How This Former Chicago Public School Teacher Bought a Franchise and Grew It to $2M Annual Revenue

On Saturday mornings, Joe Becker stepped out of his usual lane as a high school social studies teacher and showed up to his local i9 Sports league in Chicago as a volunteer coach for various sports. After 11 years of teaching in Chicago public schools, he decided to dedicate his spare time to coaching youth sports because he believed that it could make a difference in children’s lives. 

That belief, and the relationships he built with parents and kids, set the foundation for something much bigger. What began as a volunteer role evolved into franchise ownership. Today, Becker runs the top-performing single territory in the i9 Sports system, growing the business from about $400,000 in annual revenue to more than $2 million last year. His success didn’t come from traditional business training alone; it stemmed from skills honed in the classroom, such as earning trust, building community and understanding how to engage families over the long term.

Long before he owned the franchise, Becker had already cultivated loyalty with parents as a coach. That early foundation enabled him to scale efficiently while keeping families coming back season after season, turning his territory into one of the standout performers in a network nearing 300 locations nationwide.

The following interview with Becker has been edited for clarity and concision. 

Early life and education

First, tell me more about yourself. What’s your educational background and early work history? How did you get here?
I grew up in West Michigan and went to Michigan State University. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do at first, but I knew I liked working with kids and wanted to make a difference, so I went into education. In my early twenties, I was idealistic and wanted to move to a big city, change the world and become a teacher. I ended up teaching in some of the roughest neighborhoods in Chicago, including Englewood and North Lawndale, and I taught in Chicago public schools for 11 years. Over that time, I learned that I needed to earn kids’ trust, create a reliable structure and communicate well with families to keep them engaged.

What else were you doing during your teaching years?
While I was teaching, I was also getting my master’s in school administration because I thought I might want to move into school leadership. At the same time, I was involved in the Chicago hip-hop scene as an artist, doing shows and making music, which actually helped me connect with my students. Over time, though, I realized school administration wasn’t what I wanted to do long-term and started looking for other opportunities.

Discovering i9 Sports

How did i9 Sports first come onto your radar?
A friend of mine who was also a teacher took the plunge and opened an i9 Sports franchise. At one point, he had a venue right next to my condo in Chicago, so I would walk by, check it out and talk with him. I was blown away by the atmosphere, by the focus on fun, sportsmanship and creating a space where every kid could play. Seeing families enjoying it together really drew me in.

When did you realize you wanted to own an i9 Sports franchise?
It was a gradual realization. Once I understood what i9 Sports was about, experienced it as a coach and spent time with the previous owner, I felt everything I loved about teaching lined up with the i9 model. I loved building community, helping kids and working with families to make kids happy, successful and able to work together as a team. Having my wife’s support was also critical. She was a teacher and our steady income at the time, and she backed me fully. It became a gut feeling that owning a franchise was the right next step.

When did you officially take over the franchise?
I got into the business in 2017 by taking over the existing Chicago franchise from my friend when he moved back to Michigan, rather than starting a brand-new location from scratch. Since then, we’ve grown to roughly 10,000 registrations a year across six to eight locations operating each season on the north side of Chicago.

Growth and key strategies

How does the franchise make money?
The model is registration-based. Families pay upfront when they register, and we use that revenue to pay for venue rentals, staffing, equipment, insurance and other operating costs. We also have some sponsor revenue, but about 98% of our revenue comes from parents signing up their kids for seasonal programs. After expenses, whatever remains is profit, and we don’t carry debt because of that upfront-registration structure.

On average, how much does it cost to register for a program?
The average registration cost is around $180 for a seven‑week program, though it can vary by sport and program.

What are some tactics you used to grow from about $400,000 to $2 million in annual revenue?
Early on, I did everything and just worked incredibly hard — showing up at as many events as possible to market i9 Sports and get our name out in the community. Marketing was huge at the start, but the real engine of growth has been running the highest‑quality programs possible, so families come back season after season. I also took calculated risks by opening new venues, expanding into new sports, adding more age groups and pushing into gender-specific programs like female-only sports. Some owners might be more risk‑averse about launching new offerings, but I experimented to see where the demand was, and most of those programs gained traction and fueled our growth.

What has been your most successful program so far?
Soccer is our largest program by registration, partly because kids can start as young as three years old. In the past couple of years, though, volleyball and girls-only sports, especially girls-only basketball, have seen the fastest growth. Offering girls-only basketball to younger ages has really helped those numbers take off.

From the classroom to franchise ownership

What skills or lessons from teaching did you bring into franchise ownership?
Managing a classroom of 30 kids demands a lot of operational skills and multitasking, which translates directly to running youth sports programs. Parent conferences are essentially customer service, and lesson planning is a lot like designing quality programs. I also understood what parents and kids wanted in terms of engagement. Those experiences helped me become a strong operator in youth sports.

Where did you feel underprepared?
What teaching didn’t fully prepare me for was the business side — hiring, payroll, marketing and cash flow management. That’s where the franchise system was extremely valuable, providing an operational playbook, a business coach and a network of other area developers and the previous owner I could go to for advice and support.

What pushed you over the edge from a stable education career into entrepreneurship? Was there a particular moment?
There wasn’t a single moment, but I did recognize that teaching has a ceiling — financially and in terms of career trajectory. Business ownership doesn’t necessarily have that ceiling, and there’s more opportunity and autonomy. I wanted to build something that was my own, something I could eventually pass on. Giving up a pension and guaranteed income was a hard decision, but again, my wife’s support made taking that leap feel possible.

Advice for aspiring entrepreneurs

What’s some hard, concrete advice that you have for entrepreneurs, especially people coming from non-business backgrounds like teaching?
First, don’t underestimate what you already know. People in service professions — teachers, nurses, coaches — already have many of the hardest entrepreneurial skills: They know how to work hard, multitask, communicate, build trust and manage chaos with patience. 

Second, get as close as you can to the business before you buy or start one. Volunteering as a coach and learning directly from the previous owner meant I knew exactly what I was getting into because I’d already done the work for free. I’ve also coached my daughter’s team for nine seasons, which keeps me close to the experience from a parent and child perspective. 

Any time you can step outside your role and see the business from the customer’s viewpoint, you’ll make better decisions.