Irony Of Elite Sports Investment

Talk about the irony - parents for 2,396 young athletes participating in travel, club and elite sports teams spent $13,182 on average and $31 million in total in our study, and yet that spend for the hope of a division 1 college scholarship that 89% of those parents sought, seems to have come at a much higher cost. Nearly 1 in 3 report a poor health outcome linked to the experience – including 41% of them developing some type of addiction, 29% an eating disorder, 27% a drug addiction, 11% suicidality and 2% dying by suicide, all stemming from the pressures of these competitive sports teams. Compare this to the mere $389,000 in total spent by 2,005 families on kids in “rec” programs where the portion with adverse health outcomes was less than 3% in total.  It’s wild - we encourage our kids as early as 3 years old to run and play and be part of teams for the exercise and socialization and skills, only to sometimes push too hard during their middle school years, leading many to leave the pressures of sports entirely--sometimes cut, often disenchanted--and into a period of isolation, addiction and struggle to find sobriety and peace from the chaos. And in a bit of irony, many of them survive just by reverting to the very behavior they started as pre-schoolers – running around a circle, with people they’ve never met, seeking socialization, community and the skills to manage life. As Alannis Morissette once asked us - isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?

Results of the study to be published this fall.