Playing Offense on Youth Sports

After months of isolation kept teams off the field, Sports & Society is getting kids to come out and play.

Give NowThe youth sports program in Montgomery County, Maryland, has a problem. Participation is down, costs are up, and there are significant disparities in race, ethnicity, gender, and family income. According to studies by the Sports & Society Program, this is the reality for youth sports across the country. What makes Montgomery County unique is that the community decided to do something about it, using the suggestions of Sports & Society’s Project Play initiative.

In early March 2020, the county released a report that cited national trends from the Institute’s 2018 and 2019 State of Play: Trends and Developments in Youth Sports. The county noted the benefits of youth sports and analyzed the structure and participant cost of local programs. They found that sports activities do not take place near families’ schools or homes, that available sports activities are too competitive even at very young ages, and that cost is a significant barrier: more than a third of respondents reported paying over $2,000 annually for one child to play sports.

One of the county report’s findings noted, “The Aspen Institute’s Project Play offers a framework for increasing youth sports participation that focuses on children under age 12.” The report built on those recommendations to create an improvement plan.

A plan is a wonderful thing, but in the depths of the pandemic—when participation was drastically curtailed—finding funding might have been a problem. Bolstered with Montgomery County’s own research and insight from Sports & Society, the proposal went before the county council and came away with $1.5 million to bring sports to underserved youth throughout the county.