Most popular sport with young kids

We signed our young kids up for soccer because it is an accessible sport (not much equipment or special fields required) and it is one you can get pretty good at no matter your eventual size and shape.
I think that explains a lot of its youth popularity. Add to that the multi-cultural nature of DC and its popularity is even more obvious.

At the same time, youth football participation is on the decline, in part because of head injury concerns. And I think many kids raised on the pace of video games find baseball a bit slow.

Soccer is the 2nd most played sport in the U.S. for youth -- behind basketball. Estimates of course, but the numbers are somewhere between 2.0 and 2.4 million kids/yound adults playing soccer each year. That is so high, because young kids play it as their first team sport, and girls/women play it into adulthood.

Football is still the number 1 overall high school sport for boys. Overall, the numbers would go -- Track and field, football, and then soccer. Football is about 1,000,000 in high school, but that is really just boys. Soccer is about 800,000 for boys and girls.

Anonymous wrote:At least in the case for boys, soccer is a 2-3rd tier sport in this country. And I say this as a parent of boys who play soccer. They like it but it’s not what they follow or talk about. Basketball and football are top of mind. It doesn’t mean soccer isn’t a great sport, and in the rest of the world it’s clearly #1. But the culture here is a long long way from putting soccer in the first tier. But it could happen one day. Basketball didn’t used to be so popular and baseball was.

I think what this misses is that U.S. is a diverse country and there is a large soccer first population (tens of millions) of recent Latin American, African, and European immigrants. There are also a good number of multi-generation Americans whose favorite sport is soccer - played competitively when younger, just grew to like the sport etc.. U.S. is not a uniform place where you can just say soccer is 3rd or 4th most popular sport so it is 3rd or 4th in every boy's mind.

My kids attend a N Arlington elementary school and soccer isn’t played that much. The Principal did outlaw it and balls for awhile citing too many injuries.

But, basketball has by far always been the predominant sport at recess—even for the travel soccer kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Wikipedia, soccer is no. 1 most played sport by high school boys in the Untied States and no. 3 team sport for high school girls.

Are you suggesting soccer is more popular than football, basketball, or even baseball?

Pre teen, yes. After that, no.

Go into any elementary school and see what the kids are doing at recess, which jerseys and sneakers they are wearing, what are the conversations topics in the cafeteria. Even if their parents are signing them up to play soccer at that age most of those kids know Tom Brady and Lebron James. A handful might know or talk about Lionel Messi. NFL, NBA, MLB, March madness, college bowl games are just part of the culture.

This is exactly right. N Arlington is a unicorn if kids there have a true (not parent generated) natural preference for soccer.

Parent generated for sure

Lolz. North Arlington Futbol Culture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Wikipedia, soccer is no. 1 most played sport by high school boys in the Untied States and no. 3 team sport for high school girls.

Are you suggesting soccer is more popular than football, basketball, or even baseball?

Pre teen, yes. After that, no.

Go into any elementary school and see what the kids are doing at recess, which jerseys and sneakers they are wearing, what are the conversations topics in the cafeteria. Even if their parents are signing them up to play soccer at that age most of those kids know Tom Brady and Lebron James. A handful might know or talk about Lionel Messi. NFL, NBA, MLB, March madness, college bowl games are just part of the culture.

This is exactly right. N Arlington is a unicorn if kids there have a true (not parent generated) natural preference for soccer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Wikipedia, soccer is no. 1 most played sport by high school boys in the Untied States and no. 3 team sport for high school girls.

Are you suggesting soccer is more popular than football, basketball, or even baseball?

Pre teen, yes. After that, no.

Go into any elementary school and see what the kids are doing at recess, which jerseys and sneakers they are wearing, what are the conversations topics in the cafeteria. Even if their parents are signing them up to play soccer at that age most of those kids know Tom Brady and Lebron James. A handful might know or talk about Lionel Messi. NFL, NBA, MLB, March madness, college bowl games are just part of the culture.

Not in north Arlington.

Not sure a good thing...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:According to Wikipedia, soccer is no. 1 most played sport by high school boys in the Untied States and no. 3 team sport for high school girls.

Are you suggesting soccer is more popular than football, basketball, or even baseball?

Pre teen, yes. After that, no.

Go into any elementary school and see what the kids are doing at recess, which jerseys and sneakers they are wearing, what are the conversations topics in the cafeteria. Even if their parents are signing them up to play soccer at that age most of those kids know Tom Brady and Lebron James. A handful might know or talk about Lionel Messi. NFL, NBA, MLB, March madness, college bowl games are just part of the culture.

Not in north Arlington.

Not just Northern Arlington. Parkview, Manassas Park and Charles city cancelled their American football varsity season due to lack of enrollment. The demographics have chanced and also parents are becoming more concerned with concussions and other health issue related to football.

Or Sterling, Franconia, or Herndon. Anyhow, we should end this troll, honey pot topic.