Winning in a Downturn: Why Youth Sports are Resilient to Economic Uncertainty

The 2025 Marketing Landscape: Challenges and Shifting Priorities

Marketing leaders in 2025 face a confluence of challenges. Economic uncertainty has put CFOs and CEOs on high alert, squeezing marketing budgets and demanding proof of ROI on every dollar. According to Gartner, only 24% of CMOs say they had sufficient budget to execute their 2024 strategy, as marketing budgets have declined 15% year-on-year, from 9.1% to 7.7% of company revenue.

For today’s leading brands, first-party data is mission-critical. Strategic advertisers are prioritizing data they can trust, collected directly from their audiences, to drive scalable personalization, smarter targeting, and stronger performance. First-party data enables brands to reduce media waste, stay privacy-compliant, and deepen customer relationships at scale. This isn’t a fallback – it’s the engine behind modern brand growth. Brands that activate first-party data effectively can see up to 2.9× revenue uplift and 1.5× greater cost efficiency compared to those that don’t².

Another clear trend is the relentless pressure for ROI and measurable outcomes. Even as marketers acknowledge the need for long-term brand building, many are skewing budgets toward short-term performance channels. According to Nielsen, while marketers’ top KPIs are long-term ROI and full-funnel ROI, 70% plan to prioritize performance marketing over brand-building initiatives.

Finally, consumer expectations have never been higher around trust, cultural relevance, and purpose.

According to Edelman, almost 9 in 10 consumers worldwide say that brand trust is important in their purchase decisions.

In 2025, cultural relevance is a business imperative, not a buzzword.

In summary, marketers are navigating budget cutbacks, the demise of third-party data, higher standards for ROI, and a consumer base that insists on trust and authenticity. This confluence of factors is forcing a reevaluation of where and how to invest marketing dollars. Where can a brand find an engaged, real audience – at scale – in a privacy-safe, high-trust environment that also drives measurable results? Enter an unexpected answer: youth sports.

Families and Youth Sports: A Bright Spot for Brand Engagement

Every week, on fields and courts across the country, something reliably magical happens: families show up. In an era of fragmented media and mostly-online interactions, youth sports remain a steadfast offline gathering place for communities. 

Even through economic ups and downs, parents, kids, and neighbors continue to pack sidelines and bleachers to cheer on the local team.

Participation is growing. In 2023, 39.8% of children 6–17 were regularly playing a team sport – the highest rate since 2015. Girls’ participation has hit record highs. Youth sports is as strong as ever.

Critically, families prioritize youth sports even when tightening their belts elsewhere. Parents will cut discretionary spending on themselves before pulling their kids out of soccer. According to Attention FWD, youth sports is a “runaway freight train” that a recession can’t slow down. It was a $30B industry in 2021 and is on track to reach $75B by 2026.

According to the Aspen Institute, average annual family spending on a child’s primary sport jumped from about $693 in 2019 to $1,016 in 2024 – a 46% increase.

Youth sports are powerful brand moments. These family gatherings and investments represent high-attention, high-engagement marketing touchpoints. Parents aren’t just spectators—they’re emotionally invested, highly attentive, and actively making purchasing decisions. With TeamSnap, brands can engage these families across both digital and physical channels: from in-app scheduling and team communications to on-field signage, jerseys, and local sponsorships. This dual-channel presence creates repeated exposure, high recall, and built-in credibility by showing up where families already are. Add to that the power of word-of-mouth on the sidelines, and you have brand coverage that delivers across the full funnel—from awareness and consideration to action and long-term loyalty.

The Power of First-Party Data in a Cookieless World

With the loss of third-party cookies, first-party data has become a critical asset. It offers both accuracy and privacy compliance. First-party data (collected directly from users) enables smarter targeting and personalization while honoring consumer privacy expectations.

TeamSnap’s platform includes 25 million authenticated users across 20,000+ sports organizations. Advertisers can reach real household decision-makers with context-rich targeting: sport, region, child’s age, family habits. This data is verified, voluntarily given, and used in a privacy-safe way.

What this means:

• Less waste, better performance
• No reliance on fading data sources
• Precision reach to highly relevant audiences

In a landscape where trust and compliance matter more than ever, TeamSnap’s first-party data is a strategic advantage. And because the platform is built around real-world utility, families welcome the interaction. This leads to stronger engagement, improved campaign outcomes, and a higher return on spend.

Purpose-Driven Marketing: Building Brand Trust Through Community

Today’s consumers expect brands to contribute meaningfully to the communities they serve. Supporting youth sports is a powerful way to demonstrate purpose. It’s not just brand messaging – it’s brand action.

According to Sprout Social, when customers feel connected to brands, 57% will increase their spending.

Sponsoring youth sports makes your brand part of the story. It’s about more than ads – it’s helping teams play, creating memories, and building loyalty in families that matter.

TeamSnap enables this at scale. National brands can make a local impact, repeatedly and consistently, across thousands of sports organizations. It’s a scalable model for purpose-led marketing that delivers real-world outcomes.

The TeamSnap Advantage: Field + Screen, Purpose + Performance

TeamSnap for Brands offers national advertisers a unique way to:

• Reach verified family audiences in trusted environments
• Activate first-party targeting across digital and in-person league sponsorships
• Deliver relevant creative during high-attention moments
• Build brand equity through community presence
• Prove performance with measurable outcomes

It’s one of the few platforms that connects families online and off: at the field, in the app, and everywhere in between.

In 2025, attention is scarce, trust is precious, and performance matters more than ever. TeamSnap delivers all three. That’s why strategic B2C advertisers are showing up where families do – and staying top of mind where it counts.

TeamSnap for Brands: Where purpose meets performance, and families meet your brand.

Ready to see what TeamSnap can do for your brand? Download the Media Kit or Talk to a Brand Solutions Expert.

Appendix: Data Sources

1. Gartner – https://www.raconteur.net/marketing-sales/five-ways-cmos-2024
2. BCG x Google – https://www.bcg.com/publications/2024/creating-a-data-advantage-in-marketing
3. Nielsen – https://www.nielsen.com/news-center/2024/nielsen-releases-its-2024-annual-marketing-report-surveying-global-marketers-on-roi-strategies/
4. Edelman – https://www.marketingcharts.com/brand-related/brand-metrics-230034
5. Attention FWD – https://attentionfwd.com/takes/is-the-youth-sports-industry-recession-proof/
6. Aspen Institute – https://projectplay.org/news/category/Analysis
7. Sprout Social – https://sproutsocial.com/insights/data/social-media-connection/