Is It Safe for My Young Athlete to Have a Public Page? What Parents Should Know

If your daughter plays a sport, she's probably already online. Pew Research found that roughly three-quarters of U.S. teens use YouTube every day, 61 percent use TikTok, and 55 percent use Instagram (pewresearch.org). So the real question for most parents isn't whether a young athlete will have a public presence. It's whether that presence is one you can see, shape, and control.

That's a fair question to ask about any page built around a young athlete, including ours. Here's what to look for, what to keep off the page, and how an Athlete Hub is built around the concerns parents raise most.

Why the Details Matter

The biggest online risks to young people often don't start on a public page. They start in private messages. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children received more than 50,000 reports of financially motivated sextortion in 2025, averaging 137 a day, and has noted that offenders often move conversations quickly to private messaging and encrypted apps (missingkids.org). That's a reason to care less about whether your athlete has a page and more about whether the page gives strangers a private way to reach her.

Youth sports has long had a principle for this. SafeSport's electronic communications policy says communication between adults and minor athletes should be open and transparent, with a parent or another adult included on texts, emails, and social media messages (uscenterforsafesport.org). A good public page for a young athlete should follow the same idea.

What to Look For in Any Public Page for a Young Athlete

Who controls the account? An adult should, not the athlete alone.
Can strangers find it? Look for whether there's a searchable directory and whether search engines can index the page.
Can strangers message her directly? Private messaging is the biggest risk, so a page that offers none is safer by design.
Can you decide what's shown? Every section should be something you can turn on or off.
Can you remove people? If fans or followers can sign up, you should be able to remove and block them.
Is there a way to report someone? And does anyone actually review reports?

How an Athlete Hub Is Built Around These Questions

An adult holds the account. The account holder must be 18 or older, regardless of the athlete's age, so a parent creates and controls it.
It isn't searchable. There's no athlete directory, no way to browse, and the Hub isn't indexed by search engines like Google unless you turn that on yourself. The only way to reach it is a link you've shared.
It can be password-protected. You can set a password so that anyone visiting, other than you, needs it to see anything. A visitor who enters it stays unlocked for 24 hours.
You control every section. Events, stats, fundraising, fan shop, and more can each be turned on or off, and nothing publishes until you say so.
There are no direct messages and no feed. Brands and fans can only reach her through moderated inquiry and subscription flows. A brand has to verify its email before an inquiry even becomes visible to her.
You can report and remove. An inquiry can be reported for review, and if action is warranted, that brand is blocked from contacting any athlete on the platform. Fan club subscribers can be removed, and a removed subscriber can't sign back up.
A team can't pull her in. A team can only reach her Hub after you enter their sync code yourself.

No platform can make the internet risk-free, and a Hub shows what you type into it. City and school, for example, appear as entered. The controls above give you the say over what goes on the page and who can reach her through it.

A Short Checklist Before You Publish

Decide together which sections she wants public, and turn off the rest.
Consider using a first name or nickname as the display name if you'd rather not put her full name out there.
If the page is mainly for family, coaches, and close supporters, set a password.
Leave search engine indexing off unless you have a specific reason to turn it on.
Keep real-time details out. Skip live locations, and think twice about publishing practice times and places.
Review inquiries with her rather than handing her the inbox.
Talk with her about what to do if anyone, online or off, makes her uncomfortable, and make sure she knows she can always come to you.

The Bottom Line

A public page can help a young athlete get noticed by coaches, share her season with family, and even open doors with local businesses. What matters is that a parent can see it, shape it, and decide who can reach her through it. Ask the questions above of any platform you consider, and choose the one that keeps the decisions in your hands.