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The final matchup is set: on Sunday, the world’s biggest sporting tournament and multi-cultural experience will wrap up with the FIFA World Cup Final in New Jersey between Spain and Argentina. As a world soccer fanatic, I have been following every moment of the tournament and can’t wait for these final, glorious 90 minutes (or, perhaps, slightly more).
Throughout the tournament there has been another nagging story that goes beyond soccer fandom and connects with anyone who cares about children and opportunity. The United States is hosting this year’s World Cup, but in the US, the path into soccer, and all of youth sports, has become increasingly inaccessible and gated by income. This story has parallels that resonate across education as we balance governmental, nonprofit, and for-profit models to scale opportunity. In many ways, youth soccer in America has lost its way, and it offers a broader warning for education as states are increasingly advancing education marketplaces.
Soccer is supposed to be simple. A ball, a patch of grass or concrete, a few kids, two makeshift goals. Around the world, that simplicity is part of the sport’s genius. It is why the game belongs as much to working-class neighborhoods as to national stadiums. But in the U.S., the youth soccer pathway often looks very different: club fees, tournament fees, travel fees, hotel stays, uniforms, private coaching, camps, showcases, recruiting services, and subscriptions.
And soccer is not alone. Basketball, baseball, volleyball, hockey, lacrosse, cheer, and other sports have all been pulled into the same gravitational field. Youth sports in America has become big business. The question is whether the business is still serving kids.
The rising cost of youth sports is showing up in national data. According to the Aspen Institute’s Project Play, the average U.S. sports family spent $1,016 on a child’s primary sport in 2024. That was a 46% increase since 2019, roughly twice the rate of inflation over the same period. When families counted a child’s other sports, Aspen found another $475 in spending, bringing the average annual sports experience to nearly $1,500 for one child.
Those averages hide a wide spread. Some families reported spending nothing. Others reported spending almost $25,000 on a child’s sports. Aspen also found that households earning $100,000 or more spent $1,471 more per year on a child’s primary sport than households earning under $50,000.
The burden is especially visible in soccer and basketball. Aspen’s youth sports cost data lists average annual costs of $1,188 for soccer and $1,002 for basketball, higher than baseball and tackle football among the major sports it compares. Aspen also notes that soccer, basketball, and baseball all have pay-to-play models that shape access.
Travel is one of the biggest culprits. Across sports, Aspen found that parents spent more annually on travel than on equipment, private lessons, registration fees, or camps. That average includes all children who play sports, not just the subset on travel teams, meaning the actual burden on competitive families can be far higher.
This is where the middle-class trap begins. A family starts with a local team. Then comes the invitation to a higher-level team. Then the regional league. Then the out-of-state tournament. Then private training because everyone else is doing it. Then the showcase because college coaches might be there. Then another season, another roster, another fee.
The language is always aspirational: development, exposure, pathway, elite. The bill is always real.
The most troubling part of this story is not that some families spend a lot of money on sports. Families spend money on all kinds of activities, and sports can be profoundly valuable. Kids build friendships, confidence, resilience, physical health, and identity through teams. The problem is that access to those benefits is increasingly stratified by income.
Project Play cites Sports & Fitness Industry Association data showing that in 2021, only 24% of children ages 6 to 12 from households earning $25,000 or less played sports on a regular basis, compared with 40% of children from households earning $100,000 or more.
As educators, we know that sports are part of how children build social capital. They are where kids meet mentors, learn how to fail, practice discipline, and find belonging. For some students, sports are also a reason to stay engaged in school.
But when the best opportunities are attached to family purchasing power, youth sports start to resemble the rest of the American opportunity market: tutoring, test prep, enrichment camps, college counseling, private lessons. The families with more money can buy more development, more visibility, and more second chances.
Low-income families are often asked to make extraordinary sacrifices for a dream whose odds are long. A parent may pay for a travel team instead of tutoring. A family may skip savings to afford tournament hotels. A student may spend weekends chasing exposure while schoolwork becomes secondary. For some families, the hope of an athletic scholarship becomes not just a dream, but a (risky) financial strategy.
The NCAA estimates that of nearly eight million high school athletes in the United States, only about 560,000 compete at NCAA schools. In boys’ basketball, about 3.6% of high school participants go on to play at any NCAA level, and about 1.1% reach Division I. In boys’ soccer, about 5.9% reach the NCAA level, and about 1.4% reach Division I. The numbers are somewhat higher for girls’ soccer, but still narrow: about 7.9% reach NCAA soccer, and 2.8% reach Division I. The scholarship funnel is even tighter: only 2% of high school athletes are awarded athletic scholarships to compete in college.
While the path to a college scholarship or pro contract has always been slim, even competing for the high school varsity team often requires participation in pay-to-play leagues. Even if a student does not plan to play at a college level, that varsity sport extracurricular can be an important piece of their college application.
The World Cup and the U.S.’s disappointing exit in the round of 16 has sparked a public conversation about this dynamic. The U.S. wants to be a soccer country. We have the fans, the stadiums, the sponsors, the media, the youth participation, and the commercial energy. But we also have a youth development model that filters talent through family income.
Former U.S. men’s national team star Landon Donovan said there was “zero chance” he could have afforded today’s youth soccer system if he were growing up now. Donovan was raised by a single mother and has said his own access depended on someone helping sponsor him.
There are wonderful community programs, school-based initiatives, nonprofits, rec leagues, and volunteer coaches all over the country. The problem is that the competitive pathway — the one many families are told they must enter if their child is “serious” — often runs through private clubs and travel competition.
Once a sport’s development ladder is privatized, the ladder starts to acquire toll booths.
Former USMNT defender and TV commentator Alexi Lalas has spoken out on the issue, to much controversy. He wrote on X that “youth sports is a competitive market with businesses selling a product that obviously customers are willing to pay for. I’d love it if soccer were free to all. But who is going to pay for all this free soccer? So they should be taxpayer-funded government entities or charities?”
Private equity did not invent America’s pay-to-play sports model. The causes are broader: public disinvestment, weak recreational infrastructure, specialization, college admissions anxiety, parental fear of missing out, inflation, and the collapse or weakening of some local volunteer systems.
But private equity is accelerating and consolidating the model.
A 2026 White & Case analysis describes youth sports as a compelling growth opportunity for private equity because the sector is moving from fragmented, community-based operations toward nationally scaled platforms. The firm estimates the U.S. youth sports industry at about $40 billion annually, spanning club teams, travel tournaments, training academies, technology platforms, and purpose-built facilities. It also describes the market as growing 8% to 10% annually, driven by rising household spending, year-round specialization, and parental investment in competitive pathways.
In other words: the things that make parents anxious make the market attractive.
The investor logic is straightforward. Youth sports have recurring demand. Families pay season after season. Parents are emotionally invested customers and therefore have low price-sensitivity. Operators are fragmented. Technology can consolidate payments, scheduling, rosters, rankings, video, ticketing, and communication. Facilities can host tournaments, rent fields, sell concessions, and drive hotel nights. Data can feed recruiting. Streaming can monetize grandparents and out-of-town parents. Uniforms and apparel refresh every season. A child’s season becomes one large revenue funnel.
Some of the biggest names in finance are now connected to pieces of this ecosystem.
KKR acquired Varsity Brands, whose platform supports school and team sports, athletics, and spirit programs and reaches more than eight million athletes and students annually.11
EQT acquired IMG Academy in a deal valuing the sports education company at $1.25 billion; IMG supports more than 100,000 student-athletes across boarding school, camps, online coaching, and college recruiting.
Accel-KKR invested in LeagueApps, a youth sports management platform helping organizers manage clubs, tournaments, leagues, camps, and facilities.
Genstar-backed PlayMetrics and Stack Sports combined to create a larger sports software platform, with PlayMetrics serving more than 2,700 youth sports organizations.
3STEP Sports, backed by Juggernaut Capital Partners, owns and manages youth sports clubs, events, and tournaments, sells apparel, and provides content, data, and analytics for colleges, media outlets, and athletic brands. In 2026, 3STEP described itself as serving nearly two million athlete participants across seven sports in more than 40 states.
A local team may still feel local. The coach may still care deeply. The parents may still volunteer. But the systems around that team — registration, payment, tournaments, facilities, uniforms, video, recruiting, and scheduling — are often part of a much larger commercial machine. Where it’s heading is private equity actually owning the club teams themselves.
No country has a perfect youth sports system. Europe has its own problems with access, facilities, elitism, and professionalization. But many peer countries start from a different premise: youth sport is more connected to community clubs, public facilities, nonprofit structures, and public or quasi-public funding.
In Norway, the national sports model channels 64% of gaming proceeds from the national lottery and sports betting mechanism into the sports ecosystem, roughly $400 million annually for projects. Much of that support goes back into communities for coaches, equipment, and facilities
In Germany, sport is organized through both public sports administration and self-governed clubs and associations. YouthWiki reports that clubs are the backbone of Germany’s sport movement, with about 86,000 sports clubs and 28.7 million members. Project Play notes that the German Olympic Sports Confederation receives hundreds of millions in federal funding and supports community sport through membership fees, lottery revenues, and marketing licenses.
The U.K. government’s Multi-Sport Grassroots Facilities Programme invested £125 million in 2024/25 to support facilities across the country, with an emphasis on deprived areas and underrepresented groups.
America has made a choice, whether intentionally or by neglect. We have allowed youth sports to become a largely privatized marketplace and then acted surprised when the marketplace behaved like a marketplace. Whether it’s through increased school funding for sports, governmental subsidies for families, or a National Youth Sports program akin to the IOC, we have many options to literally level the playing field.
The 1994 World Cup helped grow soccer in America. The 2026 World Cup should do something harder: force America to ask what kind of sports culture it wants. Do we want a system where the next great player or even a recreational player has to be able to afford a club or do we want a system where every child has a real place to play?
In May 2026, Congressional lawmakers introduced the Let Kids Play Act, a bill aimed at banning private equity firms from youth sports and targeting practices such as junk fees and costly lock-in arrangements. Reasonable people can debate whether a ban is the right tool, but at the local, state, and federal level, this is becoming a bigger public policy issue.
The World Cup Final will be spectacular. While the outcome will cement global legacies, the real legacy of the World Cup itself will not be decided under the lights in New Jersey.
It will be decided by whether a child can join a team without her parents taking on debt. It will be decided by whether a talented player from a low-income family is seen early enough to be supported, not priced out. It will be decided by whether we treat youth sports as a luxury product or a public good.
Over the past month-a-half, the world’s game came to America. Now America has to decide whether the game belongs to all of our kids.
Sue Khim is the Co-Founder and CEO of Brilliant, the interactive learning platform that has helped millions of learners build deep understanding in math, science, and computer science. In this episode, she shares how Brilliant’s new AI tutor, Koji, is designed to develop critical thinking rather than simply provide answers.
Why the best AI tutors ask questions instead of giving answers.
How Brilliant applies active learning and game design to STEM education.
The philosophy behind designing AI that builds intelligence rather than dependence.
What personalization should look like in the next generation of AI tutoring.
Why learning should feel like a “climbing wall” instead of an answer machine.
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