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IN EARLY JULY, my former New York Times colleagues, Ken Belson and Joe Drape, wrote a compelling and important front-page (A-1) story on how youth sports has evolved (or devolved?) into a $40 billion industry now attracting serious investment from the richest of the American rich.
Here is how their story began:
Like many youth sports fathers, Jon Bash can summon his son’s early baseball career on his phone. There are video clips of Jesse as a boy at summer camps and on a road trip to Cooperstown to play in a tournament in the shadow of the Hall of Fame. They show Jesse’s towering home runs in high school, as well as his many hours in the batting cage.
One of Mr. Bash’s most cherished clips is a video of Aaron Judge’s swing coach extolling Jesse’s work ethic to his own social media followers. His son has averaged 70 games a year over the past decade between school and travel teams. To keep playing, Jesse, 19, took a postgraduate year at a Florida sports academy.
The costs of all the training sessions, tournaments and equipment have added up for Mr. Bash, but he has no regrets spending money chasing his son’s baseball dreams.
“He’s my only child, and like most parents, you want to do anything you can for your kid,” said Mr. Bash, who runs a diner on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.
The story went on to describe how there are millions of such parents spread across the country now willing to invest proportionally serious money into their kids' athletic careers--starting at ages when it is virtually impossible to so much as guess at what their chances would be to achieve a statistically improbable college scholarship, or more. The obvious question such an industry raises is not unlike the American health care system--does it exist to serve its participants or more to enrich greedy corporatists?
Given the popularity of sports, the community visibility and attention/acclaim it offers its youthful standouts, how vulnerable are starry eyed parents to the for-profit businesses that will peddle fantastical futures? How many will stretch or even break the family budget when told they need to get on board right away because once the ship sails, it will be too late?
Having written about the early development of pay-to-play while still working at The Times, I decided to tackle the pleasures and (fast-increasing) pressures of youth sports by focusing on young readers in the age range most vulnerable to the temptations--middle-grade, 8-12--in my novel, The Goal of the Game. It's a story I believe young athletes will relate to and enjoy, all while being reminded of the healthiest reasons to be playing organized sports at that age. At any level.
The book can be ordered by clicking on the cover above. It will publish and ship on December 16.
Given the popularity of sports, the community visibility and attention/acclaim it offers its youthful standouts, how vulnerable are starry eyed parents to the for-profit businesses that will peddle fantastical futures? How many will stretch or even break the family budget when told they need to get on board right away because once the ship sails, it will be too late?
Having written about the early development of pay-to-play while still working at The Times, I decided to tackle the pleasures and (fast-increasing) pressures of youth sports by focusing on young readers in the age range most vulnerable to the temptations--middle-grade, 8-12--in my novel, The Goal of the Game. It's a story I believe young athletes will relate to and enjoy, all while being reminded of the healthiest reasons to be playing organized sports at that age. At any level.
The book can be ordered by clicking on the cover above. It will publish and ship on December 16.
