The Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative partnered with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University to survey youth sports parents, releasing results and all data in March 2025. Now, we’re analyzing key findings in the 148-page report. This second story in a series examines trends associated with children specializing in one sport to the exclusion of others. Project Play this year will periodically produce articles addressing a different topic associated with the survey results. The survey informed many of the sessions at the 2025 Project Play Summit.
More than half of sports parents feel some or lots of pressure to have their child specialize in one sport, but today the source of that pressure is less often the chase for professional careers or NCAA-level roster spots than a venue much closer to home: high school sports.
That’s the biggest driver promoting early sport specialization, according to the Aspen Institute’s parent survey in partnership with Utah State University and Louisiana Tech University.
The American Development Model, a framework for long-term athlete development, recommends multisport play until at least age 12 and even beyond for cross-sport benefits. The National Athletic Trainers’ Association advises adolescent and young athletes should not play a single sport more than eight months per year given the risks of burnout and overuse injuries.
Yet Aspen’s survey found that 21% of parents reported that their child plays their primary sport nine to 12 months annually. Ten percent of children play one sport year-round. Far more children (48%) play their primary sport one to four months, but the youth sports industry often caters experiences to a smaller number of families who focus singularly on one sport, resulting in significant costs, time and pressure associated with that sport.
“Although most parents subscribe to the tenets of the American Development Model, it seems that an increasing chunk are directing more time, money and family resources to their children’s primary sport,” said Travis Dorsch, co-author of the study and founder of the Families in Sport Lab at Utah State University. “What remains unclear is whether these choices are a cause or consequence of the changing youth sport landscape.”
More than half of the survey respondents (53%) justified the pressure to specialize because they say their child wants to play high school sports. This finding speaks to how challenging it can be for many teenagers today to earn roster spots and playing time on school teams.
“In some larger high schools, 120 students might try out for the soccer team, 20 might make varsity, and another 40 might make JV or freshman teams – if there’s still a freshman team after all the budget cuts in recent decades,” said Tom Farrey, executive director of the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program, the backbone organization for Project Play. “The supply of sport experiences is not meeting the demand for them. Parents know that so they invest accordingly.”
As more children specialize early in sports, many lose access to a sustained experience due to costs, ability and time commitment. The average child quits a sport by age 11. In some communities and within certain sports, children who don’t have the proper skill development at younger ages face long odds to make their high school team.
“The pressure to specialize can feel almost required”
Parents and young athletes today are bombarded with the message that high doses of one sport at an early age is the only pathway to athletic stardom. That narrative demands that children choose only one sport, characterized by high levels of deliberate and focused practice (rather than play), and often focus on performance at ages as early as 6 years old.
“You go to these youth games, and it can feel like every parent has already picked their child’s college,” said Jordan Blazo, co-author of the study and associate professor of kinesiology at Louisiana Tech University. “The pressure to specialize can feel almost required. You start to wonder if you’re doing something wrong by letting your child explore other sports.”
However, early sport specialization puts kids at risk of higher rates of injury and increased psychological stress, even causing them to prematurely “retire” from sports at a young age. Sport sampling mitigates those risks and helps kids stay active longer. Research has shown that kids who sample sports have increased physical capacity and motor skills, an increased ability to translate those skills to other sports, stay in sports longer, and are more likely to build social emotional skills through sports.
- Don't play a single sport more than eight months per year
- Delay specializing in a single sport for as long as possible
- Participate in only one organized sport per season
- Don't play organized sports for more hours per week than the child's age
- Take at least two days off per week from organized training and competition for rest and recovery
- Spend time away from organized sports and activity at the end of each competitive season to prevent injuries and burnout
Most sports parents believe specialization is appropriate
Aspen’s latest survey suggests that sport specialization is not going away – and many sports parents find it appropriate to focus on one sport. Only 16% of parents said the pressure to specialize is inappropriate, with parents of children ages 6-10 feeling slightly stronger (20%).
One in four parents reported feeling societal pressure to have their child stick to one sport, with no differences based on the child’s age. Parents of older children feel the most pressure from their child and school coaches to specialize.
More than half of parents (58%) said that their child’s school sport coaches encourage multisport participation, a slightly higher rate than coaches from club and other non-school teams (52%).
Black parents were more than twice as likely as White parents to say their child’s school sports program prohibits multisport participation. The gap was even larger for prohibitions on multisport participation within club/non-school programs – 12% of Black parents perceive that it’s not allowed compared to 3% of White parents.
Urban parents feel the most pressure for their child to specialize. Almost one in three urban parents (32%) reported feeling lots of pressure from their child to specialize in one sport, higher than suburban (20%) and rural (19%) parents. Parents of Black and Hispanic/Latino children were more likely than White parents to believe that the goal of playing pro sports justifies the pressure to specialize.
Photo: DCSAA
Boys appear to face greater pressure to specialize
Parents of male athletes were more likely than parents of female athletes to say the pressure to specialize feels appropriate. Notably, male-athlete parents were twice as likely as female-athlete parents to justify pressures around specialization in hopes of their child playing professionally.
“I think we’ve done a better job of telling girls, ‘Just play sports,’ and I don’t think we’ve quite gotten there with boys yet,” American Institute for Boys and Men President Richard Reeves said at a 2025 Project Play Summit session on the decline of boys’ sports participation. “(For boys) it’s still, ‘Play sports – unless you suck,’ which would rule out most of us most of the time. I think that spirit of joy that we’ve injected into girls’ sports, we need to inject into boys’ sports.”
Only 35% of Black youth ages 6-17 regularly played sports in 2023, down from 45% in 2013, according to data from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Panelists at the Summit discussion cited Black male hopelessness in life and pressures to make money by specializing in one sport as key reasons Black youth now play sports less.
“As I watch a lot of youth basketball and coach youth basketball, I feel like there’s this pressure that if you’re not the best, if you’re not going to succeed, then why even try?” said former NBA player Antonio Davis.
Davis hopes more Black and Hispanic children try lifelong sports like tennis and golf instead of solely focusing on NBA and NFL dreams. “Basketball is going to wear you out,” he said. “You’ve got a short lifespan to do your thing, and if you don’t do it, it’s a wrap.”
Even if a child beats the long odds and reaches the NBA, one study found that NBA players who were multisport athletes in high school withstand higher workloads while missing fewer games due to injury than those who had only played basketball. Also, NBA players who delayed sport specialization had greater statistical and award success as pros than those who specialized on one sport at an early age.
“Research suggests that a well-rounded athletic background can actually increase your chances of long-term success,” Blazo said.
Photo: DCSAA
Schools support multisport play slightly more than clubs
In Aspen’s survey, more than half of the parents said multisport play is encouraged by their child’s sports program, with schools supporting the concept at a slightly higher rate than clubs and non-school programs. Parents in households making more than $100,000 reported feeling the most pressure to encourage their child to specialize in their primary sport. The lowest-income parents were about twice as likely as all other parents to say multisport participation is prohibited by their child’s school and club/non-school sports program.
Encouragement of multisport participation by school and club/non-school programs occurs less frequently in suburban communities. For instance, less than half of suburban parents (45%) said their child’s club/non-school program encourages children to play more than one sport, lower than urban (60%) and rural (52%) parents.
Suburban parents were also less likely to say their child’s school sports program encourages multisport play. Urban and rural communities tend to need more multisport athletes to fill teams.
New rules in college sports could accelerate early-sport specialization in the chase for NCAA roster spots, causing more children to drop out or never start due to costs, time commitment, burnout and injuries.
The proposed House vs. NCAA court settlement would allow universities to share revenue with college athletes and govern team sizes by roster limits rather than scholarships. Thousands of current walk-on and partial scholarship athletes – along with future recruits – could lose their roster spots on Division I teams. Swimming, football, track and field, and cross country are expected to be most affected.
Ideas for reducing the pressure to specialize early that have emerged in Project Play dialogues include educating parents on the benefits of multisport play, creating incentives for National Governing Bodies of single sports to promote sport sampling, and high schools committing to meet student demand for sport and physical activity experiences by offering more interscholastic teams, intramurals, student-led clubs, and partnerships with local parks and recreation departments. High school students want more casual and fitness-focused activities, according to a previous Aspen Institute survey.
“There’s not a one-size, fits-all approach (to serving kids in sports),” Dorsch said. “Whether we’re researchers, practitioners, app developers or parents, we need to be thinking, ‘How do we serve that one child who is in front of us right now?’ And that answer might be different for the 12 kids on our team or the 100 kids in our program.”
Photo: DCIAA
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.