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T here is certainly both good news and bad news for the team sports business when you take a deep dive into the recently-released SFIA 2023 U.S. Trends in Team Sports Report, which tells the story of the team sports world as it heads into 2024. A quick snapshot: 1. e number of team sports played per par- ticipant has declining since 2017. 2. Basketball is the most popular team sport people for players in the following age groups: 6-17, 18-24, 25-44, and 45+. 3. Youth team sports participation (6- to 12-year- olds) inched up 1.1 percent year-over-year in 2022 to 17.8 million and is up 5.3 percent, or 900,000 players, since 2018. 4. e 18- to 24-year-old team sports partici- pants represent a huge sell-in opportunity for team sports brands and retailers. ere are 10.2 million team sports participants in the segment. 5. e percentage of "core" players in the 18-to 24-year-old segment exceeded casual players for the first time since 2019. SFIA's annual study examines participation and market trends in 2022 in team sports and features in-depth data analysis of age-group participation and specific takeaways. is year's report also breaks down data on team sports coaches and training and provides predictions on the future growth of specific sports. e report provides detailed infor- mation on 23 different team sports. Mixed Participation Results According to the SFIA, the number of team sports participants in the U.S. was 70.8 million in 2022, which is the same number as there were in 2019, which reflects the highest annual participation in team sports in the past 10 years. In 2020, the first year of the COVID pandemic, there were 67 million team sports participants. at low figure was driven by the closure of sports facilities and the shutdown of leagues and teams. While the number of team sports par- ticipants has rebounded and has exceeded 70 million, the SFIA study reveals that the number of "core" players has not rebounded, which suggests that while Americans are playing team sports, they are not playing them as much. On the surface, having 70.8 million team sports participants can be viewed as a positive, but there's more to this story than meets the eye. Total team sports participation, which counts an individual twice if he or she plays two different team sports, was 128.9 million occasions in 2022, but remained 3.5 percent, or 4.7 million participants, below the peak year of 2016 when there were 133.6 million occasions of people playing a team sport. Another area of concern is the ratio of THE TEAM SPORTS GAME GOOD AND BAD NEWS Outdoor soccer is the only team sport that had an increase in core participation. 38 • January/February 2024 sportstyle • sportstylemag.com TEAM SFIA finds that participation overall remains strong. By Mike May

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