USActive

Playing a sport in order to spend time with old friends, or to make new friends, is one of the most common motives for participating in sports for all children.

One of the greatest feelings in sports is getting to hang out with friends, share the experience of working hard and competing together against others. 

The relationships that kids develop during sport can lead to a lot of different outcomes. For example, when kids feel accepted by their peers, they report higher levels of self-esteem, more enjoyment of activities and are less likely to want to avoid participating.

Sports participation is a significant predictor of young adults' participation in sports and physical fitness activities. Adolescents who play sports are eight times as likely to be active at age 24 as adolescents who do not play sports (Sports Participation as Predictors of Participation in Sports and Physical Fitness Activities in Young Adulthood, Perkins, 2004).

Three in four (77%) of adults aged 30+ who play sports today played sports as school-aged children. Only 3% of adults who play sports currently did not play when they were young (Source: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard University/NPR, 2015).