Since the dawn of time, change has been an integral and necessary part of the human experience. To steal a few old sayings, times change; people change; everything must change; everything must meet its end. All of these have held true in the sporting world except for the final statement. While the demographics of sports have changed rapidly over the past century, their popularity has never faltered. Sports have remained the common denominator in most male friendships, but could these sports that we love so dearly be slowly dying out from the roots in youth involvement? This is the question I seek to answer.

Each of the four major American sports- baseball, football, basketball and hockey- has its own audience, and we, being the judgmental and stereotyping society that we are, associate specific groups of people with each sport. Stop me if you’ve heard a statement that’s new to you.

• “Baseball is only for rich white kids. I can’t afford all of that equipment, let alone deal with all the kids on the team.”
• “I don’t watch hockey; I’m American. Here, the ice melts, so I’ll leave that to the Canadians.”
• “Sorry, but I’m too smart to play football. I’d like to be able to think when I’m in my 40’s.”
• “Basketball? No. I’m too white for that. Go ask Ty’quarius and Jermichael, I’m sure they play.”

Calling people racist, dumb or, worst of all, Canadian is not what was intended at the advent of sports, but that is what they have come to. Since 1986, black involvement in baseball has dropped from 19 percent to 8.3 percent in 2014. What has caused this screeching halt in black involvement? No one can be sure. Could it be the increasingly convoluted regulations, which is creating a more suffocating and less fun playing environment for players of all races? Could it be the perceived slower pace of play, which, again, is becoming less and less appealing for all involved? Or, probably the most likely, is it the lack of accessibility to the game?

Let me expand upon that point. According to the American Psychological Association, “African American children are three times more likely to live in poverty than Caucasian children,” and “American Indian/Alaska Native, Hispanic, Pacific Islander, and Native Hawaiian families are more likely than Caucasian and Asian families to live in poverty.”

I’m not just running around making wild stereotypes based on my predominantly Caucasian upbringing. There is a clear disconnect in the income and lifestyles of majority and minority races, and this is what is causing the disconnect in athletic involvement, specifically in sports (like baseball, cricket, etc.) that generally require more money to be spent on equipment, training and the like.
According to Kids Play USA Foundation, the cost of youth sports leagues can range anywhere from $50 to upwards of $1,000, with the average cost being about $671 per year. This is the unsolvable problem.

How can we lower the cost of youth sports in our capitalist society? The answer is simple: We can’t. There is almost nothing that we can do to rectify this problem, and it threatens not only the bank accounts of parents all across the country, but also the involvement of children in these programs that serve as a gateway to the big leagues. This is why more and more players are coming from overseas. This is why minority participation in youth sports leagues has dropped. This is baseball has been all but soullessly replaced as America’s Pastime. Sports are simply becoming too outrageously expensive and the programs intended to give kids the best sporting outlets, unattainable. It’s no wonder that youth crime and drug rates have gone up, as a life of sports is becoming one of the most expensive ventures in this country, and it’s giving kids nowhere else to turn.