Team Funding Guide

Don't chase these

Youth sports 'grants' that are stale, paused, or fake

Sports-grant listicles are notoriously out of date — full of renamed programs, paused funds, and 'directories' pretending to be funders. Here are the ones we see most, with the evidence.

Baseball Tomorrow Fund

Renamed

It's now the MLB-MLBPA Youth Development Foundation — AND it is not accepting applications ('please revisit this site at a future date'). Anyone Googling 'Baseball Tomorrow Fund' in 2026 is chasing a name that no longer takes applications. Monitor for reopening.

Verified against MLB-MLBPA Youth Development Foundation on

T-Mobile Little League Call Up Grant (2026)

Changed

Not dead — seasonal. The 2026 application window has closed; it has historically reopened in mid-January for the spring season. Listicles that show it as open right now are wrong.

Verified against Little League — Call Up Grant on

DICK'S Sports Matter open grant rounds

Changed

The Sports Matter grant program is still live, but access changed: grants are now by invitation only, with the foundation shifting toward multi-year partnerships. There's no open application round to submit cold — join the Community list instead.

Verified against DICK'S Sporting Goods Foundation — Sports Matter on

kidsinthegame.org

Renamed

The URL redirects to everykidsports.org — it's Every Kid Sports' prior identity. The live program is the Every Kid Sports Pass. (A separate NYC nonprofit uses a similar name; don't conflate them.)

Verified against kidsinthegame.org (redirect observed) on

Jersey Watch 'grants' (and similar listicles)

Not a grant

Jersey Watch is a sports-website software company whose blog publishes grant listicles — it's a directory and content marketer, not a funder. Same class as GrantWatch and Instrumentl. Use them for leads, then verify every program on the funder's own site.

Verified against jerseywatch.com (blog / grant listicles) on

Youth-sports funding lists age badly: programs get renamed, big-name funds quietly stop taking applications, and software companies publish “grant lists” that read like funders but aren’t. This page corrects the ones we run into most.

That’s The Live-or-Dead Check from our framework: before you chase any program, confirm it’s live and open on the funder’s own current page — not a listicle, and not a directory dressed up as a funder.

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