Higher costs threaten post-COVID rebound in youth team sports Image By HPN Staff More school-aged children are trying team sports, in a post-pandemic rebound in physical activity nationwide, but they’re not necessarily sticking with it. According to data from 2023, almost 61% of children aged 6 to 17 are now trying team sports at least once a year, up from 55% in 2013. But the share of kids taking the next step and joining teams is much lower. The team sport participation rate for children now stands at just over 38%, compared to 41% a decade ago. Youth participation in team sports is also uneven across geography, socioeconomic indicators and gender, with millions of children and families missing out on the physical, mental and social benefits. These are the mixed findings of more than a decade of survey data compiled by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, which aims “to build healthy communities through sports.” Why it matters Children and families have been struggling to overcome the physical and mental health consequences of excessive screen usage, which was already rising during the 2010s and significantly worsened during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. Some of those include: Higher incidence of visual damage Sedentary lifestyle Inadequate eating habits Increased weight gain Impaired sleep Mental health challenges A resurgence in youth team sport participation could help children and families overcome some of these challenges. According to a team of researchers led by Cal State Fullerton, participation in a team sport can reduce youth anxiety and depression scores by 10% and social problems scores by 17%. “The findings complement previous research suggesting that team sport participation may be a vehicle to support child and adolescent mental health,” the researcher wrote in the 2022 study, which was based on data from more than 11,000 children aged 9 to 13. The bigger picture A separate survey from the Aspen Institute points to prohibitively high costs for many families as a barrier to continued play. The average cost for a child’s primary sport surged 46% from 2019 to 2024 to more than $1,000 per year. That increase was twice the rate of inflation for the U.S. economy over the same five-year period, and spending on other sports brings the average family's total cost to almost $1,500 due to registration, travel, camps and private instruction. Black and Hispanic children, especially those from homes in which English is a second language, have among the lowest sport participation rates. Additional context Data compiled by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play also found very different trends for boys and girls when it comes to regular participation in team sports. Boys show a persistent downward trend, falling from around 50% to 41%. Meanwhile, the participation rate of girls — 38% for teenagers and 34% for pre-teens — during 2023 was the highest in more than a decade. Generally speaking, the Northeast, Midwest and Mountain West have the highest participation rates, while the Southeast and Southwest have the lowest. The seven states with the highest youth sports participation rates were Vermont (69%), Iowa (68%), North Dakota (67%), Wyoming (64%), Maine (64%), South Dakota (64%) and New Hampshire (64%).
