How the Youth Sports Quarter Sports Were Chosen
The U.S. Mint built a list of 58 youth sports with two federal health offices, asked the public to rate them in a survey in early 2025, and then chose 20: five a year from 2027 to 2030, starting with baseball, golf, soccer, softball and snowboarding. The survey results have never been published.
What the law says
Public Law 116-330 leaves the choice of sports to the Treasury Secretary, with two conditions. Each quarter must show a single sport played by American youth, and the Secretary chooses the sports "after appropriate outreach and consultation with the public." The law allows up to five sports a year from 2027 through 2030.
The companion half dollar works differently. Its sport must be a Paralympic sport, one designed for athletes with physical, vision or intellectual impairments, and the Secretary chooses it in consultation with U.S. Paralympics.
The 58-sport list
The U.S. Mint drew up a list of 58 candidate sports. Its Office of Design Management worked with two federal health offices on it: the President's Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, and the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion. The Mint has not published the full list. News reports at the time named these 27:
- American football
- Archery
- Basketball
- Dodgeball
- Fencing
- Figure skating
- Flag football
- Golf
- Gymnastics
- Ice hockey
- Karate
- Kayaking
- Lacrosse
- Orienteering
- Pickleball
- Racquetball
- Skateboarding
- Skiing
- Soccer
- Speed skating
- Swimming
- Synchronized swimming
- Taekwondo
- Track and field
- Volleyball
- Water polo
- Wrestling
Baseball, softball and snowboarding do not appear in those reports, but the reports quoted only part of the list, so that does not mean they were missing from it.
The public survey
The Mint put the list to the public in an online survey from 22 January to 20 February 2025. People rated each sport on a scale from "Highly Appealing" to "Not At All Appealing," and a field at the end let them write in a sport the list left out. Sports groups pushed their members to vote; the Collegiate Water Polo Association, for one, posted a call to vote for water polo.
The Mint has not released the survey results, so there is no public ranking of the 58 sports and no way to tell how much the vote shaped the final picks.
The 2027 picks
The first sports became public when the Mint sent candidate designs to the review panels. The five 2027 sports appeared in the portfolios the CFA reviewed on 19 February 2026 and the CCAC on 24 February 2026, and the final designs were published on 26 October 2026.
| Sport | Final design | CCAC pick (score) | CFA pick | Whose pick won | Candidates |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Baseball | BASE-01 | BASE-01 (22 of 33) | #1 | Both panels | 8 |
| Golf | GOLF-07 | GOLF-07 (15 of 33) | #4 | CCAC | 11 |
| Soccer | SOCC-01 | SOCC-07 (28 of 33) | #1 | CFA | 9 |
| Softball | SOFT-04A | SOFT-04A (21 of 33) | #4 | CCAC | 10 |
| Snowboarding | SNOW-03 | SNOW-03 (20 of 33) | #3 | Both panels | 9 |
Three are team sports (baseball, soccer and softball) and two are individual sports (golf and snowboarding). Snowboarding is the only winter sport in the first year.
All 20 sports, announced 26 October 2026
The U.S. Mint named every sport for the series when it announced the Youth Sports Coin Collection:
- 2027: Baseball, Golf, Soccer, Softball, Snowboarding
- 2028: American football, Swimming, Gymnastics, Lacrosse, Track and field
- 2029: Basketball, Wrestling, Tennis, Cheerleading, Karate
- 2030: Figure skating, Skiing, Skateboarding, Volleyball, Ice hockey
Of the 27 sports that news outlets reported from the survey list, these 15 made the series: golf, soccer, American football, swimming, gymnastics, lacrosse, track and field, basketball, wrestling, karate, figure skating, skiing, skateboarding, volleyball and ice hockey. The other 5, baseball, softball, snowboarding, tennis and cheerleading, were not among the sports those partial reports named, which does not mean they were missing from the full list. Reported survey sports that did not make the series include archery, dodgeball, fencing, flag football, kayaking, orienteering, pickleball, racquetball, speed skating, synchronized swimming, taekwondo and water polo. More on the full lineup.
Sources
- U.S. Mint press release, United States Mint Announces New Circulating Coin Program: Designs for 2027 Coins Shared Publicly for the First Time (26 October 2026)
- Public Law 116-330, Circulating Collectible Coin Redesign Act (enrolled bill H.R. 1923)
- U.S. Mint press release, An Invitation to All Americans: Celebrate Youth Sports (22 January 2025)
- Coin World, Mint seeks input on future youth-sports quarter dollars (3 February 2025)
- Numismatic News, U.S. Mint Releases Survey for 2027 Quarter Program (29 January 2025)
- CCAC minutes, public meeting of 24 February 2026
- CCAC letter to the Treasury Secretary on the 2027 American Youth Sports Quarters (24 February 2026)
- Collegiate Water Polo Association, vote for water polo
Last verified: 31 October 2026. The 2027 designs are final, announced by the U.S. Mint on 26 October 2026. Release dates, mintages and products are added here when the Mint announces them.