Key Takeaways
- Tennis added 72% more regular players ages 6 to 12 between 2019 and 2025, the steepest youth gain in Sports & Fitness Industry Association data.
- Kids in households earning $25,000 or less lost ground in 2025 while every wealthier income tier gained, pushing the gap to nearly 25 points.
- The pool of active coaches for kids 14 and under shrank by 1.5 million in three years, even as participation climbed.
- Girls’ regular team sports participation reached 38%, its highest mark since at least 2012, and the gender gap narrowed below five points.
Full breakdown from Jon Solomon here: https://projectplay.org/news/youth-sports-participation-report-tennis-golf-see-biggest-gains-in-2025
Youth sports participation in the United States reached its highest level in 12 years in 2025. Nearly 41% of kids ages 6 to 17 played team sports on a regular basis, up 4% from the prior year, according to Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA) data analyzed by the Jon Solomon at the Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative. Tennis and golf posted the largest gains since 2019. The same data shows participation falling among the lowest-income children and a shrinking supply of youth coaches.
The SFIA figures come from 18,000 online interviews conducted by Sports Marketing Surveys among a nationally representative sample of Americans ages 6 and older. Project Play also announced it is moving from its annual National State of Play report to real-time analysis, publishing insights as new data becomes available.
Which Youth Sports Grew the Most Since 2019?
Tennis and golf are the clear post-pandemic winners. Between 2019 and 2025, tennis core participation rose 72% among kids ages 6 to 12 and 46% among ages 13 to 17, per the SFIA data. Golf grew 55% among ages 6 to 12 and 73% among ages 13 to 17 over the same period.
The U.S. Tennis Association (USTA) said new youth players cited health benefits, socializing, community, pop culture and fashion trends among their reasons for joining. Tennis participation across all ages has now grown for seven consecutive years, according to the USTA, and its research found eight in 10 players plan to keep playing recreationally after organized tennis ends.
Golf’s growth has come with a shift in who plays. According to the PGA of America, girls now make up 35% of junior golfers and minorities 26%, compared with 15% and 6% two decades ago. Steve Tanner, PGA senior director of player engagement, credited programs such as PGA Jr. League, Drive, Chip and Putt, First Tee, Youth on Course and Operation 36. He also noted that reaching 4 million youth golfers only returns the sport to roughly where it stood in the early 2000s.
Format changes are part of the story. Courses have added shorter rounds, night golf and putting courses, while simulators, ball-tracing technology and venues like Topgolf and PopStroke have created lower-commitment entry points.
Flag Football Grows While Soccer and Baseball Lose Kids With Age
Flag football core participation rose 26% among kids ages 6 to 12 over six years and held flat among teens, according to SFIA. Youth tackle football declined 7% among ages 6 to 12 and 3% among ages 13 to 17 over the same span. Alex Kerman, SFIA senior director of research operations and business development, said the organization has seen no data indicating flag pulls kids away from tackle. Flag leads tackle until ages 10 to 11, when tackle takes over and peaks near 10% participation at age 15.
Soccer core participation among ages 6 to 12 grew 7% from 2019 to 2025, before any lift from the U.S. co-hosting the 2026 FIFA World Cup. “This is the single best moment in time for soccer to grow in the U.S.,” Kerman said.
Retention is the problem. Soccer draws 21% of 6-year-olds, more than any other sport, but participation peaks at that age and falls every year after, per the SFIA data. Baseball follows a similar path, dropping from 18% at age 6 to 12% at age 17. Basketball moves the other direction, climbing from 19% at age 6 to nearly 29% at age 13 and remaining the most-played youth sport through age 17 at 24%.
Youth Sports Participation Gap by Income Widens to 24.8 Points
Children ages 6 to 12 in households earning $25,000 or less saw a 7% single-year participation drop in 2025, according to SFIA. Every higher income bracket grew between 2% and 7%, with the $100,000-plus tier up 7%. The gap between the highest- and lowest-income tiers widened from 14.5 percentage points in 2022 to 24.8 points in 2025. U.S. Census Bureau data estimates 5.4 million children ages 6 to 17, or 11%, live in households at that lowest income level.
“A 7% single-year drop is stunning and bad,” said Linda Flanagan, author of “Take Back the Game.” Kerman attributed part of the squeeze to manufacturers passing supply chain costs through to equipment prices, on top of general inflation.
Travel adds to the bill. While group travel overall stagnated in 2025, with room bookings down 1.6%, youth sports travel growth accelerated, according to a U.S. Travel Association report cited by Project Play. The report found youth sports has become the top-producing group travel segment in some cities.
Race and income track closely in the data. Over five years, core participation grew 25% among Asian youth, 6% among White youth and 5% among Hispanic youth, per SFIA. Black youth participation rose just 1% over five years and fell 10% over the past decade, the only group with a 10-year decline. Census figures put 2020 to 2024 median household income at $55,000 for Black households and $117,000 for Asian households. Robert Marcus, chief strategy and impact officer at Positive Coaching Alliance, described the decline as “a failure of access and investment.”
Girls Reach Record Participation as Boys Climb to 43%
Girls’ core participation rose from 33% in 2019 to 38% in 2025, the highest level since at least 2012 and the fourth straight annual increase, according to SFIA. For the first time, the gap between girls and boys narrowed to within five percentage points.
Boys’ participation reached 43%, up from roughly 40%, where it had stalled since 2016. That remains well below 2013, when half of all boys played team sports regularly. The Aspen Institute and the American Institute for Boys and Men released a white paper this month on recruiting and retaining boys in sports.
Demand among girls is not the constraint. Girls who have never played sports are as interested in playing as boys, 54% versus 52%, according to the Women’s Sports Foundation Sport Report 2026.
Fewer Coaches, More Kids, and a 63% Target for 2030
The coaching supply is moving opposite to participation. Active coaches of children 14 and under fell from 8.4 million in 2022 to 6.9 million in 2025, three straight years of decline, per SFIA. Self-identified former coaches rose to 12.3 million in 2025 from 9.8 million in 2021. Coaches 55 and older now make up 43% of that workforce.
Women are a growing share of those who remain: 34% of head and assistant coaches of 14-and-under teams in 2025, up from 26% in 2019 and the highest SFIA has recorded since at least 2013. Training is slipping, though. While 94% of active coaches reported training at some point, annual training declined by double digits from 2020 to 2025 in every category SFIA measured, including CPR, concussion management and injury prevention. Jenny Karn, SFIA senior director, said a lack of coaches cannot be allowed to become the limit on how many kids get to play.
That constraint lands against a national target. The Aspen Institute’s 63X30 roundtable aims to have 63% of youth ages 6 to 17 playing organized sports by 2030. Federal National Survey of Children’s Health data showed 58% in 2024, up from 49% in 2021. Roundtable members reported engaging more than 3.5 million parents, investing at least $71 million in access, safety and infrastructure, and training more than 263,000 coaches and administrators in 2025.
The next federal reading arrives in spring 2027. Whether it moves the country closer to 63% will depend in part on a coaching workforce that lost 1.5 million active coaches in three years.
Source / Adapted From: Aspen Institute Project Play, Jon Solomon, October 27, 2026, https://projectplay.org/news/youth-sports-participation-report-tennis-golf-see-biggest-gains-in-2025
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How big is the youth sports market?
American families spend approximately $54 billion annually on kids’ sports and recreation, according to the YSBR and Kinetica Group Youth Sports TAM & Parent Spending Report, with organized sports alone representing a $40 billion-plus market. The average family spent $1,016 on a child’s primary sport in 2024, up 46 percent since 2019, per the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, and market research projects the global youth sports market will reach approximately $114 billion by 2032 (Business Research Insights).
How many kids play youth sports in the United States?
Approximately 27.3 million children ages 6 to 17, or about 54.6 percent, played organized sports in 2022-2023, according to the National Survey of Children’s Health as reported by the Aspen Institute’s Project Play. High school sports participation reached a record 8.26 million athletes in 2024-25, per the NFHS.
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Youth Sports Marketing Questions, Answered
Where can brands sponsor youth sports? Brands can sponsor youth sports through local leagues and clubs, tournaments and events, facilities and complexes, governing bodies, and national platform programs. Sponsoring a child’s own program is the most powerful entry point: 81 percent of parents say it captures their attention, outperforming TV, social media, and pro sports sponsorship, per a 2026 Priority Partnerships study conducted by YouGov Sport.
How much does youth sports sponsorship cost? Youth sports sponsorship costs range from a few thousand dollars for a local league or team sponsorship to six and seven figures for regional facility naming rights and national platform programs. The environment is welcoming at every level: 84 percent of parents hold net positive sentiment toward brands sponsoring youth sports, with negative sentiment under 5 percent, per YouGov Sport research. Most brands start with a pilot activation, measure engagement, then scale.
What is the ROI of youth sports marketing? The data is striking: 80 percent of parents say they would choose the brand that sponsors their child’s youth sports program when comparing two similar products, per a 2026 Priority Partnerships study by YouGov Sport. A 2026 EMARKETER and DICK’S Media survey found 84 percent of sports parents say that role influences their purchase decisions, and 60 percent spend more on game and practice days, driving loyalty across categories from dining to travel to automotive.
Ready to build a youth sports strategy? Vertical Sports is an Advisory+ delivering integrated expertise across all levels of sport. Youth, College, Pro. Every Fan, Every Level. Brands and youth sports organizations can reach the team at info@verticalsports.us.
