A Team for Ezra: i9 Sports Gives Kids a Chance to Play, and Parents a Chance to Lead

Jeremy Dillard remembers difficult car rides with his son after a high-pressure football practice in their school district. His son Ezra, 8 years old that fall of 2019, had an unquenchable passion for the sport, and what Jeremy calls an “uncanny ability” to memorize stats and facts that would have made him a force in NFL trivia contests against people decades older.

Ezra wanted to play his favorite sport, but he also wanted to focus on having fun. Stressful tryouts and an environment where he was labeled based on skill left him disappointed.

So, his father started searching for a different kind of flag football program, where Ezra could play, have fun and be a kid — while also competing. The Dillards found i9 Sports, which ran a flag football league once a week in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, a 35-minute drive from their home in York, Pennsylvania.

The leagues in i9 combine practice and games into one day, ensuring every young participant gets time on the field, and preventing families from having to fit youth sport into multiple days each week.

It proved to be an ideal fit for Ezra, who jumped in the car after his first week and said he couldn’t wait to come back.

“There’s an intentional effort to bring every single kid that’s on the team into focus,” Dillard said. “No one’s left out based on skill level, experience, age or need. There’s a definitive effort to incorporate everyone. I think he really felt that.”

Dillard spent eight seasons as an i9 volunteer and coach while his three children — Ezra, Jo and Elli — played sports, collecting years of memories and building connections within the i9 community.

Eventually, starting their own i9 franchise became a real possibility for the Dillards. Last March, Dillard and his wife, Katie, decided to take the leap to become i9 Area Developers — or “ADs,” opening the 300th i9 Sports franchise since its founding in 2003.

“They knew the experience and customer side before deciding they wanted to be in the business for themselves,” said Ron Shimek, president of i9 Sports. “It is relatively common. Maybe half of the people that I talk to who are interested in becoming an i9 Sports franchisee or Area Developer have had experience with i9, either through their own children, like the Dillards, or through nieces and nephews.”

Youth sports is a thriving market in the United States. According to federal government data collected in the National Survey of Children’s Health, 58% of U.S. youth participated in a sport in 2024. (There’s generally a two-year lag time before data release, according to Project Play.) That’s up significantly from a pandemic-low 48.5% participation rate reported in 2021, showing a rebound back to the 2017 high of 58.4%.

i9 Sports has grown alongside that figure, expanding to 307 franchises. Jeremy and Katie Dillard didn’t know their Greater York i9 Sports franchise would be No. 300 until they signed — and they were just 90 minutes ahead of No. 301, which signed on the same day.

“Finding out that we were (the 300th franchise) was pretty cool and humbling at the same time because we didn’t really do anything to earn that — it’s just because we signed when we did,” Dillard said. “We’re grateful to be in the position and honored to be recognized and all the things that come with it, but the proof is in the pudding. There’s a little pressure with that, too, to ensure we do a good job.”

Building Upon The i9 Model

The i9 Sports footprint is large, totaling 5 million registrations in its franchises stretching into 39 states, including California, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana and New York. The league is primarily focused on children aged 3-14, but some programs have options for kids aged 14-17 as well. Participants get access to a variety of sports, including flag football, baseball, soccer, lacrosse, basketball, volleyball and tennis.

Each franchise is operated by an AD, and sports offerings vary depending on location. With 208 owners across 307 locations, Shimek and i9 Sports have built a network of youth sports leagues managed locally and supported at the corporate level.

Every AD runs every element of their franchise, from marketing and customer service to finance. Shimek said i9 Sports supports ADs with tools and resources, including franchise business coaches, but it’s important for ADs like the Dillard family to take ownership of their individual operations.

“You have to have grit to get through the challenges that are going to come your way,” Shimek said. “A challenge may be, ‘I’m opening up my first season. I wanted to have 100 kids in my league, but I have less than that.’ Well, that’s not a failure. But how can we work with you to be able to get more kids the next time?”

Dillard had many conversations with the Harrisburg AD before diving into ownership in Greater York. He received data on the number of households with children within the community, average household income and venues.

Once the market was confirmed, the Dillards signed, and the work began.

Dillard described his family’s efforts as “grassroots marketing” through the summer. Dillard, his wife and their children showed up at town carnivals, movie nights, food truck events and firework shows, promoting i9 Sports for their fall launch. They put up road signs, introduced families to the model and worked to gather participants.

“The challenge at first, for me, was believing that what you’re doing is working,” Dillard said. “You’re watching for it to gain traction, and it’s a little slow at the outset. You’re brand new, and you’re wanting that quick trajectory up. Like with anything in life, it’s just slow, consistent presence over time. There’s no magic pill that’s just going to blow it out of the water.”

The first i9 Sports season in Greater York launched with 140 participants across soccer, flag football and T-ball for 3-to-6-year-olds. Dillard hired 10 staffers to work through logistics, traffic flow and organizing sports. Volunteer coaches, whom Dillard called the “lifeblood” of i9 Sports, got involved at the start.

Among the most difficult challenges for Dillard was securing a venue for a variety of weekly youth sports events. After weighing options across the region, his i9 Sports franchise partnered with York Country Day School to rent the school’s facilities.

The ability to network with fellow ADs as well as lean on the corporate arm is an important piece to the puzzle of running a successful franchise. Dillard said the support was a huge part of why they were able to get off to a running start in Greater York.

“Rarely, if ever, is an owner going to have a challenge that either we as the corporate staff hasn’t helped somebody else resolve, or that another AD in our system has not already resolved themselves,” Shimek said. “The advice that I give to every new owner is that you have to engage.”

Opening Day

Today, Dillard’s three children are 15, 13 and 10 years old. They’re all i9 Sports kids, and now they’re part of the family business, helping their parents organize clipboards for coaches, sort jerseys and arrange coaching bags.

Ezra is now flourishing in his role helping coaches, referees and parents. Dillard said seeing his eldest son’s confidence come out through his new involvement with i9 Sports has been a highlight of the venture.

His two younger children, Jo and Elli, are also heavily involved with setting up fields and teardown at the end of the day. Elli is especially proud of her concession stand, which she runs every weekend. Jo is playing flag football, and Elli participates in volleyball.

On September 12, opening day of the Greater York i9 Sports league, Dillard saw families arriving more than an before the 9 a.m. start time. When the kids showed up and started playing flag football, soccer and T-ball, Dillard took a moment to step back.

“Wow, we’re actually doing it,” he said.

Four weeks in, families are still coming to York Country Day School each week to play i9 Sports. Dillard and his family are still running the show, and the reviews have been overwhelmingly positive.

Of course, one part of success is measured in financials. ADs are responsible for franchise and territory fees paid to i9 Sports, and they also handle their own advertising, accounting, legal services and equipment expenses. The franchises make money through registration fees, sponsorships, concessions, merchandise and partnership fees.

But Dillard said he’s more focused on the long-term investment of ownership than scrutinizing year-one numbers.

The first season, for him and his family, is about cultivating the kind of positive youth sports experience that makes kids and families want to show up week after week — the kind of environment that made Ezra light up during rides home after i9 Sports eight years ago.

“It’s knowing that we held successful programs,” Dillard said. “That kids and parents showed up and had a good experience — they experienced something different, and enough to the point that they’re willing to talk about it and refer it to other people and say, ‘Man, we really enjoyed playing in this program’ — that would be the number one measure of success for me.”