Skyhawks Franchise Group is hitting the road in 2018 with the opening of the first international SuperTots franchise in Suzhou, China in partnership with Amigo Sports Academy! Initial programs including SoccerTots, HoopsterTots, and PartyTots, in the Suzhou area will be available in early 2018.

Ms. Adel Xu, CEO of Amigo Sports Academy said, “We are very thrilled to begin a partnership with Supertots for the greater China region. Supertots is a leading American brand in sports instruction, and its high-quality program is a huge hit among Chinese audiences. Supertots will be a great addition and we are confident of taking our visions to the next level, delivering audiences more inviting programming and engagement opportunities in the years to come.”


About Amigo Sports Academy (ASA)

Amigo Sports Academy was established in 2016 and is dedicated in providing sports training and spreading American sports culture to aspiring youth. Amigo Sports Academy partners with Major League Baseball (MLB), and has collaboratively set up the MLB Suzhou Learning Center. We are aiming to bring American sports culture and trainings to students who love sports. In addition, we also have a partnership with the prestigious sports academy IMG, to promote all kinds of American sports, providing talented Chinese students with well-rounded sports trainings and opportunities

Franchise Gator announced the release of its annual Top 100 list which ranks the top expanding franchise systems considered to be a solid investment for those looking to buy a franchise. Skyhawks Franchise Group makes our first appearance on the list in 2018, coming in at #88!

Franchise Gator has been assisting potential business owners in exploring franchise opportunities since 2002.  The Top 100 list was created to offer yet another tool to assist in sorting through the hundreds of opportunities available to explore.

"In our research we identified company traits that prospective franchisees should look for if they seek to minimize risk when exploring  franchise opportunities," said Eric Bell, General Manager at Franchise Gator.  "With this data we decided that we were going to evaluate opportunities that generally fell in the investment range that is fitting of most Franchise Gator visitors .  We have been compiling the Top 100 for 5  years now, and each year it continues to be leaned on by our audience.  We're very proud of that."

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Learn more about why Skyhawks Franchise Group was named a top franchise by vising Franchise Gator’s Top 100 listing: https://www.franchisegator.com/franchises/skyhawks-sports-academy/

Flag football has been the fastest growing youth sport for the last few years, and it doesn’t look like that will slow down any time soon. Despite it’s popularity, many people don’t know flag football’s origin – the U.S. Military.

The early appearances flag football as we know it date back to around the 1930’s and 1940’s. The popularity of American Football had already been established before WWII, and the military couldn’t send soldiers to battle with nagging football injuries, so flag football really took hold on military bases overseas. When the soldiers returned home, they brought the sport with them, and the first leagues began to take root.

By the 1960’s, the National Touch Football league was formed, proving that touch & flag football had arrived. Soon after, flag football became a staple on college campuses, and remains so with flag football being one of the most popular intramural sports among students.  

Today, flag football leagues are just as, if not more, popular as tackle football youth leagues, and semi-pro leagues including the professional AFFL (American Flag Football League) and the USTFL (United States Flag & Touch Football League) have been established across the country.

If you haven’t been living under a rock for the last 3 months, you’ve no doubt been getting an eye and an earful about next week’s solar eclipse. Depending on where your child’s program is location and their program’s schedule next week, your child may have a perfect opportunity to view the eclipse! Feel free to send them with the correct protective glasses or filters/viewers. If you’re planning on sending your child with glasses and/or filters to view the eclipse: here’s a couple things to remember from NASA's eclipse page:

  - Glasses and viewers must be designated as ISO 12312-2.

  - Glasses and viewers must be less than 3 years old and not have any scratches or cracks on the lenses.

Before you drop your child off at their program, remind them of a few things: 

  - Stand still and cover your eyes with your eclipse glasses or solar viewer before looking up at the bright sun. After looking at the sun, turn away and remove your filter — do not remove it while looking at the sun.
  - Do not look at the uneclipsed or partially eclipsed sun through an unfiltered camera, telescope, binoculars, or other optical device.
  - Similarly, do not look at the sun through a camera, a telescope, binoculars, or any other optical device while using your eclipse glasses or hand-held solar viewer — the concentrated solar rays will damage the filter and enter your eye(s), causing serious injury.

All Skyhawks programs are continuing as scheduled, and we’re excited for to kick off the week’s programs with this rare event! If you have any questions regarding your child and their program next week, please call our customer service department at 800.804.3509

This summer, Skyhawks will be giving away a FREE Skyhawks program and sports pacakge each week! Tag Skyhawks in a photo on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with #Skyhawks2017 to enter - that’s it! Enter as many times as you like, but only one entry will be recorded for each picture. Winners and weekly prizes will be announced at the beginning of each week on Skyhawks’ social media, so follow us to see what’s up for grab and who won!

Facebook: /SkyhawksSportsAcademy

Instagram: @SkyhawksSports

Twitter: @SkyhawksSports

The first prizes will be announced on TOMORROW, JUNE 27th! Start sharing and enter to win!

The following is a guest post written by Jacob FIll, returning Skyhawks coach in San Jose, CA.

My birthday is coming up this summer.  I’d say I’m pretty lucky to have a summer birthday, especially as a college student.  One of the great things about a summer birthday for me is that I get to spend it with my family.  One of the bad things about spending it with my family is that my mother, every year, forces me to look through her old scrapbooks of my childhood.  Every year we sit down, against my will, and look through some embarrassing pictures of me as a child, but every year I take an extra long look at one picture in particular; it’s a picture of me as a toddler, being held up by my father to dunk on a plastic Fischer-Price basketball hoop.  This picture in particular is special to me because it symbolizes my love for sports.  

I have played sports my entire life, both at a highly competitive level and at a recreational level in college.  Once I realized my basketball playing days would be over after high school, my initial thought was, “How can I continue participating in sports without playing at the college level?”  I quickly realized coaching was what I wanted to do.  Having good and bad coaches throughout my playing career helped me realize what makes a good coach.  My good coaches taught me what works well, and my not-so-good coaches taught me what doesn't.  In addition to my basketball coaching knowledge, my love for working with kids had ignited in me a desire to coach. There’s just something about being able to pass along my love for sports and make a positive impact on a young athlete’s life that makes me excited to get up every morning and go to Skyhawks camps.  

I had worked as a volunteer sports camp counselor near home before, but that doesn't come close to comparing to how Skyhawks operates.  Skyhawks is a very unique summer camp organization.  In my opinion, Skyhawks’ best attribute is their ability to give each and every child individual attention.  When I volunteered previously, I saw some kids being left behind in certain games or activities.  For example, one time I noticed a child struggling to shoot the basketball, and I knew exactly how to fix the problem, but because of the unfavorable child-to-counselor ratio, I wasn't able to take time to give him individual coaching.  As a Skyhawks coach, this is never a problem.  When something like this happens, there is always at least one coach available to teach the child how to properly shoot the basketball.  And let me tell you, the feeling you get when a camper takes your advice, makes a shot, and his/her face lights up with excitement, is absolutely priceless.  

As a junior in college, I could have taken a lot of different routes this summer.  I could have chosen a full-time paid internship.  I could have chosen to work at a restaurant and make tons of spending money off of tips.  I could have chosen to take summer classes.  Instead, I chose to come back as a Skyhawks coach.  What better way to make money than to do what you love every single day? I come home on Fridays knowing I made a difference in some child’s life that week.  I come home feeling good about how I was able to pass along my love for sports to the next generation of athletes.  At the end of the day, I come home on Fridays glad to be a Skyhawks coach.  

This article was written by Skyhawks Franchise Owner Brett Gardner and is cross-posted from Redwood City Parks, Recreation & Community Sevices blog. Click Here To View The Original Aricle.

Much has been written over the past several years about specializing in one sport vs. letting kids play as many sportsas possible. There is all this literature that benchmarks what age kids should be when they specialize. I come down firmly in the camp of NEVER. Unless your child is an elite gymnast or dancer, there is no argument to be made for specializing in a sport. Ask professional athletes how many of them “specialized” in the sport they now play. I’d hazard a guess that the answer is none.

But, sports have gotten really out of hand thanks to the business model behind competitive sports. Coaches are hired to develop players for college sports programs. That’s what they are paid to do. I hear parents talking about this even with a team of eight-year-olds!

If you are reading this and you have teenagers, I hope you’re nodding your head in agreement. Parents of younger children, read on. Sports is not a career for your child. It’s an activity and it should be one of many.

But, more importantly, not all kids like sports. As the parent of two very athletic children and the owner of a company that runs sports camps, I should be shouting from rooftops about the benefits of sports. But, I have also seen what happens when kids are pushed too hard.

I am a big believer in the “try everything” model of parenting. You never know what’s going to stick. When my kids were little, we tried it all — from ball sports to gymnastics to theater to martial arts to dance.  Some of it stuck and much of it didn’t. The questions we asked our kids were, “was it fun?” and “did you learn anything worthwhile?” Next, we asked them if they wanted to do that activity again.

With child number one, the answer was invariably, yes. With the other one, it was almost always, NO! Different kids, different interests. Even though child number one seemed to like everything and child number two seemed to hate most things, I still think the try everything model was good for both of them.

With limited time during the school year, we often used summer camps to let our kids try different activities. Many families didn’t understand why we would do this. If my daughter was “an athlete,” why weren’t we sending her only to sports camps? She plays ball sports nine months out of the year. Does she really need more sports at age eight? We thought it was far more important for her to experience different things. So we encouraged her to try science camps, cooking lessons, etc. She loved some of them and was less enthusiastic about others. But, she got to try something new, which was the most important thing.

As summer is looming, think about things your kids have never done before.  It could be a new sport, like flag football. Or, it could be dance or robotics. Try everything. You just never know what will stick!