The Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative partnered with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University to survey youth sports parents in late 2024. This first story examines the costs of youth sports. Project Play will periodically produce articles analyzing a different topic associated with the survey results. The survey will also inform many of the sessions at the 2025 Project Play Summit (March 24-25, Berkeley, CA), where Project Play’s Theory of Change on how to drive progress through 2030 will also be explored.
Participation in youth sports is getting more expensive – and there seems no end in sight.
The average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on their child’s primary sport in 2024, a 46% increase since 2019, according to the Aspen Institute’s latest parent survey in partnership with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University. The rising commercialization of youth sports impacts who can access quality sports opportunities or whether some children play at all.
That’s twice the rate of price inflations in the U.S. economy during the same period. Driving up the costs are higher spending on team registrations, travel and lodging for non-local play, and individual camps and private instructions to improve athletic skills, according to a survey of adults who have at least one child playing sports.
For the first time, Aspen’s nationally representative survey also asked parents to estimate the amount they spend on the same child’s other sports teams, accounting for another $475. All told, the average family paid nearly $1,500 annually for one child’s sports experiences in 2024.The amount was undoubtedly much more for families who have multiple children participating in sport.
There are 50 million children in the United States between ages 6 and 17, according to the U.S. Census. About 27.3 million – 54.6% according to the National Children’s Health Survey – played organized sports in the most recent data made available by the federal government, in the combined years of 2022 and 2023. That’s down from 56.1% in 2019, but up from the low mark of 48.5% in 2021 during the pandemic.
Even with fewer children now playing sports, the overall youth sports economy has grown. Based on the latest parent survey data and other existing research, the Aspen Institute estimates that parents now spend more than $40 billion annually on their children’s sports activities. Experts point to the unintended impact of COVID, which helped grow participation in social distance sports like golf and tennis but also boosted expensive versions of club and travel teams that offer high doses of a sport.
“The pandemic seems to have intensified the pressures around youth sports,” said Jordan Blazo, co-author of the youth sports parent study and associate professor of kinesiology at Louisiana Tech. “Instead of a reset, many families doubled down, trying to make up for lost time. This has further exacerbated the financial divide, making it even harder for some kids to participate.”
In the 2024 survey, parents estimated their sports costs ranged from nothing to almost $25,000. The wealthiest families ($100,000 or more household income) spent $1,471 more annually on their child’s primary sport than the lowest-income parents (under $50,000 income). Middle-class households were closer in spending to the lowest-income families than the wealthiest.
Even among the youngest cohort of children (ages 6-10), parents spent more than $1,000 in 2024 on one child’s sports teams. As underfunded local rec leagues struggle to compete as a viable, quality option for some families, sports activities have become more expensive through travel teams and private lessons at younger ages, even though those experiences are in the minority for most children who play sports.
Youth sports parents identified community-based teams (43%), free play (41%) and interscholastic teams (40%) as the most common settings where their child plays their primary sport. Travel/club sports leagues (17%) and independent training (14%) were much less common, even as they have become more influential in shaping access to an experience into adolescence when non-school options consolidate around clubs.
“The youth sports landscape is becoming increasingly complex,” Blazo said. “While most kids still enjoy community-based sports, free play, and school teams, the rising costs associated with specialized training and travel teams are creating new barriers to entry, particularly for families with limited resources.”
Consider how much more expensive it now is to play one of the three most popular sports among children – baseball, soccer and basketball. Within five years, the average basketball parent spent 105% more on their child in that sport. Parents in soccer (69%) and baseball (68%) also paid significantly more.
The $40 billion now spent by families on youth sports is twice the amount of cash flowing through the NFL, the most lucrative sports league in the world, and does not include the public spend by schools and municipalities, or that of private facility operators and sponsors. In aggregate, the total size of the youth sports economy is likely much higher than $40 billion.
At the same time, ironically, some providers say they struggle to make ends meet. Open Gym Premier, a prominent national youth sports organization focused primarily on basketball, faces challenges creating meaningful profit margins and finding financial stability despite annual revenue above $20 million, said CEO Matt Kanne. Kanne said a longstanding and now expanding culture of top club basketball players not having to pay registration fees is one factor that puts financial strain on the entire basketball system.
“Club basketball programs negotiate tournament registration fees down with tournament operators,” Kanne said. “The tournament operators, facing expensive real estate and labor costs, offset the discount they provide in the registration fees with the club teams participating to the parents in the form of expensive admissions and parking prices. These expensive door prices lead to a negative first impression and indirectly incite poor behavior and understandable frustration toward the ecosystem as a whole.”
Baseball remained the most expensive in 2024 among the three most-played sports. Baseball parents spent more on registration, travel/lodging, lessons/instructions and camps/athletic schools than parents whose child primarily focused on soccer or basketball.
Suburban families are often identified in media articles and research as the leading cause for driving up prices in the youth sports market, given that the “pay-to-play” travel sports pipelines often exist more in the suburbs. But interestingly, the latest survey results show urban parents ($1,628) estimated spending more money on one child’s costs for all sports than families living in the suburbs ($1,552).
“There are a number of potential reasons why sport families might be spending more in urban and suburban neighborhoods,” said Travis Dorsch, co-author of the study and founder of the Families in Sport Lab at Utah State University. “First, space is at a premium, which leads to heftier fees for fields, gyms, and rinks. Limited access to facilities also leads many families to pursue travel opportunities for their children, which also increases annual participation costs. Finally, children in urban and suburban neighborhoods also report playing more expensive sports at higher rates.”
Rural parents ($924) reported spending far less money on sports. With fewer expensive club team options nearby, and school sports programs often more prominent in their communities, these parents estimated spending about two times less on travel and lodging than urban and suburban parents. Rural parents spent slightly less money on their child’s equipment and uniforms for all sports than urban and suburban parents paid on those same items for only their child’s primary sport.
White parents spent almost twice the amount on their child’s primary sport than Black parents. Parents who identified as Hispanic or Latino reported spending nearly the same amount ($1,068) as White parents ($1,124) on their child’s primary sport.
“Youth sports inflation is out of control and no segment of the population is untouched,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of Aspen’s Sports & Society Program. “Parents will spend just about anything for their children but when more money is being wrung out of fewer families, we’re leaving a lot of opportunity on the table – denying many kids the benefits of sports. It’s time to get serious about systems-level solutions that can get and keep more kids in the game.”
Survey Methodology
The Aspen Institute’s National Youth Sports Parent Survey, in partnership with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University, utilized a nationally representative survey of 1,848 youth sports parents whose children participate regularly in one or more sports activities. The survey was conducted online in November and December 2024 with parents of children ages 6-18 from every state and the District of Columbia. The research sought to address patterns of youth sports participation, parents’ involvement in that participation, and the characteristics of the settings in which participation occurs. Read the full survey results. The Aspen Institute will publish additional analysis of the results throughout 2025.
Jon Solomon is Community Impact Director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program. Email him at jon.solomon@aspeninstitute.org.