It is not only in the inner cities where Little League is dying. It is dying everywhere. The sport is in free fall with the young generation. I say this as someone who played the sport at a high level. The reason is the sport has changed dramatically at the youth level from my days. When I was young I and my contemporaries played at the local level with all the other kids. The good players and the bad players together within our local town league until we reached HS. I remember registration day when our parents would sign us up for the sum of $10. Today, starting at the age of 8, the better kids whose parents are willing to pay from $1,000 to $4,000 a season leave their local town league to play so-called “elite” baseball on club teams. The local town league, the Little League, is left with the bad players and a very few good players from families of modest means. Believe me, it is no fun to play baseball when most of the players can’t play. So the poorer kids who are good athletes drift away to other sports, like basketball, football, and soccer, where money needed to play at a good level is not excessive. In my area baseball has replaced lacrosse as the sport for rich kids. Lacrosse has become a sport for the not rich kid believe it or not, 30 years ago it was the rich kids game. Hockey in Canada is also experiencing this trend. Because of the costs to play, hockey had become the rich kids game in Canada. In the last NHL draft, a huge number of the kids drafted come from the upper middle class or higher. It has been stated that soccer will replace hockey in popularity in the next 20 years because of this trend.
Probably why pretty soon most of the players in the NHL will be Russians, Swedes, Finns and Czechs.
I can agree to that.
My daughter plays on a 10U(9&10yr old) travel team. It costs a lot more than a $1000 a season. This season could cost us as much as $5000 to $6000. She will end up playing an 80 to 100 game schedule. Not everybody has the time for that I know but even in our county rec department it is still competitive even though most of the good players have left for travel ball. Rec ball is $35 for a 10 game season.
I do think the fatherless family is more of a contributing factor. Fathers tend to push kids into sports more than single mothers have the means to.
Little League is also dying because they are letting girls play and moving toward the everyone gets a a trophy pattern.