Motorsport In Youth Recreation
We love data-backed decision making here and few pieces of data are more valuable than the annual State of Play report from The Aspen Institute.
The Aspen Institute’s Project Play initiative comprises a wide variety of leaders committed to using sport to build healthy communities. Every year, they publish their State of Play report which provides excellent data on trends in youth sports. (Read the whole thing - it’s fascinating.)
They don’t ask about motorsport and fair play to them - the numbers are surely so low they may not even register.
Vision Corsa enters stage left.
There’s room here if we want to fill it. Some takeaways that leapt out to me:
27 percent of youth sports parents believe their child has lost interest in sports.
Community-based sports are returning but are heavily reliant on foundation and corporation giving.
58 percent of children who participate in sports played their primary sport through community-based programming.
When I was growing up, I had no idea remote control (RC) car racing could teach so much about actual motorsport. And even if I did, I lacked meaningful exposure to motorsport to spark my interest.
The way we think about recreation needs to change. Our giant sports in the United States will always dominate and that’s great; kids should play a bunch of sports and most importantly, they should have their pick.
They should have their pick.
I imagine a kid getting home from school, grabbing their RC car off the charger and trying for a new fastest lap on the track they made in their backyard or going to a community space to meet some friends.
Then they make a small adjustment to the suspension system like they saw in a YouTube video and try again. And later that night, once the homework is done and the dinner’s eaten, they trade chasing their RC car around the backyard for doing some laps on their favorite racing video game against drivers from around the world.
A multi-modal, varied experience that can spark passion for sport and develop understandings of physics and engineering.
That’s motorsport.
Onward.Together.Always.