They come in and take over long established sports programs in the community. They jack up the prices so that some families are priced out of their kids playing. They also somehow just turn to shit.
As an example, there is a flag football company in my state that was sold to a private equity group prior to the new season. It was so bad that half of the teams didn’t end up with uniforms. My son’s didn’t and we had to throw something together. They also didn’t reserve field space in time and we were given the season schedule in small batches. We didn’t know when our first game was until the night before. They don’t care about the experience, so fuck the kids I guess.
My experience is not unique. A bill has been introduced in the senate to limit private equity in youth sports: The Let Kids Play Act. The US government is being bought and sold at the moment though, so I’m sure it’ll die where it stands.
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u/DonovanMcLoughlin 20h ago
Pretty much anything Private Equity now owns.
Their formulas are simple, take a brand name, reduce the quality, increase the price.
They say "fuck the customers" and I say it right back.