Families

Axios -  U.S. families spend more than $30 billion annually on youth sports, which now operate year-round with a phalanx of professional facilities and staff. Private equity is helping to make it happen — and hoping to profit from it, Axios Pro Rata author Dan Primack reports.

 One of the largest players is Unrivaled Sports — launched earlier this year by a pair of veteran private equity investors who began buying up pro sports teams over a decade ago. Unrivaled, chaired by a former Nike executive, operates 15 brands that serve over 635,000 youth athletes per year, with everything from ball field complexes to flag football leagues to mountain biking camps. There's also 3Step Sports, which owns 1,800 club teams with over 1.1 million athletes; uniform maker Score Sports; scheduling app TeamSnap; and media group PlayOn Sports. 

New Yorker - “Family estrangement—the process by which family members become strangers to one another, like intimacy reversed—is still somewhat taboo. But, in some circles, that’s changing,”Anna Russell writes in a new piece on the emerging “no contact” movement. Support groups and online forums have been created to help people who want to get out of unhealthy family dynamics. There are many reasons that individuals choose to go low or no contact, especially with their parents. Some cite physical or sexual abuse, but others point to something more ambiguous, such as general toxicity or even differences in opinion. Supporters of the movement—particularly those online—are often fervent in validating any rationale for someone deciding to cut ties. Still, Russell speaks to many people, children and parents alike, who share stories about the challenges that come after separation. “When you have estrangement, you know, the person’s still alive,” one woman said during an online support group. “So it kind of has this itchy feeling to it.”