Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:In other sports in the US, the money is at the pro level. The incentive for the youth structure is to sort out the kids that the pros might want to take a look at — and the financial incentives for the youth clubs are to do what the pro clubs want. This helps funnel kids through the channels that the pro leagues endorse. This is the model in Europe (which is not a panacea — check out The Daily podcast on the quick demise of the Super League if you want a good primer on the financial realities of the current European model and its talent race to the bottom).
In soccer in the US, and to a degree in other youth sports (check out The Atlantic article from a couple of months ago on the squash craze buoyed by elite college admissions hooks), the money is at the youth level. So the incentive for the youth club directors is to create demand and attract a whole lot of paying customers. And if you create a new youth club where there’s a gap in the market (FCV about a decade or 15 years ago for youth girls, at the inception of ECNL), you can make a ton of money. There is no $$ incentive for youth clubs to join together or collapse or serve the rec player market. It’s a very capitalist, winner-take-most system.
Follow the money. The problem in an affluent area like ours is that the parents have the ability to pay for their kids to move to a higher level and the clubs have no incentive to stop them. There are no consequences for telling everyone that they, too, can be elite, whatever that means, or for failing to sort talent appropriately. In a system driven by a set of pro teams looking for a reliable talent funnel, a club that didn’t appropriately funnel would soon lose out. That led to the death of the boys DA; unclear what it means for MLSNext at the 15-16-17-18 ages as the MLS academies are going to probably be the only place where there’s some real financial incentive to find and develop homegrown players. And their incentive will be to take the MLSNext players ASAP.
The purpose of youth sports is not to feed pro sports. 99.99% of youth athletes have no interest or intention for pro sports. There is nothing unique about youth soccer in the US. You’ll find all the same money driven situations in baseball, volleyball, gymnastics, basketball, lacrosse, and others. All youth sports are a combination of fun and businesses trying to make money. The path to pro for any youth sports is a very very tiny part of the system catering to a small subset. The vast majority of youth sports are nothing different than any other paid for kids activity like sleep away camps or playing piano
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