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USA Today
10-08-2025
- Sport
- USA Today
'Work of the devil'? Authors, dads test limits of travel sports
BERKELEY, CA - 'You want to see what Americans care about?' Michael Lewis asks. You probably know Lewis. He takes sports and societal narratives – the sabermetric undercurrent, a homeless kid seemingly born to be a left tackle, the careful yet tough influence of a high school coach – and turns them into influential books. The really good subjects, he has found, are right under your nose and no one is saying anything about them. That eventually becomes impossible. Take travel sports. 'Go to a 10 year old softball game and watch the parents,' Lewis said in March at the Project Play Summit. 'They care about that more than anything.' Across campus at the University of California, another author, Richard Reeves, raised within a British youth sports system much more infatuated with playing than the material things you can get from sports, offered this reading of the landscape: 'Travel sports, the work of the devil.' Reeves' three sons were around middle school age when he and his wife brought them over from the United Kingdom to America, and into the so-called youth sports industrial complex. 'You've got these kids being hauled around the country and think they got to do this, parents shouting in their ears and they had scouts there and individual coaches,' he tells USA TODAY Sports. 'I was horrified by the culture around it.' Lewis had two softball-playing daughters and, like so many of us, gave himself to their careers. 'The most pathetic character inside it is the one who's paying for it all,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win,' his 2020 audiobook that details life in the complex. 'The sports parent funds the entire operation but is regarded by everyone else as expendable. The central truth of this elaborate mechanism we've built so that our children might compete against each other might be this: How little a parent can do to help the child. As a result, the overwhelming emotion of the sport parent is anxiety.' But would he do it again? It's a question he thought about as he wrote, and as he spoke to the crowd at Project Play five years later about what has become a $40 billion industry. The two authors (and dads) offer perspective on their zany escapades within travel ball and advice on how we can negotiate it – or perhaps avoid it entirely. Travel and youth sports can give parents a 'moral education' Lewis has raised two daughters and a son with his wife, Tabitha Soren. Soren thought softball would be a nice way for dad and his young daughters, Quinn and Dixie, to bond. What could go wrong? Ther local softball league was founded by Cal religion professor Harlan Stelmach under the premise it existed for the 'moral education of parents.' It was against the rules to talk about the score, or even to use verbs from the stands to instruct or criticize your daughter while she was playing. 'Left to their own devices, children playing sports make it fun,' Stelmach said. 'It's when adults get involved that the problems arise.' The goal was a .500 record, and an evaluation was held to select teams balanced equally by skill. But dad coaches whose daughters were good players told their children to 'tank' their formal evaluations so they would be undervalued. The rules were about adult behavior. 'You're not just teaching the kids, you're teaching the parents,' he says. 'Most of the competitive landscape was Daddy ball,' Lewis says. 'It was dads who cared too much, who were frustrated by their own lack of success as baseball players, whose wives had seen this is the one way to interest their husband in their daughter was to get them into competitive sports and have them run their sporting lives.' Haley Woods, an All-American catcher and power hitter at Cal who coached Dixie Lewis when she became a competitive travel player, had a poignant message for parents. It's what we need to understand when our kids are young: Don't see them as who you wish them to be, but for who they are. Growing up in England, Reeves played sports all the time, with no infatuation with what he might become. Rugby didn't help you get into Oxford, anyway. 'I wasn't very good at anything, but my dad coached rugby,' Reeves says. 'He'd played. We'd cut a hole in the fence so we could get into the school tennis courts, and they looked the other way, and summers were spent on the tennis courts. I never had an hour of tennis coaching in my life, but I'm an OK tennis player as a result. … 'I was fortunate enough to grow up with a very clear sense from my parents of the joy and the value of sport, but always on the play side. … I lived in fear of one of my kids getting good enough to play travel sports.' Reeves wrote the 2022 book, 'Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male is Struggling, Why it Matters, and What to Do About it.' His session at Project Play addressed youth coaches and administrators looking for ways to engage more boys in sports as their participation numbers are plummeting. Problems with boys and girls sports can arise when we get out of our comfortable communities and into the industrial complex. 'It's like, you have these small furry creatures who have been raised on an island without predators,' Lewis says. We toss them into the jungle, and our education continues. Observing travel sports can be a pill for improving a child's character At some point, with players' and parents' inner ambition brimming beneath the surface, the Berkeley softball league formed a travel team. Lewis' older daughter, Quinn, was 9. Now they were driving an hour away to play. At first they got pummeled, which tested the adults' limits' of frustration. 'At a kid's ballgame, you're never quite sure who's going to go mad - only that someone will,' Lewis writes in 'Playing to Win.' No trait - education level, income, race or gender – was predictive of it, he observed. The explosion happened to the Berkeley parents the first time the team was close to winning. Near the end of the game, one of their runners slid into home. The umpire called her safe. Lewis recalled four opposing coaches running out of the dugout and screaming at her, profanities flying. The umpire started to cry. 'The Berkeley parents were always very good at not being the first one to throw a punch,' Lewis said, 'but (they) are always on a hair trigger for other parents' bad behavior. So their coaches get their fans riled up, they're all screaming at the ump. The Berkeley parents are then outraged. 'On the field, they're like 20 little girls looking back and forth, with 70 parents screaming at the top of their lungs, veins popping, faces red. Through the noise - and the din was incredible - you heard this Berkeley mom shriek, What horrible modeling for our children.' The umpire tossed the opposing head coach. He then told her he was director of facilities and said she was fired. Lewis followed her as she moped toward the parking lot. He had to give her a pep talk to stay. 'I remember having this feeling like, yeah, on the surface, it is horrible,' he said. 'On the other hand, softball became one way to show my children - and then basketball with my son - how not to behave as a grown-up. 'Mostly what they got from grown-ups was a lot of artificial behavior, like polite grown-up behavior. When they saw the mask come off, then we can have a serious talk about how you behave and shouldn't behave.' It's a tactic Jeff Nelligan, another sports dad and commentator on American parenting I've interviewed, used with his three sons. Daily life, he writes, offers advice moms and dads can't concoct on their own: good, bad, and inspirational. Our job, Nelligan says, is to judge what we see. 'Every single one of us makes judgments about people and situations throughout our day,' he writes. 'It's the only way to successful navigate through life.' We learn about the length people go for our kids, and when we go too far. Perhaps for Lewis, it was when he went to Cal's women's softball team and, in his words, 'threw a sack of money' at its players to coach the Berkeley team and reverse their losing. Or when he was interviewing then-President Barack Obama for a story aboard Air Force One. When they arrived in Washington, the president asked Lewis to ride back to the White House to continue their discussion. Lewis said he had to rush home for a girls softball tournament. COACH STEVE: Ranking the 6 worst youth sports parents Don't look at travel sports as something that will play for college, but as a learning experience The next time you're at your child's game and want to say something out loud, pretend you are on a national stage. With social media documenting everything, you essentially are. Best mound visit ever. Listen to this. This should go viral. Amazing and what it's all about. Baseball is fun and this coach absolutely gets it Before you speak, think about what you are about to say, whether it be an in-game instruction to your kid, who might just glare at you, or a jab at another parent, which will make you a spectacle. Sports parenting is a lot like driving, Lewis writes. He says you want to go over and scream at the coach who benched your child like you want to give the finger to the person who cheated at the four-way stop sign. But 24 hours later, you have trouble even remembering why you got so upset. Your exercise can start when your kids are young, when the stakes are much lower, nonexistent really. What you stop yourself from saying might teach you something about the industrial complex you are about to enter. Reeves, the British author, says he came into it blindly. 'I think this whole college thing, the selection thing, the scholarship thing, it's putting this downward pressure on youth sports that is very distorting, and I don't know what to do about it, but I do know that we survived it,' he says. 'We were never parents trying to get the kids into these highly selective colleges who would like do oboe on Tuesday and lacrosse on Wednesday and their nonprofit on Thursday and the Mandarin class on Friday. 'God, it was exhausting. I was like my kids are just gonna go to a state college and they'll be fine.' One of his sons, Bryce, wound up on a travel soccer team and got injured. At that point, the family decided they didn't want the scene to infiltrate their life any further. 'Saturdays are for the sofa,' he says. 'They're not for getting up at 6 to drive to New Jersey.' Lewis spent five years of nearly 30 hours per week running his childrens' sports and 10 as commissioner of the travel softball league, mostly to the objections of his wife. 'In the beginning (it) was, 'How sweet, Michael's getting very involved in the daughter's lives,' Lewis says, 'and then it's like, 'Wait, we're spending 52 nights a year at the Hampton Inn in Manteca?' … 'Her view is there was a price that was paid, and the price was that our life was less diversified. It was more specialized, even if it wasn't specialized in a single sport. It was severed but it was all or nothing, and the kids all approached it that way. They were all really into it.' Dixie had a drive that was different, her dad thought. As a young teenager, she had sought out Haley Woods' Cal Nuggets softball team on her own and made the team. She threw herself into the journey and experience. She played in front of college coaches, and she found a role model. 'Everything she says to me, I take seriously, and there's so few grown-ups I feel that way about,' she told her father about Woods. 'She has a lot to say that's really useful to me.' COACH STEVE: 'Is it worth it?' Red flags to watch with youth sports programs Always play sports for the love of them, not matter how old you are Lewis admits the tens of thousands spent on travel ball fees, private lessons and travel costs and the pursuit of athletic scholarships is much better invested in a 529 college fund. Still, he also adds, 'My view of all this was that there's so many things you can learn through this experience that what sacrifice was involved was totally worth it.' Lewis and his daughter observed that top softball schools barely acknowledged ones that couldn't offer athletic scholarships. Dixie found top academic schools that also had softball teams were surprising accessible. As they walked around the campus of Division III Pomona College after she had committed there, she told her dad the travel ordeal had been worthwhile. 'Look where it got me,' she said. 'I feel so good about myself and where I am. I wouldn't change anything.' Dixie died in a 2021 car accident during her freshman year of college. Lewis almost gave up writing. He didn't because it was something that made him feel better. He draws deep satisfaction in knowing, amid his sorrow, his daughter chose her own path through youth sports, and she wound up at her dream school. Lewis, though, fully acknowledges that about half the young athletes in America have been priced out of the industrial complex. Youth sports participation as a whole, Aspen Institute research has found, falls off sharply by age 11. Reeves' son, Bryce, is now a Baltimore city public schools teacher and girls soccer coach. He plays on the Baltimore City FC amateur soccer squad. 'That makes me so happy,' his father says. 'I think there's something beautiful to just watching kids running around and having a great time. I'm here to make the case for mediocrity. And the trouble is, that doesn't sound very inspiring.' Steve Borelli, aka Coach Steve, has been an editor and writer with USA TODAY since 1999. He spent 10 years coaching his two sons' baseball and basketball teams. He and his wife, Colleen, are now sports parents for two high schoolers. His column is posted weekly. For his past columns, click here. Got a question for Coach Steve you want answered in a column? Email him at sborelli@
Yahoo
26-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Hasbro has a winning hand with Wizards, bucking the trend in retail
reported a strong Q1 thanks to a surge in one business segment. The company also left its fiscal 2025 guidance untouched despite other retailers making changes owing to impending tariff implications. Other toymakers warn, though, that tariffs could hurt the entire industry. While many retailers have lowered guidance for this fiscal year in anticipation of President Donald Trump's barrage of tariffs, one toy company is confident it can weather the storm. Hasbro—the toymaker for all ages behind Play-Doh, Monopoly, Nerf, and Dungeons & Dragons—on Thursday reported a strong first quarter for 2025. Revenue was up 17%, and earnings per share beat estimates of $0.67 per share at $1.04. Hasbro CEO Chris Cocks credited the quarter's success to massive growth in its Wizards of the Coast segment, which produces both digital and tabletop games. That segment's revenue surged 46% in Q1 to $462 million. And Hasbro's confidence in Wizards' continued growth is in part why the company left guidance for the year unchanged despite other retailers pulling back out of fear of tariff implications. 'Despite macro uncertainty … Wizards' outperformance, and accelerated cost savings, gives us a line of sight to delivering on our full-year financial commitments,' Hasbro CFO Gina Goetter said during the earnings call. Plus, Wizards has low tariff exposure, with less than $10 million expected in duties for the year, Cocks said during the company's earnings call on Thursday. Most of Hasbro's supply chain is produced in North Carolina and Texas, he explained, with the remainder in Kyoto, Japan. 'While our toys segment faces higher exposure, we're responding proactively,' he said. 'Our asset-light sourcing model means we can rapidly shift production to help mitigate tariff impacts.' Having success with digital products helps Hasbro's revenues, particularly where tariffs are involved. Hasbro benefits from 'an emphasis on digital that limits the impact of tariffs,' David Mayer, senior partner and director of marketing and customer strategy at branding consultancy Lippincott, told Fortune. Rival toy companies have a 'greater percentage of sales in physical toys, which exposes them more to both tariffs and cash-stretched parents cutting back on one-off purchases.' Hasbro also in February unveiled a $1 billion cost-savings plan called Playing to Win, which runs through 2027. The five-pillar plan focuses on building profitable franchises; making more toys that are appealing to people age 13 and older; expanding into emerging markets; building video games; and driving new retail and licensing partnerships. 'We're accelerating our $1 billion cost-savings plan to offset tariff pressures internally,' Cocks said. 'While targeted pricing actions remain likely, we are prioritizing key price points and strengthening retail partnerships.' However, other toymakers aren't as confident their industry can combat the impacts of impending tariffs. 'Hasbro's recent earnings report showcases the strength of their games,' Isaac Larian, founder and CEO of MGA Entertainment, told Fortune. 'But let's be clear: Those numbers don't reflect the storm that's coming.' MGA Entertainment is the maker of Bratz, LOL Surprise, Baby Born, Little Tikes, Rainbow High, and more, and Larian said every major toy company—including his and Hasbro—is heavily reliant on imports, particularly from China. If tariffs remain in place, Larian warned, consumers are in for price increases, and companies should be prepared for shrinking margins. 'Consumers, especially families already feeling squeezed, will be the ones who suffer,' Larian said. 'Come this Christmas, we're looking at major shortages across toy aisles, with prices up by double digits or more.' Mattel, another major toy manufacturer, will announce its latest earnings in early May. This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
Associated Press
20-02-2025
- Business
- Associated Press
Hasbro Unveils New Strategy
PAWTUCKET, R.I.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb 20, 2025-- Today Hasbro, a leading games, IP, and toy company, is unveiling a new strategic plan, 'Playing to Win', taking the company through 2027. At the heart of Playing to Win is Hasbro's mission to create joy and community through the magic of play. Through play-fueled engagement and partner-scaled co-investment, Hasbro will seek to expand its reach from over 500 million kids, families, and fans today to over 750 million by 2027. Through 2027, we expect an average of mid-single digit revenue growth and 50-100 basis points of annual operating profit margin improvement. By 2026 Hasbro's gross debt to adjusted EBITDA ratio is projected to stand at 2.5x. And by 2027 Hasbro's operational excellence program is expected to deliver $1bn of gross cost savings, with approximately half dropping to the bottom line. Medium-Term Guidance (2025-2027) *Cost Savings are calculated using FY 2021 results as base year. The Company is not able to reconcile its forward-looking non-GAAP adjusted operating profit margin because the Company cannot predict with certainty the timing and amounts of discrete items such as charges associated with its cost-savings program, which could impact GAAP results. Constant currency is a non-GAAP financial measure. Chris Cocks, Hasbro's CEO, said: 'Play is a universal human need and a strong basis for a business that has the purpose to endure, as Hasbro has proved over the last 164 years. Playing to Win unlocks Hasbro's strengths: a broad and deep brand portfolio rooted in play, an unmatched licensing business, and a profitable games business anchored by world-renowned franchises fans love like Magic: The Gathering, Monopoly, and Dungeons & Dragons. Our new strategy is grounded in the key insights which will drive Hasbro's evolution into a modern play company: serving fans of all ages around the world at every price point, and meeting fans where they are playing, which is increasingly online.' Gina Goetter, Hasbro's CFO and COO, said: 'Playing to Win focuses our teams on Hasbro's core strengths while continuing to transform the organization and drive operational excellence. With this strategy, we expect to emerge as one of the most profitable toy and game companies globally, powered by a phenomenal set of diverse and multi-generational franchises.' Playing to Win marks an important pivot for Hasbro: a return to growth. The strategy focuses Hasbro on what has always made the company great – Play and Partners. Play is the foundation for an incredible portfolio of brands, a library of thousands of marks spanning Hasbro's 164-year history across ages, geographies and play patterns. Through partners, Hasbro has scaled to become the third largest entertainment licensor on the planet and the biggest in digital games, by far the fastest growing entertainment category of the last decade. A focus on Play and Partnership has allowed Hasbro to exit non-core businesses like eOne film and TV and take out $600M of costs. Hasbro has emerged with a stronger balance sheet and a stellar line-up of partners. This focus has allowed the company to lean into high profit, high growth areas like digital games where Hasbro's brands have proven resonance and diversified digital revenue streams allow for self-funding. And upcoming partner collaborations span blockbuster movies, themed hotels, cruise ships, quick service restaurants, category expanding toy partnerships and AAA videogames. Playing to Win includes five strategic building blocks: Profitable Franchises: Asserting the fundamentals of profitable, play-focused brands. Aging Up: Increasing the play and collectible appeal for fans aged 13 and above across Hasbro's brands. Everyone Plays: Expanding reach in opportunity areas including girls and emerging markets. Digital & Direct: Building video games, services, and e-commerce capabilities. Partner Scaled: Driving profitable reach through outstanding retail and licensing partnerships. Hasbro is introducing a new prioritization matrix to assess brands, markets and channels that will drive internal clarity and resource allocation. Growth Brands and channels with the highest growth and margin potential will receive higher incremental investment, including Magic and Play-Doh, emerging markets, and Hasbro's self-published video game efforts. Opportunities with a lower growth or margin profile will see more targeted investments to grow share and optimize profitability. Underlying these product and brand-focused strategies are a series of transformation initiatives to upgrade the company's operations, systems, and talent. These initiatives include systems modernization, supply chain excellence, design acceleration, and AI and digital advancement. To deliver the future of play, Hasbro will build on the culture of innovation and collaboration fostered over the past 164 years while creating a positive impact on the community and the environment. About Hasbro Hasbro is a leading games, IP and toy company whose mission is to create joy and community through the magic of play. With over 164 years of expertise, Hasbro delivers groundbreaking play experiences and reaches over 500 million kids, families and fans around the world, through physical and digital games, video games, toys, licensed consumer products, location-based entertainment, film, TV and more. Through its franchise-first approach, Hasbro unlocks value from both new and legacy IP, including MAGIC: THE GATHERING, DUNGEONS & DRAGONS, MONOPOLY, HASBRO GAMES, NERF, TRANSFORMERS, PLAY-DOH and PEPPA PIG, as well as premier partner brands. Powered by its portfolio of thousands of iconic marks and a diversified network of partners and subsidiary studios, Hasbro brings fans together wherever they are, from tabletop to screen. For more than a decade, Hasbro has been consistently recognized for its corporate citizenship, including being named one of the 100 Best Corporate Citizens by 3BL Media, a 2025 JUST Capital Industry Leader, one of the 50 Most Community-Minded Companies in the U.S. by the Civic 50, and a Brand that Matters by Fast Company. For more information, visit or @Hasbro on LinkedIn. © 2025 Hasbro, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Forward Looking Statement Safe Harbor Certain statements in this press release contain 'forward-looking statements' within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These statements, which may be identified by the use of forward-looking words or phrases, include statements relating to our business strategies and plans; expectations relating to products, gaming and entertainment; anticipated cost savings; and financial targets and guidance. Our actual actions or results may differ materially from those expected or anticipated in the forward-looking statements due to both known and unknown risks and uncertainties. Factors that might cause such a difference include, but are not limited to: our ability to successfully implement and execute on our business strategy; our ability to successfully compete in the play industry and further develop our digital gaming, licensing business and partnerships; our ability to transform our business and capabilities to address the changing global consumer landscape, including evolving demographics for our products and advancements in technology such as the use of artificial intelligence in the products and markets in which we operate; risks associated with the imposition or threat of tariffs, including reciprocal or retaliatory tariffs, in markets in which we operate which could increase our product costs and other costs of doing business, impact consumer spending, and lower our revenues and earnings; risks associated with international operations, such as: the imposition or threat of tariffs; conflict in territories in which we operate; currency conversion; currency fluctuations; quotas; shipping delays or difficulties; border adjustment taxes or other protectionist measures; and other challenges in the territories in which we operate; risks related to political, economic and public health conditions or regulatory changes in the markets in which we and our customers, partners, licensees, suppliers and manufacturers operate, such as inflation, rising interest rates, tariffs, higher commodity prices, labor strikes, labor costs or transportation costs, or outbreaks of illness or disease, the occurrence of which could create work slowdowns, delays or shortages in production or shipment of products, increases in costs, or losses and delays in revenue and earnings; uncertain and unpredictable global and regional economic conditions impacting one or more of the markets in which we sell products, which can negatively impact our customers and consumers, result in lower employment levels, consumer disposable income, retailer inventories and spending, including lower spending on purchases of our products; our ability to design, develop, manufacture, and ship products on a timely, cost-effective and profitable basis; the concentration of our customers, potentially increasing the negative impact to our business of difficulties experienced by any of our customers or changes in their purchasing or selling patterns; our dependence on third party relationships, including with third party partners, manufacturers, distributors, studios, content producers, licensors, licensees, and outsourcers, which creates reliance on others and loss of control; risks relating to the concentration of manufacturing for many of our products in the People's Republic of China and our ability to successfully diversify sourcing of our products to reduce reliance on sources of supply in China; the success of our key partner brands, including the ability to secure, maintain and extend agreements with our key partners or the risk of delays, increased costs or difficulties associated with any of our or our partners' planned digital applications or media initiatives; our ability to attract and retain talented and diverse employees, particularly following recent workforce reductions; our ability to realize the benefits of cost-savings and efficiency and/or revenue and operating profit enhancing initiatives; risks relating to the impairment and/or write-offs of businesses, products and content we acquire and/or produce; the risk that acquisitions, dispositions and other investments we complete may not provide us with the benefits we expect, or the realization of such benefits may be significantly delayed; our ability to protect our assets and intellectual property, including as a result of infringement, theft, misappropriation, cyber-attacks or other acts compromising the integrity of our assets or intellectual property; fluctuations in our business due to seasonality; the risk of product recalls or product liability suits and costs associated with product safety regulations; changes in accounting treatment, tax laws or regulations, or the interpretation and application of such laws and regulations, which may cause us to alter reserves or make other changes which significantly impact our reported financial results; the impact of litigation or arbitration decisions or settlement actions; the bankruptcy or other lack of success of one or more of our significant retailers, licensees and other partners; and other risks and uncertainties as may be detailed in our public announcements and U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission ('SEC') filings. The statements contained herein are based on our current beliefs and expectations. We undertake no obligation to make any revisions to the forward-looking statements contained in this press release or to update them to reflect events or circumstances occurring after the date of this press release. HAS-C HAS-IR SOURCE: Hasbro, Inc. Copyright Business Wire 2025. PUB: 02/20/2025 06:31 AM/DISC: 02/20/2025 06:31 AM
