LeagueApps, the youth sports management provider, has acquired NCSI, a safety and compliance firm that conducts background checks for the USOPC and roughly 90% of its national governing bodies. NCSI had been part of Versant’s portfolio.
This is the third acquisition by LeagueApps following prior deals for soccer competition organization tool Mod11 and facilities management company RecTimes. The entire staff of NCSI, which stands for National Center for Safety Initiatives, will join LeagueApps and operate as a division within the company. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Lazard supported Versant as its financial advisor.
“We see an opportunity for youth sports to be even safer if we can apply the right workflow, the right technology, and also the right advocacy behind it,” LeagueApps President Jeremy Goldberg told SBJ.
Goldberg said an increasing number of local youth sports providers were simultaneously seeking more options to ensure safe operations, yet it was becoming a challenging industry to navigate. He added that there used to be about 30 insurance providers for youth sports, but now there are only about five because of the risk profile.
“More and more of our organizations were feeling the need to have more safety and compliance solutions,” Goldberg said. “They were navigating a patchwork of requirements of different standards.”
NCSI was founded by Trish Sylvia in 2004. SportsEngine acquired the firm in 2017, after which it later joined NBC Sports Next and then Versant. LeagueApps works with thousands of youth sports organizations, including properties tied to MLB, the NBA, NHL and PLL. MLB was previously an investor in LeagueApps before being replaced by Accel-KKR and Arctos.
FundPlay Foundation, a LeagueApps-backed nonprofit, has financially supported the cost of providing nearly 500,000 kids with access to sports. Goldberg said LeagueApps and NCSI would underwrite the cost of those organizations getting access to the safety checks.
