Formerly known as Diamond Exposure, EL1 Tournaments is the East Coast Tournaments division of EL1 Sports, a national sports training company created by athletes, coaches and educators who believe in the transformative power of sport. EL1 currently operates four facilities in the greater Philadelphia market, and others throughout the country.
Although a new brand, the people behind EL1 Tournaments have deep roots in the Philadelphia baseball community. CJ Brancato has supported baseball in the area for over 15 years. Currently Head Coach at Bucks County CC – whom he led to the Small College World Series in 2022 – CJ has resurrected the program to national prominence and has helped dozens of alumni continue to the 4-year level. As a Founding Partner of Rake Baseball he has also contributed to helping his high school players achieve their goal of playing college baseball. CJ took the lead as the Director of EL1 Tournaments out of a desire to provide better opportunities for local baseball players to be seen, and to improve competition levels.
It’s our goal to provide a quality and fun baseball and softball experience. We focus on quality looks from colleges of all levels both at our showcase events and team camps. Since we accept a very limited number of teams per event we are able to ensure coaches have eyes on all players at all times and are able to interact with them to build a relationship. Our tournaments will also limit the number of registrants in order to focus on quality control of fields, umpires and most importantly, competition levels – particularly at the 13 & 14u age levels where we will have a AAA (developmental) and Majors (highly-competitive) division within each group.
EL1 Sports signed a partnership agreement with Major League Baseball in March of 2022 (read full article) with the goal of growing accessibility and engagement in youth baseball and softball. The innovative multiyear agreement includes a revenue-sharing component that makes MLB a partial owner of EL1 Sports and will create an ongoing source of funding for grassroots programs such as MLB’s Reviving Baseball in Inner Cities (RBI) and participatory programs such as PLAY BALL. It will also lead to more opportunities to link EL1 Showcases, Camps and Tournaments to MLB and MLB teams.
