Clearly defining the future of youth sports is easier said than done, especially when it could represent different things to different people. “The future” could mean how the structure of certain sports will change, what challenges organizations will be facing as the industry continues to evolve, what is expected to take center stage in training and development, or all of the above and more.
On our quest to build a better picture of the future, we
asked a sampling of youth sports leaders across a variety of organizations about changes they expected to see in their sports. One thing we also asked was if they had any interesting predictions for the sports world as a whole.
Here are some of
their out-of-the-box (and our favorite) predictions, with a little bit of
color commentary from our team:
US Soccer gets rid of the “alphabet soup” of youth leagues and creates clear levels of play for clubs, similar to the way hockey does it.
This model might allow for clearer player pathways and could help keep families from bouncing from club to club looking for the next best experience.
The US Men's National Team will win a top soccer competition.
The question is: which major soccer tournament will it be? Who knows. We’ll keep our fingers crossed, though.
Girls flag football will be a sanctioned sport in all 50 states.
Interest in the sport is rapidly growing already, with youth leagues popping up in many states. In fact, 15 states have already sanctioned it as a varsity sport, with more likely to follow.
Soccer will continue to become a rival sport of football in the US.
We’d all love to see the sport rise in popularity here and continue to grow the next generation of players.
Synchronized skating will make it into the global games.
This would be really cool. We’re all for the addition of new sports in the biggest multi-sport event in the world.
There will be no true amateur sports in five years; youth and high school players could be paid to play.
What if money was used as a recruitment tool so clubs can create superteams? Would this change the world of youth sports entirely?
With yet another professional volleyball league being formed, volleyball will see more primetime media slots.
Having more variety of sports on TV is a great thing, and seeing the addition of some different sports in the evening lineup would be a welcome change in our eyes.
Competitive youth soccer will move to a non-year-round model.
This could be interesting, and a definite shake-up to the competitive soccer landscape, where ongoing training and development is seen as necessary for players to stay at the top of their game.
Women’s sports will overtake men’s sports on TV.
We’re already seeing a rise in interest and fanfare around women’s sports, particularly in basketball. That said, we’re all for more women’s sports hitting our primetime TV screens.
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