I came in here to see if the Sunday issue had come up and sure enough, here we are, but from a bit of a different angle.
I have three kids, 9, 11 and 14 and one of my crackpot rules is that each one has to be playing at least one sport at all times throughout the year. For the most part they can choose the sport, I will not drive 3 hours 5 nights a week so that one of them can play some dipshit sport, but generally I am pretty cool.
Here's the rub though. A growing number of leagues in my area are scheduling games on Sunday's, and in the case of non-HS wrestling, there were as many Sunday tournaments as Saturday. My question is pretty simple.....why?? I have pretty much accepted that I am another 10 years away from having a Saturday where I can relax and get shit done around the house, but why are leagues so hell bent on having games on Sunday? I am a regular church goer, but it isn't completely tied up in that, it is more that I want my Sundays back. I am 47 and I played 3-4 sports each year all through high school, and I don't remember more than 2-3 damned games on a Sunday (usually 2-day tournaments or unusual events like rain puts during playoffs) nor any practices.
Where I live there does not appear to be any lack of fields or facilities creating this drive to Sunday play. I would rather go to a game that starts at 5:00 on Saturday than a game on Sunday.
I've been working on this for the last few months with a handful of folks involved in the sports leagues in our area as "parent burn out" is becoming a growing issue in league sign up totals for soccer, basketball, softball and football. Football addressed their problem by telling coaches that kids who go on vacation in August can't be punished by missing game time. Boom, they had a 10 percent increase in enrollment the following season after 4 years of decline even with all of the concussion stuff in the background.
Has anyone dealt with this? What were the drivers for Sunday play and what were the pros and cons of moving away from Sunday?