Little League® International is pleased to have been announced as one of the nearly 20 partner organizations for The Aspen Institute’s new 63×30 Vision, aimed at getting at least 63% of youth playing sports by the end of the decade in 2030.
“As the world’s largest youth sports organization, we have an obligation to help lead the way in getting more children involved in playing sports and there is no better organization to rally behind than The Aspen Institute and Project Play,” said Patrick Wilson, Little League Chief Operations Officer. “We are honored to serve as one of the partner organizations for this great new vision and look forward to helping to make this goal a reality by 2030.”
Since 2013, Project Play, the flagship initiative of The Aspen Institute’s Sports and Society Program, has provided insights, ideas, and opportunities to build healthy children and communities through sports. Now, for the first time, the initiative has adopted an ambitious target for youth sports participation as a catalyst for new actions and investment from the public and private sectors.
The 63×30 Vision is focused on getting more kids actively involved over the next few years as only 54% of children ages 6-17 in the U.S. played on a team or took lessons in 2022, down from 58% in 2017, according to federal data shared by The Aspen Institute.
As one of the partner organizations, Little League joins the other partnering organizations in committing to taking actions that can get and keep more young people playing sports, from creating affordable programs in underserved neighborhoods to promoting multi-sport sampling to developing more coaches to serve children’s needs.
In addition to Little League, other leading sports, health, and philanthropy organizations who are serving as partner organizations for the 63×30 Vision include The DICK’S Sporting Goods Foundation, ESPN, Gatorade, the Hospital for Special Surgery, LeagueApps, Major League Baseball, Major League Soccer, National Basketball Association, National Recreation and Park Association, Nike, PGA of America, Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation, Stack Sports, TeamSnap, Under Armour, the U.S. Olympic & Paralympic Committee, and U.S. Tennis Association.
The 63X30 national roundtable will build on the work of The Aspen Institute’s previous roundtables, Project Play 2020 and Project Play 2024. Members of those groups, which included Little League Baseball and Softball, introduced an array of mutually reinforcing activities that supported grassroots organizations. They also partnered to create the How to Coach Kids coach development platform, built the award-winning Don’t Retire Kid awareness campaign, and launched the Children’s Bill of Rights in Sports, a framework endorsed by more than 500 leading organizations, athletes, and government entities.
To learn more about the 63×30 Vision, and the efforts of The Aspen Institute and Project Play, visit ProjectPlay.org/63X30.