Originally Posted by
carleton
I agree with a lot of this.
There are a lot of factors that contribute to the fact that all sports seem to be less popular. There is no one smoking gun. Ask a dozen families with children and ask them why don't they participate in sport, and you'll get a dozen reasons.
Traditional sports still exist (obviously), but now they are ultra competitive...even at the earliest levels. This also drives casual players and families away.
Yeah, when I was a kid in the 80's, there was city league soccer with parent volunteer coaches that you paid like $20 a season for. Then, you had school leagues for many other sports that cost like $10 each and summer league little league and tennis (I think those got extra money from the city/sponsors as they had paid coaches) were similar.
Now, with my kids, everything seems to be trying to feed into elite and traveling teams. No, I don't want to pay $250 for my 2nd grade daughter to play on your "elite" soccer team when she's not really sure she likes it. We're trying volleyball this year, but trying to do low pressure on it (which means she gets less playing time than the teammates whose parents are getting them in private coaching sessions outside of practice, but where's the fun in that?).