Over the past decade, private equity has turned a patchwork of local youth leagues into an asset class. Platforms like 3STEP Sports and Unrivaled Sports have run textbook roll-ups, consolidating clubs, tournaments, facilities and media into profitable, integrated businesses. To an institutional buyer, the thesis looks clean: a high-margin, recession-resistant market funded by parents who spend almost without limit on their kids.

I have spent close to a decade running strategy and high-performance programs in the Norwegian sport system, which the Aspen Institute rates the world’s most socially effective. My first concern has always been what that system does for children and youth, not what it returns to investors. But I read a balance sheet too, and the American model carries a structural risk that never shows up on a revenue chart: It is built to churn, and churn-dependent revenue is worth less than it looks.

It could be called it the EBITDA churn trap. The American travel model runs on early specialization, sorting children by age 9 or 10, and compounding fees. The oft-quoted figure that 70% of children leave organized sport by age 13 is too blunt to be a business metric: Children do not vanish — they switch sports, clubs or........

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