Ten thousand teenage girls were in Denver, February 27 - March 8, attending Colorado Crossroads, one of USA Volleyball's 10 annual junior qualifiers. These regional junior qualifiers determine which players advance to the junior national championship.
This was an increase over last year's attendance, says event founder and operator Kay Rogness. Rogness also runs a similar event in Atlanta -- the Big South National Qualifier -- which also has seen an increase in attendance in recent years. Rogness opines that parents are more likely to trim other home and personal expenses in order to keep spending on their kids. She may be right.
According to an article in Street and Smith's Sports Business Journal the Denver event pumped in $13 million into the Denver economy and an estimated $30 million into the Atlanta economy, not an insubstantial amount in these tough economic times.
The growth in attendance in these events, as well as an increase in participation numbers in organizations like Pop Warner and AYSO, seem to confirm that interest in youth sports isn't slowing down. In fact, as school districts and interscholastic sports adminstrations trim costs by eliminating all but varsity teams, community-based sports organizations and may continue to see their numbers climb.
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