The Price of Youth Sports (Full Segment) | Real Sports w/ Bryant Gumbel | HBO

My sons pop Warner league is charger $575 to play $275 for baseball . Its outrageous!

It costs $200 to play an entire season at my area, and doesn't include guards. I don't have that much money!

I grew up and played with Parks and Recreation - it was all free - I played softball, soccer, basketball, track and swimming. I loved it so much. There was no try outs. My parents (nor any parents) rarely even came to watch! We played because it was so much fun and we made great friends. So sad those days are done.

And every new prodigy that comes up into the sports world seldom has a story of paying there way to get there. Yet parents and society continue to think that capitalistic principals are true of athletic development

I'm Europe the best soccer players in the world, Messi, Ronaldo, neymar, Marcelo, and cotinhio. played in the streets and parks for FREE to be scouted for the best teams. Now you have go to academies and pay alot of money to be in a 15th place finsher team in la liga and EPL.

Dev Patik...news flash...you're obese. Set the tone???

This is a HUGE SCAM... they are lying so you can pay top dollar... if your kid is good enough, coaches, boosters, and scouts will pay for them for FREE!! ALWAYS BEEN AND STILL IS THE CASE! Only spoiled, non-talented, kids who aren't taught to work hard by their spoiled parents are the reason you are spending 100,000 plus just so your kid can get embarrassed in-game by the kid who been practicing in the gym by himself.

The world we live in SUCKS

As a parent who has "the means", it's not about my kid going pro. It's about giving them opportunities that I didn't have because my parents didn't have "the means". Hopefully, some of these kids will grow up to be parents with the means to provide their own kids with opportunities that they didn't have when they were kids... and the cycle continues.

As a parent of a son who is club level soccer player and a daughter who is a competitive gymnast there is a lot of truth and falsehoods in this story. Recreational leagues are booming at a higher level all throughout the U.S. The main difference is that fewer are run by cities and are private non-profit entities. They are affordable and are a great way to have your child play. I think the hard reality is that parents live vicariously through their children and are imagining if I had this chance I might have made it or I was the worst and I want my kid to be better than I was so I will shell out over 5000 a year for them to be a little bit better. Now when you practice against higher talent you get better, but your natural skills and genetics play a role in this as well. There are truths about elite training being priced out of a lot of individuals budgets, but the last time I looked fields are still there and all you need is a ball, and a bat and glove to play baseball or basketball or football or soccer. Look at Dempsey he grew up playing in his trailer park and he was able to tear it up in the premier league so are these facilities really necessary?

This is why I coach Little League and don't charge for my off-season workouts......baseball shouldn't be just for the elite....I have coached, to date, 19 players that have gone onto D1 Baseball Scholarships

Greed, pure and simple.

Thing is, this is sports. There are loads of poor kids who will still outplay the trained rich kids. Football, boxing, MMA, and basketball will always be that way. Some of the kids in my town who lived in the projects were picked by travel teams so the haters are just wasting money trying to keep black kids from competing with their kids.....oh, I wasn't supposed to say that?

The name of the game is limiting opportunity for others, so that you can increase opportunity for your own.

These people and families that knowingly or unknowing participate in this madness get a serious wake up call when they can no longer buy their way into a program.

In a world based on logic and reason, parents/families should have become wise to the game being played. But, no! They still hand over their hard earned money believing some nobody group of fathers or an alleged pro level trainer is going to help their child(ren) become an elite athlete. These misinformed parents spend more money on sports than they do academic development, and expect their aspiring student-athlete to earn a college scholarship. The snake oil salesmen will tell parents anything to make a dollar.

These parents end up lost, confused, and bitter when they realize little Johnny or Cindy have been trained to look good at a showcase or combine but cannot physically compete with their peers who are just as skilled but blessed with superior athletic ability.

Life ain’t fair and your money can’t help or save you from the harsh reality

Good luck to next generation of athletes the adults of past have forgotten manners and respect

I have to be here for school :(

This is making me mad and I don't play sports. Why do I have to watch this for a quiz

Depressing af

Any one here for a PE Assignment ?

school districts should educate parents about sports from pre-k to 12th grade. school sports programs should start in elementary not middle school.

at least give kids a environment to play sports/ be active. if parents wanna pay for extra training at a sports center w “college coaches” cool.
clean up the open fields. put 🏀 courts & 5 a-side pitches ⚽️ in the schools, neighborhoods & parks. so the non rich kids get the opportunity to play. they don’t need no fancy expensive coach until their at the recruitment/ tryout age of what ever sport. the expensive 💰should be for extra private training not regular participation.

this is just wrong

It's the " working man's " fault? Most towns have a rec league. If they don't then it can easily be started with some hard work and fundraising. But unfortunately the kids suffer from lack of parenting. Bottom line

The Bo Jackson Dome is a joke. They charge 60 for a half hour lesson that shows you nothing you don’t already know. They care about money. Not kids. My son played baseball this last year, and It was a nightmare, a buddy system. Scores manipulated to suit their child on the team. One parent spending tons and tons of money to ensure her kid has a spot on the team, whether he is good or not, the list goes on and on. I wouldn’t have my son on that team again if it were free. They teach nothing about good sportsmanship, all they care about is WINNING at any and all costs. Many more great organizations out there!! You don’t have to spend thousands like we did!

This is just to get everybody wound so they'll spend even more on sports. Some people realize too much time on sports isn't a great idea and drop out for that reason. It should be recreation, not a job. The best will rise either way. Also notice how the answer is not building this system down but expanding this overstructured, too expensive system to everyone.

This is such a scam. There are some families already buried in mortgage and auto debt and decide sending their kids to travel sports (instead of recreation). Many of them think they "have the means". They also forget to mention the cost of the trips to see the orthopedic surgeon, since they play year-round.

Wayne Gretzky -- "In youth hockey, in most cases, it's really important for kids to play other sports - whether it's indoor lacrosse or soccer or baseball. I think what that does is two things. One, each sport helps the other sport. And then I think taking time off in the off-season - that three- or four-month window - really rejuvenates kids so when they come back at the end of August, they're more excited. They think, 'All right, hockey's back, I'm ready to go.' "

It’s always been this way though. We just had coaches that covered kids without means. I see it from both sides. How can organizations and programs provide without any cash? A lot of grants don’t support sport recreations anymore. Government funding is low, so we need to find a new way to support youth sports. I hate the fact that youth sports is decreasing in the US.

I don't buy their excuses. Give the kids something to sell like World's Finest Chocolate candy bars which are easy sell and tell them if they want to play they need to help pay their way.

This is a sad video to see. I think a big root of this is the emphasis that America has on performance and fitness rather than simply health and exercise. For example, football can be extremely damaging and have lasting mental effects, and while it has gotten safer, it is still an extremely popular youth sport. There's no need for as much investment into youth sports performance as there is right now.

This video was eye opening as I thought that certain sports would remain accessible to the public. I understand that certain sports such as hockey or lacrosse are inherently more expensive to play due to high gear costs, but it seems crazy that the skill gap due to personal training would be enough to push out kids from sports such as soccer or basketball. Soccer especially seems to still have an appeal to the masses as there are 11 players on the field so it would seem much less likely that the entire team is made up of players with year round personal trainers.

Nothing in life is "the same."

What’s diminishing is the PARENTS who will take time to work with their children

My name is Seth Williamson. I’m ranked #1 fastest 5yr old in the nation. Can you guys do an interview with me?

I'm from a small town. The politics are so bad I encourage my kids not to play.

If my kid(s) are serious to play soccer, I'm taking them to learn and train in Europe.

What’s not mentioned here is that family birth rates are at an all time low. That frees up a lot resources to spend on sports as well. One child per family means no siblings to play with so what else is there to do besides sports?

Is this video about kids not being allowed to play or is it about certain kids getting a competitive advantage in pursuit of playing at the collegiate level and kids specializing too much? I live in Dublin and my child goes to Hilliard City Schools. There are plenty of affordable leagues to play in. Kids don't have to have private trainers or play on expensive travel clubs in order to play.

I coach little league softball..... any extra time i have, I'm 100% willing to lend my time to the girls on my team. I once had a parent ask how much they owe me and i said nothing......seeing the girls improve is all care about, not the money

you cant teach talent..

What a waste of money. Professional sports are for low intelligence morons.

rec sports everywhere i have seen here in CA, is roughly 100$, comp sports is 300$. where are they coming up with the numbers of 700$? seems like they are digging deep to find these stats.

This is all a result of the so called Ownership Society that Ronald Reagan and Conservatives wanted to implement where everything that was once public is converted to private business and business would handle it from here. Parks and Recreation leagues in all kinds of sports lost to private leagues. Tax money once used for these leagues and games cut and transferred to the private sector. But the private sector is only in it for the money. They don't care about the public good or the general welfare of kids. There is another way. Return to the days when we would pay for things because they were good for all kids. We grew up this way but for some reason have been bamboozled into believing that is socialism and needs to be privatized. How's that working?

why immigrants will dominate usa sports. farm teams get into 2nd world countries and pic the best athletes who get into the u.s. but make their parents sign away their financial rights if the kid goes pro. the kid really didn't have any better option

When you turn YOUTH sports into a money making business for ADULTS theres your problem.

It’s only getting worse in 2023. We drop over $10k a year on my 4th grade boy. He has done it for a couple years now and the difference in skill set to any other kid playing rec league is remarkable. He focuses on one sport most of all and if we tried to shift him sports, it might already be too late to make a comp team. Have to start early and dedicate money and time just to play.

I'd love to see an update on this. I feel like this problem has gotten significantly worse since Covid. This was released in 2019. Since then the number of club teams in my area have grown exponentially. I don't think Covid caused this growth directly but I think it contributed to it.

The sports clubs in my area are for rich kids, period! The kids in low income households who have talent get left behind.

Somewhere in the Dominican Republic is a kid playing in dirt that will end up being 100x better than the kids going to these facilities 🤷