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The cost of youth sports is out of control

Private equity is having a field day — but kids are not.

In the last decade, the cost of youth sports has skyrocketed. Cheaper, more local rec leagues have lost out premium travel leagues funded by private equity. The Covid-19 pandemic made things worse. As a result, some families are now paying thousands of dollars to keep their kid in a sport that they love.

Caitlin Moscatello wrote about the phenomenon last month for New York magazine. She says the shift started during the pandemic when park and rec budgets were slashed and the premium leagues became the only game in town. Private money saw the opportunity and seized it. Now, participating in youth sports means you’re caught in a pay-to-play model.

The hidden forces ruining youth sports

In return, elementary-aged children are being railroaded into a professionalized environment before they’re ready. More children are suffering from overuse injuries and are getting locked into a sport before they even have time to decide if they love it.

Moscatello joined Today, Explained co-host Noel King to break down what happened to youth sports, the impact on children, and whether it’s possible to reverse this trend.

Below is an excerpt of their conversation, edited for length and clarity. There’s much more in the full podcast, so listen to Today, Explained wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Pandora, and Spotify.

Private money in youth sports doesn’t seem to make a ton of sense. Who’s going to make money off of an 8-year-old playing soccer? And yet what you found is there’s a lot going on here. Give me a broad sense of what’s been happening.

It was a little over a decade ago that you really started to see this influx of big money coming into the youth sports sector. And what you see right before and then certainly after Covid is investors using what’s called a roll-up strategy — where they own, or have a financial stake in, different touch points that families would have in the sport that their child’s playing.

For instance, they might have a stake in the league itself, but also the........

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