Sports training businesses often face a basic challenge as they grow. A program that works at one facility must be adapted without losing the features that made it useful in the first place. That challenge becomes more visible when a training company operates across many locations. Staff, equipment, instruction, and customer services all have to work within a common framework. D-BAT has built its business around this combination of training facilities, instruction, equipment sales, and franchising. The company was founded in 1998 in Addison, Texas, by Cade Griffis and Kyle Griffis. Its development since then has included new training services, equipment sales, franchising, and expansion beyond its original market.
The company’s early model grew from a practical need identified by the Griffis brothers. According to D-BAT’s account of its history, Griffis had been traveling to different cities to provide private baseball lessons. The brothers concluded that an indoor facility could provide a dedicated setting for players in the area. Their first facility opened in Addison in 1998. The company describes the original goal as creating an indoor environment suited to players at different levels. The business later expanded its services beyond lessons and cage rentals. Camps, clinics, equipment sales, and other forms of training became part of the model as D-BAT developed its network.
The training model has remained tied to physical facilities. D-BAT locations provide batting cages, pitching machines, lessons, camps, and clinics. Its current materials state that the company serves players from youth levels through professional baseball, while its main customer group is generally between ages six and 18. The company also lists more than 50 camps and clinics annually at some locations, although offerings vary by facility. Membership programs provide another way for players to use training equipment, with benefits that can include pitching machine access and discounts on lessons, camps, clinics, and pro shop merchandise. These services give individual facilities several ways to structure their training operations.
Equipment has also been part of the business since its early years. D-BAT expanded into manufacturing through D-BAT Sports, producing wooden bats and importing other baseball equipment. In a 2017 interview with the Dallas Business Journal, Griffis said equipment represented about $3 million of the company’s previous year’s revenue. The same report said D-BAT had generated $18 million in revenue across its U.S. sites in 2016. Those figures provide a view of the company’s business at a particular stage of its expansion, before its later growth in locations. They also show that equipment sales were an established part of the company rather than a recent addition to its training operations.
The equipment business has changed as the company has grown. D-BAT’s current facilities offer products that include wooden bats, gloves, batting gloves, and baseball and softball accessories. Its facilities have also worked with established equipment brands. D-BAT materials describe a partnership with Rawlings and Easton that allows participating facilities to carry products from both companies and provide opportunities for customers to test selected bats in batting cages. The arrangement places equipment alongside instruction rather than treating the two activities as unrelated parts of the business. This reflects a broader structure in which the facilities serve as training centers while also functioning as locations where players can access and purchase sports equipment.
Franchising became a major stage in D-BAT’s development. The company says it began franchising operations in 2008, while its historical material describes the first franchise locations as opening during the following period. Independent coverage from D Magazine reported that D-BAT had 24 academies open by 2015, with additional locations under construction or already sold. The report also described franchise investments of about $350,000 to $500,000 per location at that time. By 2017, the Dallas Business Journal reported 32 U.S. sites and 41 territories sold. These figures show how quickly the business moved from a single Addison facility toward a larger franchise network.
The company’s international plans followed its expansion within the United States. In 2017, D-BAT announced a deal with a group in China, with commitments for three cities and plans for 10 locations within two years. The company also identified Canada, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic as markets it was considering at the time. The China expansion was significant because it marked a move beyond the U.S. franchise system. The available reporting does not establish that every proposed location opened or that each market developed as initially planned. It does establish that international growth had become part of D-BAT’s strategy by 2017, alongside continued domestic franchising.
D-BAT’s current materials present the company as a network combining training facilities with products and instruction. Its stated mission is to provide a teaching environment and instruction for players from Little League through professional levels. The company also lists several major league players and former prospects who have trained at its facilities, including Clayton Kershaw, Ben Zobrist, Dylan Bundy, Archie Bradley, and Jordan Walden. Such listings are company claims and should be treated as evidence of the athletes associated with its facilities rather than proof of particular training outcomes. The distinction matters when assessing the company’s wider role in player development, especially because independent evidence about individual results is not uniform across the network.
The scale of the network has changed substantially since the Addison facility opened. D-BAT’s own history now describes a network of more than 170 locations and a staff exceeding 1,600 people, while client-provided figures place the wider network at more than 215 locations in later years. Because location counts can change and published figures differ by date, the most useful point is the direction of growth rather than treating one number as permanent. The company has moved from one Texas facility in 1998 to a franchise system spanning multiple states and international markets. That development has kept training, equipment, and franchise operations linked under the D-BAT model.
Looking ahead, the available public record supports continued operation of that combined model more clearly than it supports claims about specific future products or expansion targets. D-BAT continues to offer training, memberships, camps, clinics, equipment, and franchise opportunities through its network. Its history also shows repeated changes in scale, from the original Addison facility to a national franchise system and attempted international expansion. Griffis remains associated with the company as its chief executive, while the business continues to operate through the structure developed over more than two decades. For Cade Griffis, the company’s trajectory places his entrepreneurial work within a longer record of baseball training, equipment sales, and franchise development.
Cade Griffis’s role in building D-BAT therefore sits at the intersection of baseball experience and business development. The company began with private lessons and an indoor facility in 1998, then added equipment manufacturing, product sales, franchising, and international expansion. Its present structure reflects those successive stages rather than one single change in strategy.
