These figures come from named, published research. We use the exact attribution each source publishes.
| Claim | Figure | Source | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Annual U.S. family spending on youth sports | $40 billion | Aspen Institute Project Play parent survey, with Utah State University Families in Sport Lab and Louisiana Tech University Minds in Motion Lab | 2025 |
| Average family spending on a child's primary sport | $1,016 | Aspen Institute Project Play parent survey, with Utah State University Families in Sport Lab and Louisiana Tech University Minds in Motion Lab | 2024 data, published 2025 |
| Increase in family spending since 2019 | 46% | Aspen Institute Project Play parent survey | 2025 |
| U.S. youth sports participation | 58% | Project Play / National Survey of Children's Health | 2024 |
| States (incl. D.C.) hitting the federal Healthy People 2030 youth sports participation target of 63% — holding steady since 2023 | 15 states | Jon Solomon, "U.S. youth sports participation increased to 58% in pursuit of 63% by 2030," Aspen Institute Project Play (underlying data: National Survey of Children's Health, 2024) | May 2026 |
| Youth sports parents who said they'd purchase a brand that sponsored their child's youth sports program — unprompted purchase intent, no comparison condition | 67.3% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport, "The ROI of Sponsorship in Youth Sports" — survey of 1,345 U.S. adults including 922 youth sports parents, November 14 – December 8, 2025 (figure reported via eMarketer) | 2026 |
| Youth sports parents who would choose a sponsor's brand over a competitor of equal cost and quality — conditional on the two products being comparable | 80% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport, "The ROI of Sponsorship in Youth Sports" — survey of 1,345 U.S. adults including 922 youth sports parents, November 14 – December 8, 2025 | 2026 |
| Attention likelihood — community youth sports sponsorship (brand sponsoring a parent's own child's program) | 81% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport | 2026 |
| Attention likelihood — social and digital media advertising | 52% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport | 2026 |
| Attention likelihood — TV commercial advertising | 51% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport | 2026 |
| Parents holding positive sentiment toward youth sports sponsorship (3% hold negative views) | 84% | Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport, "The ROI of Sponsorship in Youth Sports" | 2026 |
| Population figures for California location pages | Varies by page | California Department of Finance, E-2 County Population Estimates | July 2025 (February 2026 release) |
| Population figures for Arizona and Nevada location pages | Varies by page | U.S. Census Bureau, 2024 American Community Survey | 2024 |
| Industry gross margin benchmarks used in the ROI calculator | Varies by sector | NYU Stern School of Business, Margins by Sector (Aswath Damodaran) | January 2026 |
Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport figures: self-reported survey data — 1,345 U.S. adults including 922 youth sports parents, fielded November 14 – December 8, 2025, were asked and answered. None of these figures reflect measured behavior, eye-tracking, or recall testing — "attention likelihood" and "sentiment" describe what respondents said, not what was observed.
Population figures for California markets come from the California Department of Finance's E-2 County Population Estimates (July 2025). Arizona and Nevada figures come from the U.S. Census Bureau's 2024 American Community Survey. These are different data products with different methodologies and release dates, so figures are not strictly comparable across state lines. We use each state's most authoritative current source rather than a single national dataset.
Youth sports participants and community reach figures on every location page are calculated from that page's population using the same chain: population × 15% (ages 6–17 share) × 58% (organized sports participation, Project Play / National Survey of Children's Health) = participants; participants × 3.0 (household factor) = community reach.
Nothing on the site currently carries an unverified or pending citation. The 15-states/63% participation figure that was previously marked "pending review" is now fully sourced and appears in the Verified Sources table above. Five claims have been removed from the site entirely for lacking a real, confirmable source, rather than left up with a hedge: an 89% brand-preference figure, a $54 billion global sponsorship spending figure, a 3× Gen Z engagement claim (SFIA / Youth Sports Business Report — marked unverified and never independently confirmed), an accompanying 75% Gen Z brand-affinity figure that carried no citation at all, and a claim that parents spend 2–10% of gross household income per child on athletic activities, which sat next to the cited $40 billion figure without a source of its own.
Some figures on this site are our own estimates, not published research. Our market reach figures are built from published population data and participation rates, multiplied by a household factor — the methodology is shown on each page where it appears. Sponsorship valuations from our calculator are estimates based on your inputs, not guarantees.
In the calculator specifically: the Fair Market Value "Base Rate" per asset and the location/business-density multipliers are Zubie Five estimates, informed by published ranges but not individually sourced — labeled as such directly on the calculator. Channel CPM benchmarks are blended industry estimates (IAB, OAAA, IEG), also labeled on the page. The old "ad blindness" comparison in our traditional-vs-community tool has been replaced with attention-likelihood figures from Priority Partnerships / YouGov Sport, 2026 — a real, cited study, not an internal estimate.
We don't publish modeled impression counts or projected returns. Our end-of-season sponsor reports use counted attendance, counted event dates, and dated photographs — nothing multiplied.
See the full community-reach methodology on Why It Works →
If you're checking our math before a board meeting, we'd rather hear from you than have you guess.