The i9 Sports® Story

Before Frank Fiume started his first sports league, he was a medical sales representative who called on open heart surgeons. It paid well, but “I had no passion for it.” So Frank, a baseball fanatic from Queens, New York, decided to start his own men’s softball league. 

“Adult sports leagues had been run the same way for 30 years,” he says. Other leagues were often disorganized and marred by hypercompetitiveness. While most players wanted to compete, they also wanted to have fun and make friends – but fun often took a backseat. Frank’s league was a huge success. ABA Sports grew to more than 900 teams in just six years.

While continuing to operate his booming business in New York, Frank Fiume and his wife Nadine moved to Tampa, Florida, in 1996. With a baby on the way, Frank began wondering if his concept could apply to youth sports. At face value, the youth sports business opportunity appeared much larger than adult sports. Since the average U.S. household has two kids, if you get one child to play, you will likely get both. If you provide a great experience when the kids are young, you can count on renewals for years to come. And unlike adult players, kids play sports year-round and will typically play multiple sports.

But could recreational youth sports succeed as a business? Frank had learned from his adult leagues that it was the overall player experience that set his programs apart. Disorganization, lack of communication, and inconvenience were cited as big problems. In researching youth sports, he found the same problems.