i9 Sports

My 3 year old son just finished up his first T– ball season with I9 sports and loved it! I was surprised to see negative reviews on here. Luckily we did get an amazing couch (yes a volunteer parent which I actually prefer) my son made so many friends and learned a lot about running bases and hitting the ball. His skills improved tremendously from the first practice to the last. My favorite part about I9 sports is that the location, day & time stay the same every week. Also the games are played right after the practices. They gave out medals half way and then also trophies at the end :) I love how proud my son is of them lol. They also do professional photos of the team and then of each child alone. we will most definitely be signing up again for this next coming t ball season and flag football when he is old enough. It’s just a perfect program for little kids!

Given that this is a franchise business I guess the positive/​negative comment about the I9 Sports experience may depend on the particular franchise.
In our case our experience came down on the negative side because what we found amounted to unmet promises and lack of responsiveness. I explain:
We enrolled our almost 5 year old daughter in the soccer program. The promise? practice drills and then a game. The result? two short-​lived drills wherein each child was lucky to touch the ball twice and then a game wherein a child clearly heads above all other children in the peewee team dominated the game all around. OK, first session perhaps the second session might be better right? No. The second session was exactly the same: arrived on time but the so-​called practice drills didn’t start until much later and hence, once again, there was only one simple drill: kick the ball towards the goal wherein, again, each child was lucky to do this twice. Then onto the game and again, a much bigger child who clearly should not be in the peewee team dominated the entire game with the rest of the children doing little else but running chasing this boy. I approached the coach who clearly agreed that this bigger child didn’t belong there but did nothing to move him to the appropriate group… so this was a second wasted session… I decided to email the person in charge of this franchise and received no response so I called I9sports and I am waiting for a call back. Who knows, maybe there will be some improvement but thus far I can tell you that the chances of us returning to this same franchise are slim to none.
Next session we will try a different franchise nearby. Until then I would caution to go visit first, observe, ask the parents to see if the franchise you are interested in actually delivers the promises… BTW our experience is with the Davie, Fl franchise.

i9 Sports does some things right and some things not so right. Depending on your values and circumstances, you may find the pros outweigh the cons. In my opinion after 18 months of involvement with this organization, my family is moving on. That doesn’t make it a bad program; it’s just not what my son needs or wants anymore.
THE GOOD:
i9 only asks for a two hour commitment per week. For families like mine who value involvement in a variety of activities over specialization in one, this is great.
i9 is about sportsmanship not just with the kids but the parents. Your mileage will vary here; I’ll explain in the cons.
The locations are convenient. You’ll never have to worry about traveling for games because everything’s in one place.
The variety of sports. My son was able to play flag football for eight weeks, then switch to basketball, then back to flag next season. This was a win in his book.
Everyone gets a medal. This works great for the younger kids; my son felt it was contrived after a few seasons though.
THE CONS:
Coaches are volunteers, usually parents. This means your team may not have a coach assigned until the week of the first game. And, coaches aren’t expected to have any real training outside of concussion awareness. This means the quality of coaching can really vary from season to season. Additionally, as much as we all want to say we follow the Parental Pledge, I’ve witnessed my fair share of coaches who feel it’s all about their kids and NEVER bench them while other kids sit ¾ of the game — even though that’s against the rules!
As much as i9 says there are no premades, I question that, too. There are teams who I’ve seen play together multiple seasons and had kids moved from our teams mid season so they can play with friends.
Some of the parents forget that this is for fun. Kids get hurt and bad calls get made. Yet there are parents verbally attacking the coaches because of perceived injustices against their kids. It’s gotten ridiculous.
Final con — this is considerably more expensive long term over the Y or rec programs. We spend on average $ 100 per season for a 4 to 6 week season. It gets expensive!
I think this is a great model for younger kids. When they reach fifth or sixth grade, it may be time to look elsewhere.

I had to write a review because the only other review for this organization is not only inaccurate but extremely misleading. This organization offers great opportunities for kids age 4 – 14 to participate in sports. They do not play 10v10 soccer. The little guys only play 5v5… But I’m not going to write this review about everything that’s wrong about the previous one. This organization provides a great experience for today’s youth to learn the importance of sports and how sports can translate to everyday life. Good sportsmanship is of great priority. Every child gets to play. As we all know the only way a kid is going to get better at sports is through experience and that’s exactly what i9 sports has to offer. If your child shows even an inkling of interest in sports sign him/​her up today. I’ve been around sports my entire life and we all know it’s a highly competitive industry. I9 Sports gives kids the opportunity to learn the skills of the sport but also the social importance of the sport. I can only give i9 Sports my highest regard but you’ll have to see for yourself.

Warning — Worst Sports Experience Ever
Sum: was the worst sprts experience ever seen in my life. Parents, don’t believe the slick marketng, polished webste, and lip service they offr. They say all the rght things, but the reality is something entirly diffrent. The actions r contradictory 2 the nice things espoused.
The convenience of 1 day a week (prac and gm back to back) not worth it. This franchise op is very shrewd in their messging. They r good at business, but deliver miserably on most important part; delivering good sprts exp. They r also overpriced (eg my kid will play hoops for ½ price of these guys & get more gym time). Do right by your child & find another rec opportunity run by a local city or parks dept. You will have a much higher likelihood to get your kid a good sprts exp elsewhere
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I am very exp’ed with sports, having played them all of my life. I have served in many capacities for decades; player, ref, coach for over a decade, parent for over a decade, &several years as the Director of a 2000+ youth sports organization. My child participated in their football & it was hands down the worst exp I have ever seen in yth sports.
Mere days before season, they did not have a coach for my child’s team. Realizing this was not a good sit, I offered to be an asst coach. They were gracious &appreciative but then they just made me the head coach without even asking me if I would be comfortable with that role. Fortunately, I am an experienced coach so I just rolled with it, but it would have been more professional for them to at least ask me if that would be ok.
Anyway, I accepted this role and was going to do my best to be a good coach for this team. During the 1^st weekend, it was pretty apparent what the league was all about. They cram tons of people into an undersized space. Flag football, t-​ball, soccer. They are all there. There is no room to practice. It is actually dangerous because you have people continually walking through the little patch of grass or dirt you do try to claim. There are trees, spectators of other games, and soccer goals in the way.
The soccer is absolute joke. In the U-​littles age, I observed as many as playing 10 vs 10 during the game. Anyone who has any clue about soccer for the very smallest (4, 5 year olds) knows itt should really be 3 v 3 on the field at any 1 time to give the little guys any meaningful intro to soccer. Otherwise it’s just complete waste of time. But that does not fit into the corporate $ making model here. Cram as many as you can to maximize those profits. I love capitalism & for-​profit ventures, but it is not working in this case because they deliver a terrible product.
Then there is the parity of the leagues (or lack thereof). My team had 6 kids assigned to it. The way the registration of this league works is that certain teams know how to work the system so that they can be stacked w/​talent that will absolutely destroy other teams. There was 1 team that had 10 players on it & most of them were very experienced and very good. In fact, the coach of their team stated that he had to ‘cut’ 5 kids. This is supposed to be a rec league. The team formation process is ripe for abuse & creates this tremendous disparity. Becse the league is so small (4 teams) we had to play that team 3 of our 7 games. All of these games were severely lopsided (e.g. 48 – 0). These matchups were the equivalent of a football powerhouse like Bama or FSU beating up on the likes of Prair View or Flor AM. It’s just ridic and not good for anyone involved. What made matters worse, the coach of the powerhouse team exhibited poor sportsmanship. The league has some measures of the mercy rule (eg when a game is lopsided, they let the clock run and not stop between plays toward end of the game). With this team up by 40+ points, this coach is circumventing the intent of the mercy rule and calling TOs to try run up the score even further. This would be the equivalent of a college team being up 70 – 0 & calling TOs in the last 15 seconds to try to make it 77 – 0.
Through it all, I was very conscientious about trying to keep things positive with the the team, pointing out even the smallest successes (e.g. you stopped them on that 2-​point conv, great job).
I reached out to the Dir. He offered some platitudes and a pdf but basically failed to comprehend the situation in any meaningful way. His other offer of ‘help’ was to have me reach out to the coach of the powerhouse team (the very coach of the team that was unsportsmanlike by circumventing the mercy rule!). In subsequent email exchanges with him, he mistook me for another coach who also had issues with the program and called me out for creating a negative situation. When I pointed out that he obviously was thinking I was someone else, instead of showing any remorse or class or responsibility for his mistake or decency, he instead just ignored my subsequent emails to him. That speaks very poorly about the Dir & org as whole