RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Not a whole lot of new information, but lays out the situation pretty well.
The Pay-to-Play Childhood - (link to article)
- Thread starter RandomSoccerFan
- Start date
article missed the big point which is college. Players chase college soccer scholarships and preferred admits. Other players then to make their high school teams (and build the extracurricular list for college admissions) have to go travel to keep up. Then others who want just to have their kids play a sport have to go travel because rec disintegrates. Europe doesn’t have a large p2p problem because college admits are purely test (or influence) based. So sports are done in Sunday league where nobody cares except for the glory (including the coaches who volunteer). The effect isn’t limited to sports. It’s why student council elections, debate, math or robot Olympics, dance and fake charities have gotten out of hand. Heck the creative writers are running around doing competitions and trying to nab one of the 80 slots at Iowa younger writers.
Article spends a lot of time blaming private equity. Private equity distorts a lot of stuff. It’s why your red lobster Pizza Hut kfc and Burger King now suck. But private equity responds to a market. No market no private equity. It’s a symptom not a cause. Getting rid of the symptom would help— but it’s Tylenol not something that gets rid of the underlying bug.
How many UCs are in D1, like 4? That’s 24 quarter scholarships a year available. Most people don’t have an idea how hard it is to get into a UC playing soccer. The rest of California D1s are not academically desirable. For many, they dig a hole too deep financially and time wise in club soccer, they have to play college soccer to justify their investment.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
No question that the pursuit of some advantage in college admissions and/or some level of scholarship, is a goal that some parents think that soccer (and any of your listed activities) will help with. It may even be a somewhat significant piece of the puzzle. And it may be heavily weighted at the very tip of the spear (MLS HG / some ECNL G teams). But I don't think it's the major driver for the market as a whole. Most families wouldn't have that as one of the top priorities all the way through a kid's soccer journey. The large amounts of money being invested (and expecting returns) are not necessarily tied to college recruiting. Those that are angling for it starting at age 8 are both delusional, and comparatively loud about it.
I think you're right in that PE isn't the direct cause. But it supercharges the pursuit of profit above all else, and has quickly changed this particular youth sports market into one that consumers of that market shouldn't be happy about.
I think you're right in that PE isn't the direct cause. But it supercharges the pursuit of profit above all else, and has quickly changed this particular youth sports market into one that consumers of that market shouldn't be happy about.
That may be true from our Ivy towers but I know plenty of Latino kids happy to get a free ride at Csun or cal state La. For everyone else it’s trickle down. Your kid is now competing against these kids (or can be like the rec kid crying in these forums a few months back about how the coaches on his hs team only wanted letter league). While a varsity letter can’t get you into college, they’ll absolutely punish you for not having some team activity on your list. They even rank them with varsity championship getting a higher score than Sunday league. One of the uc essays is on leadership so you gotta lead something. Hence the crazy student council elections these days.
It’s trickle down. You only need 5% of families with the goal and it changes things for everyone. Those 5% are the daddy ball coaches that are knowledgeable and drive rec and little league for free. Suddenly now the next 5%, the parents with varsity trophy leagues, need to do it to remain competitive. They get removed from rec, rec suffers, bring on the next 5% competing for the last slots on the varsity team. Eventually rec is a shell so the ones looking to just play a sport have the option of travel or nothing. Two facts you can point to that support this: Europe doesn’t have it…reason why is there’s no financial incentive to lay out vast sums of money to keep your kid competitive in a varsity sport. Second is Latino league. Where offered it’s still going strong…parents who can’t afford travel have options.
Grace and I see eye to eye.
I will add that the biggest thing driving up total cost for families is the travel cost and that's a function of the size of the US. When you start adding airfare and hotels across the country, the cost starts go up in a way that renders the actual "club fees" meaningless.
At least youth soccer isn't a sport where much international travel is required like hockey up to Canada or figure skating to Europe or Asia... (though, many are happy to sell American parents the "opportunity" to go to a camp or play in a tournament in Spain or France or England... but it's strictly optional).
When parents talk about pay to play in soccer, I laugh because I used to, in a different life, run a tutoring/college admissions consulting business. If you think pay to play is a "problem", I'll show you how much private college math professor hourly rates are for a kid competing in national level math Olympiad or what a violin lesson costs for someone prepping to get into Julliard.
And the article, while well written, is exaggerated with misinformation or incomplete information. I'm only half way through it but I'll list what I think are exaggerations once I'm done with it...
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Maybe, I'm not as convinced. Even if it were the instigator (college admissions pref / scholarships), it still means that the vast majority of players now are agreeing to pay those fees not for "various college advantages", but because it has become the only way to play in a reasonably competitive league in so many places in this country. If someone pressed an imaginary button and all the college preferences immediately stopped - I don't believe that would stop what has already been created and proven profitable.
Yes - there are small pockets that can point to other viable options like Latino league, but that just isn't an option unless you're in a pretty unique location. And for what it's worth, even the Latino league by us has been starting to get more pricey/serious, and some of the teams involved have now been fielding teams in both that league as well the traditional comp leagues. The club we were with continue to scrimmage with them all the time, no doubt it can be a good option.
My crazy experience was the future writers trying to get Iowa young writers and the film kids trying to get into csssa. It’s absurd but getting one of those on your application drives the specialty programs colleges and ivies Gaga. SoCal submits like 20 applications from Harvard westlake alone for about 10/80 slots from California to Iowa.
I agree systems are hard to dismantle once in place. But if you switched to a test only, subject based admissions, because money is scarce, a lot of that money instantly gets funneled into test prep (see South Korea for example where the test is everything). You still have people chasing the pro track. Europe has a small pay 2 play system with kids chasing the academy track. But it gets much much smaller. If you had military rotc or employment as a factor in student admissions, those would grow too.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
I still don't think it's that clear. Of the huge piles of money being spent by parents right now on youth soccer - if college prefs went away - those parents don't suddenly choose to take that same money and spend it on test prep. They (most) aren't thinking of that money as down payment on education. They'd continue to spend it as they are currently choosing, on soccer that they feel is appropriate for their kids.
That's the point - most of the money right now is not because of college prefs - even if were a significant original cause for the cost explosion in the US.
Any explanation would have to explain why the cost explosion has taken place in the US and across a multitude of sports (not just soccer) while at the same time not taking place across Europe (which has access to the US pro markets).
I agree with you turning has a latent effect. But again if college shifted ONLY to testing (no extracurricular list) you'd see a ton of that money shifted. It doesn't matter if MOST aren't thinking of that money as a down payment on education. You only need about 5% of a market to start thinking that way and then it has down stream distortions (making varsity, keeping up with the Joneses, rec options disappear). It's not linear. It's a cause and effect cascade. Here's exhibit "B": Canada...they also use holistic admittance rather than test based admissions....they also have a p2p problem.
What I'm seeing is the current administration (rank and file codename for Trump) is making it harder and harder for non-Americans to make it through college.
Is it important? maybe yes maybe no. But if it gets more difficult to bring over a ret@rded striker than it does to bring up from within maybe.
Why are we trying to fix a problem that fixes itself by 8th grade?
By 8th grade:
1. Parents see their kid hasn’t scored in weeks and realize now he is not going to be the next Messi
2. Someone has told the parents there aren’t any college scholarship to be had unless you are in ecnl or mls next and even that you are looking at 1/4 scholarships from crappy schools.
Last fall, I saw an U16 AYSO practice. Those kids can play. Many of them are ex-club players who quit soccer to play with friends. Clubs sell the dream but at some point reality hits.
By 8th grade:
1. Parents see their kid hasn’t scored in weeks and realize now he is not going to be the next Messi
2. Someone has told the parents there aren’t any college scholarship to be had unless you are in ecnl or mls next and even that you are looking at 1/4 scholarships from crappy schools.
Last fall, I saw an U16 AYSO practice. Those kids can play. Many of them are ex-club players who quit soccer to play with friends. Clubs sell the dream but at some point reality hits.
Setting aside the wasted money and time on weekends up to 8th grade, most regions no longer carry a U16 AYSO so they consolidated the U16 team into a super area (e.g. North Valley, Glendale/Burbank, Conejo-Calabasas-Camarillo) which means you are driving big distances to play games. The trade off is no one cares so there's pretty much no practices unless the friends decide they want one and can get enough players. Latino League operates the same at this age...practices are optional...mostly friends doing futsal once a week. But then you have them coming onto the forum crying that the coach only wants letter league like that kid on here months back. So long as they are o.k. with not making the high school team (or paying for a small private or going to a small charter)...sure the terms are acceptable. It also means you'll have to look elsewhere for the extracurricular to put on your list (most colleges use a ranking system of some kind for extracurriculars...say 1-5 with international awards and competitions being a 5..Sunday League will be scored a 1).
p.s. small tangent. At the turn of the century, colleges were scoring working (like at fast food) "1s" and giving the fake charities that didn't survive graduation "5s". I remember getting into a huge fight with the admissions committee of my Ivy because they passed on a working mom I was pushing for because they said she didn't carry enough extracurriculars (just working at KFCs) and scored her a "1". Now days hearing lots of admission officers saying they are scoring real jobs (ie not internships, babysitting or helping out dad at the office) "4s" esp because it's so hard to get them these days. For quite a few admissions officers, on the academic (as opposed to athletic recruiting) route, kids will get more bang for their buck working than playing varsity sports (unless they pull down something like captain + All CIF or MLSN finals).
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you reference Latino League a lot. Can you give specifics on exactly what and where?
Reality does hit. The .01 and the dropouts - there is gold in between.
My kid did two. One at balboa park after the Covid lockdowns but before the leagues and government got their act together to reopen. A second at whitsett park (I think it’s nacionces unidas) and he even got to do internationals and an academy trial with that team. He eventually had to stop because the demands on Latino league conflicted with the varsity season and they have a strict no organized play policy, as well as in summers he started being away at pre college programs. Don’t know the league names but the way to get in is just approach a team and ask for contacts. They don’t have websites or nothing like as far as I know.
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There's a bunch of small ones.
The bigger ones are PSSLU (psslu.org) in Bell Gardens area and then Anaheim's North Orange County Youth Soccer Premier League (nocyspl.org).
Usually flexible scheduling. Pretty crappy fields. Costs are minimal like a few hundred per team a season. Ref fees will cost more than the league fees. Think like $200-300 per 12 game season. And then $60-90 per game x 12 for ref fees.
A few Sunday league teams I looked into are charging a $120-150 monthly “training fee” and you have to pay even if you don’t plan on going to the training. That’s almost half the cost of the club.
The level of competition is a mixed bag. The really good teams are full of club players. You aren’t gonna find a really good player there that has fallen through the pay to play crack. If a kid is good, they are already playing club for free. However I find it interesting that some of these kids getting free rides are only playing for a club’s second or third team. Maybe someone can explain that to me.