Take Back the Game

How Money and Mania Are Ruining Kids' Sports--and Why It Matters

By: Linda Flanagan

Narrated by: Abby Craden

"A really brilliant book" — Malcolm Gladwell

"So important" — Glennon Doyle

Longlisted for the Porchlight Business Book Awards 2022

A close look at how big money and high stakes have transformed youth sports, turning once healthy, fun activities for kids into all-consuming endeavors—putting stress on children and families alike

Some 75% of American families want their kids to play sports. Athletics are training grounds for character, friendship, and connection; at their best, sports insulate kids from hardship and prepare them for adult life. But youth sports have changed so dramatically over the last 25 years that they no longer deliver the healthy outcomes everyone wants. Instead, unbeknownst to most parents, kids who play competitive organized sports are more likely to burn out or suffer from overuse injuries than to develop their characters or build healthy habits. What happened to kids' sports? And how can we make them fun again?

In Take Back the Game, coach and journalist Linda Flanagan reveals how the youth sports industry capitalizes on parents’ worry about their kids’ futures, selling the idea that more competitive play is essential in the feeding frenzy over access to colleges and universities. Drawing on her experience as a coach and a parent, along with research and expert analysis, Flanagan delves into a national obsession that has:

• Compelled kids to specialize year-round in one sport.

• Increased the risk of both physical injury and mental health problems.

• Encouraged egregious behavior by coaches and parents.

• Reduced access to sports for low-income families.

A provocative and timely entrant into a conversation thousands of parents are having on the sidelines, Take Back the Game uncovers how youth sports became a serious business, the consequences of raising the stakes for kids and parents alike--and the changes we need now.

Must Read for any Youth Sports Parent or Coach

Great dive into how far off course we’ve gone with youth sports with some ideas on how to get back on track.

Terrific Book

All youth sports parents and coaches should read this book. Really makes some excellent observations and recommendations on youth sports today.

Insightful, Meaningful and Impactful

This book expresses everything I’ve felt is so detrimental in youth sports these days and contains good ideas for dealing with them Excellent narration also.

Kid sports are a mess

The book does a good job of explaining the problem and aiming the reader at Resources like the Aspen Institute. It seems to be less strong on solutions that would actually fix the problems.

Important book for parents of youth athletes

The content of this book is riveting and extremely important for parents, and all involved in youth sports, to hear and contemplate. However, the reader was miscast. She has less inflection than Siri; her interpretation of phrases is stilted, like a dispassionate robot. Sometimes, she reads a sentence and sounds caught off guard to have gotten to the end of it, like she didn't understand what she was reading, or didn't rehearse the content. These moments should have been re-recorded as they are jarring to the listener. If it were not for the well-written content, I would have quit listening because of the poor interpretation of that content by the actress. I know the book is well-written because I can hear the turn of phrase through the robotic voice, and I wish a warmer actor could have interpreted it. This is the kind of experience that kept me away from audio books for many years - expressionless reading of words on a page, losing the humanity of the author.