We were lucky to catch up with ISAIAH ROJAS recently and have shared our conversation below.

Hi ISAIAH, thanks for joining us today. We believe kindness is contagious and so we’d love for you to share with us and our audience about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for you?

The kindest thing done for me was done by dozens of my customers back when I first opened up my programs in Frisco, 10 years ago.
It was the 3rd week of our 2nd season ever in Frisco, and it was league and picture day at our outdoor field. We had soccer, baseball, and flag football teams on site playing, practicing, and getting team photos done. About midway through our day, a cop came by our venue and asked me for my paperwork proving I had access to the field.
I provided it, but was told that I could not be the owner and was quickly arrested and sat on the ground. The officer than informed our staff to tell everyone to leave the field, and everyone had to leave mid-session.
I had not been in Frisco more than 6 months and had no reason to believe that this was going to be a huge hit to my business and reputation. That night I emailed my parents to explain what happened, and without a prompt, dozens of parents coordinated emails and phone calls to local authorities and decision-makers to vouch and defend me.
The next week, I was sitting in a meeting with those decision makers and was given access to a bigger and better field, which we have used for the last ten years!
What could have been my worst day as a business owner ended up being one of my best days because it showed that my customers cared and that I was not alone on this journey.

ISAIAH, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ll be honest, I never saw myself as a youth sports franchise owner. But looking back, it makes complete sense.
I grew up in Central California, and sports were a huge part of my life growing up. Not just the competition, but the way being part of a team shapes who you are. The lessons you learn showing up, working with others, handling a loss, celebrating a win, those things stick with you. I wanted to be part of giving that to kids.
Before i9 Sports, I had a background in business and operations, and I was always drawn to building things, building teams, building systems, building community. When the opportunity to own an i9 Sports franchise came across my radar, it felt like the right intersection of everything I cared about. Purpose driven work, entrepreneurship, and sports. I jumped in.
What I didn’t fully anticipate was how much I’d fall in love with the operator side of it. The logistics, the marketing, the staff development, the problem solving. Running multiple locations across two states is genuinely complex, and I enjoy that challenge. It keeps me sharp.
So what do we actually do?
We provide recreational youth sports leagues, camps, and clinics for kids starting as young as three years old. Our current sports across DFW include soccer, flag football, basketball, volleyball, cheer, tennis, and baseball. We run programming year round, fall, spring, and summer seasons, so there’s almost always something happening and always a way to get your kid involved.
But here’s the part that matters most to me, and what I think truly sets us apart.
We solve a very real problem for modern families. Parents today are overwhelmed. Between school, work, and everything else pulling at the calendar, the last thing a family needs is a sports program that demands five nights a week, expensive gear, and high-pressure tryouts just to get their seven year old on a field.
We remove all of that friction.
One day a week. Affordable registration. No tryouts. No cuts. Every kid plays. Every kid gets coached. Every kid gets a jersey and a real experience. We make it genuinely easy for families to say yes to getting their kid active and involved in their community, and we make sure that when they show up, it’s worth it.
What I’m most proud of isn’t any single season or revenue number. It’s the retention. It’s the families who come back. It’s the parent who messages me to say their kid, who used to be painfully shy, now runs onto that field with total confidence. That’s the product. That’s what we’re actually delivering.
And on the staff and coaching side, I’m proud of the culture we’ve built. We recruit coaches and coordinators who genuinely care, people who understand that how you treat a six year old on a Saturday morning matters. We train them, we develop them, and a lot of them have grown into real leaders within our organization.
For anyone in the Frisco, Plano, or surrounding DFW area reading this, here’s what I want you to know.
You don’t have to be a sports family to be an i9 family. You just have to have a kid who deserves a great experience, some confidence building, and a Saturday morning worth waking up for. We’ll handle the rest.
And if you’ve got a kid who’s never played before, even better. That’s exactly who we’re here for.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Honestly? Word of mouth. It’s not even close.
And I say that as someone who invests in digital marketing, email campaigns, social media, and paid search. All of that has its place and we use it. But nothing, and I mean nothing, converts like a parent telling another parent at school pickup that their kid had the best Saturday morning and can’t stop talking about it.
That’s the thing about this business. The product sells itself when you do it right. A happy kid is the best marketing tool I have. They wear the jersey to school. They tell their friends. They beg their parents to sign their teammate up. That kind of organic momentum is worth more than any ad budget.
Which is why my number one business strategy, before any marketing tactic, is simply running a great program. If the experience on that field is excellent, the growth follows. Families talk. Communities are tight, especially here in Frisco and Plano where parents are plugged in, active, and connected to each other.
The referral isn’t something I have to chase. It’s something I have to earn. Every single Saturday.
So when people ask me about growth strategy, I always come back to the same answer. Take care of the kid on the field, and the parents will take care of the rest.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

A few books have genuinely changed the way I think and operate, and I recommend them constantly.
The E-Myth by Michael Gerber was a gut punch in the best way. It forced me to confront the difference between working in your business and working on your business. As a franchise owner who wears a lot of hats, that distinction matters enormously. The book basically describes every small business owner who ever burned out, and then shows you the way out. It rewired how I think about systems, roles, and scale.
Traction by Gino Wickman is the other one I come back to constantly. It introduced me to EOS, the Entrepreneurial Operating System, and gave me a practical framework for how to actually run a business with clarity and accountability. Vision, people, data, process. It sounds simple until you try to implement it across multiple locations with multiple staff members. That book is essentially a manual for getting out of the chaos.
And then there’s Atomic Habits by James Clear, which is less about business strategy and more about the truth of how change actually happens. Not through motivation or big dramatic decisions, but through small, consistent, compounding actions. That philosophy bleeds into everything for me, how I coach my team, how I approach operations, how I think about growth. You don’t build a great program in one season. You build it one Saturday at a time.
If you’re an entrepreneur and you haven’t read all three, clear your schedule.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.i9sports.com/franchises/371
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/i9sportsIS371
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/i9SportsIS371/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRilLRZoZly4JQ3JTYnMWLw?view_as=subscriber