Spire Academy is one of a handful of schools in the U.S. that has adopted the boarding school model and transformed it into a talent-production hub for some of the highest levels of sports (the NBA’s LaMelo Ball, Isaiah Jackson and Jalen Pickett are notable alumni).
What will begin to set Spire apart, its CEO Steve Sanders hopes, is the full-scale effort to enhance the student experience on campus (which was founded in 2009), regardless of their athletic prowess. That started in earnest on Wednesday with the announcement of the Spire Performance Research Institute (SPRI), which will pair the school’s international students with technology to foster athlete innovation and impactful research in youth athletics. SPRI already has some brewing case studies -- you can read about some of the vendors involved here -- but there’s a much larger opportunity here, Sanders believes.
“We always had the institute on there,” said Sanders, who helped define Spire’s big-picture blueprint as an outside consultant in 2019. He’s been the school’s CEO for nearly a year.
Sanders thinks that Spire’s setup, which will now produce more data through its institute and foster more advances in its athletes’ performance, recovery and preparation, can eventually help the entire ecosystem. Project Play, a youth health initiative from the nonprofit Aspen Institute, shared in March that spending for U.S. families on their child’s primary sport had increased by 46% since 2019, adding that more than $40 billion flows through youth sports annually.
There will also be more opportunities for venture investment from Spire into the tech vendors it builds relationships with. Sanders said the school already has a couple of venture partners, along with some ongoing university conversations, which could help set up an incubation style-lab setup for the future of SPRI.
According to the National Survey of Children’s Health, more than half (55.4% in 2023) of U.S. children between the ages of 6-17 participated in a sports team or had sports lessons. That’s 27 million-plus kids who, based off a multitude of factors, may or may not receive athletic support until they get to college.
There’s a general ecosystem of youth sports apps that offers communication between organizations and parents or tracks the stats of their child’s youth career. Sanders is a parent of four, and he chuckled when trying to highlight all the apps on his phone associated with his kids and their different activities. Those platforms, he said, could be vehicles for more support. “All these programs have these systems where it’s like ‘Hey, you have a game tomorrow -- make sure you eat a nutritious meal,’” Sanders said. “OK, great, but what is a nutritious meal? What does that athlete need?”
Fostering future athletes and sports tech stars
The institute can also help Spire’s goal in offering more sport-centric career pathways for students who want to stay in sports. Sanders noted that a student on a sports marketing track, along with some classes, is getting intern experience with Spire marketing, too.
Spire has produced hundreds of collegiate athletes since it opened in 2009. It now has a chance to launch more sports professionals.
“Not all student-athletes are going to go play in college, and even fewer of them are going to play professionally,” Sanders said. “... Think about the connections that they’re making while they’re here. You leave Spire, and you start a sports tech company -- well, your first four athlete investors were teammates while you were at Spire together.”
