Reality Check: Do You Know What You Spend on Youth Sports? 😬

Like really know? Today, we look at a snapshot of the mega-business of youth sports and think about how we're feeding the beast.

Last weekend, I ran into a travel baseball friend. We’re not “real-life” friends though we’re friendly enough, and I’m sure he’d be a high-quality hang away from a baseball field. But as a youth sports friend on the same travel circuit, he’s as omnipresent to me as I am to him during baseball season.

When we met a few years ago, our kids were innocent tykes playing rec ball and community-based summer all-star tournaments. Now we roll in a pseudo-professional environment. You know the youth sports multiplexes, where the fields are pristine, but the bathrooms are not.  Where they have the nerve to charge you a gate fee even though your team paid close to $1000 to play in that tournament. Where they don’t allow outside food and drink, meaning the most “nutritious” food offering to satisfy your hungry athlete is a salty soft pretzel they upmark to $7.95. I digress. Back to travel baseball friend.

Photo by benjamin hershey on Unsplash

We had some friendly dialogue about our kids’ respective teams and plans for the season. I know his kid’s team is slightly more hardcore than my son’s and always looking to partake in the highest-level tourneys. His son’s team is amazing - I get it.  But the travel, holy crap. This weekend they head to Houston with plans this season alone to travel to Las Vegas, Huntington Beach, CA, Panama City, FL, and Southaven, MS. These are 10- and 11-year-olds. I’m not sure what else he said after that because I was too focused on picking up my mouth from the floor. All I could think was, how much damn money is this family going to be shelling out?

After the fact, I followed up by text and asked for an estimate on what he typically spends on his son’s baseball in a year, and he said he was quite nervous to look. I assumed I wouldn’t be hearing back from him.

Then I started to think about my own family’s youth sports expenses per year and whether I could muster up the courage to add it all up. While not traveling across the country (though we are going to Cooperstown this summer), there are still all the fixed costs associated with club sports (registration, uniforms, tourney fees) and the endless variable costs (hotels, all the garbage food, the “must-have” accessories, the clinics and extra lessons you’re pressured into buying and so many more that are going to make me nauseous if I keep itemizing them here). Even the rec sports come at a cost. There’s not really a budget way to do youth sports like there was in these ‘good ole days’ I hear about when kids just met at a local park and played a pickup game.

This modern iteration of youth $ports feels like we’re existing in a bunch of different vortexes pulling us every which way, not knowing the right lane to take. Never catching up to really take stock. And unless you’re a gazillionaire, it’s going to put some level of dent in your finances. I feel lucky to even be able to let my kids partake in this world. It’s so disheartening to think of the kids and families that are completely shut out due to rising costs.  (We’ll be devoting much space soon on how income inequality and barriers to entry are detrimental to youth sports and bat around some ideas to help.)

For now, I want to present a snapshot of the financial monstrosity that is youth sports.

Yeah yeah, youth sports and big business are synonymous at this point. While not exactly a newsflash, the exponential growth and sheer dollar amounts are still startling. From 2010-2017, spending on youth sports in the United States grew by a reported 55%, according to the Aspen Institute’s annual ‘State of Play’ survey, and generated $19 billion in annual revenue by 2017. That figure is minuscule compared to the present day. Last year, according to the Aspen Institute’s updated ‘State of Play’ survey, U.S. families spent a combined $30 billion per year on youth sports. That’s more revenue than the NFL and NBA combined!

The same survey found that in 2022, the average youth sports parent spent $883 on one child’s primary sport PER SEASON.

Of the four major sports, youth parents spend the most on soccer ($1,188), followed by basketball ($1,002), then baseball ($714) and tackle football ($581). Some other sports come at an even higher cost. Looking at you, gymnastics and volleyball folks!

It’s a lot to digest and raises questions of how much we’re actually spending and where is it going. At least some clubs make a point to let families know a cost breakdown of team fees so you have semblance of how your massive checks are being spent. It’s just one piece of the puzzle, though, as it typically doesn’t include all the high-priced extras but helpful nonetheless. I found a few cases to give you glimpse at a few clubs, identified by sport and location:

Then there’s the ancillary stuff like, ahem, travel. Maybe some of you really have a handle of your expenditures. But if you’re anything like me, you only know the rest of the expenses in guesstimates, not concrete numbers because it’s too many things and too many categories to track. Also, it’s terrifying. But I challenge all of you to join me in changing that. I’m largely inspired by my travel ball friend who did get back to me a couple days later. His family will be spending an estimated….drum roll, please….. $14,300 on travel alone. For one season. One sport. One kid.

There is no way for the balance of power in youth sports to shift to the kids and parents overnight, or maybe ever. But I do hope that having some sense of how much we’re spending, and on what, will guide our future decision-making. Much like anyone looking to improve their nutritional profile might start tracking food and drink consumption. Or getting labs done once a year.

In no way am I suggesting your kid drop a sport or that you alter anything. I get why we’re here. The life skills, the friendships, our kids (hopefully) doing something they love. And I get the lure for parents.

It’s somewhat analogous to economics research on rural to urban migration in developing countries.  Millions of families migrated to urban factories, making far less than they would have had they stayed on the farm. But they relocated because of opportunities for their children that an urban life offered. Better education, higher paying jobs, and just the possibility of a more dynamic urban life.  The unknown.

That amorphous future is a key driver of modern youth sports economics.

Maybe with the right pitching coach my kid will be the ace in high school and develop self-esteem that can carry them through adulthood. Maybe if my kid gets into this volleyball club, they’ll follow in the footsteps of all the club alumni who got D1 scholarships. There are a lot of maybes out there.

Or hell, maybe getting your kid off screens for a few hours every week is priceless.

Either way, I hope you’ll join me in digging deeper into your expenditures, especially the traveling. Not to announce to the world, just to know. I certainly won’t be announcing my findings. 😬

Maybe the numbers will fall in line with expectations or maybe be shocking. But knowledge is always power, even in this youth sports universe which is inherently off-kilter.

Quick note: Appreciate the tremendous response to Changing the Game so far. Please consider sharing this with a youth sports pal.  

Next week:  I’ll be sharing my takeaways from a parent training I’m attending tonight, put on by the Positive Coaching Alliance. I also have a number of fun features in the works. Stay tuned!