Behind the Drop in Numbers

 

A story in the Tribune this week suggests the end may be near for baseball and softball.  According to statistics cited, the percentage of people seven years old and up playing baseball at least twice a year during the period 2007-2012 dropped by 12.9 percent; for softball, the decline was a whopping 15.3 percent.  Apparently, some of those ex-ballplayers are now trying lacrosse.  Go figure.

Forget that I think girls should be playing baseball, with boys or not.  What, if anything, do these numbers mean?  For starters, the 125 percent increase in lacrosse basically means the four people playing are now nine.  Declining numbers may be the result of other sports poaching prospects, but I doubt it.  Football and volleyball are supposedly down, too, so maybe the real problem is kids turning into couch potatoes.  That, and the youth sports boom has gone bust just like the real estate bubble.

We were accessed in the neighborhood of $1200 every year by Clare’s travel team in high school; actual travel and equipment costs were extra.  Today, I wouldn’t be surprised if a majority of families were spending more than $4000 a summer to see if they have a budding ballplayer on their hands.  And who wants to spend that kind of money when there’s no guarantee a kid is going to start every game?  Before the Great Recession, maybe, but not anymore.

Another factor to consider is the quality of coaches, or lack thereof.  Two months after Clare hit .425 in junior year of high school, she was ready to walk away from softball, in large part because the two new travel coaches took a dislike to her.  They told me there were complaints about her fielding, and one of them told her she wouldn’t hit in college.  Talent won out in the end, but that kind of experience has a way of turning kids off of sports, as well it should.

Youth sports in 2014 is a brave new world where many are no longer called, so fewer show up.  In the end, cost and coaching will determine the health of all sports, whether softball, football or lacrosse.  I wouldn’t bet on the staying power of that last one, though.