Participation or Performance? Rethinking Sports and Athletics in Public Recreation

Jamie Sabbach, President & Principal, 110% Inc.

June 30, 2025

In public parks and recreation, language isn’t just descriptive, it’s directive. The words we choose shape perceptions, priorities, and policies. Few terms illustrate this better than “sports” and “athletics.” While often used interchangeably, these words carry fundamentally different meanings and more importantly, different moral and strategic implications for public service.

“Sports” in the public recreation context are traditionally associated with inclusive, recreational play. This includes pickup games, drop-in leagues, and unstructured fun – low-barrier, community-oriented activities that emphasize joy, connection, and personal wellness. The spirit of sports, as has long been understood within the public context, is grounded in participation over performance.

“Athletics” by contrast, tends to connote organized, competitive, high-performance activity. It suggests tryouts, rankings, travel teams, and a focus on achievement and specialization and an environment that often requires significant investments of time, money, and skill. While athletics can build discipline and excellence, these benefits typically accrue to a smaller, more privileged segment of the population. 

Why the Distinction Matters

Public park and recreation systems exist not only to serve those who can qualify or compete, but those uninterested in competition and elite level activities. When these systems lean too heavily toward an athletics-centered model, several risks emerge:

• Unintended exclusion: Programs rooted in competition and performance can send the message that if you’re not “good enough,” you can’t play.

• Resource imbalance: High-maintenance, high-subsidy athletic programs (e.g., specialized fields, tournament play, extensive lighting and infrastructure) can divert resources from accessible options like casual play or leagues, or other recreation activities outside the realm of sports or athletics.

• Values misalignment: When public subsidies disproportionately support elite athletes or select teams, they drift away from serving the broader public, especially those who rely on these shared spaces for daily well-being.

  
  

These implicit conflicts undermine the foundational ethos of public parks and recreation as a civic commons - a place that levels the playing field, promotes equity, and supports human flourishing across income, ability, and background.

This is not simply a misallocation of funds. It's a misrepresentation of purpose.

Strategic and Ethical Considerations

To realign with the mission of public service, we must ask ourselves hard but necessary questions:

• Are we building systems that welcome all people or ones that cater to the privileged few?

• Are we reinforcing barriers through our investments and messaging or working to remove them?

• What does it say about our values when we favor excellence over inclusion?

  
  

This is a call for more than programmatic adjustments. It’s a call for values-driven decision and choice making.

Consider these practical steps:

• Audit your language: Are your programs labeled as “community recreation” when they’re actually structured for competition? Are you using terminology that invites broad participation or deters it (sports or athletics)?

• Rebalance your spending: Do your budgets reflect equity and access or are they tilted toward high-cost, low-access offerings?

• Reaffirm your purpose: Do your services and infrastructure prioritize community well-being or have they become a stage for high performance? Has the fundamental purpose of the organization become frayed and blurred?  

  
  

These questions don’t just invite operational change. They provoke attention and potentially a return to the heart of what public parks and recreation are meant to be: a shared investment in collective health, happiness, and belonging.

Jamie Sabbach is President & Principal with 110% Inc., a consulting firm which focuses on ethical decision making, adaptive leadership, and the financial sustainability of public parks and recreation. She can be reached at jsabbach@110percent.net.