and probably going to hear about it.” Meanwhile, the ADs FOS spoke with generally called high school NIL deals a “non-factor” in their day-to-day work (Front Office Sports).
So expectations arrive well before earnings. I’m not against private coaching, video, or parents investing in their kids (guilty, many times over). I’m against pretending that buying more services automatically equals a development plan. Exposure is not development. A polished highlight reel can’t supply the skill it edits around. Schools can’t control every outside adviser, but they can be the credible center: clear feedback, coordinated expectations, and one adult willing to say, “Here’s where you are, and here’s what it would take.” Sometimes the most valuable service isn’t another introduction. It’s an honest answer.
Signal Check
$600: the NIL reporting threshold for high school prospects heading to Division I. Recruits have to report third-party NIL deals worth $600 or more (including smaller payments from the same payer that add up to $600) made since July 1, 2025, or the start of junior year, whichever is later, within 14 days of starting classes or before their first game, through the College Sports Commission’s NIL Go platform (NCAA).
That’s a recordkeeping threshold, not a career plan. It’s a great reason to teach students how to keep records, read what they’re signing, and know when to ask a qualified adult. It is not a reason to hand every sophomore a personal-brand worksheet. Teach judgment before monetization. A teenager who understands what they signed is a better outcome than a school celebrating that something got signed.
Who’s Building
Brian Cruver and Brett Andrew (Scorability). The former AlertMedia founder and CRO, both parents of Division I athletes, raised an $11 million seed round in 2023 to make recruiting more efficient (Scorability). This week’s paid tier tests an important boundary: can recruiting stay accessible while optional intelligence funds the business? The free core and the invisible-to-coaches design are encouraging choices. I’m more interested in what happens after the notification. Does the data help a kid find a better fit? That’s the outcome worth building toward.
Mike Harrison (Ponte Vedra High School). In his 11th year as an AD and 28th in education, Harrison is doing the unglamorous work behind the “mini college” headline: ad sales, production, promotion, relationships, and the daily operation of a school sports program (Front Office Sports). That deserves recognition, and it deserves a support model. Many ADs are recruiting student volunteers interested in technology and journalism to capture game content. Great idea, as long as students get supervision, instruction, and real responsibility, not just a job as the free production crew. Announcing, photography, stats, and event operations give more kids a place around the game. Not everybody needs a varsity roster spot to contribute. Somebody has to know how to run the show.
Overheard
“Most of us are running mini colleges at this point.”
Colin Beemiller, AD at Pickerington High School North in central Ohio, to Front Office Sports.
I hear the problem and the pressure, but I don’t hear the structure for a solution. High schools don’t need to copy every complication college athletics has invented (we have the NCAA for that). They need enough leadership, support, and coordination to keep those pressures from swallowing the educational experience. Keep the teacher-coach who knows the kid in the classroom and at practice, and give that person time to do both jobs well. Connect the information. Make the guidance credible. Use the facilities you have before announcing the next building.
And make sure the experience is worth having even when there’s no scholarship, no NIL deal, and no next team.
My son wants to swim in college, and I hope he finds the right place. But today is valuable on its own, not just because it might lead somewhere else. The teammates, the 5 a.m. alarms, the responsibility, and the four years that somehow went by while we were checking the schedule matter right now. Build businesses and school programs that understand that.
Build Accordingly.
BOUKER POOL · Managing Partner, Weck Enterprises
Got a tip, a fumble, or a build worth covering? Reply to this email or find me on LinkedIn.
Full disclosure: I advise and invest across sports-tech, media, youth sports, endurance, and wearables. When B&P covers a company I’m involved with, I’ll do my best to note it in the item.
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