I love baseball. I grew up in Los Angeles and love my Dodgers. I loved watching and going to games. I loved watching Sax and Fernando – the experience was amazing. As I got older – I did not attend baseball as much but still enjoyed watching and following the game of baseball.
When our son was in kindergarten, he wanted to play baseball. I was so excited. We signed him up for our local Little League. I have grown to love our Little League baseball. He “graduated” our local little league last year, but will still play on the 50/70 team this year (his 8th year playing). I am so fond of our local little league that I joined the board.
The biggest drop we have seen locally is on the Little League Baseball level here in Connecticut. We have seen such a huge drop that some of our neighboring towns have had to merge. We have also seen other little leagues go from having 7-8 Majors teams to 3-5 teams this year. Travel baseball teams have also taken some of the local little leagues. Our local little has a great relationship with our local travel team. Our little league players need to stay with little league in order to be signed up with the travel team until the age of 12.
But if you have kids in Youth Sports on any level and any sport – you have witnessed the decline of Youth Sports. Some sports have seen a huge drop for another sport, some have left local teams for club teams, some have been priced out due to the costs and some just do not want to play anymore. But times have changed. Sports are now being played year round. So soccer (was mainly a fall sport) and baseball (mainly spring) are both being played year round with the travel and club teams.
Some examples of kids leaving for little league to other sports is with Lacrosse being played at the same season. We have witnessed a huge switch for kids leave little league to lacrosse. If you also look at the list of the most popular sports are – according to “What Are the Most Popular Youth Sports?” (DeMaria, 2019) – The number one sport for youth is Basketball then Baseball.
You can also argue that some kids are leaving sports due to the coaches. According to “Youth sports still struggling with dropping participation, high costs and bad coaches, study find” (Bogage, 2018) – only a small percentage of coaches are trained correctly. I have witnessed some coaches across several different sports, mainly using only their kids or only using a handful of kids, instead of the team being played as a team. Do not get me wrong there is also some amazing coaching that I have witnessed.
I do not know the answer to the declining numbers in little league. I just want kids to go back to when we played in our backyards and had fun playing with your friends. But that is for another post.
DeMaria, C. (2019, October 15). What Are the Most Popular Youth Sports? Retrieved from https://www.sportsrec.com/4550784/what-are-the-most-popular-youth-sports
Putterman, Alex. “Connecticut Little Leagues Forced to Adjust amid Youth Baseball Participation Decline.” Courant.com, 10 July 2019, www.courant.com/sports/hc-sp-little-league-youth-baseball-connecticut-participation-20190710-xq4b4trxdnehbbwodm4z35aulu-story.html.
Bogage, Jacob. Youth Sports Still Struggling with Dropping Participation, High Costs and Bad Coaches, Study Finds. 16 Oct. 2018, http://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/10/16/youth-sports-still-struggling-with-dropping-participation-high-costs-bad-coaches-study-finds/.
Mom of Teens Talks Sports 