I skimmed the TIME article about the business side of youth sports. Then, came home to see if anything on google news accompanied the article. There were a handful of articles that state youth sports participation is on the decline across the board:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/recruiting-insider/wp/2017/09/06/youth-sports-study-declining-participation-rising-costs-and-unqualified-coaches/?utm_term=.f19b9597f9fe "Almost 45 percent of children ages 6 to 12 played a team sport regularly in 2008, according to Aspen data. Now only about 37 percent of children do."
Reasons given: skyrocketing costs, sport specialization and coaches needing training, and youth sports is in the midst of a crisis.
http://www.wbur.org/onpoint/2017/08/31/the-big-business-of-youth-sports"Across the nation, kids of all skill levels, in virtually every team sport, are getting swept up by a youth-sports economy that increasingly resembles the pros at increasingly early ages. Neighborhood Little Leagues, town soccer associations and church basketball squads that bonded kids in a community--and didn't cost as much as a rent check--have largely lost their luster. Little League participation, for example, is down 20% from its turn-of-the-century peak. These local leagues have been nudged aside by private club teams, a loosely governed constellation that includes everything from development academies affiliated with professional sports franchises to regional squads run by moonlighting coaches with little experience."
"Changing The Game Project: The Adultification of Youth Sports — "Youth sports has become less a tool to educate children about sport and life, and more often a place where parents go to be entertained by their kids. They pay good money, add a great deal of chaos to their lives, and spend their valuable time travelling far and wide watching their kids play sports. When the product they see on the field does not live up to their perceived notion of the value of their investment, they get upset at the kids, the coaches, and at the schools and clubs. They want their moneys worth. They want to be entertained. But at what cost?"
http://www.chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/parenting/ct-travel-youth-sports-spending-20170907-story.html"One parent said she and her husband spend 30 weekends a year on the road playing baseball. The reason? So their children can play against other elite athletes around the country — better than they could find locally. And so they can make sure he gets a college scholarship.
“It’s so competitive,” one Virginia-based parent said, “and if you don’t keep up with what someone else is doing, you’re going to fall behind.”
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