The Real Cost Of Youth Sports: A Deep Analysis
Many of us have experienced youth sports, fueled by dreams of one day making it to the professional leagues. However, this dream remains unattainable for most, and they watch as their children embark on a similar journey. Today, parents are witnessing a shift as their kids participate in travel teams instead of traditional community leagues. An astonishing revelation comes to light in this article: three out of ten youth sports parents have seen their child’s community sports program either shut down, merge with another organization, or scale back operations. This discovery left me astounded by the magnitude of change. Consequently, my curiosity led me to delve deeply into Travel Sports to uncover the reasons behind this transformation.
The table above gives a general picture of the cost of youth sports. However, the cost becomes prohibitive once children decide to pursue their sport more competitively. For example, I play travel baseball, and there are tournaments teams go to that are out-of-state. While the graph says the annual spending for baseball is around $660, travel baseball can cost around $2500–3500 per season per child. Costs can include lodging, flights, equipment, etc. Overall, according to Wintergreen Research, the travel sports industry is worth $39 billion currently and is expected to be worth $72 billion in 2029.
The growth of Travel Sports is skyrocketing and is not slowing anytime soon. For example, Mark O’Brien, President and CEO of LakePointSports, said they are responsible for $100 million of economic impact. That number will only increase as time passes. Therefore, people wonder whether Travel Sports is a fair playing field. For instance, to even get a chance of getting seen by scouts, families sacrifice a lot financially and mentally. However, less fortunate families and players are locked out of these opportunities since they cannot meet these standards.
These concerns have only been piling up as more people push for balance in Youth Sports. For example, retired NFL player Greg Olsen talks about how there needs to be more balance in ultra-competitive Youth Sports. Ultimately, there needs to be some way for less privileged players to get more opportunities. Yet, as things are now, there will be lost careers due to the financial cost of playing in ultra-competitive Youth Sports.
Bottom Line: Youth Sports is an uneven playing field for less financially privileged athletes.
