Large sporting events create a kind of electricity that moves through a city. Daily life starts to feel different, and celebration becomes part of the atmosphere. For adults, that shift often feels exciting. For young people, it can feel different. The same excitement that brings people together can also highlight the ways young people are not always protected in the spaces adults move through.
The Blind Spot for Youth
When a city prepares for a major event, the atmosphere changes. For young people, that change can open doors to inspiration, but it can also expose them to risks that often go unseen by adults enjoying the festivities.
Few people understand those risks more deeply than Dr. Aisha Mays, an adolescent medicine physician who has spent years working closely with young people in Oakland and New York City. She founded Dream Youth Clinic to create a space shaped by youth themselves, and her work across community and school-based settings has given her a close view of how large events can affect young people’s safety.
“We know that with large-scale events that are centered around entertainment, young people can always be more vulnerable,” she says. “It is unfortunate that entertainment activities often involve types of activities that can make young people unsafe. There is more alcohol use, more drug use, and sex tourism.” She adds that sexual activity often overlaps with entertainment culture, which means “young people are at higher risk of being exploited for sex entertainment during large-scale entertainment activities.”
She has seen similar trends around the Super Bowl, boxing events, and the World Cup. “Overall, young people are more vulnerable around these types of risky behaviors during large-scale entertainment activities.”
Digital Danger Zone
During high tourism periods, digital exploitation attempts increase. Young people notice that shift almost instantly.
This past January, during National Human Trafficking Prevention Awareness Month, Dr. Mays helped host Oakland’s first youth-led town hall on trafficking. The realities teens described form a picture that is hard to look away from.
“Our young people directly said that youth are being approached and groomed on social media and on the internet,” she says. They described people posing as teens, arranging meetups that turned out to involve adults. They also talked about being approached with opportunities that sound harmless or exciting, like modeling or photography. “These are all natural interests for young people, but predators prey on those natural interests to entrap young people into exploitation.”
When Exclusion Becomes Harm
Large events also disrupt the everyday anchors that help young people feel grounded. Transportation shifts disrupt routines, safe spaces fill up, and daily structure breaks down. Dr. Mays says young people face a deeper problem because adults rarely include them in the celebration itself.
“I think overall there needs to be more inclusion of young people into large-scale activities,” she says. Young people show strong interest in soccer, American football, and basketball. Yet youth-focused programming is almost never part of these events.
Without it, teens end up in adult spaces where alcohol, drugs, and sexual encounters are common. “When young people are involved in that, it causes them to be at risk.”
Dr. Mays imagines something different. “Imagine what could happen when we have youth activities centered around the NBA Finals, youth activities centered around the World Cup, youth activities centered around the Super Bowl that are supportive and healthy for young people.”
Healthcare Turns Complex
Even the healthcare system feels the strain of a major event.
“Healthcare providers also want to participate in and enjoy large-scale entertainment activities,” Dr. Mays says. That can reduce staffing and limit appointment availability. Traffic congestion adds another barrier, especially in cities where streets double as both event pathways and everyday routes.
She believes clinics should adjust. “It is going to be important for healthcare providers to be more mindful around appointment times, giving more grace to young people to get to their appointments.”
Ideally, adolescent care should offer drop-in appointments or flexible time windows.
And because sexual exploitation risks rise during major events, she says clinics must be ready to meet young people with care that is nonjudgmental and accessible. That includes condoms, conversations about consent, and testing. “We are providing the space for young people to be able to talk about those things, providing testing, and providing the wraparound support that young people need.”
Residue of Trauma
The impact of exploitation or unsafe encounters does not end when the event does.
“A young person who experiences sexual exploitation, an unwanted sexual encounter, a sexual assault, or being solicited or talked to by an older adult, that all can feel and be very traumatic,” Dr. Mays says. Without support, the effects can last a lifetime. She points to chronic physical conditions, long-term gynecological issues, depression, anxiety, PTSD, and complex trauma.
“Where we may think that it is a one-time encounter at a one-time event, it is something that can last with that young person for their entire life,” she explains.
But healing is possible. “If young people receive support and early and ongoing treatment, both physical treatment and mental health treatment, they can heal from that trauma.”
The problem, she says, is access. “There is not enough mental health services and not enough physical health services that are tailored for young people, that are zero-barrier, zero-cost, and really accept all young people for care.”
Where Prevention Actually Begins
For Dr. Mays, prevention is the most urgent priority.
“Young people should not have to experience sexual trauma at a large-scale sporting event because we already know that young people are more vulnerable to this. This is not new. We have known this for over a decade.”
She emphasizes the need to create more youth-centered spaces. “There needs to be youth-centered events around the World Cup, youth-centered events around the NBA Finals, the Super Bowl, and similar events so that young people have a space to be together, to celebrate these momentous times, and to be safe.”
Dr. Mays’s work makes one truth hard to ignore. Young people carry their own power. They are curious and resourceful, and they deserve protection and environments that honor that strength, especially when celebration takes over a city.
Resources:
Meet Our Founder — Dream Youth Clinic