Youth sports trends gathered since 2019 were recently reported in Aspen Institute’s State of Play 2023. They include a big leap in golf participation 2019-2022: The percentage of children ages 6-12 who participated in golf on a regular basis increased by 32.6% and 49.1% for kids ages 13-17. At the same time, team sports participation is down 6% for kids 6-17. That’s about 1.2 million less playing team sports. Recognizing the negative trend, Sports & Fitness Industry Association president and CEO Tom Cove still thinks “it’s way too early to make any kind of judgment. We’ve never had greater awareness at the child and parent level of the benefits of being physically active and playing youth sports. That’s an outcome of COVID.”
