Kids Will Pay the Price if Youth Sports Doesn’t Grow Up
By Paul Brewer, EVP of Sports Partnerships for Payment Labs
Youth sports is now a $40 billion industry. With name, image, and likeness (NIL) rules now established for high school athletes in over 40 states and family spending up nearly 50% in five years (more than $1,000 on average is spent annually on a child’s primary sport and some families are spending more than $10,000 annually), the market is rapidly professionalizing.
Despite major growth, the quality of youth sports has declined significantly as organizations have been plagued by a poor user experience across the board, including athletes, parents, league organizers, competition managers and referees. The industry’s operational infrastructure remains outdated and fragmented. Registration and payment systems are plagued by complexity, inconvenience, and hidden fees. Parents and players must navigate multiple platforms for scheduling and payments, while businesses are bogged down by friction that drains time and money.
If youth sports wants to both capitalize on its explosive growth and drive better player and family experience, it needs to address three core things: consolidation, standardization, and optimization.
Consolidation
As it stands, the youth sports landscape is bloated and fragmented. Each sport suffers from a glut of leagues, tournament organizers, venues, and brands that each offer their own suite of activities, apps, and more. They’re all fighting tooth and nail for market share – and cutting corners to reach more players. Not only do players and families face a growing number of options, but these leagues have spun up quickly at the cost of under-investing in qualified refs, suitable venues, and user-friendly platforms.
This patchwork landscape gives players options, but also forces them into positions where athletes serve as line judges when they’re on the bench or parents volunteer to manage gameclocks. Families don’t need more options – they need less options with higher quality ecosystems. They shouldn’t have to pick a league based on which problems they can stomach. Instead, they should challenge leagues to come to market with comprehensive offerings that don’t force players to compromise.
Standardization
Another side-effect of this patchwork industry is lack of standardization. Players and parents see no consistency in how games are played and officiated, program sizes, and player requirements. This is primarily because youth sports broadly doesn’t report to a governing body. Authorities like the Amateur Athletic Union – who used to exercise far more influence over youth sports – have lost their footholds as private, pay-to-play leagues launch with their own rulebooks and standards. If the industry wants to address the common pain points of players, families, and even recruiters, it needs to embrace consistent standards that established and emerging leagues alike can adhere to.
Optimization
It’s no secret that a lot goes into running a youth sports program. But in many cases, these small organizations stretch themselves too thin. Leaders need to worry not only about schedules and rosters, but also collecting registration fees, paying referees, and more. That’s why youth sports is in desperate need of a modern tech stack. Organizers should be implementing solutions that turn clerical tasks like payments and scheduling into efficient, automated processes. As a result, youth sports inch towards an ideal end-to-end ecosystem where players go to one organization or platform for everything from registration to scheduling to reporting issues.
Why is this important now? While operational issues impact how parents register their athletes and navigate their schedules, they also shape players’ development. Leagues with different standards – from the duration of time periods to rules that actually change the mechanics of a game – warp athletes’ understanding of the sport. This, in turn, also makes college recruitment difficult, as coaches are scouting young athletes performing around a disjointed collection of rules within the same sport.
This underpins a youth sports landscape that is pro-organizer, not pro-player. And that hinders the opportunities and benefits kids gain from sports.
Fostering kids’ development through youth sports teaches them empathy, leadership, goal orientation and so much more. But unfortunately 70% of kids abandon youth sports by age 13. By taking away some of the hurdles that hinder families and players, more kids will participate and by supporting the organizations and infrastructure that make these experiences possible – everyone wins.
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