COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study provides evidence of the explosive growth of private club and travel teams in youth sports over the past 60 years.
Researchers found that kids who were born in the 1990s were about three times as likely to participate in private club and travel sports as those who were born in the 1950s. Findings were based on adults' retrospective reports of their experiences while growing up.
About 4% of surveyed adults who were born in the 50s said they participated in club or travel teams, compared to 13% of those born in the 90s.
The findings also showed that particularly kids with highly educated parents but also those from high social class backgrounds were more likely to participate in club and travel teams in recent generations than they were earlier.
"The experience of playing sports is a lot different for kids growing up today compared to those growing up in previous generations, with the shift from school-based and community-based sports to private club sports," said Chris Knoester , lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University .
"The result is that it is much more expensive to play youth sports today, and it requires extraordinary commitments from both kids and their parents."
Knoester conducted the study with Chris Bjork , professor of education at Vassar College. Their research was published recently in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues .
The growth in club and travel sports represents a change in how many parents view the purpose of youth sports, Bjork said.
"For a lot of parents, there's been a shift from sports as a way to have fun and get exercise to using sports as a way to position their kids for future success in college and beyond," Bjork said.
The study used survey data on 3,938 adults who participated in the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS), sponsored by Ohio State's Sports and Society Initiative . Those surveyed volunteered to participate through the American Population Panel , run by Ohio State's Center for Human Resource Research . Participants, who came from all 50 states, answered the survey online between the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019.
Respondents answered questions about playing a sport or sports regularly, playing an organized sport and playing sports at various levels between the ages of 6 and 18. They were asked specifically if they played on any private club or travel teams. They were also asked if they played in a competitive league for elite teen athletes in their main sport.
On average, 11% of the adults said they had ever played on private club or travel teams. About 8% played in leagues for elite teen athletes. As in the private club and travel teams, the proportion of people who played in elite leagues generally increased over the decades covered by the study.
Family and community sports cultures appeared to have had a major impact on participation. Adults in the study who said their parents were big sports fans and athletes themselves were markedly more likely to take part in club and travel sports, as were those who lived in sports-oriented communities.
But the findings showed that parents' socioeconomic status became increasingly important over the generations in predicting who would play travel and club sports.
"We essentially find evidence of private club or travel sports participation rates for children with a college-educated parent that are double those without a parent with some college, in the youngest generation of respondents," the researchers wrote.
For example, for kids born in the 1990s, those who had a college-educated parent had a 16% probability of participating in a club or travel team, compared to just a 6% probability for those with no college-educated parents.
Similar results were found for teens' participation in teams for elite players.
The researchers noted that for those born in the 1950s, there was essentially no difference in participation rates that were tied to parents' education levels.
"It appears that opportunities are steadily declining for less educated families that don't have the knowledge or the money to invest in their kids' sports careers," said Bjork, who is co-author of the book " More Than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry Is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It ."
Recent statistics back this up, Knoester added. Project Play found that the average cost for a child to play their primary sport has increased by nearly 50% over the five years between 2019 and 2024. Parents now spend over $40 billion on youth sports a year.
"Our results reflect the fact that youth sports is a growing industry and it is continually creating more services that they are selling to parents," Knoester said.
One implication of these findings is that it often takes more than just talent for young people to succeed in sports today, Bjork said.
"It is a more complicated picture with family income and education, family and community culture, all of this affecting the opportunities provided to young athletes, regardless of their talent," Bjork said.
The current landscape in youth sports makes it difficult for many families who want to support their children's sports dreams, Knoester added.
"Embracing private club and travel sports oftentimes brings overwhelming costs and a lot of stress when it comes to travel, organizational and family commitments," Knoester said.
"And there is no indication that this trend is slowing down."
