EMERSON, Ga. — Just past the Hampton Inn and the Chick-fil-A, beyond the climbing wall but not as far as the water park, is your field of dreams. Actually, there are eight of them: all major league-sized, synthetic-turfed and LED-lit, and wedged in next to the three soccer pitches. The Champions Center is ahead on your left, where a dozen basketball courts can be converted into two dozen for volleyball.

It is here at the LakePoint Sporting Community where the visiting boys and girls in their cleats and their uniforms have come to play, with their parents trailing them from the diamonds and the hardwood to the fast-food restaurants and the hotels. In the summer, hundreds of teams pass through here every week.

The youth sports economy — a world of private coaching, interstate travel and $350 baseball bats — has always been big business, of course. But fed by the growth of traveling teams and regional and national events, the industry has doubled in size over the past decade — to more than $15 billion a year, according to one company that tracks its growth — as tournament organizers, property developers and a handful of small towns target parents who share their young athletes’ dreams of glory and have the money to pursue them.