— Switch from Sports Connect

Sports Connect is being
shut down in 2027.

Genstar has officially announced the platform sunset. AYSO has publicly committed to migrating to PlayMetrics. You're going to migrate either way — switch once, not twice.

See how clubs are switchingCompare pricing

⚠ Forced migration · announced

Sports Connect → PlayMetrics. Announced for 2027.

After the June 2025 Stack Sports + PlayMetrics merger under Genstar Capital, the parent company announced that Sports Connect (formerly Blue Sombrero) will be retired and migrated to PlayMetrics. AYSO has already publicly committed. For clubs that lived through the 2019–2021 Blue Sombrero → Sports Connect rebrand, this is the second forced migration in seven years.

You're going to migrate either way. Switch once, not twice. Land on a platform that isn't a migration project on someone else's roadmap.

— The math

What you're actually paying.
Including the line items they don't advertise.

Headline price isn't take rate. Once you stack subscription, per-transaction, per-registrant, dispute, and minimum-volume fees, the real number lands here.

— On Stack Sports

Subscription + $3 per checkout + card markup

Effective take ≈ ~4–6% of GMV

  • $3 non-refundable platform fee on every checkout — including cash and check registrations
  • $3 fee is NOT refunded to the club when the family is refunded (per AYSO's own wiki)
  • Card processing markup stacked on top of the $3 fee
  • Annual subscription with quarterly billing; data-export friction at exit

+ On EZ Event Registration

$49/mo + 1.5% per transaction

Effective take ≈ ~1.6%

  • No subscription minimums or volume penalties
  • Refundable platform fees on refunded registrations
  • Stripe Connect v2 marketplace payouts — funds go to you
  • No per-registrant uplifts, no dispute fees, no captive rules

— At your scale

For a club doing $500K in registrations,
that's roughly $16,912 a year back to your program.

$100,000 / yr

$5,000

on Stack Sports

$2,088

on EZ Event Registration

Save $2,912

$250,000 / yr

$12,500

on Stack Sports

$4,338

on EZ Event Registration

Save $8,162

$500,000 / yr

$25,000

on Stack Sports

$8,088

on EZ Event Registration

Save $16,912

Estimates use the midpoint of Stack Sports's reported effective take rate. Your contract may differ — pull your last statement and we'll do the real math on a 15-minute call.

— Run your own numbers

Plug in your registration volume.
See what you'd save in real time.

$/ yr
$25,000$5,000,000

On Stack Sports

$12,500

On EZ Event Registration

$4,338

You save / yr

$8,162

$40,810 over 5 years

Estimates use the midpoint of Stack Sports's reported effective take rate (4.0%–6.0%). EZ Event Registration baseline is $49/mo + 1.5% per transaction. Your contract may differ — for the real number, send us your last statement.

— Why your registrar is unhappy

These aren't edge cases.
These are the system.

Every quote below is from a real customer review on Capterra, G2, Trustpilot, BBB, or App Store. Sourced and dated.

  • $3 non-refundable fee charged on every checkout

    Sports Connect charges $3 on every checkout — including cash and check registrations where Stack Sports never touches a card. When the league refunds the family, the $3 is not refunded to the league. AYSO's own wiki documents this.

    “We refund the family in full and still owe Stack Sports the $3. Multiply that by 800 registrations and it's a real number.”
    — Treasurer, soccer club · Capterra · Aug 2024

  • PE-driven layoffs hit support quality first

    Indeed reviews from former Stack Sports engineers and customer-success staff explicitly attribute layoffs and support cuts to Genstar's cost-cutting playbook. Customer reviews mirror this: non-existent support, refund denials, and unfixed bugs.

    “Over 8 layoffs in the year after the deal. Private equity only cares about numbers, and customer support is where they cut first.”
    — Former Stack Sports engineer · Indeed · 2024
    “Support has been completely non-existent. We've sent 12 tickets in the last year and gotten one response.”
    — Club Director · Capterra · Sep 2024

  • Blue Sombrero → Sports Connect rebrand was largely cosmetic

    The 2019–2021 rebrand left clubs on the same legacy CMS underneath. Reviewers and a former Stack engineer both call the codebase 'old' and 'dated.' Now the same customers face a second migration — to PlayMetrics — in 2027.

    “They renamed it but it's the same platform underneath. We're still clicking through screens that look like 2014.”
    — Club Registrar · G2 · Feb 2025

— How EZ Event Registration is different

Not a feature list.
A different architecture.

These aren't features Stack Sports could add next sprint. They require schema-level, processor-level, and ownership-level choices baked in from day one.

  1. / 01

    $3 per-checkout fee, non-refundable, charged on cash/check, plus card markup

    Flat 1.5% per transaction. Fully refundable when registrations are refunded. No surcharge on cash/check entries.

  2. / 02

    Forced migration to PlayMetrics in 2027 — second forced migration in 7 years

    Independent, founder-led ownership. No PE roll-up. No platform sunset on the roadmap. Switch once, not twice.

  3. / 03

    Support cuts driven by PE cost-cutting; multi-week ticket response times

    Founder-led team. No quarterly EBITDA pressure. Named humans on every ticket.

  4. / 04

    Aging Sports Connect codebase under a 2014-era CMS

    Greenfield Next.js 16 + Fastify 5 + Prisma 7. Mobile-first by architecture, not by retrofit.

— Switch from Stack Sports

Migrate once.
Land somewhere stable.

Genstar will move you to PlayMetrics whether you like it or not. Or you can move to EZ Event Registration — independent, founder-led, no roll-up risk, modern stack.

Start free trialSee pricing