Business Spotlight: Batter Up

In the famous seventh-inning stretch song, it might be “One, two, three strikes, you’re out,” but for 5 Tools Sports, the hits just keep coming.

5 Tools owns and operates three franchise locations for St. Louis-based Balls-n-Strikes, with indoor baseball and softball training facilities in Springfield, Nixa and Bolivar. Also under the company’s umbrella is Mid-America Tournaments, which operates regional summer baseball tournaments across the Midwest, Midwest Academy, which encompasses youth baseball and softball teams known as the Midwest Nationals, and Midwest Xplosion, which comprises youth volleyball teams.

 “It’s all separate, but it’s all connected because it has to do with youth sports,” says Jamie Sheetz, one of five partner-owners of the company. “Balls-n-Strikes is the foundation that allows all of the other entities to exist. It is where most people get introduced to everything we do.”

Other partner-owners for 5 Tools, formed in 2010, are Scott Jacobs, Randy Merryman, John Hartley and Tate Thoreson.

Sheetz said one of the biggest challenges with having so many partners is simply logistics in getting everyone together for meetings.

“Another challenge is that we have five different opinions, which is also a blessing,” Sheetz says. “We can use each other as a sounding board. We each have a role in the company, but we all help each other.”

Though he declined to disclose revenues, Sheetz said the company’s revenues grew 30 percent in 2011, and he’s projecting 20 percent growth this year.

“We’re in the leisure business and that is typically what people cut out in a recession, but we didn’t see that drop,” Sheetz said.

The lineup
The components of 5 Tools began several years prior to the company’s founding two years ago.

Merryman founded the Midwest Nationals in 2001, originally for 17- and 18-year-olds who wanted to play college or pro ball. After some of his players achieved their goals, he began looking for somewhere to train during cold winter months.

In 2004, he opened Balls-n-Strikes in Nixa, providing players with 10,000 square feet of playing space that included five batting cages. In 2009, Merryman purchased and converted the Homeruns Plus location in Bolivar to a Balls-n-Strikes, adding 5,000 square feet of training space and two more batting cages up north for the Nationals, which had by then grown to include teams with members as young as 10 years old.

After the 5 Tools partnership was formed, the company added a 12,500-square-foot Balls-n-Strikes location with seven batting cages at 2136 E. Pythian St.

Swing, batter, batter
Seth Conner, 20, of Rogersville, started playing with the Midwest Nationals when he was 16. After graduation from Logan-Rogersville High School in 2010, he signed a letter of intent to play with Missouri State University, but ultimately decided to sign with the Toronto Blue Jays.

Last year, Conner played with the Gulf Coast League Blue Jays, Toronto’s farm team, and he wants to play with the Lansing Lugnuts, the Blue Jays’ Low Class-A team, this spring.

Conner says the time he spent at Balls-n-Strikes, and on the Nationals teams, were beneficial, and for the past two off-seasons, he has worked with the company as an instructor. “It’s very organized and structured and is a good, clean environment,” Conner says.

Today, Balls-n-Strikes claims 600 clients, and half of those also play on one of the three Midwest Nationals softball teams, 23 Midwest Nationals baseball teams, or one of the 10 Midwest Xplosion volleyball teams.

The teams and tournaments derive revenue from players’ fees, which Sheetz says are $1,500 per season for youth and some high school teams, but that amount does not cover out-of-town travel, and only includes uniforms in some cases.

Fees for the two top-level 17- and 18-year-old teams are up to $2,500 per season, which includes travel. Fees also include 25 sessions of strength and conditioning training through Mercy Sports Medicine, which opened in October next to Balls-n-Strikes in Springfield.

Enhancing the roster
Through the strength and conditioning program, players work with clinicians at Mercy Sports Medicine two to three days a week and have the option to purchase additional sessions for the training, which aims to help players improve mobility and strength and prevent injuries.

“They were really smart in bringing a comprehensive package to their programs,” says Jim Raynor, executive director of Mercy Sports Medicine. “With so many parents, time is an issue, and this program allows them efficiency and ease of access all in one location.”

Other revenues come from membership packages for using the Balls-n-Strikes facilities. These include packages with lessons and $10 cage fee sessions for $29.95 a month and lessons with open cage use for $39.95 a month. Players who don’t want lessons can purchase three- to 12-month memberships ranging from $79 to $199 for cage use. Sheetz says revenue is fairly evenly split among the entities under 5 Tools.

In addition to adding the Xplosion volleyball teams under the Midwest Nationals umbrella last year, 5 Tools invested approximately $46,000 in a high-tech video pitching machine at the Springfield location and $8,000 each at the Bolivar and Nixa locations to upgrade pitching machines. Sheetz says about 40 percent of the upgrades were financed through the Bank of Bolivar.

The company also added new software that allows customers to book cages online.

“Before, about 5 percent of our customers booked online and the rest was by phone,” Sheetz says. “Now, only 5 percent books by phone and the remainder is online.”
Sheetz says the company doesn’t have any more plans for expansion this year, but the partners aren’t ruling them out forever.

“We’re always on the lookout,” he says. “Youth sport training is a growing and expanding business.”[[In-content Ad]]