Dynasty taps ex-MLB player Matt LaPorta for sports investing push

Former MLB player turned private equity investor Matt LaPorta has joined Dynasty Financial Partners to support the RIA network’s sports investing and athlete financial services.

LaPorta, who was drafted seventh overall in the 2007 MLB Draft, becomes an Executive-in-Residence as part of Dynasty’s Advisor to CEO program launched in 2023. The program provides content and coaching to CEOs within Dynasty’s network of independent RIAs, which totals more than 725 advisors with over $125 billion in assets.

“Dynasty wants to really lean into the sports-focused vertical, and so working with the other RIAs in the platform to help them create access to different opportunities in the sports ecosystem, or helping them when they're potentially onboarding a new athlete,” LaPorta told InvestmentNews. “Being able to walk and talk through that process with the athlete, maybe it's just helping that athlete get over the hump to join a particular RIA firm.”

LaPorta played four MLB seasons for the Cleveland Indians from 2009 to 2012, and has since held investor roles at Wayfinder Capital Partners, A111 Capital, and True Up Capital. He’ll bring sports industry advice, middle market M&A, capital raising, and network-driven deal flow expertise to Dynasty, whose CEO Shirl Penney notably supported an Alex Rodriguez-led group’s bid to buy the New York Mets before the MLB club sold to Steve Cohen in 2020.

Youth sports: a $40 billion private equity battleground

An area identified by LaPorta as a hot sports investment target was youth sports, which has become a $40 billion industry caught in the crosshairs of private equity controversy. In May, a group of congressional Democrats introduced the Let Kids Play Act that aims to stop private equity from investing in youth sports, arguing a ban would bring down rising costs to play.

“I believe that private equity in some scenarios will help youth sports, and where I think it helps is kind of the professionalizing of it,” said LaPorta. “I know a group that's doing youth baseball travel organization roll-ups, the majority of the guys that started this are former players. And for the longest time, they didn't really have an exit ramp.”

“But now there's an opportunity for them to build something, and then exit, and then there's an opportunity for groups to come in and create a more seamless process for the families. I think everything has been pretty clunky, and we're going to start to see that smooth out.”

The average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on their child’s primary sport in 2024, marking a 46% cost increase since 2019, according to the Aspen Institute’s parent survey released in 2025. Private equity firms have invested in leagues, facilities, and technology platforms across the youth sports ecosystem, such as Eli Manning’s Brand Velocity Group acquiring youth sports licensing company RCX Sports earlier this month. 

“With that process being a little bit smoother, I'd like to think that [youth sports] prices perhaps stay the same. I don't think they'll go down, but stay the same,” said LaPorta. “The hope is to be thinking about how can we be more inclusive as youth sports organizations go, because that's to me the travesty of where we're at in today's youth market. It's kind of an arms race, and it continues to get more expensive, and less and less families can really afford it.”

Investing in youth baseball apparel retailer

LaPorta’s Wayfinder Capital Partners has invested in Dirty Mids, a lifestyle brand that sells youth baseball apparel. LaPorta has twin 12-year-old boys who play baseball, letting the former big leaguer witness first-hand the costs that are associated with travel-level youth sports.

“I pay entry fees to sporting facilities to go watch my kids play a youth baseball game and watch bad baseball,” said LaPorta. “Twenty bucks a head and you do it three days in a row, it adds to the bill. I think that's where families and people are struggling with this whole private equity entering the space, because it's just expensive to play travel sports, there's no other way around it.”

LaPorta grew up in Florida playing both football and baseball in high school before he starred at the University of Florida as a top baseball recruit. The sports advisor says there is a noticeable talent gap in the kids who play today's travel ball tournaments versus what he experienced growing up.

“The reality is a lot of these kids should be just playing their local youth organization that the county provided for them, but everybody has this kind of fear of missing out,” said Laporta. “If one kid is playing the travel sports, my kid needs to play the travel sports, that's the only way they're going to get seen. I think that's the wrong mentality, because the reality is 1% of kids, maybe 2% of kids ever make it to college and to the major leagues.”

Among LaPorta's career highlights include his time playing for Team USA, winning a bronze medal at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. He finished his MLB career with 31 home runs, and was notably part of a trade package in 2008 that sent Hall of Fame pitcher CC Sabathia from Milwaukee to Cleveland.

"The travel stuff should be for the elite player like it used to be when I was young," said LaPorta. "I can't tell you how many weekends I go out and watch just terrible baseball that these kids should just be playing at their local youth rec league."