Youth sports tourism is big business.
Sports ETA — a sports events and tourism trade association — published its 2026 state of the industry report earlier this week.
The headline: Sports tourism generates about $275B in economic impact each year — and participatory sports tourism (amateur and youth) accounts for $150B of that total.
$60B in direct spending
About 228M total travelers
Over 880K jobs supported
Over $11B in state and local taxes generated
Spectator sports tourism generated just over $125B in economic impact with $51B in direct spending by over 111M travelers; it supports over 730K jobs and generates over $9B in taxes.
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