As youth sports booms, churches compete for American families' Sundays

America's youth sports boom is quietly rewriting Sunday mornings, turning the family calendar into a competition between the pews and the playing fields. Why it matters: For generations, churches helped organize American family life around a shared weekly ritual. Youth sports are increasingly filling that role on Sundays — reshaping what families treat as sacred time. The U.S. has undergone one of its fastest religious shifts in modern history, marked by a rapid increase in the religiously unaffiliated and in church closures. Youth sports are one of the less visible forces driving that broader cultural change. As it's boomed into a multi-billion-dollar industry, more games are moving to Sundays, something less common a generation ago. "The idea of missing church for sports is just assumed," Linda Flanagan, author of "Take Back the Game: How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports — and Why It Matters," tells Axios. "It's just not even a consideration anymore." By the numbers: Among parents of children ages 5-17, Sunday religious participation fell from 26.8% in 2003-07 to 16.7% in 2021-24, an Axios analysis of American Time Use Survey data found. Meanwhile, youth sports participation climbed to 58% in 2024, up from 53.8% in 2022 and marking a third consecutive annual increase, according to the Aspen Institute's Project Play. Another measure found 65% tried a sport at least once — the highest share in Sports & Fitness Industry Association data dating to at least 2012, the Aspen Institute's Project Play found. State of play: The youth-sports industrial complex is rapidly commercializing, fueled by private equity, massive tournament complexes and the normalization of out-of-state travel teams. Parents are increasingly treating sports not just as recreation, but as a primary identity and community anchor. How it works: Youth sports often start in local rec leagues, then move into club and travel teams that play weekend tournaments across a wider region. Across basketball, baseball, softball, volleyball and soccer, many weekend tournaments use Saturday for pool or preliminary play and Sunday for elimination rounds and championships. That fuels cities' and towns' investments in sports complexes built to draw traveling families and their hotel and restaurant spending. Zoom in: The average sports parent spends 3 hours, 23 minutes every day their child has a practice or game, including driving, attending activities, washing uniforms, preparing meals and communicating with coaches. Families are spending heavily, too: The average sports family spent an average of $1,016 on a child's primary sport in 2024, up 46% from 2019, Aspen found. What they're saying: Tim Morey, lead pastor at Life Covenant Church in Torrance, Calif., tells Axios that sports don't necessarily sever families from church, but they make attendance "more spotty" at times. "If we inadvertently teach our kids that sports (are) more important than weekly worship, then everything is more important than weekly worship." Yes, but: Religious institutions are attempting to adapt rather than surrender. Morey said some families "divide and conquer," sending one parent to church and the other to the field. Others have kids attend the first 10 minutes of service in their sports uniforms or stream services live from team hotels. Between the lines: Youth sports can create the same sense of community that mirrors what church did — to a point, Flanagan said. Parents form tight bonds because they spend so much time together, but competition for positions and playing time can also strain those relationships, Flanagan said. The bottom line: For generations, Sunday was about getting the family closer to heaven. For many families today, Sunday can also be about getting a daughter closer to UCLA's softball team.

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