Agreed that the costs are going to be a hurdle to participation, but is it worse for soccer than others? The article noted baseball and basketball are actually growing.
Youth Soccer Participation
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Agreed that the costs are going to be a hurdle to participation, but is it worse for soccer than others? The article noted baseball and basketball are actually growing.
As a soccer fan I kind of agree with this...but the 70k crowd size for Atlanta's MLS team has me scratching my head. 72K just a couple days ago.
There is always a few people with a weirdly aggressive negativity towards soccer that I can never understand.
I’ve never looked into it until now but it’s interesting there is a huge difference in attendance from top to bottom.
This is a tangent not super relevant to the OP, but national team success ALWAYS needs to be compared to its competition. Three big factors are participation, cultural importance, and infrastructure. I'll use baseball, men's soccer, and women's soccer as examples.
Baseball: The U.S. has huge participation, a long baseball tradition, and great infrastructure. But despite all of that, Japan, the Dominican Republic, Cuba and Puerto Rican national teams can all compete with the U.S., despite the U.S.'s huge size advantage. It's because baseball is undeniably the cultural king in those countries (from a sporting perspective). All have good baseball infrastructure (Puerto Rico and the DR each have a development academy from seemingly every MLB organization).
Men's soccer: the U.S. has huge participation numbers, but culturally soccer's behind 2-4 sports, depending on region. Multi-sport athletes tend to become serious in other disciplines, and there isn't a strong coaching tradition among parents and coaches at the youngest levels.
Compare this to Europe, where kid's are entering professional academies as young as age 3 (this usually costs them nothing). Soccer is the sport of their parents. Croatia and Iceland have far fewer kids playing soccer than the U.S., but produce far more talent (per capita, in Iceland's case). Soccer infrastructure and culture are far better there. Example: Iceland has a professionally licensed coach for every 1,700 people who live there. You have to have a pro license there to officially coach kids 10 and up, and they're all paid by the Iceland soccer federation.
Women's soccer: The U.S. is very good, and historically is the best team in the world. In the rest of the world, soccer is viewed as a physical, masculine game. (It sounds unbelievable to many, but it's true.) In men's soccer powers like Brazil and Germany, women's soccer wasn't given the infrastructure or support it needed until the 90's. Places you wouldn't think of as soccer hotbeds (U.S.A., China, Japan) are/were soccer powers, because they gave the women's game more resources than their peers. Soccer was/is viewed as a great sport for women in those countries. Now that more and more countries have devoted resources to women's soccer, the gap between the old powers and the Brazils, Germany's, etc. is closing rapidly.
European girls are now growing up playing in professional academies (again, for nothing), while most American girls don't have the opportunity. This spells eventual doom for the US women's national team. Participation numbers are nothing to a national team if they don't get the coaching they need. I'm not the only to predict the USWNT's decline in coming years.
Aside: if you're wondering where these countries are getting money for soccer, it's mainly from FIFA and World Cup revenues, along with federation dues from member clubs, which have revenue streams from their pro teams.
Sports used to be a free benefit of the public school system but now a lot of it is pay-to-play like AAU. I would guess participation will be dropping in almost all sports. And no, I don’t think it is just air conditioning and video games. The problem is the same as most other things: $$$. Slowly ruining pretty much everything.
I mean, most coaches know by the time a kid is 12-13 whether they have a chance to play D1 or not. Hopefully it was what the kid wanted to do, not the parents.
Because soccer’s structure is exclusively pay to play and almost totally reliant on it, whereas other sports not as much but sure the structure exists for other sports. There can also be a language barrier for kids and probably more importantly for parents. These kids don’t even join their high school team for various reasons, so they definitely have 0% chance of ever being seen.
Suburban middle class kids who are actually really athletic might also drift to other sports as they get older depleting an already small prep school pool. Yes I’m using a little hyperbole, but people have their head in the sand if they don’t believe this is a huge problem. I don’t know what else to tell you, U.S soccer is fundamentally flawed from the ground up and it’s because there is only a small pool of kids who will ever get noticed because only the middle class can afford to get them on the soccer circuit for lack of a better term.
Im surpised by these stats. I would like to know the difference between girls and boys decline. It just seems to me, and I have a daughter who plays, that it is becoming more popular. I know it's not true because the stats apparently say it's not but I think girls soccer is on the rise.
Plus, it's actually kind of cheap compared to AAU basketball. Club soccer is about $1500 a year. Kingdom Hoops basketball is right around $4700 a year.
Plus, it's actually kind of cheap compared to AAU basketball. Club soccer is about $1500 a year. Kingdom Hoops basketball is right around $4700 a year.
We’re very lucky here to have the amount of opportunities that we have here both in sports and socially. There are open pathways to many different sports that don’t exist in soccer-centric countries.
There are also open pathways to academic, musical, and many other non-participation sports (cycling, hunting, water sports, action/extreme sports) that don’t exist in other countries.
There are also open pathways to academic, musical, and many other non-participation sports (cycling, hunting, water sports, action/extreme sports) that don’t exist in other countries.
I’ll address soccer popularity specifically since that was the original post. My area has a strong rec program in addition to club soccer, and my kids played rec for years. The reason they all left soccer is that because once the offsides rules went into effect in 5th grade the game got a lot more boring. Kids want to score a lot, and once offsides starts being called the opportunities to score really dwindle. My kids all quit rec soccer at around this time to do other sports, both rec and club.
For those unfamiliar $1,500 is the Select(travel) team for soccer in Central Iowa. We belong to Vision Soccer Academy (VSA in Waukee). Select programs start at U11 (age 10) though U19. VSA also has rec programs for kids available through those ages. The select programs are all run by professional coaches that are licensed. They train usually, 3 nights/week and play games on Saturday and or Sunday and are usually against other Metro teams such as West Des Moines, Ankeny or Johnston. There are usually 3-4 tournaments the kids play in and 1-2 of those involve travel to places like Omaha, Kansas City or Minneapolis. Some can be further depending on how teams do and age.
Soccer culture needs to change though.I believe MLS should step in and support an academy type structure, especially in places that are underserved. As an example, I think the city of Des Moines. I know they have programs but they don’t have the professional coaches, to my knowledge, the other metro areas do. Now maybe the Menace academy is that but only one program for the entire city is not enough. Getting more kids involved and learning the sport would do wonders locally and nationally.
I would guess that 13-15 would be the ages where soccer takes the biggest hits. At that age they are entering JH and HS. Several smaller schools don’t have it or it competes with track or football then and kids drop it.
That’s a terrible reason. If the kids could only create scoring opportunities standing offsides all the time they probably just weren’t very good.
Depends what you mean by 'neighborhood sports'. There are rec leagues that charge a nominal fee and are supported by their communities. Remember that grass needs mowed, facilities need repairs, umps need to be paid, etc. etc. etc. That money needs to come from somewhere.
So many variables that feed into the youth sports discussion. I can talk to my experience with Softball.
How good does your kids want to be? Rec leagues are, usually, just dads coaching their kids. You might have a dad that really understands what they are doing, but its mostly dads that have time and are wiling to do it. If you want good coaching on technique, you will likely have to pay something for it
Money grab - There are programs out there who's 'manage' is in it for the prestige/money. There are also programs out there who are run by people who just love coaching kids. Up to the parents/kids to find the program that is right for them. Especially if you want to play outside your school's season You probably need a facility to practice in. That costs money. Small towns are better at leveraging the school's facility, but there are lots of youth teams vying for time in gyms. You will need equipment. Balls, umpires, uniforms, bats, nets, cones, etc. all cost money. There are programs that aren't cheap, but are basically breaking even after all those expenses.
What does the kid want out of their experience? If you want to just have fun, like a neighborhood pick up game, go the rec route. But, you are going to see a lot of less than challenging opponents. In our rec league, every girl had to play at least two positions int the game and noone could play the same position the whole game. With only one good pitcher, the inning that the other pitcher pitched was, usually, 32 balls = 8 walks = 5 runs = run limit for the inning. Not real challenging for the opposing team. Not all girls in rec league are in it to get better, some just want to have fun. If you really want to get better, you need to consistently face better competition. If you want to play against girls that have equal drive as you - you need to play USSSA/ASA/etc.
What is an experience with your kids worth to you? I can tell you this. It has been great to be able to work with my daughters on their skills, to spend weekends with them, and to see them grow and mature in challenging situations. Their experience has been great for them to understand that if you want to succeed, it takes a lot of hard work. They know that playing time has to be earned. They have translated disappointment into motivation. They have learned to be good teammates. They have learned how to win and lose. I realize that not all families can afford travel ball experience, but I certainly hope that families are not opting out of it because it costs money. It's easy to use money for things that I want to do, but it is invaluable to be able to support my kids and grow our relationship through all that I mentioned above.
At the end of the story, you can get these experiences through lots of different organizations - Scouts, Lego League, camping, etc. To varying amounts, they all take time and money. Just don't get caught using lack of time/money as an excuse to not invest in your kids.
Young kids don’t want to be a defenseman. They get bored and when forced to hang back there or be goalie, they lose interest and quit. You may think it’s a terrible excuse, but how much did your kids love kicking it to a teammate and watching them kick at the goal while they hung back.
