Weekly News Roundup: The Biggest Headlines in the World of Youth Sports
Anwar Stetson
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✏️ Sluggball Launches Programming For HS Athletes
Sluggball is a baseball competition platform where small teams compete against each other in a series of batting practice rounds that emphasize bat control and situational hitting with scoring, officials, etc. It’s like baseball, but it’s not.
Former Phillies GM Ruben Amaro Jr. is a co-founder, and ex-big leaguer Kenny Lofton is an advisor.
Sluggball launched earlier this year with a series of events for adults, and it will expand into high school baseball with a demo in New Jersey next week and a tournament in December. Both events will be held at Centercourt Lawrence’s regulation indoor field.
⚾️ Perfect Game Reveals International Event’s Future
Perfect Game, the baseball development and events company, announced a four-year plan for the Pacific Baseball Championship, a global 15U all-star tournament.
The U.S. team won the inaugural event in Japan earlier this year with teams from Japan, Australia, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, South Korea and Taiwan also participating.
- 2026, 2028 events will be held on the West Coast.
- 2027, 2029 events will be held in Japan.
- Tournament will move from December to August.
- PG will begin Team USA selection process at the 14U National All-State Select Championships this weekend.
Worth noting: The 15U age group is not covered by MLB’s new amateur scouting dead period, which includes December.
🏨 SportsEngine Teams Up With HotelPlanner
Talk about the youth sports circle of life: Mom and Dad can now get a hotel for the tournament within the same app Grandma and Grandpa will stream the games.
SportsEngine has integrated HotelPlanner’s booking technology into its platform. The move will allow customer organizations to build customized bookings and room blocks for competitions.
⚽️ Touchlynk Partners With Major N.J. Soccer Club
Touchlynk, the Dallas-based sports technology firm, announced a partnership with PSC Academy, one of the Garden State’s top development organizations.
Touchlynk will be PSC’s exclusive performance analytics and video highlights provider.
But how does it work?
Teams upload game video, and Touchlynk’s engine identifies every touch, analyzes each play, and tags the relevant players. It sorts data analytics, statistics and searchable highlights by athlete.
Chairman and CEO Scott Ticer said Touchlynk’s accuracy is over 97% and the system is designed to address any errors. The platform utilizes AI—but athlete tagging is, notably, done manually.
“This is not a pilot program, this is a full-fledged rollout,” Ticer said. “We’re going to have hundreds of players, parents, family members and fans using this service. And we’re pumped.”
