Out of the 50 million youth and teens that participate in sports annually only a fraction wear mouth guards. The number one reason is that for many of these sports mouth guards are not mandated. There are around 8 million youth and teens that play sports annually where mouth guards are compulsory. Basketball is one sport that mouth guards are not compulsory. Being in this business for 8 years, and surveying people that are missing adult teeth, or have sustained some sort of oral injury, we have found the number one sport responsible for knocked out teeth and oral injuries has been basketball, the number two sport next to basketball is wrestling in which, also, is a sport where mouth guards are not compulsory. Here is a video of a NBA players loosing their teeth while at play. If you play basketball and do not wear a mouth guard, you may think an oral injury for you is highly improbable, but this video gives insight to the many ways basket players can sustain oral injury while playing basketball. From watching this video, and given the statistics in our sample group, we conclude that a basket ball mouth guard should be the most important piece of equipment you buy if your a basketball player.
