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City outlines 'Let’s Play Boston' plan to boost youth sports, targets equity gaps
Summary
City officials presented Let’s Play Boston, a three‑part initiative to raise participation citywide by addressing affordability, facilities and coaching; the program includes grants (up to $5,000), emergency relief awards, Swim Safe Boston lessons and a goal aligned with Healthy People 2030.
Boston officials on Dec. 1 presented a citywide plan to increase youth sports participation across neighborhoods, saying the administration will combine grantmaking, facilities investment and coach development to broaden access.
“For the record, my name is Jose Maso, and I am the chief of human services,” Maso told the Boston City Council Committee on Strong Women, Families and Community as he outlined the Let's Play Boston initiative. Maso said the program centers three priorities: lowering barriers to participation, investing in human capital and physical infrastructure, and leveraging sports to build community and economic opportunity.
Maso said participation in city schools is uneven: “In 2023, 43% of high school students and 53% of middle schoolers said that they participated in at least 1 sport,” and identified racial and gender gaps he said the city aims to close. The administration has aligned its targets with the federal Healthy People 2030 goal of 63% participation across demographics and plans to push participation up by roughly 2 percentage points a year while making special inroads into girls' sports and communities of color.
City officials described a mix of programmatic tools already in use. The Let's Play Boston Sports grant offers awards of up to $5,000 to community sports providers; the city also runs a smaller emergency relief grant (up to $2,000) for teams that need one‑time help. Maso said the city has funded more than 75 grantees over two funding cycles and that, combined with Swim Safe Boston and other efforts, the city’s sports‑specific spending is approaching about $2 million.
Swim Safe Boston and facility work were highlighted as core investments. Maso said the free swim‑lesson program has delivered what he described as "over 12,000 lessons" and that the administration has invested "over $50,000,000 to renovate our aging pool infrastructure, enabling us to make improvements to 12 of our 22 pools." He framed these investments as both safety and participation measures for a coastal city.
Staff also described operational pieces designed to reduce friction for families: a public Youth Sports Directory (the staff said it currently lists roughly 212 programs), quarterly interdepartmental coordination meetings with Boston Public Schools, Parks, and BCYF, and a facilities mapping tool that indicates whether spaces are city‑ or state‑owned or privately owned.
Councilors pressed the administration for details on how the city will prioritize scarce facility dollars and coordinate schedules to avoid overlapping registrations. Tyrique Wilson, the city’s youth sports initiatives manager, said the city is piloting seasonal guides and neighborhood coordination to help parents plan across sports and seasons.
The administration asked councilors to support outreach and public recognition efforts and to help the city identify partnership opportunities with nonprofits and private funders. Maso said these collaborations and a stronger, clearer line of sight into field availability and usage would help the city target maintenance and programming dollars.
The committee did not take any formal votes during the presentation. Maso closed by asking councilors to promote the city’s communications channels and to share ideas from neighborhood leaders, while committee members said they would consider the program’s budget implications during the next city budget cycle.
