Sports & Society

Sports in the Public Interest

The mission of the Sports & Society Program is to convene leaders, facilitate dialogue, and inspire solutions that help sport serve the public interest. Since 2011, we have provided an essential venue to explore the impact of sports on the world in which we live, think through major trends, and develop shared strategies that can help sport live up to its potential as a force for good.

Much of our work to date has been on the base of our sport ecosystem, youth and school sports, the foundation upon which everything else sits – college, professional and recreational sports – and the key to building healthy communities. We connect silos across a disjointed landscape, from leagues to local providers, foundations to policymakers, driving change through roundtables, research, and award-winning content.

Why We Play is a groundbreaking conversation series anchored in a simple, powerful truth: that the games we play don’t just reflect modern life but shape it. Organized in collaboration with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA), we convene athletes, artists, and authors to explore how sport has shaped our ideas about everything from competition and identity to community, civil rights, and politics.

Launched in 2013, Project Play develops insights, ideas and opportunities to help stakeholders build healthy communities through sports. We identify gaps in access and quality in sports for young people and empower leading organizations to fill them. Each year, we promote new ideas at the Project Play Summit, the nation’s premier gathering of leaders at the intersection of youth, sports and health.

Future of Sports is a virtual conversation series that gathers leaders of diverse perspectives to think through the biggest ideas in sports. Topics have included college athlete compensation, athlete activism, football’s future, climate change in sports, and the growth of women’s professional sports. The events have generated national media coverage and helped shape what good looks like in sports policy.

The Aspen Ideas Festival is the nation’s premier gathering place for leaders to engage in deep discussion of ideas and issues that shape and challenge our lives. Through Aspen Ideas, and its related conferences focused on health, climate and the economy, the Sports & Society Program explores the intersections between sports and society by identifying speakers, moderating sessions and releasing reports.