How a Toronto rec basketball league became a million-dollar business
Brodie Rec League is a basketball league that launched in Burlington in 2020 and now has 50,000 athletes playing across 25 cities in North America including Burnaby, Toronto, Brooklyn, and Boston.
'It’s the closest thing you can get to a professional without actually being professional,' says CEO
Tara De Boer · CBC Sports
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Rec level basketball is nothing new, but a rec league game where the players are made to feel like professional stars? That’s something people seem to be getting behind.
Brodie Rec League is a basketball league that launched in Burlington in 2020 and now has 50,000 athletes playing across 25 cities in North America including Burnaby, Toronto, Brooklyn, and Boston.
For a standard $350 sign-up fee, players receive team jerseys and compete as Brodie athletes for the season.
The real difference maker is what’s available off the court. From a pre-season media day where athletes get their photos professionally taken, to player stats online, to captured video on the court for use on social media.
“It’s the closest thing you can get to a professional without actually being professional,” Brodie CEO Connor Renton said. “Most rec sports are racing to be the cheapest thing possible, and we don’t want it to be the cheapest, we want it to be the best.”
The league even holds a mid-season all-star game where players get voted into play.
Meanwhile, investors are seeing that this isn’t just another community-centre recreation league, it’s a million-dollar business opportunity.
On Sept. 29, Brodie announced it had received $5 million in funding, led by Toronto-based Golden Ventures and New York-based Lerer Hippeau.
After appearing on the Fall 2026 season of Dragon’s Den, where Renton said he plans to “build the next Nike,” the league also secured another $1.5 million at a $30-million valuation, from three investors who now own five per cent of the league.
But with private intramural sports leagues having existed for decades, what makes Brodie so appealing to investors?
Same product, just sold differently
According to the NCAA, only 0.03 per cent of college level basketball players will make it to the NBA.
With this in mind, Renton says he’s building a league for everyone else.
“We are the whole sports industry,” he says. “There's way more people on the sidelines waiting to get involved that just weren't playing.”
Investors are seeing that this isn’t just another community-centre rec league, it’s a million-dollar business opportunity. (Submitted by Brodie Rec League)
Michael Naraine, an associate professor of sport management at Brock University, says Brodie does more than just build community ties, like a traditional intramural league does and instead Brodie is offering to make its athletes feel like stars.
“What they’re selling is the, ‘Hey, you still got it,’ even though these people may have never ‘had it,’ in the first place,” Naraine said.
This distinction could help explain the “it factor” attracting investors to Brodie.
As Naraine puts it, “It's literally the same product just sold differently and at a higher premium margin that they can get better returns on.”
Content is key in 2026
One of the ways players are made to feel like stars is through online content, which, in 2026 is just as important as the product a business is selling.
The creator economy is currently valued at around $250 billion US in 2026, according to a Global Economy Report 2026.
For Brodie, content creation has been key to establishing their brand beyond the four quarters of a rec basketball game.
According to Renton, Brodie releases 15,000 pieces of content every week, from player action shots to highlight reels of big plays.
“Content is huge. It’s what grew Brodie, it’s how we were able to grow as fast as we could.
According to Renton, Brodie releases 15,000 pieces of content every week, from player action shots to highlight reels of big plays. (Submitted by Brodie Rec League)
Everyone wants to be a superstar, but no one gets consistent content,” Renton said.
He also plans to capitalize on an influencer-marketing strategy, where he’ll allow influencers to play for free in exchange for sharing Brodie content, expanding the brand’s reach and engagement online.
Eventually, the goal is to pay Brodie athletes via a monetized creator model, similar to that of how social media influencers make money.
“It’s the same way that TikTok has a creator program and YouTube pays you for monetization,” he said. “Advertisers want to advertise with us … if you're a Brodie athlete, there's no reason why you can't get paid to be.”
Experiences more attractive than ever
Pickup basketball is nothing new, but in a time where in-person connection is coveted more than ever, marketing the experience is a key factor in scaling a sports league.
In 2025, the global experiences market was valued at more than $1 trillion and is actively projected to reach $2.5 trillion by 2032, according to a report from Financial Service provider Empower.
An increased desire for in-person connection following the pandemic, as well as feelings of FOMO (fear of missing out), are reasons cited for the growth.
“Coming out of COVID what the end consumer has said time and time again is that they want to experience,” Naraine said. “Millennials in particular have disposable income.”
He adds that sports leagues currently meet two major demands: in-person experience for the young adults craving it, and a chance to compete well into their 20s and 30s.
The desire for in-person community is also part of the growth of adult sport meet-ups across North America in recent years, says Jeff Este, co-founder of New York based GoodRec, an app for pickup soccer that helps players find and join games in different cities.
Este founded the business with two friends after recognizing how challenging it was to organize pick-up games around schedules. The goal was to make playing as easy as ordering take-out food: find a game nearby and show up.
“There’s kind of this shadow market of people who, if you can find a very convenient, well-run game, that there isn’t this huge commitment … we feel like there's a huge market to be serviced” Este says, in reference to adults who stopped playing sports as they got older.
GoodRec now operates across multiple North American cities, with Toronto being the app’s most popular market with about 35 games a day.
“There’s a lot of people searching for a place,” he says. “That thirst for community and playing together and a reason to come together … sports is perfect.”
Where to from here?
With an influx of $6.5 million (CAD) cash and an expansion into more cities across North America, Brodie finds itself in a pivotal moment of the business.
Renton says the league's current primary revenue source is player registrations but sees future potential in sponsorships and media deals.
“As soon as we start stacking sponsorship deals and TV media deals and all these other things, my goal is to make Brodie as cheap as possible,” he says.
Renton adds that the money he raised will go into two buckets: better infrastructure for the game time experience at gyms, and an improved user-experience on the app where the content and player stats live.
“Brody has given the 99.9 per cent of athletes not only a third place, but also a second life.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tara is a Toronto-based journalist who writes and produces athlete features for CBC Sports, exploring the intersection of sport, society, and culture. Prior to this, she was a writer for the CTV News national editorial team, covering trending and breaking news. Tara's bylines have appeared in Toronto Life, Canadian Business, and Maclean’s where she covers stories related to culture, entertainment, and sports. She holds a Master’s degree from Toronto Metropolitan University.
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