The Ohio State Sports and Society Inititaitive was honored to host a gathering of experts in youth sports to address "The Costs of Professuonalizing Youth Sports" April 19 at the Ohio Union. The day was split into two panels:

The first, entitled "Impact and Advancement in Youth Sports," , offered a look at the ways youth sports have become a business, with perspectives from for Ohio State hockey coach John Markell, former Buckeye football players Roy Hall of the Driven Foundation and Jeff Greene of IMG Academy, and Tenisha Benson, Ohio Girls Basketball Report. Also speaking were former OSU gymnast James Houle, now a sports psychologist with Ohio State Sports Medicine, and economics professor Robert DeJong, a travel soccer parent. 

The panel was moderated by The Lantern's Edward Sutelan. 

The afternoon brought together three of the foremost experts on trhe costs of professionalizing youth sports: Tom Farrey of the Aspen Institute's Project Play, Sean Gregory of Time Magazine and Mark Hyman of George Washington University discussed how and why youth sports have become such big business and the ways it can potentially be overcome. 

The panel was moderated by SSI co-director Dr. Nicole Kraft, an assistant professor of journalism and sports media in Ohio State's School of Communication.

In addition, panelists took part in a lunch discussion, led by Ohio State sports's medicine's Dr. James Onate, on potential solutions around this issues, which will be addressed at future SSI events.

Full videos of each session are now available.

A complete list of resources from speakers and others on this topic is available on the SSI web site.