Frank Fiume was sitting in a Tony Robbins Business Mastery seminar, trying to rekindle a love for the company he’d built from scratch, when a line he’d heard before landed differently. “Tony said, ‘success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure,'” Fiume recalls. “When he said that, it hit me right between the eyes because I had been successful, but I was no longer fulfilled.”
It’s a startling admission from the founder of i9 Sports, the country’s largest franchisor of community-based, multi-sport youth leagues. But Fiume’s story is full of moments like this, decisions that seemed risky from the outside, yet feel inevitable to the man who made them.
The result: a business that transformed weekend youth sports for families across America, a nine-figure sale and a second act that’s as personal as it is entrepreneurial.
A Curveball
Frank Fiume was born in New York City, the oldest of two. His sister, Donna, is six years younger. His parents married young and by the time he was in second grade, they divorced, a major shift for a kid in the 1970s. In those early years, Fiume’s family toggled between Queens and a home the family built in Nesconset, Long Island.
In Nesconset, baseball wasn’t a hobby; it was a gravitational center. Fiume created a makeshift baseball diamond in his backyard, and the neighborhood followed.
“Baseball was really, really important to me as a young kid,” he says. When the family later moved back to Queens—first to Whitestone, then to College Point—the setting shifted from suburban backyard to basement apartment. “I felt like I lost everything,” he says of that move, “as it turns out, it was the greatest blessing in disguise. School got easier for me, and it started to give me some confidence.”
Living in College Point was a “scrappy” experience, he says, but it clarified his priorities. “It doesn’t matter where you start; it’s where you end up. I realized that material items really don’t mean a damn thing.” The on-field constants remained: he played first base and outfield, finding his footing in a new neighborhood, while doubling down on school.
Fiume enrolled at Holy Cross High School, an all-boys Catholic school known for athletics. It was the kind of school that once felt out of reach when he was struggling on Long Island. “Getting into Holy Cross was huge for me. When I got in, I felt like I won the championship,” he says. The confidence boost translated into grades: as a freshman, he was a B/C student, but by his senior year, he was consistently pulling A’s.
Work was also part of the curriculum. Fiume bounced between a College Point pizza shop, a public pool, a corner convenience store and a grocery store. During his junior year, he landed a part-time role at GreenPoint Savings Bank, New York’s largest mortgage lender at that time. The bank expanded his skill set significantly. He learned about office dynamics, hierarchy, and autonomy; many of his colleagues were St. John’s University alums, which made his next step feel natural.
He didn’t make the varsity baseball team, but the bank handed him back the game in a different form. A coworker organized a softball team and Fiume laced up. “The first time I played softball, as a 20-something-year-old, I was like, ‘Oh my God, I feel alive again.'”
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Swing For the Fences
The idea that would change his life started as a joke. Working in medical sales and managing a weekend softball team, Fiume began to write a tongue-in-cheek newsletter after a six-game skid, “trashing” his friends’ play. They enjoyed it so much that they demanded a sequel, and he continued writing. Soon, he was studying how Long Island leagues with “hundreds of teams” were run, and he decided to start one himself – despite a chorus of naysayers who warned he would never get fields, teams or umpires.
Around the same time, Fiume met Nadine in a way that perfectly fits the 1990s. “I wrote the [personals] ad as if my dog was trying to set me up on a date,” he says. She called, they clicked and 49 days later, they got engaged. They’ve been married for 30 years.
From the outset, Nadine was a true partner. After Fiume shared his vision for a new league, they launched the Amateur Ballplayers Association, also known as the ABA. She memorized team and player stats to help with customer calls and, as he jokes, won his heart with her cooking. “She made homemade manicotti,” he says. Their fledgling league signed 35 teams, enough to cover the cost of their small, 50-person wedding.
Fiume and Nadine enjoy the view of Anna Maria Island.
Then they made a break-the-mold decision: move to Florida and start fresh. Initially, they planned to leave the league behind, but momentum changed that plan. Thirty-five teams became 53. By 1996, ABA had about 120 teams, “and I’m kind of stuck,” Fiume says. He kept the business, even as they packed for Florida.
Tampa won their hearts for practical and personal reasons. National medical sales pay scales went further in a city like Tampa, Fiume explains. In addition, his father had moved to Naples, and the Yankees trained nearby – which really clinched the deal. The couple landed in Brandon, first in an apartment on Providence Road, and Fiume took a pharmaceutical sales job that paid about $40,000 a year. “We were happier than we had ever been,” he says.
They ran ABA from 1,500 miles away (secretly) using a 1-800 number and the Weather Channel, protecting their New York footprint from competitors who might grab fields if they knew the owners had moved. It was stressful, but it worked. “120 turned to 240 teams… [then] 400,” he says. Customer service became their edge, and they flew back regularly for meetings and to host registration meetings.
In 1998, their daughter, Taylor-Marie, was born, and the juggling act no longer felt sustainable. That same year, the NFL announced it would promote youth flag football nationwide. Fiume saw an opportunity in Tampa Bay. “Oh my God, nobody’s doing flag football. We’ve got to do flag football,” he told Nadine. They launched a local league, with advertising across the market, and immediately registered about 100 kids in Brandon. By 1999, they had 600 participants, having added locations in Carrollwood and Largo. Fiume recalls the defining realization. “Now I know we’re onto something,” he says.
With momentum building and their second child, Frankie, on the way, he stepped away from the pharmaceutical industry and began learning the game of franchising. The throughline was already clear: the product had to be about fun, safety and convenience for families. “Now I’m in the mom business… but I didn’t know it,” he says.
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Batter Up
By late 1999, Fiume moved from testing a local league with National ties to building a nationally scalable brand through local franchising.
He knew the name needed to be unique for both trademark strength and symbolic value. So, he created i9 Sports, a brand built around nine “I” values and a red, white and blue design that parents would recognize on a field sign or a T-shirt.
The “nine i’s” include: Imaginative, innovative, inspirational and interactive, integrity-driven, insightful, inclusive, instructional and impassioned.
A man ahead of his time, for sure; the iPhone or iPods were not even a thing. Fiume is a visionary; there’s no denying it.
“People now say, ‘I play i9,'” he says with a grin. The idea was simple, but different for youth leagues: a family-first model built on safety, convenience and genuine fun, with a professional, repeatable experience every Saturday.
The Change Up
To fund the leap, he sold the adult softball business he had grown in New York. “I sold [it] for a million dollars,” he says. After taxes and fees, the family had a healthy runway, but no safety net. He hired a small team in Brandon and began awarding territories. In those first months, he made a critical mistake: offering both adult and youth sports. The adult-franchise model didn’t travel well, and early operators struggled, while the youth operators started to hit. Cash burned. Within two years, the Fiumes were down to about $50,000 in the bank, down in the count, with two young children and no backup plan.
That is when a blunt outside voice changed the arc. A franchise consultant told him to keep one person and rebuild the rest. He kept Kim, his smart, self-starter, first hire, who managed the books and was ready to grow with him. Then he rebuilt training, support and marketing from the ground up, shifting the company’s focus from “how to run a league” to “how to run a business,” he says.
The turnaround was fast. “We went from cumulatively losing $850,000 in the first two years, to making $300,000 in 2006,” he explains.
Playing In the Big Leagues
Then came the decision that made i9 Sports an independent brand. Early in 2006, while many operators still used the NFL Flag name for local leagues, the NFL directed all registrations through an outside database. Fiume saw the risk immediately and kept his eye on the ball.
Handing over his customer data would be giving away his future, and that of his franchisees. Over a single weekend, he stripped “NFL Flag” from the program and told franchisees they would register families as i9 Sports. “There was nothing more important than our data,” he says. It was not popular at the time, but it was the right move. New market launches more than doubled prior registration totals, and i9 began earning as much from its own merchandising as from its fees. The brand could now extend into soccer, basketball and T-ball, under a single name.
Grand Slam Growth
Growth followed. In 2007, the company sold its 100th franchise, despite the Great Recession. In 2008, Fiume recruited a complement to his founder energy, which was a game-changer. Brian Sanders, a marketing mind who, in Fiume’s words, “crystallized the i9 experience.” He says he “hired for [his] weakness,” naming Sanders’ president and chief operating officer. The yin-and-yang partnership would help propel the next phase of growth in the business.
Those years tested their model. Selling new franchises got harder. But league registrations held. “Mom and dad are always going to register their kid to play sports,” Fiume says. Inside the company, the mantra was simple: “We are refusing to participate in this [recession].” The focus stayed on the on-field experience and on helping franchisees run real businesses with smart marketing, solid operations and a tight handle on finances, according to Fiume.
By the mid-2010s, i9 Sports was a national brand with a clear promise to families and a system that rewarded franchisees who executed it effectively. Awards and press came with it. For the founder, though, the next major turn would not be about growth. It would be about fulfillment, ownership and what comes after a dream is achieved.
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Out of Left Field
By 2015, i9 Sports was thriving on paper, but the founder felt something was missing. Fiume flew to Tony Robbins’ Business Mastery seminar in Palm Beach, hoping to “get [his] love back for the business.” What he heard, instead, reframed everything: “success without fulfillment is failure, and if you no longer love what you do, you owe it to yourself and your company to step aside.” That message hit him hard.
He went home with a game plan that honored both feelings, pride in what he had built and the tug in his heart to move on. In early 2016, he created an employee stock ownership plan so the people who helped build i9 could become owners. He announced it to the team and watched the eyes of the people in the room fill with tears. He stayed on as controlling owner and leader, but the game was different. New obligations followed, too. Financial covenants and ratios began to dominate the conversation, which was never why he started i9 Sports. “I was always focused on how many kids we could impact,” he says. “Not whether we hit a quarterly quota.”
In 2017, he chose clarity. Fiume decided to sell his majority stake and leave the operating chair. The timing made for a bittersweet moment. On the same day, he delivered the keynote at the company’s franchise convention in Orlando, and then returned to his hotel room to sign the papers. “I didn’t get my fairytale ending,” he says of that year, grateful for the outcome, yet honest about the feeling.
The next chapter was decided four years later by market conditions rather than sentiment. The business surged out of the pandemic, interest rates were low, and the owners moved to sell. In October 2021, i9 Sports was acquired by Youth Enrichment Brands, backed by Roark Capital. Fiume recalls the feelings of disbelief and validation. It had sold for more than $100 million.
At that time, i9 had grown to 1,000 locations across 41 states nationwide, with over 5 million kids participating in i9 sports programs. The company had achieved $400 million in revenue since launching in 2003.
For a founder who once monitored rainouts from 1,500 miles away with an 800 number and the Weather Channel, the arc felt complete. He had built a national youth-sports brand, rewarded employees, found the right steward for the next phase and stepped out at the top. What he did not anticipate was the quiet that comes after a big exit.
Home Run Swing Falls Flat
When the wire cleared, the silence moved in. Fiume held a board seat and a minority stake, but had no operating role and no calendar that pulled him out of bed at 5 a.m. “I didn’t know who the heck I was,” he says. The feeling, he says, wasn’t about missing meetings; it was about lacking purpose.
The void also affected his health. He describes “adrenal fatigue,” a stretch when he felt blue and needed a functional medicine reset. He is comfortable saying it out loud because he wishes someone had said it to him sooner: the other side of a sale is not automatically easy. For founders who spent decades sprinting, the stillness can be debilitating.
A return to the i9 Sports stage helped close one circle. In 2023, at the company’s 20th-anniversary convention, he delivered a keynote and felt the ending he had missed back in. “This was the fairytale ending,” he says. The welcome from franchisees and longtime employees confirmed that he could honor his journey with i9 without needing to sit in the operator’s chair again.
Batting a Thousand
Then came a nudge toward what was next. At a small conference in San Diego, two different attendees, hours apart, with no relation to one another, told him the same thing: “You should host a podcast.” He laughed it off the first time, took notice the second time, and then couldn’t stop thinking about it. He booked a studio in Tampa, hired a virtual assistant and launched Emerging Franchise Brands, a show that spotlights founders that most larger platforms ignore. “There are 4,000 franchise concepts in the United States today,” he says. “About 400 new concepts are born every year.” Too many fail because no one teaches them how to be a franchisor, he adds. On camera, he gives them the mic. Off camera, he answers the tough questions.
The show found an audience quickly. Within two years, YouTube views topped 600,000, subscribers passed 20,000 and guests began asking for more in-depth help. In January, he hosted his first group of 50 founders, then launched a group mentorship program focused on the parts of franchising that matter most: innovative marketing, money management and hands-on coaching for operators.
The best development may be personal. His daughter, Taylor-Marie, joined him as podcast and events coordinator after pitching in at the summit and an industry conference in Las Vegas. “Her and I get to work together every day,” he says, a simple sentence that lands like a reward.
Now he is rounding third base, alongside the podcast and mentorship: helping entrepreneurs navigate life after a sale. Borrowing a Tony Robbins line that says, “You are not retiring, you are rewiring.”
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A Walk-Off Victory
If his minor league appearance was building a national youth-sports brand and his major league debut was helping young franchisors avoid the pitches he missed, winning the World Series might just be about the human side of entrepreneurship. It is the conversation he wishes someone had started with him sooner.
Giving back for the Fiume’s starts with where they came from. He grew up watching a single mom stretch every dollar, moving when expenses outpaced paychecks. That memory of “food and shelter” not always being a given is why the couple’s philanthropy leans practical: ECHO (Emergency Care Help Organization) in Brandon and Meals On Wheels Tampa, groups that ensure families are fed and seniors aren’t forgotten. They also support the Tony Robbins Foundation, a nod to the mentor whose teachings shaped several turning points in his life.
The Tampa Bay community continues to be the Fiume’s home field. Both of their mothers live in Sun City Center and most of the family has migrated here over the years. Their daughter, Taylor-Marie, now works alongside Fiume as the coordinator for his podcast and events—an unexpected extra inning neither of them saw coming, but both enjoy. Their son, Frankie, works at Ocean Prime and shares his dad’s love of the game, something which they’ve always bonded over.
Balance is the new metric. Today, the Fiumes find joy in more travel, more time with family and regular rounds at Feather Sound Country Club, where Fiume and Frankie recently became members. Nadine also manages a beachfront Airbnb on Anna Maria Island, the couple uses as a part-time perch—a way to slow down, switch scenes and be intentional about how they spend their days.
If the first inning was building i9 Sports and the second inning is helping founders, the third inning is about roots and relationships—being present for parents, kids and each other, and directing their giving to the basics that lifted them. It’s a quieter kind of impact, measured less in headlines and more in meals delivered, groceries stocked and the everyday moments that compound into a life well lived.
The 9th Inning
From a backyard, childhood wiffle ball league on Long Island to picking up a softball and “feeling alive again” in his twenties, baseball has been Frank Fiume’s pennant run. When he felt like he was in left field after the sale, he laced up again—this time on a local diamond—and found his footing. “Somehow baseball’s been a connection to each stage of my life,” he says. It’s why i9 Sports was never just a business plan; it was a way to give other families the same simple joy that shaped his own.
The next inning—podcasts and working with Taylor-Marie—carries that same box score: build communities where people can play, take care of the people in the clubhouse, learn and tell the truth about where they are. He’s not chasing scale for its own sake anymore; he’s pursuing work that feels honest and useful.
Ask him what that sounds like, and he smiles. “There’s nothing like the crack of the bat when it hits the baseball.” It’s a small thing, really—a clean swing, a bright echo—and, for Fiume, the perfect reminder that fulfillment often lives in the basics: a field, a family and a game worth playing.
Photography by Evan Smith
