SPORTS
Play, Profit, and the Price We Pay
Sports are more than games—they’re culture, economy, and identity. For individuals in Maryland and DC, this reflection explores how early athletic exposure shapes national obsession, and how the youth sports industry rivals professional leagues in scale and consequence.
The Super Bowl is over. We will reorganize for the next season and look forward to supporting our favorite team. In the meantime, we will wear jerseys, sweatshirts, and caps.
My neighborhood has a great small park for all the families. The park is designed for the toddler age group with safe swings, slides, climbing, and hanging things. A single tennis court is on one side, and a large playing field is on the other. The field is used for a variety of sports or for kite flying on windy days when sports practice is finished.
I am struck by the number of preschoolers who gather on the field to begin learning soccer when the ball is about a third of their size. No wonder this country is addicted to sports. We start the interest and attachment at an incredibly early age. We are either playing or watching. Talk to any parent, and they will tell you they spend most of their time in the car taking their children to various practices, meets, games, and tournaments. This sports industry is big time. If you thought the NFL was a powerhouse of money, think of the millions of families delivering their precious children to sports training, sports practice, sports games, meets, and tournaments. Parents spend precious time delivering, watching, and cheering on their offspring. Perhaps this will shock you, or maybe not. The youth sports industry is a $30-to-$40-billion enterprise annually. Yes, I said BILLION! Compare that to the NFL.
The NFL teams together generate more than $20 billion a year. Professional basketball comes in at around $12 billion. Women’s sports combined have hit $1 billion lately. These are figures that are hard to imagine. The truth is that they are also continuing to increase each year. As a country, we are increasingly interested in and even addicted to sports. The professional sports industry pales in comparison to the youth sports industry. What are we doing?
What happened to running out your back door and meeting up with the other kids in the neighborhood to make up games, dig for worms, wade in the creek, race our bikes, play chalk games on the sidewalk, or just bum around? Our tastes have moved from the more casual, creative, or even intellectual to the more carnal and brain-damaging. Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) has become common in both male and female athletes. Participants in competitive sports seem to be guaranteed an eventual future with some degree of brain damage. A Boston University study of former NFL players examined 376 volunteers and found CTE in 345! If we had a drug on the market that caused this kind of damage, we would remove it immediately. This kind of damage is not sustainable. We have not changed from the time of the gladiators.
We still have a class of gladiators. We pay them a ton rather than imprisoning them. We are not likely to make any changes. In the future, perhaps robots will compete so that humans will be saved from these damaging injuries. I remember seeing a TV program where robots were teaching themselves to play soccer! If they can do that, football and basketball cannot be far behind. Will we be cheering for our favorite robot team? Probably. We are flexible, and we love to compete or watch others compete. We pay others to compete for us so we can eat nachos and watch from the stands or our favorite couch.
Want to explore the health and cultural impact of youth sports? Visit the National Youth Sports Strategy, read Julie Stamm’s The Brain on Youth Sports, and review the International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity’s meta-analysis on youth sport outcomes.
If you’re reflecting on sports culture, parenting, or brain health, therapy can help. Learn more about individual therapy in Maryland and DC or explore therapeutic approaches that support emotional insight and family wellness.
By Dr. Gloria K Vanderhorst
