A rapid rise of private club and travel teams in youth sports

Study finds parental education key factor in who participates now

Ohio State University

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChat
WhatsAppEmail

COLUMBUS, Ohio – A new study provides evidence of the explosive growth of private club and travel teams in youth sports over the past 60 years.

 

Researchers found that kids who were born in the 1990s were about three times as likely to participate in private club and travel sports as those who were born in the 1950s. Findings were based on adults’ retrospective reports of their experiences while growing up.

 

About 4% of surveyed adults who were born in the 50s said they participated in club or travel teams, compared to 13% of those born in the 90s.

 

The findings also showed that particularly kids with highly educated parents but also those from high social class backgrounds were more likely to participate in club and travel teams in recent generations than they were earlier.

 

“The experience of playing sports is a lot different for kids growing up today compared to those growing up in previous generations, with the shift from school-based and community-based sports to private club sports,” said Chris Knoester, lead author of the study and professor of sociology at The Ohio State University.

 

“The result is that it is much more expensive to play youth sports today, and it requires extraordinary commitments from both kids and their parents.”

 

Knoester conducted the study with Chris Bjork, professor of education at Vassar College.  Their research was published recently in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues.

 

The growth in club and travel sports represents a change in how many parents view the purpose of youth sports, Bjork said.

 

“For a lot of parents, there’s been a shift from sports as a way to have fun and get exercise to using sports as a way to position their kids for future success in college and beyond,” Bjork said.

 

The study used survey data on 3,938 adults who participated in the National Sports and Society Survey (NSASS), sponsored by Ohio State’s Sports and Society Initiative. Those surveyed volunteered to participate through the American Population Panel, run by Ohio State’s Center for Human Resource Research. Participants, who came from all 50 states, answered the survey online between the fall of 2018 and spring of 2019.

 

Respondents answered questions about playing a sport or sports regularly, playing an organized sport and playing sports at various levels between the ages of 6 and 18. They were asked specifically if they played on any private club or travel teams.  They were also asked if they played in a competitive league for elite teen athletes in their main sport.

 

On average, 11% of the adults said they had ever played on private club or travel teams.  About 8% played in leagues for elite teen athletes. As in the private club and travel teams, the proportion of people who played in elite leagues generally increased over the decades covered by the study.

 

Family and community sports cultures appeared to have had a major impact on participation. Adults in the study who said their parents were big sports fans and athletes themselves were markedly more likely to take part in club and travel sports, as were those who lived in sports-oriented communities.

 

But the findings showed that parents’ socioeconomic status became increasingly important over the generations in predicting who would play travel and club sports.

 

“We essentially find evidence of private club or travel sports participation rates for children with a college-educated parent that are double those without a parent with some college, in the youngest generation of respondents,” the researchers wrote.

 

For example, for kids born in the 1990s, those who had a college-educated parent had a 16% probability of participating in a club or travel team, compared to just a 6% probability for those with no college-educated parents.

 

Similar results were found for teens’ participation in teams for elite players.

 

The researchers noted that for those born in the 1950s, there was essentially no difference in participation rates that were tied to parents’ education levels.

 

“It appears that opportunities are steadily declining for less educated families that don’t have the knowledge or the money to invest in their kids’ sports careers,” said Bjork, who is co-author of the book “More Than Just a Game: How the Youth Sports Industry Is Changing the Way We Parent and What to Do About It.”

 

Recent statistics back this up, Knoester added.  Project Play found that the average cost for a child to play their primary sport has increased by nearly 50% over the five years between 2019 and 2024. Parents now spend over $40 billion on youth sports a year.

 

“Our results reflect the fact that youth sports is a growing industry and it is continually creating more services that they are selling to parents,” Knoester said.

 

One implication of these findings is that it often takes more than just talent for young people to succeed in sports today, Bjork said.

“It is a more complicated picture with family income and education, family and community culture, all of this affecting the opportunities provided to young athletes, regardless of their talent,” Bjork said.

 

The current landscape in youth sports makes it difficult for many families who want to support their children’s sports dreams, Knoester added.

 

“Embracing private club and travel sports oftentimes brings overwhelming costs and a lot of stress when it comes to travel, organizational and family commitments,” Knoester said.

 

“And there is no indication that this trend is slowing down.”

---

Journal

Journal of Sport and Social Issues

DOI

10.1177/01937235251377472 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Subject of Research

People

Article Title

The Rise of Private Club and Travel Teams in the U.S.: Generational Changes in Youth Sports Participation and Associations with Socioeconomic Statuses and Family and Community Sport Cultures

Article Publication Date

17-Sep-2025

 

New study reveals subway station fungal communities

American Society for Microbiology

MessageWhatsAppEmail

Key Points:

• Microbiologists have previously studied the bacterial species found in subway stations, but fungi have often been overlooked.
• An international team of researchers collected monthly samples from subway stations in Beijing and found high fungal diversity, mostly non-pathogenic. Some opportunistic pathogens were also detected.
• Fungal communities were observed to vary significantly by season and station types.
• The work could guide better strategies for air quality control in urban transit systems.

Washington, D.C. — Subways don’t just bring people together. They’re also a hub of microbial activity, including fungi. Over the course of a year, an international team of researchers collected air samples from 15 stations in the Beijing subway network, one of the largest in the world, and cataloged the fungal species they found.

This week in Microbiology Spectrum, they report their findings. Their analyses turned up a highly diverse community—spanning 270 genera—that varied not only by season but also by whether a station was an interchange connecting lines, a suburban station or some other type.

The bacterial microbiome of the subway environment has been well documented and analyzed in previous studies looking at subway systems, including those of Hong Kong, New York City and Boston, said Jun-min Liang, Ph.D., at the Institute of Microbiology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, who led the study. Fungal communities in transit hubs, however, have received less attention until now.

With the new study, Liang said, “we convert from a bacterial-centric perspective to a more comprehensive ‘2-kingdom’ understanding of transit micro-ecology.” This broader view of subway microbial communities, she said, could enhance public health initiatives—such as improved pathogen detection. This deeper understanding could also support efforts to improve air quality, because fungi, compared to bacteria, are more easily dispersed through air currents.

The research group had previously studied fungal diversity, particularly plant pathogens, in agricultural settings where grains, soils and seeds interact with microorganisms. “Subways represent a unique extreme,” noted Liang. “They constitute an almost enclosed, human-made biome built of steel and concrete.” By comparing these distinct environments, researchers can test whether the ecological patterns observed in agricultural systems also hold true in subterranean transit ecosystems.

From October 2021 to September 2022, the researchers collected samples every month from air filters at 15 stations in the Beijing subway network. They sterilized the surfaces with ethanol afterward to prepare a clean surface for the next month’s collection. The sites included railway and airport stations, urban hub stations (where passengers can change from one line to another), and outlying suburban stations in remote residential areas.

The researchers found that stations, often well protected tens of meters underground, harbored a core set of fungal taxa that present in most samples. Beyond those core taxa, analyses of sequencing data revealed notable variations in dominant families and genera across seasons and station types. Summer samples showed lower diversity than other seasons.  At the genus level, Fusarium and Alternaria were dominant in spring and summer, whereas Aspergillus, Chaetomium, Cladosporium and Meyerozyma prevailed during autumn and winter.

“The air circulating in underground environments contains a predictable, yet seasonally dynamic, community of fungi,” Liang said. This includes several opportunistic fungal pathogens that can cause human diseases. “Ventilation and particular matter controls strategies should therefore explicitly incorporate fungi, not just bacteria or chemical pollutants.”

In future studies, the researchers hope to expand their findings by confirming virulence genes, screening for anti-fungal resistance and identifying which airborne fungi are most active during rush hours. They also plan to investigate whether the same seasonal and station-related patterns occur in other cities, such as Shanghai, Guangzhou and Singapore. “Addressing these will move us from description characterization to predictive management of subway mycobiomes,” Liang said.

###

The American Society for Microbiology is one of the largest professional societies dedicated to the life sciences and is composed of over 37,000 scientists and health practitioners. ASM's mission is to promote and advance the microbial sciences.

ASM advances the microbial sciences through conferences, publications, certifications, educational opportunities and advocacy efforts. It enhances laboratory capacity around the globe through training and resources. It provides a network for scientists in academia, industry and clinical settings. Additionally, ASM promotes a deeper understanding of the microbial sciences to all audiences.

---

Journal

Microbiology Spectrum

 

FAU awarded US EPA grant to integrate genetics in Florida bay sponge restoration

Florida Atlantic University

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

Megan Russell, a Ph.D. student at FAU holds a Spongia graminea, one of the bath sponges known as the “glove sponge” by fishermen.

view more 

Credit: Christopher Spagnolia, Florida Atlantic University

Andia Chaves-Fonnegra, Ph.D., an associate professor of biology at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Harriet L. Wilkes Honors College, has been awarded a five-year, $720,446 grant from the United States EPA to support a pioneering project aimed at restoring sponge populations in Florida Bay through a genetics-based approach.

Florida Bay is a shallow body of water between the southern tip of mainland Florida and the Florida Keys. It is part of Everglades National Park, which supports important marine life like sponges, fish and spiny lobster.

The project marks the first genetic assessment of sponge restoration efforts in the region and seeks to build long-term ecological resilience in one of the nation’s most vulnerable marine environments.

Sponges are a vital component of benthic, hard-bottom communities throughout Florida Bay and the Florida reef tract. These organisms perform essential ecological functions – filtering vast volumes of water, cycling nutrients such as nitrogen, stabilizing seafloor sediments, and providing habitat for a variety of marine species.

Among the most economically important is the spiny lobster, which depends on sponge-rich environments as nursery grounds. Although we may not think of sponges as important or charismatic animals, they support a multi-million-dollar lobster fishery in South Florida. In addition, two of the sponge species in the study are commercial bath sponges, which, on their own, also supported the highly successful sponge fishery industry before the introduction of plastic sponges and the collapse of their populations. The degradation of sponge communities has had cascading impacts on both the sponge and lobster fisheries, as well as on the broader ecosystem services that sponges provide. 

Over the past decade, significant progress has been made in restoring sponge populations through transplantation programs that use asexual cuttings. These efforts, spearheaded by a coalition of scientists, state agencies, and community partners, have helped to reestablish sponge cover in areas heavily impacted by disease, phytoplankton blooms, and cold-water events. However, because these transplants are clonal, they lack genetic diversity, limiting the resilience of restored populations to environmental stressors and reducing their capacity to adapt to shifts in weather patterns.

Chaves-Fonnegra’s research will address this critical limitation by integrating population genetics into restoration strategies. Her team will analyze the genetic structure and diversity of four key sponge species currently used in Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) restoration programs: Spongia Barbara – a type of bath sponge known for its soft textures, Spongia graminea – referred to as the grass sponge, Ircinia campana – known as the vase sponge because of its shape, and Spheciospongia vesparium – commonly called the loggerhead sponge.

Using advanced tools such as microsatellites and single nucleotide polymorphisms, the researchers will evaluate genetic diversity, inbreeding levels, clonality, and reproductive success in both nursery and outplant sites. This innovative project will also examine the degree to which restored sponges are reproducing sexually with wild populations and whether their offspring are genetically diverse enough to withstand the pressures of a warming ocean.

By monitoring larval recruits raised in a land-based nursery at FAU Harbor Branch and transplanting them into restoration sites, the team aims to enhance the genetic variation of sponge communities. Coupled with GIS mapping, these findings will help guide where and how transplants are placed to maximize ecological benefits.

“Receiving this EPA grant is incredibly significant because it means that we can move from simply rebuilding sponge numbers to restoring sponge populations with the genetic strength to withstand a shifting climate, disease, and other growing threats,” said Chaves-Fonnegra, principal investigator. “For the region, that means more stable fisheries, healthier reef ecosystems, clearer waters, and a safeguard for communities and businesses that depend on a thriving Florida Bay. It’s not just science – it’s an investment in resilience, for our ecosystems and for our people.”

Florida’s coral reef ecosystems, which include reefs, hard-bottom habitats, and sponge communities, support more than $1 billion annually in tourism and recreational activities. Reef-related fishing generates more than $150 million in sales each year, and tens of thousands of jobs across the state depend on the health of these marine systems. As Florida’s coastal ecosystems face increasing threats, restoration efforts must evolve to ensure they are both effective and adaptive.

By directly informing FWC’s ongoing restoration practices, this project will have immediate practical applications. It also supports Goal 5 of the EPA’s Strategic Plan, which aims to protect and restore ecosystems and communities from environmental degradation.

Through this work, FAU is helping to shape the future of marine conservation in Florida, integrating science, policy, and innovation to protect one of the state’s most ecologically and economically valuable natural resources.

Andia Chaves-Fonnegra, Ph.D., principal investigator, conducting research in the field.

Credit

Megan Russell, Florida Atlantic University

- FAU -

About Florida Atlantic University:

Florida Atlantic University serves more than 32,000 undergraduate and graduate students across six campuses located along the Southeast Florida coast. It is one of only 21 institutions in the country designated by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education as an “R1: Very High Research Spending and Doctorate Production” university and an “Opportunity College and University” for providing greater access to higher education as well as higher earnings for students after graduation. In 2025, Florida Atlantic was nationally recognized as a Top 25 Best-In-Class College and as “one of the country’s most effective engines of upward mobility” by Washington Monthly magazine. Increasingly a first-choice university for students in both Florida and across the nation, Florida Atlantic welcomed its most academically competitive incoming class in the university’s history in Fall 2025. For more information, visit www.fau.edu.

Large study from University Hospitals Connor Whole Health finds certain music therapy interventions may be more beneficial for pain

New study published in The Journal of Pain

University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center

Facebook

XLinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

 

image: 

UH Cleveland Medical Center

view more 

Credit: University Hospitals

CLEVELAND – A new study from University Hospitals Connor Whole Health found that music therapy interventions involving singing, active instrument play, and relaxation/imagery may be more effective for reducing pain intensity than receptive interventions only involving live or recorded music listening among hospitalized patients with moderate-to-severe pain. The findings from this study were recently published in The Journal of Pain.

Within every hospitalization, most patients will experience elevated acute pain at some point during their stay. If this pain is not well-managed, patients may experience significant psychological distress and decreased functioning following hospital discharge. Given the risk of addiction and other adverse events associated with opioid pain medications, many health systems are turning toward evidence-based nonpharmacologic approaches such as music therapy to help optimize pain management.

“Our team of licensed professional music and art therapists are embedded throughout the hospital system, collaborating with physicians, nurses, and other allied health professionals to help manage patients’ symptoms and enhance psychosocial support,” said Seneca Block, PhD, LPMT, MT-BC, the Lauren Rich Fine Endowed Director for Expressive Therapies with UH Connor Whole Health. Block leads the largest hospital-based expressive therapies programs in the country, with 12 music therapists, 5 art therapists, and several interns embedded throughout 10 medical centers in the UH health system.

While several studies support music therapy’s benefits for reducing acute pain, few have examined which interventions are most effective or which patients are more likely to respond. To fill this gap in research, Samuel Rodgers-Melnick, PhD, MPH, LPMT, MT-BC, principal investigator and lead author of the study, analyzed data from more than 2,000 music therapy sessions among patients with moderate-to-severe pain to examine which sociodemographic, clinical, and intervention characteristics are associated with clinically significant reductions in pain intensity (0-10 numeric rating scale reduction ≥2 units) within a single music therapy session. This work builds upon Rodgers-Melnick’s prior retrospective studies of electronic health record data supported by the Kulas Foundation, a leading private foundation in Cleveland, Ohio dedicated to advancing scientific research in music therapy.

Rodgers-Melnick and the research team compared four distinct categories of music therapy interventions: (1) Receptive only, where the music therapist engaged patients with live or recorded music listening, but the patient did not engage in any active music making, composition, or relaxation/imagery techniques; (2) Recreative, where the patient engaged in some instrument play or singing along with live or recorded music, but no composition techniques; (3) Music-assisted relaxation and imagery where the patient did not engage in instrument play, singing, or composition, but did engage in relaxation/imagery techniques along with live or recorded music; and (4) Compositional/creative, where the patient engaged in some sort of composition (i.e., songwriting, song dedication, music-assisted life review, or song recording).

This investigation required curating the largest dataset of medical music therapy practice ever assembled – a process that involved extracting millions of data points related to patients’ demographics, diagnoses, medications, and health services from the UH electronic health record.

“At UH Connor Whole Health, we believe the real-world data we generate from clinical care can be used to refine our approaches, improve patient outcomes, and help other health systems do the same,” said Kristi Artz, MD, MS, FACLM, CCMS, Vice President of UH Connor Whole Health and Sara H. Connor Chair in Integrative Health.

After accounting for differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics, recreative music therapy interventions were 37 percent more likely, and music-assisted relaxation and imagery interventions were 48 percent more likely, to result in pain intensity reduction ≥2 units than receptive only interventions, respectively. Additionally longer music therapy sessions and those documented with an explicit goal of managing pain were more likely to reduce pain ≥2 units. By contrast, male patients, Medicaid beneficiaries, and patients with sickle cell disease were less likely to report pain reduction ≥2 units within the analysis.

“These findings support the unique role music therapists provide in engaging patients in singing, instrument play, relaxation, breathwork, and imagery within music interventions to manage pain,” said Rodgers-Melnick. “There’s something special happening when we engage patients in the musical process that should inform how music therapists practice, how hospitals implement music therapy services, and how future researchers examine mechanisms of action.”

You can read the article, “Impact of sociodemographic, clinical, and intervention characteristics on pain intensity within a single music therapy session” by clicking here. 

###

 

About University Hospitals / Cleveland, Ohio 
Founded in 1866, University Hospitals serves the needs of patients through an integrated network of 21 hospitals (including five joint ventures), more than 50 health centers and outpatient facilities, and over 200 physician offices in 16 counties throughout northern Ohio. The system’s flagship quaternary care, academic medical center, University Hospitals Cleveland Medical Center, is affiliated with Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine, Northeast Ohio Medical University, Oxford University, the Technion Israel Institute of Technology, and National Taiwan University College of Medicine. The main campus also includes the UH Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital, ranked among the top children’s hospitals in the nation; UH MacDonald Women's Hospital, Ohio's only hospital for women; and UH Seidman Cancer Center, part of the NCI-designated Case Comprehensive Cancer Center. UH is home to some of the most prestigious clinical and research programs in the nation, with more than 3,000 active clinical trials and research studies underway. UH Cleveland Medical Center is perennially among the highest performers in national ranking surveys, including “America’s Best Hospitals” from U.S. News & World Report. UH is also home to 19 Clinical Care Delivery and Research Institutes. UH is one of the largest employers in Northeast Ohio with more than 30,000 employees. Follow UH on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. For more information, visit UHhospitals.org. 

 

Reference: 

 

Rodgers-Melnick SN, Gunzler D, Love TE, Koroukian SM, Beno M, Dusek JA, Rose J. Impact of Sociodemographic, Clinical, and Intervention Characteristics on Pain Intensity within a Single Music Therapy Session. J Pain. 2025:105556. Epub 20250911. doi: 10.1016/j.jpain.2025.105556. PubMed PMID: 40945641.

 

Research reported in this publication was supported by the National Center For Complementary & Integrative Health of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F31AT012592. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.

 

---

Journal

Journal of Pain

 

AGU and AMS invite proposals for the U.S. Climate Collection

Joint initiative will focus on climate assessment research

American Meteorological Society

LinkedInWeChatBlueskyMessageWhatsAppEmail

The American Geophysical Union (AGU), the world’s largest association of Earth and space scientists, and the American Meteorological Society (AMS), the professional society for atmospheric and related sciences and services, invite contribution proposals for a joint special collection of research articles called the “U.S. Climate Collection: Informing Assessment of Risks and Solutions.”  

This collaborative effort, first announced earlier this year in the wake of the dismissal of the Sixth National Climate Assessment (NCA) authors, aims to publish U.S.-focused climate assessment science and research synthesis papers. 

“Synthesis papers and other assessment-focused climate research are the backbone of knowledge for public and private decision-making, from city planners to businesses and insurers,” said AGU President Brandon Jones. “This special collection will give that essential work a dedicated home, ensuring it remains rigorous and accessible for years to come.”  

The U.S. Climate Collection lays the groundwork for future national and subnational assessments of climate risks and solutions in the United States; it also helps maintain critical pathways for collaboration among researchers across disciplines.  

“Climate assessments are essential to understanding how our changing environment affects our economy, our health, and our society, helping us prepare for emerging threats,” said AMS President David J. Stensrud. “Scientific societies are doing our part to make sure that peer-reviewed climate assessment-related research and syntheses continue to be available for the benefit of the U.S. public and the world at large.”  

Submissions are invited across the AGU and AMS journal portfolios. In addition to synthesis articles relevant to national and regional climate assessments, the collection welcomes studies that advance the evidence-based design of future U.S. assessments of climate risks and solutions. 

Collection organizers will conduct an initial screening, which will include determining the most appropriate journal for each submission. Manuscripts that pass rigorous peer review will be published and free to read on AMS and AGU online journal platforms as well as the U.S. Climate Collection website. Authors with demonstrated financial need may qualify for full or partial publication-fee waivers. 

Submissions are now open and will remain open indefinitely. 

Visit the U.S. Climate Collection website for more information: usclimatecollection.org.

---

About the U.S. Climate Collection: Informing Assessment of Risks and Solutions 

The U.S. Climate Collection: Informing Assessment of Risks and Solutions (usclimatecollection.org) is a joint initiative of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) and the American Meteorological Society (AMS) to catalyze assessment-ready climate science for the United States. The open access collection comprises synthesis papers and other assessment-related research across the AGU and AMS family of journals that can inform future national and sub-national assessments.  

About the American Geophysical Union

The American Geophysical Union (www.agu.org) is a global community supporting more than half a million scientists, advocates, and professionals in Earth and space sciences. Through broad and inclusive partnerships, AGU aims to advance discovery and solution science that accelerate knowledge and create solutions that are ethical, unbiased and respectful of communities and their values. Our programs include serving as a scholarly publisher, convening virtual and in-person events and providing career support. We live our values in everything we do, such as our net zero energy renovated building in Washington, D.C. and our Ethics and Equity Center, which fosters a diverse and inclusive geoscience community to ensure responsible conduct. 

About the American Meteorological Society

The American Meteorological Society (www.ametsoc.org) advances the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications, and services for the benefit of society. Founded in 1919, AMS has a membership of around 12,000 professionals, students, and weather enthusiasts. AMS publishes 12 atmospheric and related oceanic and hydrologic science journals; sponsors more than 12 conferences annually; and offers numerous programs and services.