Everything Runs Through Youth Sports: A Look at the Most Recent Data
Breaking down the incredible new data, insights from investing in the space, and other key areas as the space evolves.
Youth sports are the foundation of athletics…
And several things are taking place:
market size is growing quickly
new private equity money is entering
commercialization turning to professionalization
Aspen Institute recently released its State of Play Youth Sports Report, which I want to break down today (I also had the Founder on the Podcast).
Let’s Dive In 👇
Private Equity in Youth Sports
Lately, a hot topic is private equity in youth sports — even though it’s been happening for a while, there's just more press on it now.
There are different strategies…some more on the tech side and others more on the services side:
Waud Capital bought the tech platform TeamSnap and then started making related tech acquisitions.
Unrivaled is buying facilities, events, and IP across different categories, most being in baseball.
*Side note: Andy Campion (CEO of Unrivaled), I know you’re reading this…I would love to host you on the podcast.
Youth sports companies typically end up in 4 different ways:
fail
stall out at $1-$2M revenue, becoming a lifestyle business
become the core center and make acquisitions around it
get rolled up around someone else’s core center
I advise youth sports founders in the Profluence+ Community on a few different things…
One is to consider whether you’re building a powerful tool to become the acquirer or just a feature of someone else’s (making you the one getting acquired).
A mistake many founders make in youth sports is raising money at valuations that are too high — especially if you’re a niche solution that will likely be rolled up.
Participation
Roughly 54% of American youth ages 6-17 played sports in 2022, the first year considered “post-pandemic.”
But the government wants that higher…
They have a national goal for youth sports participation to reach 63% by 2030, an effort called 63X30.
Interestingly, “warm-weather” states typically have less participation from youth athletes.
A big positive is that adults are seeking more social activities…and are also providing them for their kids.
The most recent data shows a 6% one-year uptick in children regularly participating in a team sport, the highest rate (39.8%) since 2015.
This makes sense as we all inherently know the benefits of sports — and don’t want our kids dropping out.
But why do kids often quit?
Adults who kept playing organized sports through their youth have fewer symptoms of anxiety and depression than those who never played or those who dropped out, according to a study by Ohio State.
One problem, however, is that specialization continues to increase (even at younger ages).
The average number of sports children regularly played in 2023 was 1.63 — over a decade ago, children used to average more than two sports.
And overall participation across the board has declined:
What do we blame that on?
Smartphones? Specialization? Pandemic? Income inequality? Rising costs? Inflation?
Unsurprisingly, the more money a household has, the higher the chance for youth sports participation.
Emerging Sports
It’s always cool to see new sports get added to the stack…
Montgomery County (Maryland) Public Schools was the first school district in the country to offer pickleball as a varsity sport.
Overall nationwide pickleball participation increased 45% for children ages 6-12 and 86% among youth 13-17 between 2022 and 2023.
It will be interesting to see how sports that became more popular over the last few years go downstream — cricket and padel, for example.
Coaches
80% of surveyed parents believe there is a shortage of high-caliber coaches.
Here’s my thinking on it…
Just like we’re seeing many successful people from the private business sector lend a hand to the public government…
We need more former athletes lending a hand in the coaching world — they know what a good coach looks like but, more importantly, what a bad one does too.
I see far too many coaches (especially at the high school level) who never played at any competitive level and are often just teachers looking to make some side-money.
Something else that bothers me is that school administrations think that creating more training modules and courses will help create better coaches…if anything, that will keep more good candidates out with all the red tape and bureaucracy.
As I’ve laid out in the academy briefing two weeks ago, I think public education is in for a whirlwind in the future and sports will play a key component in how it unfolds.
Looking Ahead
We have an exciting decade ahead of us in the United States.
It looks to be a booming economy with significant sports events:
World Cup 2026
Summer Olympics LA28
Winter Olympics Salt Lake 2034
Youth sports will be at the center of this and will create unprecedented opportunities as it shifts from commercialization to professionalization.
Podcasts 🎙
Insightful guests this past week:
Tom Farrey - Founder, Aspen Institute (listen here)
We dive deeper into their latest report and where he sees youth sports headed.
Seth & Jon - Co-Founders, The Branded Agency (listen here)
Building an agency focused on PR/marketing for sports tech companies, along with how founders should think about building their brand.
Profluence+ Community 🌐
It’s amazing to see the community now at over 470+ members!
Some noteworthy updates:
Multi-club ownership discussion with Brett Johnson (Benevolent Capital) and Sandford Loudon (Oakvale Capital) is now scheduled.
Members like Doug Plocki are seeing wins right away.
Appreciate you reading today!
Youth sports continue to be an appealing space as they start to professionalize.
However, only ~24% of youth ages 6-17 get 60 minutes of daily physical activity. We need to improve that as the benefits are immense for our society as a whole.
Onwards & upwards,
Andrew 👋
The full report is here: https://projectplay.org/state-of-play-2024-introduction