Why the drop in youth participation?

If you look at the numbers there is huge declines in almost every sport. Even Football which is probably our most popular sport only stayed on course with population growth. Why? What have we seen rise since the 90s? Technology. You don't need to 'play' sports with your hands and feet outside, you can just play it on the playstation.

I grew up in a small "Friday Night Lights"kinda town and we only had a HS of 600 kids. My graduating class had about 140 kids in it, so about 70 boys. We had maybe 10 kids play sports in college at some level including my buddy who was a D2 all-american in basketball and another friend who played football for the University of Illinois, and another friend was drafted by the Cubs. This is in a town of maybe 5000. ALL we did was play sports since we could walk. Every single day in the summer we were at the park from until midnight playing basketball or baseball. There was no internet, there was no distractions. There was nintendo but its nothing like PS4 online. Sports just got us all out of the house. Now, you can't get kids off their phones. My guess is that in 20 years it will even be worse. Because the kids who grew up playing fake sports on the PS4 will be having kids and they won't even be able to teach them how to kick/throw/hit a ball. At least not in real life.

 

That's pretty sad. I remember my parents refused to buy my brother or I any video games. Then my grandparents went and ruined things by getting us a SNES when I was about 12. My time outside definitely dropped after that, but I still played on probably 3 or 4 sports teams a year. Even made us try out sports I had no real interest in like baseball and gymnastics.

 

^this, but also there are factors like the economy tanking and families having people unemployed and finances messed up, housing bubble collapse, all kinds of economic factors that put a damper on parents enrolling their kids in extracurricular luxuries like sports, which can require money investment and lots of time as well. You see the decline across the board, with the exception of American football, which has enjoyed an explosion in the past decade thanks to fantasy football and taking an even larger part in mainstream culture/media.

 

There are probably many factors playing into this. One of which isn't as obvious is simply the population size. There are fewer youths today than there were in the 90's and 00's. There was a mini-baby boom in the late 70's to early 90's. 16 to 30 age group is larger than the 0 to 15. 16 is also about when a large chunk of kids drop out of sports because there are limited spots on high school teams. That certainly cannot explain the whole drop. The other explanations given certainly are part of why also.

 

Multi-sport athletes used to be double- or triple-counted in participation numbers. There used to be a fair number in any given high school, even as recently as the late 90s, but I get the sense there are only a handful today.

 

There aren't as many because (at least with basketball and football) if you aren't 100% focused on that one sport (except for kickers) you get cut even if you are good enough to make the team, unless you are exceptional. One of my high school friends got cut from the basketball team because over the summer he put more effort into soccer even though he was more than good enough to make the basketball team.

 

I doubt the data is available, but it would be interesting to see for each sport how many kids are only playing for free on a school team and how many are paying to play.

 

And this kind of thing probably discourages kids from playing multiple sports even before high school. They seem to be choosing one sport to focus on at earlier and earlier ages, now often as you as 10.

 

Lack of pro/rel. Without a clear path to MLS the Greater Topeka YMCA Junior Kickers doesn't have an incentive to recruit the best players.

 

It is like that in my neck of the woods as well. I know some excellent athletes that were told no because they would be "too far behind" skill wise. There are some people in charge of organizations that have lost the real goal of kids in athletics.

 

I can rep most of the comments thus far. A lot of reasons exist. Anecdotally, within my group of friends, most kids spend their free time playing video games. And most of my friends don't seem to care because it keeps their kids out of their hair. Also, a lot of kids lives are so over planned they don't have a lot of down time. They go from practice to games to tutoring to strength and conditioning class. Kids are being burnt out quickly because mom and dad want to make them the best.

 

I'm going to sound like I'm 100 years old (I'm 32), but cell phones and how immersive and good video games are is a big reason. I was just discussing this at work last week. I live and work in a resort community and at 1 pm in the middle of summer I did not see a single teen or tween or even kid for that matter. 15 years ago when I was a teen, I was either out there playing soccer (competitively), pickup basketball, causing some minor trouble, or trying to be the cool guy and get girls. It's all changed.

 

With the overplanning, there also isn't much time left for sports unless it's competitive. I'm pretty sure there are more competitive players than ever, but a lot fewer rec players.

I'd to add that kids are increasingly being told (quite accurately) that participation in extracurriculars doesn't count for much in college admissions, but that they have to excel in one of their extracurriculars. That means a lot of kids quit doing something as soon as it becomes clear they're not going to be the best at it.

 

Ok but we need to see participation rates in FIFA video games first. I expect that's risen markedly between 2000 and 2013.

Once, it was important for kids to play soccer to become fans. Now, they're just as likely to become fans through games. It's all good. The trend is positive. Don't fret.

As far as creating world class players, that's a matter of youth development rather than sheer numbers alone. You don't need 10 million people to play to be top dog. A well trained 1-2 million is more than enough to rule the world.

 

For the first part absolutely yes. My son loves Manchester City (not that I hold it against him) because of video games.

For the second part, I'd rather have a greater margin for error with more kids than less.

 

Also, the development of any kid is hugely dependent on having a concentration of players around him. They don't all need to be great, but they do need to want to play.

 

If the only objective of kids playing sports were to create adult fans, I would agree with this, but I think there's more to it, particularly health issues.

 

This definitely plays a role

Two sports that are missing from this infographic are hockey and lacrosse. Both have seen positive growth over the last decade, with lacrosse growing faster than anything. I'd wage a lot of former spring soccer and baseball kids (definitely a lot of baseball kids) are playing lacrosse these days.

This is the best Big Soccer post I've ever read. I cannot stop laughing.

I agree. We were always doing something physical. We lived on a flat dead end well off the main road. We'd be playing roller hockey, baseball, soccer, football, basketball, or even four square in the street all day all summer long.

 

My son was a multi-multi sports athlete (soccer, Football, baseball, swimming) usually playing two at once. If we would have let him he would have probably added hockey & lacrosse. When he was the only one of my children playing we pulled it off. Now - no chance. As his sisters began to play soccer and even dance, there just wasn't enough time for us to manage all the schedules and travel. And since he was pretty good (and so are his sisters) the pull to be on higher level teams which entails longer seasons and further travel, he had to trim it down. We told him to go with his passion which ended up being soccer. Which he effectively trains and plays year round now. We are/were as careful as we can be to manage his burnout. He made the choice and the cram packed schedule was wearing on him as much as us. Now a freshman in high school, he is dictating how much he trains outside of his club & high school teams. He is driving his development. As a parent (at least as a dad) we all would love our kids to be a professional athlete. But reality is we can't make it happen. It has to be the child who drives themselves, who has the passion and puts in the work.

So in mid 2000s he was in those #s of all those sports, but now only 1. And because life in general is so damn hectic, my other two children are only in one (although one did swim for 2 years). We couldn't fathom them doing another sport.

So I don;t think the overall # of athletes has shrunk - they are just specializing for lots of reasons.

 

I'd hazard that there are a lot more serious year-round specialized players then ever before. A lot of kids these days are dreaming to be in the FIFA video game.