Youth sports made headlines this week for both good and troubling reasons, from record investment in girls’ athletics to a fresh SafeSport suspension that reignited concerns about coach accountability, plus another acquisition from sports-tech giant Hudl.
This roundup covers the biggest youth sports developments in participation, safety, training science, technology, and business from the week leading into September 13, 2026, so parents, coaches, and administrators can stay current on what’s shaping the next generation of athletes — including a full breakdown of Hudl’s acquisition history and what its latest deal means for teams and athletic departments.
Quick Answer
This week’s biggest youth sports stories: Jacksonville set a new high-water mark for girls’ sports investment, Kansas became the 18th state to sanction girls flag football, the U.S. Center for SafeSport suspended a Missouri swim coach for sexual harassment, and Hudl added fundraising platform TeamUp as its 19th acquisition. A separate ProPublica/Washington Post investigation also found banned coaches still working through AAU-affiliated programs.
Jacksonville’s Girls’ Sports Investment Hits a Record High
Jacksonville is seeing its biggest-ever wave of spending on girls’ and women’s athletics. The Upshot League, a women’s professional basketball league headquartered in the city, crowned its first champion in August 2026 after launching with roughly $40 million in investment commitments from about 90 backers; the Jacksonville Waves lost that inaugural title game to the Charlotte Crown. The city also fields Sporting Jax Women in the Gainbridge Super League, a new women’s pro soccer circuit, giving Jacksonville a fully professional women’s basketball and soccer presence at once.
The momentum extends to schools. Florida logged 136,857 girls in high school sports for 2025-26 — a new state record that pushed girls to 43.9% of total participants, up from 38.8% two decades ago. Girls’ wrestling has grown especially fast, climbing from 295 participants a decade ago to 2,328 this year after the sport became FHSAA-sanctioned. Locally, Duval County Public Schools reported more girls than boys playing high school sports in 2025-26 (4,542 to 4,234) and used 1-mill tax referendum funds to build dedicated girls’ wrestling locker rooms, weight rooms, softball cages, and beach volleyball courts. Programs welcoming new wrestlers can start with our wrestling fundamentals guide.
Kansas Becomes the 18th State to Sanction Girls Flag Football
The Kansas State High School Activities Association board voted 61-1 to sanction girls flag football for the 2026-27 school year, following 28 pilot programs last year that averaged roughly 24 athletes per roster. Kansas is now the 18th state to officially sanction the sport at the high school level, part of a fast-moving national wave — flag football has gone from a club-level novelty to a sanctioned varsity sport in less than five years in many states, with additional state votes still pending.
Hudl’s 19th Acquisition: What TeamUp Adds — and Hudl’s Full Buying Spree
Hudl, the Lincoln, Nebraska-based sports video and analytics company used by hundreds of thousands of youth, high school, and college teams, announced its 19th acquisition on July 8, 2026: TeamUp, a gamified athletic fundraising platform founded in Fargo, North Dakota. The product has been rebranded as Hudl Fundraising and folded into the same suite teams already use for film, scheduling, and ticketing. TeamUp replaces traditional door-to-door fundraising with competitive, badge-based team events, and schools on the platform have reported raising roughly $8,000 or more per event.
TeamUp is the latest entry in a long acquisition run. In 2025 alone, Hudl bought Balltime (February, AI-driven volleyball metrics like jump height and attack trajectories), Titan Sports (June, wearable GPS player tracking), SportContract (August, hockey-first software), and Athletic Data Innovations (October, athlete monitoring and performance data). Earlier deals — Wyscout (2019, global soccer scouting) and Sportstec (2015, coaching video software) — show the strategy has been years in the making: rather than build every feature in-house, Hudl buys sport-specific startups and integrates them into one platform. For coaches and athletic directors, the takeaway is that Hudl now covers far more than game film — performance tracking, athlete monitoring, and fundraising are all part of the same login. Teams building fundamentals first can lean on our volleyball basics guide before layering on advanced analytics.
Coach Accountability: A New SafeSport Suspension and a Troubling AAU Gap
The U.S. Center for SafeSport suspended longtime Northland United Swim Team coach Mike Ballard from USA Swimming-affiliated programs for one year after finding he committed sexual harassment, adding education, probation, and no-contact conditions to his sanction. Families evaluating a club can start with the basics in our swimming fundamentals guide before checking a program’s safety record on SafeSport’s public disciplinary database.
Separately, a joint ProPublica and Washington Post investigation found at least eight coaches banned by SafeSport who were still working with youth athletes through AAU-affiliated programs — including one Texas volleyball coach now under federal investigation. The AAU promised reforms after a 2011 abuse scandal, including mandatory coach training, but reporters found the organization quietly changed its own website to describe that training as merely “encouraged” rather than required, and it declined to answer questions about how it enforces bans across its network.
The Rising Cost of Youth Sports
PBS NewsHour Classroom’s latest lesson looks at how commercialization in travel and club sports is pricing out lower-income families even as outside investors pour money into the industry. Project Play’s Tom Farrey called the dynamic “anticompetitive,” warning that rising fees for elite travel programs risk pushing aside future top athletes who simply can’t afford to play — a tension that sits right alongside this week’s record investment numbers in girls’ sports.
Training and Performance Science: Avoiding Overuse Injuries
The American Academy of Pediatrics continues to flag overuse as the single biggest driver of youth sports injuries — roughly half of the estimated 3.5 million youth sports injuries treated each year stem from repetitive strain rather than a single collision or fall, a risk that’s higher during growth spurts because developing bones and growth plates are less resilient to repeated stress than mature ones.
The AAP’s core guidance hasn’t changed, but it’s worth repeating as fall club and school seasons ramp up: increase training volume, time, or distance by no more than about 10% per week, cap any single sport at five days of organized activity per week, build in at least one full rest day, and give young athletes two to three months off from a given sport each year — ideally through cross-training in a different activity rather than total inactivity. Coaches and parents managing multiple practices and a new club season at once are exactly the group most likely to push past that threshold without noticing.
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Youth Sports News Roundup FAQs
How many states now sanction girls flag football?
Kansas became the 18th state to sanction girls flag football at the high school level in 2026, after its state activities association board voted 61-1 to approve the sport following a year of pilot programs. More states have votes pending, so the number is expected to keep climbing.
What is Hudl’s 19th acquisition?
Hudl’s 19th acquisition, announced July 8, 2026, was TeamUp, a gamified athletic fundraising platform now rebranded as Hudl Fundraising. It joins recent 2025 deals for Balltime (volleyball analytics), Titan Sports (GPS tracking), SportContract (hockey software), and Athletic Data Innovations (athlete monitoring).
What happened with the Northland United Swim Team coach?
The U.S. Center for SafeSport suspended coach Mike Ballard from USA Swimming-affiliated programs for one year after finding he committed sexual harassment, and added education, probation, and no-contact requirements to the sanction.
Are banned coaches still working with kids in youth sports?
Yes — a 2026 ProPublica/Washington Post investigation found at least eight coaches banned by SafeSport who were still coaching youth athletes through AAU-affiliated programs, pointing to gaps in how the AAU enforces bans issued by other governing bodies.
How much did girls’ high school sports participation grow in Florida?
Florida logged a record 136,857 girls in high school sports for the 2025-26 season, up from a prior 2018 record, with girls now making up 43.9% of all participants compared with 38.8% two decades ago. Girls’ wrestling specifically grew from 295 participants a decade ago to 2,328 this year.
How much should youth athletes increase training load each week?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends increasing training time, repetitions, or distance by no more than about 10% per week, taking at least one rest day weekly, and limiting any single sport to five days of organized activity to reduce overuse injury risk.
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