> My oldest plays baseball, he started in kindergarten, and has played all the way to high school now. He loves the game, but we also made sure it was a game, not a job. All kids in his class who could afford it were on travel teams, starting in first grade. All but three have private coaches for whatever position they specialize in. . . starting in first grade. The parents sponsored tournaments. The parents made sure their travel team attended tournaments that college scouts or colleges sponsored. Starting in first grade. The kids on his school team (town population of around 1000, school k-12 enrollment is around 400) have literally played or practiced baseball every weekend, barring some holiday weekends, since they were 5 years old. That is not an exaggeration, it is a statement of fact.
This is one thing I've noticed about kids' sports, too, now that I have (youngish) kids and I'm trying to find sports for them. What used to be the low-end leagues—which were a bit serious, but not too much—seem to mostly be gone, with a new ultra-casual tier that didn't exist before replacing it, and then... nothing, until you're looking at really serious leagues with lots of travel and a huge time-commitment ([EDIT] yes, even for like 1st-graders).
All I can figure is parents' preferences changed—more of the half-serious players are pushed into the very-serious leagues now, for whatever reason, and the kinds of kids/parents who were always kinda unreliable and didn't seem to really have their hearts in it in the old-style somewhat-serious leagues are happier with the more-casual, even-lower-time-commitment replacement, leaving insufficient demand for what used to be just standard youth sports leagues.
Parks & rec funding has also cratered so the "little league" that you think of as a way of putting together local kids of all abilities to play a sport is less common that it used to be. The privatized equivalents are usually more competitive or religiously focused or both
Oh man—is that part of it? Now that you mention it, all the leagues I used to play on were either city-run leagues or YMCA (which seems to have shifted toward the very-casual end, too, but maybe that's just our local ones) I think.
This is one thing I've noticed about kids' sports, too, now that I have (youngish) kids and I'm trying to find sports for them. What used to be the low-end leagues—which were a bit serious, but not too much—seem to mostly be gone, with a new ultra-casual tier that didn't exist before replacing it, and then... nothing, until you're looking at really serious leagues with lots of travel and a huge time-commitment ([EDIT] yes, even for like 1st-graders).
All I can figure is parents' preferences changed—more of the half-serious players are pushed into the very-serious leagues now, for whatever reason, and the kinds of kids/parents who were always kinda unreliable and didn't seem to really have their hearts in it in the old-style somewhat-serious leagues are happier with the more-casual, even-lower-time-commitment replacement, leaving insufficient demand for what used to be just standard youth sports leagues.