The Aspen Institute’s National State of Play 2024 report encouragingly found that kids are returning to pre-COVID sports participation levels. However, some worrisome trends highlight that boys continue to play fewer sports and kids are specializing in one sport rather than engaging in multiple, even more so post-pandemic.

Boys Sports Participation Erodes
The study cited data from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) showing that in 2013, half of boys ages 6-17 participated regularly in sports. For 2023, SFIA data shows only 41 percent of boys did in 2023.

By comparison, girls ages 6-12 (34 percent) and 13-17 (38 percent) played at higher levels in 2023 than in any recent year dating to at least 2012. Although less steep of a decline, federal government data from the U.S. Census Bureau’s National Survey of Children’s Health study suggests that boys’ participation had eased from 61 percent in 2017 to 58 percent in 2022, the most recent year released. The most recent data from the CDC’s Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System from 2021, during the pandemic, found boys’ participation at 52 percent, down from 60 percent in 2013.

Tom Cove, SFIA’s senior advisor and recently-retired president and CEO, suggested the push toward specializing in certain sports as well as overall competition for spots on youth teams is playing a role in the decline in boys participation in sports.

“That’s a significant change and it’s a mystery to me why,” Cove said in the report. “I would speculate there’s an element to this that making teams has become really hard, and more boys can’t make the team, so they stop playing. In general, girls aren’t getting cut nearly the way boys are. My sense is youth sports have become a self-fulling prophecy around travel and competition, and there aren’t enough places to play when you get cut.”

Other possible factors cited in the loss of boys playing youth sports include the impact of mobile phones, which became widely available in 2012; as well as the inherent costs of playing youth sports.

Karen Issokson-Silver, Women’s Sports Foundation (WSF) VP of research and education. WSF research, found that the youngest generation of surveyed women (those in their 20s) reported the highest barrier to play sports as a child due to costs. She said in the study, “It would not be surprising that this would show up in participation rates, and perhaps more so for boys where the cost of play could be considerably higher given a more competitive level of play available to them and the transportation, equipment and coaching costs associated with that.”

Girls ages 6-12 (34 percent) and 13-17 (38 percent) regularly played sports at higher levels in 2023 than in any recent year dating to at least 2012, according to SFIA. Older girls, in particular, are being added. Total team sports participation for girls 13-17 – meaning they played sports at least one day in the last year – climbed from 54 percent to 55 percent to 58 percent over the last three years after never being higher than 49 percent until 2021.

Increased Youth Sports Specialization
Aspen Institute’s study cited SFIA data showing that the average number of sports children ages 6-17 regularly played in 2023 was 1.63, down 13 percent since 2019. More than a decade ago, children used to average more than two sports that they played.

The number started decreasing amid the increased commercialization of youth sports and pressure on families to pick one sport at younger ages. However, the average slightly increased from 2018 to 2019 until declining since then.

“We’ve got to get off this play more, pay more and the focus on every little element of development,” Cove said in the report. “The purpose of youth sports is not to create the next Tiger Woods. It should be to provide a quality experience to the vast number of kids so they enjoy it, and part of that is winning, but not the main goal. We should be upfront about that. If we lose sight of that, we’re doing kids and families a disservice and we’re doing sport in general a disservice.”

Although core participation went up for youth ages 6-12 and 13-17 in 2023, that was mostly due to large numbers of kids from the most-played sports, often the travel team ones. Nine of the 16 sports evaluated for this report experienced lower rates in 2023 compared to a year earlier. Basketball, baseball and soccer continue to have the most participants, although soccer declined at both age levels.

The study found soccer generally to be the sport most kids play first, but they soon start dropping the sports as they reach the age to join travel teams in different sports. Travel teams continue a be a challenge for children from many middle and lower-income households to afford due to the costs. Tom Farrey, Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program executive director, said in the study, “We’ve got to find a way to bring back in-town leagues.”

One driver of pushes for playing multiple sports may be parents. A LA84 Foundation survey found that two-thirds of parents (68 percent) say youth sports are becoming too specialized.

Other findings in the Study

  • Post-pandemic recovery: The study cited SFIA data showing that core team sports participation (meaning playing on a regular basis) in 2023 reached its highest levels for all ages of children since 2015. The gains were attributed to a yearning for “experiences” and community after facing isolation during the pandemic. The bulk of the latest increase came from older youth – 13- to 17-year-olds. The gains were led by participation on travel teams, which were better organized with paid coaches to return to play quicker than parks and recreation departments. Children who come from the lowest-income homes (under $25,000) were the only income bracket to show a decline in core participation from the previous year with the decline attributed to hurdles reestablishing community leagues.
  • Rural states seeing healthier youth sports participation: Seven states (Vermont, Iowa, North Dakota, Wyoming, Maine, South Dakota and New Hampshire) have already reached the federal government’s national goal for youth sports participation to reach 63 percent by 2030. The 2022 national average was 54 percent. All seven states are rural in nature and less densely populated, with many high schools serving just a few hundred students, which discourages cuts to teams because coaches need to fill rosters. All have large White populations, and most are relatively affluent. Each had at least 60 percent female participation, easily surpassing the U.S. female average of 49 percent.
  • Caitlin Clark’s potential impact on girls’ youth sports: The study detailed how the emergence of Caitlin Clark, University of Iowa and WBNA rookie star, has catapulted TV viewership and ticket sales across women’s basketball, in addition her jersey handily topping WNBA jersey sales this year. Her arrival promises to revive participation in high school girls’ basketball, which has significantly declined in recent decades as more girls turned to volleyball and early-sport specialization. Clark also holds the potential to inspire girls to play other sports as well. Soccer’s Mia Hamm arrival in the 1990s boosted girls sports’ participation briefly, but Clark’s exploits may receive a biggest boost with the two major women’s pro leagues, NWSL and WNBA, receiving more media exposure and hockey, rugby, wrestling and flag football also offering examples of sports that girls now regularly play.
  • Pickleball becomes a varsity high school sport: Montgomery County (Maryland) became the first school district in the country to offer pickleball as a varsity sport, holding strong potential to expand to other schools as the activity ranked as America’s fastest-growing sports again in 2023. Pickleball participation increased 45 percent for children ages 6-12 and 86 percent among youth 13-17 between 2022 and 2023, according to SFIA.
  • Private equity is investing more into youth sports: The study highlighted that more private equity players are investing in the team sports space, including KKR buying Varsity Brands, Platinum Equity acquiring Augusta Sportwear Brands and Founder Sport Group, and Accel-KKR partnering with Arctos Partners to lead a funding round for LeagueApps, a platform for managing youth sports teams. PE has the potential to fund significant investments in technology and service components required to support new demands on team sports’ infrastructure, including finding ways to overcome travel team costs. Aspen Institute’s Farrey said in the study, “Will private equity firms bring professional management, program standards, and safety risk mitigation that improve the experience and reduce attrition? Or will private equity do the easy thing and just try to wring more money out of an increasingly smaller pool of families with the income to stay in the youth sports arms race? My sense is greater returns can be achieved via the former option, but it will take leadership and a recognition that when business plays with kids, the interest of the kids need to come first.”

 The full study can be downloaded here.