It’s often said a parent’s love can’t be measured, but a recent survey on youth sports may come close. For each day a child plays a sport, researchers found, parents expend three hours and 23 minutes in effort: organizing and driving, watching games and practices, making snacks and doing laundry.

Then there’s the money. At $40 billion per year, spending on youth sports has surged in recent years. This burden falls disproportionately on middle-class parents, whose average annual expenses of more than $1,000 (for a single sport) comprise a larger portion of their income than the wealthy.

The poorest kids, meanwhile, are getting edged out. Participation rates among families making less than $25,000 have fallen more than 10 percentage points in about a decade.

To state the obvious, such trends are unhealthy and unsustainable — for society, parents and above all for kids. Children who play sports are more likely to perform well in school and attend college, less likely to smoke or use drugs, and have lower obesity rates and better mental health. They also develop myriad virtues that will serve them in the workforce, including discipline, self-confidence, perseverance and a sense of teamwork. And lest anyone forget, sports are fun.

Fixing the distortions that increasingly limit these benefits to the rich — and pressure middle-class families to accept ever-rising demands on their time and wallets — should be a priority for policymakers. But where to start?

One obvious place would be revitalizing local rec teams — the low-cost, low-competition community leagues that emphasize skill development and sportsmanship. When municipalities slashed their budgets during the financial crisis, the funding that supported such teams in many cases dried up.

Privately run club teams saw an opening. Practices moved from knobby fields to futuristic sports bubbles with heating and cooling systems, turf, and fluorescent lights, which keep play humming year-round. COVID-era closures of schools and public parks gave clubs another boost. As millions of kids got sucked into screens, well-off families paid for access — not only to sports facilities, but also to top-tier coaches with connections to college recruiters.

By every measure, the rec teams have been outspent. The goal, however, shouldn’t be to compete with clubs but to offer a saner alternative. Many kids feel pressure to pick one sport and start early. Yet research suggests that doing so can lead to injuries and burnout. Playing multiple sports not only reduces that risk but also improves overall athleticism and mental health, as a growing chorus of celebrity athletes and coaches attest. Parents and college coaches should encourage kids to rejoin local teams — for their “secondary” sports, if nothing else — and push clubs to embrace more flexible schedules.

Although more players will help replenish local coffers, government funding is still needed. States such as New York and North Carolina direct a portion of tax revenue from mobile-sports betting toward youth athletic programs. Other states including Colorado use lottery proceeds to improve local parks. Congress, for its part, should consider legislation that seeks to expand eligibility for existing federal grants to include youth sports facilities.

And after years of underinvestment, school districts should boost funding for sports training in gym class and other clubs. (One place to potentially scale back: the billions of dollars schools spend annually on ineffective tech that keeps kids screen-bound and sedentary.)

To be sure, a rec-team renaissance alone won’t stop club sports’ momentum. So long as parents perceive athletics to be a pathway to college admission, they’ll try to gain an edge. It’s worth reminding them that just 2% of high school athletes earn athletic scholarships, and only 7% will even play in college. There’s a better chance of getting into an elite school on academic merit alone. Might the time and money be better spent elsewhere?

Parents understandably want the best for their kids. Yet the current system for training young athletes compromises that very goal. Policymakers can take steps to revive rec sports and otherwise try to restore some sanity to youth sports. Ultimately, though, it will be up to parents to let their kids play.

_____

The Editorial Board publishes the views of the editors across a range of national and global affairs.

_____

©2026 Bloomberg L.P. Visit bloomberg.com/opinion. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.