"'Kids' sports has seen an explosion of travel-team culture, where rich parents are writing a $3,000 check to get their kids on super teams from two counties, or two states, away,' said Tom Farrey, the executive director of Aspen's Sports & Society program. Expensive travel leagues siphon off talented young athletes from well-off families, leaving behind desiccated local leagues with fewer players, fewer involved parents, and fewer resources. 'When these kids move to the travel team, you pull bodies out of the local town's recreation league, and it sends a message [to those] who didn't get onto that track that they don't really have a future in the sport.' The result is a classist system: the travel-team talents and the local leftovers.
"Unsurprisingly, the leftovers often lose interest."
Derek Thompson at The Atlantic discusses the decline of youth sports.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment