Linda Flanagan
Linda Flanagan is a freelance journalist, researcher, and former cross-country and track coach whose writing focuses on youth sports, education, and parenting. She is the author of Take Back the Game, a book examining the commercialization and pressures of youth sports.
High-Stakes Team Sports Leave Many Boys Without a Way to Play
A report from the Aspen Institute’s Sports & Society Program and the American Institute for Boys & Men finds that boys’ participation in sports is declining even as youth participation overall has risen. Aspen’s Tom Farrey and AIBM’s Richard Reeves argue that many boys value sports for fun and connection but face high-stakes, narrow routes into play, shaped by cost, coaching and pressure to be good enough. They call for schools and communities to offer more ways to participate without reducing opportunities for girls.
Private Capital’s Youth-Sports Promise Depends on Local Access and Accountability
Private capital can make youth sports more local and accessible only if it is tied to participation, data rights and enforceable standards, according to Jay Adya of Elysian Park Ventures; Katherine Van Dyck of the American Economic Liberties Project argues that the same investment machinery can just as easily produce lock-in and extraction. Their dispute turns on whether league partnerships and better-designed business models can discipline investors, or whether youth sports needs antitrust enforcement and legal accountability to prevent profit-driven systems from capturing families.