Last fall, a parent in suburban Pittsburgh discovered that the ice rink where her 9-year-old had played hockey since kindergarten was now owned by a private equity-backed company. Within months, registration fees climbed past $4,000 per season. Livestreaming was paywalled behind a proprietary platform. And when the local nonprofit hockey association refused to sell its teams for a dollar, the company kicked them out of the rink. After 60 years, the Pittsburgh Vipers folded.
Stories like this are why the Let Kids Play Act exists. Introduced on May 13, 2026, by Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Cory Booker, and Representative Chris Deluzio, the bill takes direct aim at private equity's (PE) growing footprint in youth sports. The sponsors are right that something needs to change.
"Many of the problematic practices in youth sports predated private equity's entry into the sector."- Tom Farrey, Executive Director, Aspen Institute Sports & Society program
That observation, made when the Let Kids Play Act was introduced, gets at the limitation the bill's sponsors haven't fully answered. The bill targets real problems. But when bad practices predate the ownership structure you're regulating, fixing ownership structure doesn't fix the practices. What's missing is a compliance floor that applies to every operator - PE-owned or not. Until that exists, kids won't be meaningfully safer regardless of who signs the ownership documents. [Check out Ankored CEO, Seth Lieberman's review of the bill on LinkedIn]
What the bill gets right
The Let Kids Play Act names specific practices and attaches real consequences. That alone makes it worth taking seriously.
The problems it targets are well documented. Participation costs have risen 46% since 2019, according to the Aspen Institute's Project Play - the average family now spends $1,016 on a child's primary sport each year. At the high end of the travel circuit, costs can run far beyond that. Children from the lowest-income households now play sports at half the rate of those from the highest-income group, according to Project Play research. U.S. families spend more than $40 billion annually on youth sports, and private equity has taken notice.
The scale of consolidation is staggering. Black Bear Sports Group operates 47 ice rinks in 11 states, plus the youth teams, leagues, tournaments, and even the streaming service inside them. KKR acquired Varsity Brands for a reported $4.75 billion. Unrivaled Sports closed a $120M round led by Dick's Sporting Goods.
The bill's enforcement teeth are genuine. It creates a private right of action with treble damages, parens patriae authority for state attorneys general, and a $1 million civil penalty for false certifications. Missing divestiture milestones triggers a monthly 10% revenue escrow forfeited to a federal Youth Sports Fund. These provisions signal that Congress is serious about the problem.
The bill also names specific "vulture practices" that resonate with every parent and administrator I talk to: junk fees not disclosed before registration, stay-to-play schemes that lock families into captive hotel and travel arrangements, biometric data harvested from kids for profit, and lock-in contract terms that prevent families from choosing competing programs.
Where the bill's targeting falls short
"If the concern is profit-extraction harming youth sports organizations and the families they serve, the instrument has to be broader than one category of ownership structure. The harm doesn't check a box labeled 'PE.'"- Seth Lieberman, CEO of Ankored
Here's what that means in practice:
Consider what that means in practice. A non-PE operator can charge undisclosed junk fees, skip SafeSport training for coaches, run background checks on paper (or not at all), and store compliance records in a spreadsheet with no audit trail. The Let Kids Play Act does nothing about any of it.
Meanwhile, a PE-owned league with rigorous compliance infrastructure, automated background check tracking, and near-100% SafeSport completion rates could face divestiture demands. That league might be doing more for child safety than its community-run competitor down the road, but the bill can't see that distinction. It looks at ownership structure, not operational safety.
Senator Murphy's own experience illustrates the gap. He has described being told his kid's team would be penalized if he livestreamed a hockey game. That's a real customer experience problem. But the deeper safety question at that same rink is one the bill doesn't ask: Did every coach have a current background check? Had they completed abuse-prevention training? Was that data being tracked anywhere a compliance officer could audit it?
Those questions aren't answered by knowing who owns the rink.
Tom Farrey, Executive Director of the Aspen Institute's Sports & Society program, made a version of this argument when the bill was introduced. He acknowledged the practices it targets "merit scrutiny" but called out "fundamental flaws," arguing that many of these practices predated PE's entry into youth sports. Farrey called instead for ecosystem-wide guardrails, mandatory provider registration with the U.S. Center for SafeSport, and a Children's Bill of Rights in Sports framework that would apply to both for-profit and nonprofit operators.
The bill does take a partial step toward operator accountability. Section 7 imposes joint and several liability on vulture investors for safety infractions, labor violations, and facility code violations during the period of control. That's meaningful. But it only applies to firms designated as vulture investors during divestiture proceedings, not as an ongoing standard for every youth sports operator.
What actually needs to change
Youth sports needs what youth-serving institutions in every other sector already have: baseline compliance infrastructure that applies to every operator, regardless of ownership.
That means:
- Mandatory provider registration with a central safety authority, so every program operating with minors is on record
- Standardized background check requirements that don't vary by who your registration vendor happens to be
- Mandatory abuse-prevention training completion before any adult works with kids, not after, not "in progress," not optional
- Audit-ready record-keeping that can prove due diligence when an incident occurs, not a folder of PDFs on someone's desktop
These standards should apply to every operator. PE-owned, nonprofit, municipal, family-run. The Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017 already established a federal precedent for mandatory safety standards in organized sport, but its scope remains largely limited to National Governing Bodies under the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. A patchwork of state laws fills part of the gap - states including California, Florida, and Pennsylvania require background checks for youth sports organizations, California also mandates abuse-prevention training and background checks for all coaches, Colorado's 2024 Safer Youth Sports Act requires providers to adopt and post a prohibited-conduct policy, and concussion-management laws modeled on the Lystedt Law have been adopted across all 50 states. But these requirements vary widely by state and sport, so the broader youth sports ecosystem - including the community clubs and travel leagues where most kids actually play - still operates without a consistent, comparable baseline.
The Aspen Institute's Project Play framework offers a model for what ecosystem-wide thinking looks like. Their State of Play 2025 report documents both the cost crisis and the participation gap, and Farrey's call for mandatory provider registration with SafeSport points toward the kind of infrastructure that would actually move the needle.
The Michigan Attorney General's antitrust investigation into Black Bear may or may not result in enforcement action. The Let Kids Play Act may or may not pass. But the question of whether the coach standing next to your kid completed a background check and abuse-prevention training this year is answerable right now, for every program that decides it's a priority.
The compliance infrastructure gap is solvable now
The good news: unlike legislative change, compliance infrastructure doesn't require Congressional action.
Every youth sports operator can implement rigorous compliance systems today. Background checks, SafeSport tracking, concussion protocol documentation, automated renewal reminders, audit-ready dashboards that prove every adult in your program has been screened and trained. These tools exist and are accessible to community programs, not just enterprise operators.
The compliance gap isn't a resource problem. It's a prioritization problem. And every month an organization waits for legislation to set the bar is another month where the adults around kids may not be properly screened, trained, or accountable.
At Ankored, we've built the compliance infrastructure to handle exactly this. One workflow for background checks, SafeSport tracking, document collection, and automated reminders. One dashboard for administrators to see what's complete, what's expired, and what's missing. One audit trail that proves your program did the right thing, whether you're a 30-kid rec league or a 10,000-family travel organization.
Don't wait for Congress to raise the floor. The tools exist. The standards are set, and the bar is yours to raise.
See how Ankored helps your program build the compliance infrastructure kids deserve.
Frequently asked questions
What is the Let Kids Play Act?
The Let Kids Play Act is a bicameral bill introduced on May 13, 2026, by Senator Chris Murphy, Senator Cory Booker, and Representative Chris Deluzio. It automatically designates private equity firms invested in youth sports as "vulture investors" unless they certify compliance within 60 days. Designated firms must divest within two years. The bill also bans specific practices including undisclosed junk fees, stay-to-play schemes, biometric data capture, and lock-in contracts. For a broader look at what youth sports organizations should have in place regardless of this bill, see these essential youth sports safety policies.
Does the Let Kids Play Act address youth sports safety?
Partially. Section 7 of the bill creates joint and several liability for safety infractions committed by vulture investors during their period of control. However, this provision only applies to PE-designated firms during divestiture, not as an ongoing safety standard for all youth sports operators. The bill does not mandate background checks, SafeSport training, or compliance record-keeping for youth sports programs broadly. It also doesn't address abuse reporting protocols or abuse prevention training requirements.
What compliance standards currently apply to youth sports organizations?
The Protecting Young Victims from Sexual Abuse and Safe Sport Authorization Act of 2017 mandates safety standards for National Governing Bodies under the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee. Beyond that, compliance requirements vary by state and sport. A number of states have enacted their own rules - for example, several states require background checks for youth sports organizations, California requires background checks and abuse-prevention training for all coaches, Colorado's Safer Youth Sports Act requires providers to post a prohibited-conduct policy, and concussion-management laws are now in place across all 50 states - but most community-based youth sports programs are not subject to federal compliance mandates, which is why the compliance infrastructure gap exists regardless of ownership structure. Organizations looking for a starting point can reference this guide on how to create a background check policy for their program.
How can youth sports organizations improve compliance today without waiting for legislation?
Organizations can implement background checks for all adults working with minors, require SafeSport or equivalent abuse-prevention training before any adult takes the field, track certification expiration dates with automated reminders, and maintain audit-ready records. Organizations should also consider establishing a youth sports safety committee and building a formal risk management plan. Platforms like Ankored centralize these requirements into a single compliance workflow for programs of any size.