How Youth Sports Shape Women’s Leadership: Insights from the Women’s Sports Foundation

The latest study by the Women’s Sports Foundation was released this month and is a powerful reminder of the positive impact youth sports have on women’s leadership development.

Key Highlights:
🏆 67% of women believe they’ve carried skills and lessons from sports into adulthood.
🌟 49% of women credit sports with shaping their leadership abilities.
🥇 The top skills learned from sports: 73% teamwork, 53% learning from mistakes, 51% handling pressure, and 46% pushing physical boundaries.

However, barriers still persist for girls’ participation in sports:
💸 27% cite family finances.
👩‍👧 20% face low parental engagement.
🏟️ 20% lack opportunities to participate.
🩹 17% have injury/health concerns.

The results from this study resonate deeply with us at Aspire Cricket because we have all gained so much in our lives and individual careers through life-long involvement in sports. In our work to pay it forward, we aim to address many of the barriers that hold girls back from participating. By creating safe, fun, accessible, community focused programming, we hope to inspire young cricketers to keep at it and to encourage more girls to give the sport a try.

Creating opportunities in cricket for girls to learn and grow not only expands the game, but also develops our next generation of female leaders. We are driven by the role we have to play in this space and hope that support for girls and women in sport continues to grow!

Thanks to the Women’s Sports Foundation for this study.

🔗 Play to Lead: The Generational Impact of Sport on Women’s Leadership

🔗 You can catch our recap video, here: Play to Lead Study - The Generational Impact of Sport on Women’s Leadership | Aspire Cricket