re: Most expensive youth sports?

Free food, so there’s that.

The elite youth ski circuit is probably more expensive than everything listed.

If one assumes that the kid is a supreme talent then the likely answer from cradle to the top pro league is likely open-wheel racing with F1 being the apex. They will start with 50cc karts at 5 and by mid-teens will be at least F4 and by 17 be in F2 then onto F1. The cost for this run is astronomical, just ask Lance Stroll's dad.

In reality, the OP is obviously not really asking the hypothetical I answered and the answer to his question is kinda all of them. Some sports will have a lower minimum buy-in to participate but like most things in life their is rarely an upper limit to what you can spend.

Travel softball not cheap for me


That’s lll I got

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Oh I meant it would cost 3-5k for a little kids bike like a 50 or 65. Yea teenager will be on a 250f or 150 2 stroke for sure depending on how big they are. My entire family has been racing dirt bikes for 40 years and we race the local cross country series and enduro series. Hell I have a 70k lariat f250 and 80k 5th wheel toy hauler just because of dirtbike racing lol. I get a new set of gear every 6 months to a year from my sponsors. I am always spending money on my bikes and kids bikes lol

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Comparatively speaking, we are a small niche sport. Travel ball parents have no idea we exist, but we laugh at them when they complain about how expensive their sport is.
I know people who spend over $50k per year on racing for their 2 kids. These 2 kids live at a training facility 3-4 days per week, in May or June they will be there 7 days per week preparing for Loretta's. Keep in mind, one of their kids won a national championship last year at the biggest race in the world, he's on his way to being a household name in the sport.

My kid isn't at that level and I don't spend near that much, but I still spend enough to laugh at the cost of other sports. We have a brand new 125 in the garage that has almost $10k just in the engine and his 85 is in the middle of getting $3k worth of engine work right now. We travel all over the region racing and $500 for a race is fairly normal at the regional level. Make it to Loretta's and you're looking at $5k for just that race easily.
Our race gas is $35 per gallon, granted we practice on cheaper gas but it's still close to $20.

Could you imagine the outrage if a travel ball parent had to buy a $600 helmet every year and $400 boots. Heck, sometimes luck isn't on your side and that $600 helmet gets crashed in 2 weeks after you bought it and has to be replaced.

I will say this though, it's funny that as expensive as our sport is, coaches are much cheaper than baseball.
For $130 my kid works with a coach for 6 hours, try finding that in baseball, especially one with the equal credentials. This guy was a US Olympic snowboard coach until his oldest kid got into racing. He's one of the top MX coaches in the world and has a massive private facility we train at. For baseball, you'd pay that per hour.

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Gymnastics/Dance/Ballet because they do it year round

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Now add traveling to places 2-6 hours away two to three times per month and you have cheerleading, which makes those seem cheap comparatively unless/until you get into Ballet intensives and then it evens out.

Equestrian
Race car driving
Downhill skiing
Speedboat racing
Parachute team: HALO
Sailboat racing

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Most expensive youth sports?

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Drag racing

Cheerleading