News

This section features brief news announcements about YSCN and other sports-based youth development programs with links to more complete information. SBYD NewsBrief, the free e-newsletter of the Youth Sports Collaborative Network, contains these and other timely news announcements. To receive SBYD NewsBrief, sign up now

May 23, 2022: YSCN released its 2022 Research Report: State of SBYD Programs After First 18 Months of COVID. While programs had increased its numbers of youth registrations by September 2021, they still fell short by 52% of its March 2020 pre-COVID numbers. Read Highlights

May 2022: The New York Office of Children and Family Services issues its Memorandum of Information to its 58 local Youth Development Bureaus that will disseminate the grants to its local youth sports bureaus. of the $1 million funds to be distribute to the local youth bureaus, NYC bureau will receive the most -- $299,047. Read the Memorandu

March 25, 2022: YSCN Executive Director, Rob Smith, convened a panel at the 2022 Urban Soccer Symposium on defining and describing sports-based youth development that featured a report on US SBYD written by consulting firm 8RES and joined by Philadelphia Youth Sports Collaborative, Soccer Without Borders, and Positive Coaching Alliance. For More info contact [email protected].

January 25, 2022: YSCN in collaboration with Project Play WNY and Laureus Sport for Good Foundation NYC sent a letter advising the state agency, Office of Children and Family Services, on how to structure its youth sports grants program created by the passage of mobile sports betting the previous year. Read the Letter

November 22, 2021: YSCN launches its second national survey of SBYD nonprofits to measure the impact of COVID on SBYD programs and operations after 18 months.

April 9, 2021: New York State approved mobile sports betting and in doing so included allocating betting tax revenue to fund annual grants for NY nonprofits that provide "sports programs for underserved youth under the age of eighteen." Read Details

March 18, 2021: Youth Today covered YSCN's national survey results. YSCN's executive director told Youth Today SBYD programs should be part of the educational process when kids return to school. Read Survey: Pandemic Slashed Sport Low-Income Youth.

February 10, 2021: YSCN publicly announces its 2020 national survey of 82 sports-based youth development (SBYD) nonprofits from 32 U.S. cities.  The survey was conducted using the UpMetrics impact analytics platform. Read the news release to learn about some of the key findings. Info on Other YSCN research

FEBRUARY 12 & JUNE 4, 2020: YSCN's executive director testified in February and then again in June for a virtual hearing due to COVID restrictions before the DC Council's Committee on Education and Committee of the Whole. Both testimonies were based on a survey in February 2019 of DC based sports-based youth development nonprofits. February Testimony and June Testimony

JULY 2019: YSCN submitted comments on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services draft National Youth Sports Strategy. YSCN appreciated the report mentioning sports-based youth development (SBYD) as "a holistic approach to engage youth and promote positive youth development," YSCN comments stated the draft was lacking in detail on the benefits of SBYD and then went on to describe those benefits.  Read Comments

APRIL 2019: YSCN submitted comments to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers by supporting ASAE's opposition to ICANN's proposal to remove the maximum price caps of 10% per year on the .org top-level domain (TLD).  YSCN's comments added the importance of a web site and the site's URL to provide essential low-cost communications. Approximately 3000 comments have submitted and nearly all in opposition to ICANN's proposal to remove any annual price cap. 

MARCH 2019: YSCN organized a session at the Urban Soccer Symposium organized by the U.S. Soccer foundation. The session, Different Sports, Same Challenges: Growing a SBYD Program, featured a panel of executive directors and CEOs  of different sports-based youth development nonprofits. Panel discussed how to grow SBYD nonprofits based on their experiences. Session Summary

FEBRUARY 2019: The U.S. Supreme Court decision in May 2018 to permit states to legalize sports betting is expected to result in most states legalizing betting and taxing the resulting new revenue over the next few years. YSCN published a paper on why states should allocate such new taxation to youth sports and in particular youth sports programs for low income children. A second paper that identifies the benefits to the state of Maryland for allocating betting funds for youth sports is available by contacting [email protected].

AUGUST 2018: “It never really saved me from a lifestyle that might lead to trouble; it made me so I didn’t need to be saved from that lifestyle,” 17 year old Xavier Boone of Washington, DC explained about the Washington Tennis & Education Foundation (WTEF) program. WTEF started DC’s Citi’s Open Professional Tournament 50 years ago and applies a portion of the proceeds to tennis and educational programs for underserved children in DC like Xavier who has been in the program since 5th grade. The after school program dedicates 90 minutes to homework and then 90 minutes to tennis.  The tournament and WTEF program was a featured Washington Post sports article.

MAY 2018:  Project Play released its state of play for kids and sports in East Harlem, New York City. Report includes a survey of more than 1500 local youth and analyzes the challenges E. Harlem youth face in accessing quality sport opportunities. Only 24% or males and 15% of females from E. Harlem met the Center for Disease Controls recommended 60 minutes of daily physical activity vs nationwide statistics of 36% male and 17% female. Click here to download the report for free.

MARCH 2018: Rob Smith, YSCN's executive director, attended and presented at the March Urban Soccer Symposium's Networking Poster Session new soccer specific data from its 2017 SBYD survey and research report. Here are the highlights:
  • Soccer represented 58% of the 64 programs that took the survey, Soccer was the #1 sport offered,
  • Of the 58%, 46% only offered soccer, while 54% also offered other sports,
  • Soccer only programs increased the number of children served by 31% in 2016, while the average increase for all programs surveyed was 26%,
  • Age Groups Served (Soccer Only vs All Surveyed Programs): 2 to 4 - 18% vs 6%, 5 to11 - 100% vs 84%, 12 to 14 - 94% vs 83%, and 15 to 19 - 71% vs 63%,

JANUARY 2018: The National Park and Recreation Association made the YSCN report, State of Sports-Based Youth Development in the U.S., its lead story in its RecReport newsletter written for Recreation, Sports and Fitness Facility Managers. RecReport has 50,000 subscribers. 

DECEMBER 2017: In its first national survey of U.S. nonprofits providing sports-based youth development (SBYD) programs for low-income children, the Youth Sports Collaborative Network (YSCN) found the number of children in these programs grew by 26% in 2016. Of the 64 programs that volunteered to take the survey, 72% saw growth in the number of children in their programs from 2015 to 2016. 

The survey revealed that these programs provided 26 different types of sport and fitness activities, with individual programs serving from as few as 12 to as many as 20,000 children. The top 5 sports being provided are in order: soccer, basketball, running, lacrosse and volleyball. Further, 59% of the participating programs offered one sport, while 41% offered multiple sports.

Contact [email protected] to learn about the report.