After I wrote the story about declining Little League numbers last week, I checked the post on Facebook to see what readers had to say about it. Many of the responses made me think.
Stories like that one seem to be popping up everywhere these days. In fact, as soon as that story was promoted online, I had a gentleman from New Jersey email me to lament about the Little League dilemma.
The reasons laid out in that article affect baseball and softball, but are they applicable to the other things that are out there?
I would like to know the reason why many youth participation numbers are dwindling just as much as any of you, but I doubt it’s simple enough for one answer. So, I’ve used some of your comments as food for thought.
The easiest thing to point to is the money. While there are certainly sports and leagues out there that most families can afford, many of our most beloved activities do not come cheap. “Nothing is cheap anymore” was one comment made online, and this could be because of rising equipment costs, possibly from the umbrella effect of economic inflation.
It’s hard for some people to pay league fees, but it’s also getting harder and harder for leagues to stay afloat with what most would consider affordable prices. It’s a double-edged sword with no quick solutions at the moment.
Another thing that’s come up is competition, though I wouldn’t say that this itself is killing numbers. Education and sports organizations, in recent years, have developed a sense of hyper-competitiveness that has parents wanting to put their kids in the most “elite” programs — whatever that means — for the future. Little League is fun, and so are city-league sports, but if they don’t offer the competitive edge and pro-inspired playing field dimensions that newer leagues do, they’ll eventually get left in the dust. This is what we’re seeing now.
As I said, that doesn’t kill participation numbers; it just shifts them elsewhere, so the kids are still playing sports.
However, kids will eventually get burned out if they’re pushed too hard toward a goal they’re not fully invested in, and I’d say that the old guard of Little League and others is crucial for gauging interest. Keep Little League alive for younger kids to find out just how much they love sports (this takes longer than one or two years) and, if they truly want to pursue sports for the long haul, put them in a competitive program later.
Of course, there’s also shifting popularities at play. Baseball was once America’s pastime, but our brand of gridiron football is now the unquestionable king of American sports. Hockey was far more popular in the 1990s than it is now, and ESPN even used to broadcast professional beach roller hockey games when I was a kid.
Kids like what they like and gravitate toward anything that’s both new and accessible. That’s how these things happen and, if it means baseball is going to continue declining, then the only way to stop that is through sweeping, national changes beyond any of our control.
My favorite argument, though, is the battle between technology and sports. I’ve heard a lot of people say that the Internet, phones and video games are keeping kids out of sports and that this is “sad.”
As both a dedicated gamer and the resident “techie” of the Times & Observer office, I find that funny; we like to complain about kids that use technology while we’re on Facebook, probably in between watching YouTube videos of cute animals or social experiments with homeless people.
If your child is a gamer, that’s not a bad thing. It doesn’t mean that he or she is a lazy bump on a log. I’ve interviewed many young athletes that enjoy video games almost as much as their sports. E-sports leagues (though they will never make it into my Sports section) can lead to paychecks.
If your child refuses to try sports, it’s most likely because they haven’t had the proper stimulation to make them want to. And that’s a conversation worth having with such a child: what would it take to get them to at least step onto a field or court and try?
Perhaps youth sports will never get back to the way they used to be. It looks like that’s just the way it is. But, as far as I can tell, the money is the first and most important problem to solve. How can our youth leagues balance “affordable” and “afloat?” I guarantee you that, if there’s a way to do so, we’ll see those numbers rise quickly.
Contact Justin Kline at jkline@plantcityobserver.com.