Little League and Pop Warner used to be a chance for children to have fun and play sports like their heroes on TV. Unfortunately, today youth sports are less about fun and more about winning and profit. Children are spending several days a week training and are often overwhelmed by parents and coaches who promote the idea of winning at all costs and making it to the next level, a more advanced league, or the better team. Despite the extreme odds of ever becoming a professional athlete, parents seem to think that signing their children up for travel teams, hiring private coaches and having their children focus on a single sport year-round is some sort of guarantee of success. As professional sports become more lucrative, youth sports are being viewed more and more as an entry into a professional career rather than an enjoyable pastime.

   Parents may believe that their involvement is encouraging, but it often leads to overexpectations. In a study conducted by National Public Radio in 2015, parents of young athletes were asked a simple question: Do you hope that your child will become a professional athlete one day? Of the more than 2,500 parents that were interviewed, 26% answered that they hoped that one day their child would play professional sports (Kelto).While some people may look at this study and think nothing of it, this report is very concerning considering how slim the chances of becoming a professional athlete are. According to the NCAA, only 0.03% of high school seniors will get drafted by an NBA team, only 0.09% of high school seniors will get drafted by an NFL team, and only 0.15% of high school seniors will make it onto a professional baseball team (“Probability of Competing Beyond”). Still, these nearly microscopic numbers are brushed aside by parents, who think that signing their children up for countless amounts of programs and teams will somehow assure success in the future. Not only can parental involvement lead to unreasonable expectations, but it can also lead to angry outbursts perceived as frustration and disappointment by young athletes.

   Often, parents develop the same stresses and pressures that young athletes feel. Doug Abrams, a coach at the University of Missouri-Columbia for the last three decades, says, “‘Parents and coaches take the fun out of the game. Somewhere in the flurry of practices, games, playoffs and tournaments, parents get hung up on pressure. This pressure smolders as silent anger until it escalates into shouting, screaming and eventually actions.’ If this misconduct is directed at the child on the playing field, Abrams says, ‘You can end up with miserable kids. It’s demoralizing’” (qtd. In “Not Just a Game”). Not only is it embarrassing for a child to watch their parents scream and yell, but when these outbursts are directed at the child, it lowers their confidence and makes them have second thoughts about whether playing the sport is something they really want to do. It is not surprising that one of the main reasons attributed to the massive dropout rate seen throughout youth sports is these parental outbursts. Parents strip children of the innocence of youth sports by putting too much pressure on their young children, and causing their children to shield themselves from this destructive behavior. Parents’ zeal to get their kids on travel teams may have equally negative effects.

   From the outside looking in, travel teams and organizations like AAU are a good way to provide the serious youth athlete a chance to play with more competitive players. This perception is not always true however. Often, travel teams are just creating more problems for young athletes. One of the major issues with travel teams is exclusivity. Author Jay Atkinson describes a time where he was invited to speak at a banquet for a program called Top Tier Elite. He was shocked to find out the program was made up of five and six year olds where  “they had 100 kids try out for 18 positions which meant quite a number of kids went home unhappy” (Atkinson). Some people may argue that getting rejected from a team will push a child to work harder, but at this young age, it is very hard to believe that a child will think this maturely. All a six year old child knows is he or she was just told that they are not good enough to be on a team. At that age, such a message can be detrimental to a child’s development in the sport. Aside from travel teams being hyper-exclusive, they are also bad for youth sports because of the amount of money being spent.

   Quite frankly, travel teams are mostly about the money. In order to participate, families need to pay, and pay alot. At the same banquet referenced above, Atkins says that the families of the five and six year olds were “paying $4,000 or $5,000 to play ice hockey” (Atkinson). While some may look at the price of travel teams and think it is reasonable to spend thousands of dollars for their five year old to play travel hockey, these costs limit access to the sport as many families simply cannot afford such a luxury. Not only do travel teams create an exclusive environment driven by money and profit, but they also contribute to the single most harmful issue in youth sports currently: single sport specialization.

   Some may argue that one sport specialization allows children to get ahead of their competition, but in actuality, it is setting a dangerous precedent in youth sports on multiple fronts. Today, many children are not getting any extended periods of rest leading to a “…growing concern about a rise in athletic injuries among children engaging in tough training exercises” (Rabin). Harder training and virtually no time off physically drains young athletes and leads to them becoming more susceptible to injury. Aside from the physical detriment that one sport specialization has, it also has a psychological toll on young athletes. Atkinson explains that “Psychologically, it’s bad for the child because it’s removing the marvel of playing the sport and making it into a routine or a job — that is, psychologically, going to be damaging to the child because eventually they’re going to get sick of it” (Atkinson). Instead of seeing athletics as a fun escape, children who train year round feel trapped in a job. One sport specialization is having a costly effect on young athletes both physically and mentally and is one of the main reasons why children quit sports altogether.

   Rather than looking at youth sports as a developmental and fun time, youth sports are being used as a “gateway” to future success and are being flooded with a misguided notion of winning at all costs. The leading factors behind these negatives are parental involvement, travel teams and one sport specialization. It is sad to think that today children have to go to their games worrying about the possibility of being embarrassed by their parents or thinking about the fact that their body is not rested enough. Unfortunately, these are true concerns that are leading to the highest burnout and dropout rates in youth sports ever. In order to counter this dropout rate in youth sports, major reform is required including establishing a maximum number of hours a young athlete can participate in a week, postponement of one sport specialization for as long as possible and less involvement from parents. If all of these guidelines are put into place and followed, the entire sports industry would be in a much healthier state.