Pay to play

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yawn. There are money grabs all over youth sports. Just be lucky you don’t have kids who play hoops. At tourneys, most places charge 8 bucks per person to watch your child, grandchild, sibling play ball.

Curious. Do they charge the team to register and play too, or is the $8 the way in which the tourneys recoup costs?

Both, and at all ages. As a comparison, it would be like the Arlington tournament charging all of the teams a fee to sign up and participate in the tournament, and then charging each parent, grandparent and sibling $8 per person to watch the soccer games. So if you are a family of five, and if you, your spouse and your other two kids want to watch the other child play soccer in the tourney, then you are paying $32 on Saturday and $32 on Sunday for the privilege of standing on a sideline and supporting your child. U8 - U19. It is absurd. I would not be surprised if the same is true for volleyball, but fortunately we don't have a kid who plays.

Great idea, I predict the money grab clubs will adopt this soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yawn. There are money grabs all over youth sports. Just be lucky you don’t have kids who play hoops. At tourneys, most places charge 8 bucks per person to watch your child, grandchild, sibling play ball.

Curious. Do they charge the team to register and play too, or is the $8 the way in which the tourneys recoup costs?

Both, and at all ages. As a comparison, it would be like the Arlington tournament charging all of the teams a fee to sign up and participate in the tournament, and then charging each parent, grandparent and sibling $8 per person to watch the soccer games. So if you are a family of five, and if you, your spouse and your other two kids want to watch the other child play soccer in the tourney, then you are paying $32 on Saturday and $32 on Sunday for the privilege of standing on a sideline and supporting your child. U8 - U19. It is absurd. I would not be surprised if the same is true for volleyball, but fortunately we don't have a kid who plays.

I've had the same experience with HS track. The organizers of big meets charge the teams hefty fees, these are big business. Then the spectators have to pay $5/day to get into the meet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yawn. There are money grabs all over youth sports. Just be lucky you don’t have kids who play hoops. At tourneys, most places charge 8 bucks per person to watch your child, grandchild, sibling play ball.

Curious. Do they charge the team to register and play too, or is the $8 the way in which the tourneys recoup costs?

Both, and at all ages. As a comparison, it would be like the Arlington tournament charging all of the teams a fee to sign up and participate in the tournament, and then charging each parent, grandparent and sibling $8 per person to watch the soccer games. So if you are a family of five, and if you, your spouse and your other two kids want to watch the other child play soccer in the tourney, then you are paying $32 on Saturday and $32 on Sunday for the privilege of standing on a sideline and supporting your child. U8 - U19. It is absurd. I would not be surprised if the same is true for volleyball, but fortunately we don't have a kid who plays.

I've had the same experience with HS track. The organizers of big meets charge the teams hefty fees, these are big business. Then the spectators have to pay $5/day to get into the meet.

Well - good to see HS track and b-ball are still valued, else the poor would really get the shaft.

[Anonymous]

From the story:

"The way Martino sees it, the biggest problem facing U.S. Soccer’s talent pipeline are the economic factors that conspire to keep players away from the game at the youth level. “The thing that concerned me the most was the lack of access, which was a problem back when I played, and how they’ve professionalized the game at such a young age,” Martino tells me in a phone interview. “It’s turned into a rich kids’ game in this country

So true.

[Anonymous]

We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

What club and coach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Because we don’t have a lucrative pro league at the top to fund it.

Yes we do.

They just want to keep their money and let parents fund it instead.

I'll put the greed of NFL, MLB and NBA owners up against anyone. But they reluctantly recognize that paying for talent maximizes their profitability, so those are big-money sports. A youth coach in one of those sports who can identify and develop talent, and steer it to the next stage, can live a very comfortable life indeed. A kid who shows talent will have no problem finding someone to cover their bills.

In soccer, the money flows the other way, up from the bottom. In youth soccer, not only are families expected to pay all the costs but their also expected to kick some up to the higher levels. DC United used to come to our club all the time talking about "partnership" opportunities, which to them meant one and only one thing: us giving them money.

Incidentally, it's the same for soccer referees. That nice guy who refs your kid's game has to pay an annual registration fee to US Soccer. About a quarter of that fee goes to subsidize the pay of MLS referees.

Wait, are you claiming that NFL, MLB, and NBA actually fund youth coaches? I've never heard that before. Do you have a source?

[Anonymous]

knowledge of the sport and how to develop players is not common knowledge yet. So we have to pay coaches to do the coaching. They are not free, sorry... when we get the point where every dad has played soccer then maybe you can go to the neighbor's house for some training. But until then someone has to pay a coach for their time, where is that $ coming from? Has to be from parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

That is what a lot of people think. That you have to play with the best of the best to become elite. Iron sharpens Iron is the BS spewed by parents with players on DA teams. I love that Martino only played pickup and high school growing up. Is that even possible today ? There needs to be pickup soccer available everyday but the clubs own the fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

That is what a lot of people think. That you have to play with the best of the best to become elite. Iron sharpens Iron is the BS spewed by parents with players on DA teams. I love that Martino only played pickup and high school growing up. Is that even possible today ? There needs to be pickup soccer available everyday but the clubs own the fields.

Totally agree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

That is what a lot of people think. That you have to play with the best of the best to become elite. Iron sharpens Iron is the BS spewed by parents with players on DA teams. I love that Martino only played pickup and high school growing up. Is that even possible today ? There needs to be pickup soccer available everyday but the clubs own the fields.

Totally agree.

Typically the town or county owns the field. Are there any clubs in the area that own their facilities other than the St James?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

What club and coach?

I have to check. He has been with 3 or 4 teams over the past five years, always moving for the next best thing (but from this one, I could see why...).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We actually have a neighbor, good kid, solid player, who was told by his club coach that he should not play pickup soccer. Too many bad habits and sloppy techniques out there. Said he should focus on their structured training. Are you effing kidding me? I would have pulled my son on the spot from that team if I heard his coach say that.

Coaches like that, and parents who enable them, are part of the problem

That is what a lot of people think. That you have to play with the best of the best to become elite. Iron sharpens Iron is the BS spewed by parents with players on DA teams. I love that Martino only played pickup and high school growing up. Is that even possible today ? There needs to be pickup soccer available everyday but the clubs own the fields.

Totally agree.

Typically the town or county owns the field. Are there any clubs in the area that own their facilities other than the St James?

You are correct re ownership of the fields, but clubs book big blocks of time of these fields, which makes it hard to find a good field for a pick up game. Not impossible, but hard.

[Anonymous]

What ever happened to the Friday night lights games ? wasn't that pickup/free play ?

[Anonymous]

Y'all are nuts. There are dozens of grass fields at schools in the area that are good enough for pickup soccer.