As long-time members of our community know, Project Play was born in a blizzard in Aspen seven years ago, amid a swirl of emerging issues facing youth and sports. Barriers to participation and shared solutions were identified, leading to the publication of our seminal report, Sport for All, Play for Life: A Playbook to Get Every Kid in the Game, offering eight strategies for the eight sectors that touch the lives of children and 40 tactical ideas that could help meet the moment.

Hundreds of organizations, from community sport providers to corporations, introduced programs or shaped youth strategies to align with the framework. Investments were made. Policies were introduced. Tools were created. Most important, some national progress was made, from reversing drop-offs in participation to growing the percentage of coaches trained to work with youth.

Now, suddenly, we find ourselves in another storm, this one greater than the last. The COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare fundamental flaws in our sport system, and those weaknesses have been most pronounced at the base. Without coordinated leadership, organized youth sports were the last to shut down and the first to start back up. And it came back mostly for youth with access to private club teams. Left out are many younger children and vulnerable populations who rely on public recreation, YMCAs, in-town leagues and school sports, whose offerings have diminished due to budget constraints or COVID-19 mitigation concerns.

At some point, the pandemic will lift. But the economic downturn is already wreaking havoc on the finances of the municipalities and public schools that provide most sport programs for youth. So, what can be done by leaders across the Project Play network of 20,000 organizations to turn crisis into opportunity – to preserve and even grow access to sport in the coming years? How do we create the opposite of what happened during the last economic downturn, when regular team sport participation among youth fell from 45% in 2008 to 38% by 2013?

These are the questions that have sat at the center of our work at the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program since the pandemic hit. We started the conversation by painting a vision of what’s possible in the years ahead. Next, we convened four virtual summer conversations to source and pressure-test ideas. We then aggregated what we consider the most promising of them, seeking additional feedback from leaders who work most closely with Project Play, including our cross-sector Project Play 2020 roundtable of leading organizations and the Project Play Champions network of mostly grassroots providers.

Broadly, consensus has emerged around the need to save and build affordable, quality, community-based programs. That means giving kids and families viable options to the up-or-out model of travel ball that has pushed into the grade school years and often segregates children by income and ability, before they have grown into their bodies and true interests. If we build the base, at least through age 12, then all boats will lift and we can emerge from this crisis with a more durable, sustainable sport system.

With that objective in mind, below are four recommendations, with five tactical ideas under each, that we encourage leaders across sectors to mobilize around.

Recognize the right of every child to play

Play is a human right, which is to say it is something every person is born with. This notion is recognized in the most widely adopted treaty in the world, ratified by every nation except the United States. Further, every child is wired to play – play is the work of a child. Through interaction with objects and other children, they develop the physical, mental, social and emotional skills to navigate life. Given its primacy as a venue for play, sports should no longer be treated as a nice-to-have and the term “athlete” should be defined as anyone who plays at any level. Adults who design policies, programs, recreation sites and communities should be especially mindful of improving access for underrepresented populations, including youth from low-income homes, rural and urban areas, girls, racial and ethnic minorities, and youth with a disability.

Policymakers & Civic Leaders: Appreciate the mountain of evidence that now documents the myriad benefits that flow to children whose bodies are in motion and to communities which invest in sport and recreation activity. Then, develop policies that recognize the right of children to participate, with that right framed to encourage alignment with youth needs without inviting additional liability risk for providers. Draw lessons from countries that have articulated the values, principles and provisions to guide the sport activities of children through age 12 and reaped the rewards throughout its sport ecosystem and society.

Community Recreation Groups: Define your purpose in your community (it’s larger than winning games and training athletes) and proactively build programs that represent its diversity. If 30% of students in the community are on free and reduced lunch, for instance, allocate roster spots or facility space accordingly. Commitments like that can help unlock public-private partnerships and grants.

Education: If schools are in the business of developing brains, and research now confirms the cognitive benefits of physical activity, administrators should “offer something for everybody” who wants to play sports, as has been proposed by a member of the advisory group guiding our new school sports project. Some early ideas: Bring back intramurals, host sports in the morning before the bell, form more partnerships with community providers, or make sports co-curricular.

Public Health: Recognize the role that developmentally appropriate sport can play in addressing a range of challenges that your sector struggles with, from obesity – a comorbidity in COVID-19 deaths – to reduced incidence of 13 forms of cancer. Bring sports into the center of conversation on developing health care policies. Also, promulgate digital assets that help youth enjoy at-home, virtual activities.

National Sport Organizations: For professional leagues, national governing bodies, media companies, players associations and other entities in the business of spectator sports, aim to tell a great story about growing access to sport in markets where major events will be hosted. Collect coach training and other data, marshal resources (equipment, programs, athletes, messaging, incentives, etc.), and help scale programs nationally. The 2028 Olympics and Paralympics in Los Angeles offers an historic opportunity.

Enhance the capacity of local providers

Parks and recreation departments not only manage most of the recreational space in communities, more than 10,000 of them offer sports programs. They are often the first sports programs that children get signed up for, along with YMCAs and Boys and Girls Clubs. But they often lose kids after a year or two to other programs seen by parents as higher quality. This doesn’t have to be the case, as we have seen in Appleton, Wisconsin, a Project Play Champion that grew youth participation 70% over the past six years, including gains of 188% in basketball and 100% in baseball. It’s all about embracing innovation and accountability.

Community Recreation Groups: Build the voice of children into the design of sport experiences through online surveys that create feedback loops. Do the same with parents, adjust your programs, then market them as the option best positioned to achieve customer aims. Modernize your software to more easily allow the processing of registrations of families that qualify for fee waivers.

National Sport Organizations: Collaborate to package your sport- and age-specific curriculum in a manner that can be easily accessed and deployed by parks and recs, schools and other multisport providers, so they don’t have to rummage around Google for a possible fit. Make the resources free to use, like those on the How to Coach Kids website that aggregates training materials across sports.

Education: With their training in youth development and familiarity with the needs of all students, P.E. teachers are well-positioned to connect the silos across community and school sports. Host roundtables where knowledge can be shared, collaborations can take root, and common agendas can be developed. Help programs that abide best practices gain preferred access to school facilities.

Business & Industry: Support national service programs like Tennis for America, which launched in June and recruits college players to devote one year after graduation to teaching the sport in underserved communities. The athletes receive a stipend and sometimes work in schools, also tutoring students. The program founder now wants to scale the program across sports.

Parents: Ask the right questions of yourself, your child and your local provider. And don’t just advocate for your kid. Look out for their classmates, as they do.

Fund community-based play

In August, the Great American Outdoors Act became law, providing full, permanent funding of the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF). That’s $900 million a year to support the development of national parks and state and local recreation spaces. Youth will get more places to play. But which youth? And will the funds be used to close gaps and drive program quality? Investments must be designed thoughtfully, as with other opportunities that have emerged.

Policymakers & Civic Leaders: States should receive about 40% of LWCF funds, to be distributed to municipalities that can match grants to build and improve outdoor spaces (fields, pools, golf courses, etc.). Cities with major drops in tax revenue and high-need, historically disinvested neighborhoods may struggle to participate. States should design grant criteria in a manner that does not grow the divide between sport haves and have nots, both across and within communities.

Business and Industry: Cover LWCF matching grants where cities lack the public dollars and fund more programs in high-need communities. Since the death of George Floyd, corporations have pledged more than $2 billion to address inequality and needs in Black communities. Recognize that if we level the playing field in youth sports, we start to level the playing field in society. Sports, delivered well, is a human development platform that builds lives and neighborhoods.

National Sports Organizations: Ease the financial burden on local programs and volunteers by using your clout to aggregate organizations and negotiate for background checks provided at low cost, or even free by government. Also, reduce or remove cost barriers for programs to access your coach training tools, which are critical in improving quality and preventing abuse.

Community Recreation Groups: Cities with parks and recreation departments should be open to new business models, such as revenue-sharing agreements with private operators who want to use your facilities – and are sufficiently committed to providing access to all children in the community. They should also host seminars for providers on fundraising strategies, from how to apply for grants to how to use technology to attract sponsor support from national brands.

Parents: Don’t forget one of the lessons of the COVID-19 shutdown – that even when games shut down kids find ways to play on their own, and that free play is joy. Create more space in their lives for that by just giving them bicycles, balls and other equipment and just saying “go.” It also can cost less than organized sports.

Embrace sports governance

If the return to play for professional sports from COVID-19 was challenging, and at the college and school sports levels inconsistent, it has been utter chaos in the $30+ billion industry that is organized youth sports – which directly touches more lives in more communities than any other cog in our sport ecosystem. No one was happy with how events played out. Not sport organizers who struggled to get coherent guidance from public health authorities and felt they lacked a seat at the table. Not governors, mayors and county administrators who cited youth tournaments in helping spread the virus. And not families, unsure of who to trust. All of it pointed to a need for governance, to balance competing interests and help solve problems that the marketplace, alone, cannot. Every mature industry has some form of it, which, if structured well, can help address many of the challenges facing youth sports from access to injuries to the training of coaches.

Policymakers and Civic Leaders: Governors have seen the benefits of creating outdoor recreation commissions, to work with industry partners across sectors, develop effective policy and elevate recreation resources and opportunities. They should do the same with sports, as in Puerto Rico where its Department of Sports and Recreation registers all providers, provides safety protections for children, and ensures all coaches get trained with background checks. It also serves as a vehicle to collect and distribute grants from sports betting proceeds, an emerging opportunity.

Public Health: In July, the Centers for Disease Control published a research brief on disparities in youth sports participation based on a national survey. That’s a start. Now, health sector leaders should push the federal government to collect data on participation, physical activity and injury rates down to the local level, annually or at least every few years. Knowing trends and gaps will help communities mobilize to design health policies and unlock investments.

National Sport Organizations: In addition to selecting the teams that represent our country internationally, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee (USOPC) and its affiliated NGBs are chartered by Congress to coordinate amateur sports activity in those sports. So, just as they submit high-performance plans to the USOPC focused on elite athletes, NBGs should produce grassroots performance plans that describe efforts made to improve the quality and quantity of youth activity. Start with gathering coach training data, and develop benchmarks, incentives and/or mandates to drive progress.

Community Recreation Groups: If your organization manages parks, school or other facilities rented by outside operators, use the power of the permit to set conditions under which you will provide that space. Don’t just ask for insurance. Ask if coaches are trained in key competencies and best practices in safety, from COVID-19 risk mitigation to CPR to concussion management. Raise standards.

Education: Schools are controlled at the state and local levels, but federal law plays a role as a governing force, or at least check and balance, in school sports. From Title IX in 1972 to Department of Education guidance in 2013 that addresses athletes with disabilities, efforts to eliminate discrimination has made school sports more equitable. Greater efforts at enforcement are needed.

The challenges that lay ahead for youth in sports are formidable, but we know now that collective impact works. As a broker of ideas committed to the shared vision of Project Play, the Sports & Society Program will continue to help our network explore, refine and act on key opportunities.