Toledo Money faithful, welcome to Flagship Friday. The publication that many of you started with over a year and a half ago. To those of you who are just joining us, welcome. What we are building here is simple: filling the gap in regional journalism that was indeed business. We built this to inform, excite and grow a community around the development of NW Ohio. We are here for the long haul, and hope you are too.

Let’s get into Fridays paper, I hope your coffee is hot, your commute is short and your weekend is even better.

This week’s Toledo Money shoutout goes to David Schmenk, one of the owners of Neuroflex Juice. David was an early supporter of Toledo Money, and we appreciate his consistent reading and support since the start. If you have not tried Neuroflex Juice, you are missing out. Many local retailers carry it, and it is nothing short of good for you and good tasting.

Thank you, David, for being a Toledo Money faithful. And to everyone reading this, I would encourage you to grab a bottle of Neuroflex Juice and give it a try.

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The lights are on, the cleats are expensive and the parking lots are full. High school football is back in Northwest Ohio, and so is the small economy that comes with it.

There are few things more reliably Midwestern than a high school football game on a Friday night.

The parents start showing up early. Someone has a grill going in the parking lot. The same families have occupied the same section of bleachers for what feels like 20 years. The premium seat holders arrive with cushions that may have more engineering behind them than some office chairs.

On the field, things have changed a little.

Visors are everywhere. Players are wearing cleats that would have looked at home on an NFL sideline not that long ago. The coaches somehow have matching shoes, pants, polos and hats. There are headsets, tablets, trainers, medical supplies, officials, security personnel and emergency vehicles stationed nearby.

And when the clock hits zero, there are traditions.

Maybe it's Taco Bell after the game. Maybe everyone heads to the same pizza place. Maybe there's a tailgate before kickoff that has become nearly as important as the game itself.

High school football is nostalgic.

It is also an economy.

Consider what it costs simply to walk through the gates.

For the 2026-27 season, Anthony Wayne charges $10 for an adult varsity football ticket and $8 for students and seniors. A reserved seat on game day costs $15. A football-only season pass is $45, while reserved football season seating runs $75. Families who want access to athletics throughout the year can purchase an all-season family pass for $355.

That money helps support an operation that extends well beyond the football team.

Anthony Wayne explains that its Board of Education typically covers coaching salaries and transportation for approved varsity sports, while expenses including uniforms, equipment, event workers, entry fees and officials are paid through athletic department revenue.

Where does that revenue come from?

Gate receipts. Season passes. Concessions. Fundraising. Booster clubs. Donations.

In other words, when a few thousand people gather underneath the lights, they're not simply watching a football game. They're participating in the financing of high school athletics.

Perrysburg's public financial documents provide an even clearer look at the scale involved.

For FY2025, Perrysburg reported approximately $642,500 in general-fund salary and benefit expenses associated with Perrysburg High School athletics. PHS participation fees generated another roughly $77,500 during the year. Those figures cover the entire athletic department rather than football alone, but they show just how significant high school sports can become inside a school district's finances.

Football provides another interesting window.

Perrysburg's published supplemental contracts show approximately $9,296 for its head football coach and $6,042 for each of seven assistant coaching positions. That's nearly $51,600 in football coaching supplements alone; before equipment, transportation, officials, field maintenance or numerous other costs associated with putting a team on the field.

And then there are the players.

Anyone who has recently walked into a sporting goods store with a teenager knows where this is headed.

The days of grabbing a basic pair of black cleats and heading to practice aren't necessarily gone, but the ceiling has moved considerably higher.

Nike's current football lineup includes multiple cleats between roughly $145 and $210, with some models carrying retail prices as high as $220.

Want to see how far football equipment has evolved?

VICIS currently sells varsity football helmets ranging from approximately $680 to $950, depending on the model. Its ZERO2 TRENCH helmet alone lists for $779.99.

That doesn't mean every Northwest Ohio family is buying a $780 helmet — schools commonly provide major protective equipment — but it demonstrates just how much capital is sitting on a varsity football sideline.

Families still have plenty of their own expenses.

Anthony Wayne, for example, charges a $125 pay-to-participate fee for a high school athlete's first sport this year. Add cleats, gloves, compression gear, team apparel, camps, meals and other incidental costs, and the household economy surrounding a football player starts adding up quickly.

Then multiply that by an entire roster. Then by a conference. Then by a region.

This might be the most interesting part of the story.

The economic activity doesn't stop at the stadium gates.

Before the game, somebody buys hamburgers, chips, ice and drinks for the tailgate. Families fill up their cars. The concession stand needs inventory. Booster organizations sell apparel. Local businesses purchase sponsorships.

Afterward, players, parents and students scatter into the community.

Pizza shops fill up. Drive-thru lines get longer. Restaurants become postgame gathering spots. A Friday-night tradition repeated hundreds or thousands of times across a season creates spending that is difficult to see on any school's financial statement.

And that's where the bigger Northwest Ohio question begins.

There were more than 1.02 million participants in 11-player high school football nationwide during the 2024-25 school year, making it the most participated-in boys high school sport in America. Ohio, meanwhile, ranked third nationally in total high school sports participation with more than 335,000 athletes.

High school sports are a part of the infrastructure of communities.

On Friday nights across Northwest Ohio, thousands of players, coaches, parents, students, band members, cheerleaders, volunteers and spectators all converge on football stadiums at roughly the same time.

Each of them creates some amount of economic activity. The hard part is figuring out exactly how much.

There does not appear to be a clean, publicly available number that measures the total economic impact of high school football across Northwest Ohio.

So we're not going to invent one.

What we can say is that there is clearly meaningful money moving around the game.

Hundreds of thousands of dollars operate athletic departments. Tens of thousands compensate coaching staffs. Families pay participation fees and purchase equipment. Fans buy tickets and concessions. Schools maintain facilities and move teams around the region.

And businesses benefit when everyone comes together on Friday night.

Which makes us curious.

What does Friday night football look like at your school?

Maybe your alma mater has a legendary tailgate. Maybe there's a restaurant everyone visits after the game. Maybe your booster club runs an impressive operation. Maybe your district has invested significantly in its stadium or equipment. Or maybe there's a tradition that makes absolutely no economic sense but has been happening for 40 years and isn't stopping now.

We want to hear about it.

Because high school football may be built around touchdowns and rivalries, but for ten weeks every fall, there is another game taking place around it.

The economy of Friday night is open for business.

Many of you may have been reading this publication for 18 months and not really known why this exists or what it is. Well, this is Toledo Money.

Toledo Money is Northwest Ohio’s fastest-growing business news and information company. We provide trusted reporting, analysis, and data covering the businesses, industries, investments, and economic forces shaping our region.

Through in-depth journalism and a commitment to accuracy, we help professionals understand not only what’s happening, but why it matters.

Business leaders need context. Every major business decision, development project, investment, policy change, and economic shift has implications beyond the initial story. Toledo Money exists to provide that context through trusted reporting, essential analysis, and unbiased insights that help professionals make more informed decisions and stay ahead of what’s next.

We serve the professionals driving Northwest Ohio forward, including business owners, executives, entrepreneurs, investors, developers, commercial real estate professionals, community leaders, economic development organizations, and professionals across every industry who rely on trusted information to stay informed and competitive.

We provide comprehensive coverage across the sectors shaping Northwest Ohio’s economy, including:

Every story is designed to deliver the context behind the headlines and the information professionals need to understand where the region is headed.

Bill and I started this because Northwest Ohio deserves to get its flowers. Yes, our weather may stink. Yes, we have our ups and downs. But boy, do we have folks who know how to start, run, operate, and execute businesses and organizations.

The story has never been told properly, so we decided to do it the way it should be done. Collectively, we are building the media company that professionals across Northwest Ohio and various sectors can turn to for business information.

We currently do this through two verticals.

We publish 26 editions annually of “Beyond The Listing,” Toledo Money’s take on the residential and commercial real estate industry in Northwest Ohio.

Our primary vertical is “Flagship Friday,” which you are reading right now. It is a multi-platform vertical providing in-depth coverage of local business communities and breaking news, with the goal of becoming the media solution platform for companies that target business decision-makers.

Recently, we had the opportunity to tell the genesis of Toledo Money. Over the past few months, we have also been challenged to put our faces and our voices to the Toledo Money brand. We’ve been intentional about how we do that.

Toledo Money has never been about making ourselves the story. It’s about telling the stories of the businesses, leaders, investors, and economic forces moving Northwest Ohio forward.

Still, people should know who is behind the work.

We’re excited to share that we recently joined Vince Croci (AKA VC the MC) and Michael Vanderpool on the Make It Happen Podcast for our first-ever podcast appearance. The episode drops Monday, August 24th.

We talked about Toledo Money’s origin story, the strategy behind the platform and our ambition to contribute to the rising tide by highlighting the financial and economic movers and shakers shaping our region.

A special thank-you to Vince Croci and Michael Vanderpool for welcoming us and giving us the opportunity to share more about the people behind Toledo Money.

Hopefully, this is the first of many and we will post the podcast when it is released.

Welcome to Toledo Money, we hope this is everything you want and need in a NW Ohio media platform.

It’s easy to look at an organization once it’s established and assume it was always going to work. The Glass City Wranglers are a good reminder that it doesn’t.

Josh Radtkin didn’t simply decide to start a basketball team. He built an organization from the ground up: players, coaches, sponsors, fans, community partnerships, venues and everything else that comes with trying to make professional basketball work in Toledo.

And now, the Wranglers are playing professional basketball in the heart of downtown Toledo.

That deserves some recognition.

Building something from scratch in this city isn’t easy. Keeping it going year after year is even harder. The Wranglers have continued to grow, create opportunities for players and become part of Toledo’s sports and business community.

So, consider this Toledo Money giving them their much deserved flowers.

And if you want to help keep that momentum going, the Wranglers are hosting their annual golf outing on Monday, August 31 at Stone Oak Country Club.

You can play, sponsor a hole, become a sponsor or simply support the organization. Interested in any of those, we would encourage you to check it out HERE

They’re building something here and It’s worth supporting. And if this is what the Wranglers have been able to build so far, next season should be worth watching.

The organization has momentum, a growing presence in the city and a home downtown that gives them a stage to match their ambitions.

There’s still plenty of work ahead, but that’s part of the fun. Toledo has a professional basketball team, and it feels like the Wranglers are just getting started.

We’ll be watching. You should, too.

Here are a few headlines we are snacking on

A New Era of Intelligent Energy Management:

For decades, businesses have treated energy as a necessary operating expense.

They receive a bill.
They pay the bill.
They renegotiate a contract when it expires.
And they move on.

That model is no longer sufficient.

Energy has become one of the most dynamic and unpredictable cost drivers facing modern businesses. Markets shift. Demand fluctuates. Supplier pricing evolves. Grid conditions vary. Regulatory frameworks change.

And now, artificial intelligence is transforming how businesses can respond.

Businesses should not have to wait for a utility bill to understand that their energy costs have increased.

They should not have to rely on supplier pricing proposals without visibility into the underlying market conditions.

They should not be making high-value energy decisions based on spreadsheets, assumptions, and outdated information.

The future belongs to businesses that understand their energy before they purchase it.

Artificial intelligence enables businesses to transform energy data into actionable intelligence.

Instead of simply asking:

"How much did we spend?"

AI enables businesses to ask:

"Why did we spend it?"

"What is likely to happen next?"

"Where are we incurring unnecessary cost?"

"When is the optimal time to buy?"

"Which supplier and contract structure is most advantageous?"

"How can we reduce exposure to future price volatility?"

This marks the beginning of intelligent energy management. Connect with Nexus Energy today by visiting HERE.