⚽️ Axios PM: Youth sports' billions

Good Friday afternoon, and happy long weekend. Today's newsletter, edited by Sam Baker, is 491 words, a 2-min. read. Thanks to Sheryl Miller for copy editing.

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.

🏦 Zoom in: 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.

🥅 The bottom line: The youth sports industrial complex has been great for some kids, providing them with better coaching and facilities.

• It has priced out others, denying them the chance to play and improve alongside more affluent peers.

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A growing chorus of popular musicians is telling the Trump campaign to quit using their songs at campaign events, Axios' April Rubin reports.

• The White Stripes' lead singer, Jack White, threatened to sue over a video of Trump boarding a plane to the song "Seven Nation Army."
• ABBA asked Trump yesterday to stop using its music at campaign rallies. The campaign said it had obtained a license.
• Celine Dion's management said Trump's use of "My Heart Will Go On" was not authorized and that Dion "does not endorse this or similar use."
• Isaac Hayes' estate has sued Trump, alleging 134 counts of copyright infringement, after asking the campaign to stop using the song "Hold On, I'm Coming."

🎵 Friction point: "It's times like these you learn that it's all about money, money, money and not about freedom with these artists," Trump campaign communications director Steven Cheung said in a statement.

An Israeli Security Cabinet meeting last night about a potential hostage/ceasefire deal erupted into a shouting match between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Minister of Defense, Yoav Gallant, Israeli officials tell Axios' Barak Ravid.

⚡️ Why it matters: The confrontation highlighted the deep disagreement between Netanyahu and the vast majority of Israel's defense establishment and intelligence community about Israel's strategy in Gaza.

• Gallant's aides say he has no intention of resigning. But the episode could push Netanyahu to again consider the possibility of firing him, as he did in 2023.

The bottom line: The clash between Netanyahu and Gallant is likely to make the Biden administration's efforts to reach a deal much more complicated.

French athletes Ksenia Chasteau and Pauline Deroulede compete in wheelchair tennis women's doubles today at the Paralympic Games in Paris.