Every city in USA has pickup soccer, free. And some players are really excellent. And in fact I have seen that people are really nice......almost all the time. A ten year old can go play with adults and not get beat on physically, although they won't hesitate to embarrass you, but they won't hurt you. It's free, and you can use meetup or other sites. You absolutely do not need pay to play soccer to develop. Just ask Ronaldo fenomeno. He only played futsal in the favelas until he was drafted into an academy . Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnd , there are lots of excellent players. They are, on average, much better than even the best youth players. A thirteen year old silvan cavanaugh would not be special in most adult pickup games . Also, this video has a big emphasis on college. But college is a terrible way to be a pro athlete, because you do mediocre schooling and mediocre sports. Do one or the other. Soccer is unique in that you can get tons of exposure once you get on a division three or four USA pro team, and they hold open tryouts. If you're actually a baller, you can do an open tryouts for USA division three or four, and they will sign you. They'll pay you peanuts, but you can do it. And it's exposure. And if you're actually a baller it will show. If you're cannon fodder it doesn't matter anyway. You're not gonna be a top pro if you aren't a standout in division three or four. They will see it instantly if you have more talent that everyone in your division.
Do you think it's a problem when dad/coaches start or join clubs and it's solely for the purpose of making $ so there kid can play up a level or also get sent away to MLS next, or an expensive academy? I've seen it with my own two eyes that's why I ask, it's almost as if once there kid makes it they forget all there coaching duties and become fanboys to there own kid? Thanks for this content glad you have your ear to the pitch! ⚽🇺🇲🤑
Another thing that would really help is having easier access to watch soccer. Soccer was never on tv when I was a kid in the 2000s. Basketball, football, and baseball all were on tv which led to me growing up loving and playing those sports. Same went for everyone I knew. We didn’t know anyone aside from Ronaldo and David Beckham. We didn’t care, it was all about the sports stars we had access to watch. We all spent hours a day replicating LeBron, Kobe, and even Tim Duncan trying to be like the stars we idolized. I want to see a generation of American kids who can turn on an MLS game any given night and find new players to love and show them the game. There shouldn’t be a need to pay even more to watch our own domestic league on “Apple TV”. People who fall in love with a sport at a young age will never abandon it; even if they’re not good players it’ll grow the fanbase and support for the game. Then they’ll show their kid all the games and take them to see their local teams just like past generations have done with the more traditionally popular sports here. Idek if I’m making any sense anymore this turned into quite a little rant. oh well, I think enough of my point got across. good video 👍
Was at our futsal place 2 weeks ago & there was a birthday party at the facility. The kids instead of playing a pickup baseball or basketball game were playing soccer on the basketball/futsal empty court. All of them white suburban kids.
Your rant is heard loud and clear over here! I have to sign up for apple TV, fuboTV, TH-cam TV, ESPN+ etc just to watch a games..cancelled all those subscriptions and I take my son to a sports bar smh.. my favorite is how they promote MLS next, and they charge you to watch those games as well! So now we are already treating non accomplished teens as if there highly decorated professionals lol. Good rant 🇺🇲⚽🤑
Soccer is a rich kids sport in my area. Who can pay $2200 club fee, $700 kit( new kit every year), three out of town tournaments in the summer, and staying in a hotel 4 times a season for league games? It's looking more like the early 90s when only a couple kids on the high school team played club. The coaching is so bad for both club and high school that its comical the way they do practices. The EA and ECNL teams here in Spokane WA are for the owners to get rich, and the parents get to brag at cocktail parties that their kid plays premier soccer lol
You’re absolutely right, the costs of competitive soccer can be outrageous. Not everyone can afford those club fees, kits, and travel expenses, making it tough for not just the lowest income families but the 99%. It’s frustrating to see soccer become so exclusive, and the quality of coaching can definitely vary.
There is grass roots soccer among the immigrant communities, you just have to really be in the community to see it. They deal with the problem with volunteer coaches who played as kids and by forming larger teams so they can defray the costs of competing amongst more families. And/or they form their own rec leagues and just play each other. But I still insist, the best way to support everyone is reform soccer at the high school level. There are only a few things that are needed for that. First, athletic directors in the USA almost never have any soccer experience and they have dictatorial control over the hiring process. Unlike any other government job, coaches in the USA don't require a hiring process with any oversight. There is no penalty for refusing to hire the best candidate without cause and giving the job to a friend. The sort of hiring processes used with high school soccer coaches would be class five felonies on any contractual work. I've literally seen a guy with no coaching experience hired over a guy with Barcelona youth training in Spain purely because of the buddy system. Second, there are very weak standards for coaching ability to enforce any of this or to prove one hire better than another to an athletic director who has no knowledge of the sport, and there are very weak programs for teaching youth soccer to high school coaches. You end up with too many coaches that thing "Remember the Titans" is the best guide to how to coach. Third, we need to push states to go to two seasons a year for soccer - fall and spring. This would remove the need for club seasons to a large extent and basically end pay to play as it exists today. The only reason parents pay for that crap is they don't want their kid falling behind. The kids don't even want it, they just don't want to fall behind. Instead of club soccer being the default, coaches could offer tutoring and skills programs in off seasons and kids could actually play with their friends competitively. Club and travel soccer could be confined to kids that are standing out at the high school level, preferably backed by USL and MLS scholarship programs and not as the default for basically everyone that plays. If the rich still want to pay for it, then fine - advantages of wealth. But the pressure to go that route would be off.
Thank you for putting this together. I don’t think anyone has really addressed the main issue: it costs money to get quality coaching. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world, a great coach will need some kind of compensation to spend time coaching kids. It’s correct to lament pay to play, but nobody seems to propose a true solution for how to compensate coaches if there is no revenue coming to the club. I’d love to hear more on this topic: if the club is free, where does the money come from for facilites, coaches, leagues etc etc
When I was 14 I was selected, through a process, to play a tournament in Holland for the U15 National Team (PTPSA). Unfortunately, MY FAMILY COULDN'T AFFORD $5000+ FOR ME TO GO.
Imho, the main pivot that would most benefit enjoyment and skill development of soccer in North America would be to have more of a pickup soccer game culture.
We could have tried to reform high school soccer with better coaching training, moving for states to adopt two seasons a year, and generally working up from the grass roots. But we had idiots in charge that wanted to recreate the European academies despite the complete lack of infrastructure to replicate them and so the parents paid for their stupidity.
@@JakeLandau We have developed top level support since the great disaster of 2006, with an MLS program that provides something like a top level academy for the most obvious and promising stars. But we will never be able to replicate Europe because our local communities feel no loyalty to professional teams. Our sporting loyalty is given to scholastic athletics - college and high school football for example. You cheer for a high school or a college, not a group of semi-pros representing some local gymnasium and I don't see that changing any time soon. So since you have no local club providing the entertainment, you also have no local fans partially funding the youth development through ticket sales. And the government has no interest in funding clubs, because it's already funding schools that serve the same purpose and more with greater equity. I honestly don't want to replicate the European system, because I don't want every youth player signing pro contracts at 11 like in South America. I've seen that system implemented in the community, and kids coming out of those clubs have chronic sports injuries by age 15. I have no interest in replicating gymnastics with soccer. Ultimately, if you want to get rid of "pay to play" you have to ask "Who is going to pay for it and why?" We created pay to play when we didn't ask who was going to pay for it. Club programs are succeeding only because the quality of high school coaching is correctly perceived as dreadful. That's now a fixable problem but it requires legislation and work with government. There are enough legislators now who have kids who have seen the problem that we could solve this at a State by State level, but USSF has it's eyes elsewhere.
High school, junior high, and college programs could be the US’ secret development weapon. Free to play. Professional coaches. 20,000 high schools covering every community in the nation. 4,000 universities that can be a development league for players who don’t catch on with one of the few pro teams in the US.
@@ThreeRunHomer That was the way we were headed I think until Gulati pivoted with the support of the US fan base in 2006, using fan anger about the WC results to give him carte blanch to reinvent US soccer. We lost a whole generation of players to that mess and by 2018 had almost completely left Europe. We were only saved by MLS academies after Seattle, Portland, and Atlanta joining the league made it profitable. Now we have strong academies in Dallas, Philly, NYRB and increasingly Columbus and top flight teaching in most major cities. But the high school scene is a mess and doesn't have to be that way. The problem is about 40% of the US fan base is so busy envying Europe they are deaf to having another way to do things, even though it's obvious that due to the vastly different sporting landscape in the USA versus Europe we have to find a different way to do things.
@@celebrim1 Connecting a local club to a community is the key. In Indiana, we had that with high school basketball until the government equity Nazis forced class A, B, C and D levels on the end of year tournament. No more Cinderella stories, no more Friday night packed high school gyms, no more season ticket holders for high school basketball or tickets willed to the next generation. All the value of community representation and involvement was gone in instant. If we want community involvement and support for the local team the U.S. needs to implement a promotion and delegation system.
Pay to play is not going away anytime soon. First of all, coaches have to pay for their coaching education and licensing. We need more scholarships for all levels of play. More players who have made it out of our system should really turn back around and start a fund for our programs. Our communities must also start supporting their local clubs by buying tickets and showing up. Currently, my son’s previous coach was earning over 50k per year. He coaches part time and has never won anything. My son was only playing in tournaments. He’s gotten a ton of attention from colleges, but it is hard to know if that’s truly due to his talent or just because they believe we are able to pay for the ID Camps. As parents, we need to help out our local clubs with fund raisers and making soccer visible in our neighborhoods. In vote neighbors, family, and friends. Make it fun.
I like the school-sports model in the US where I am. Yes, the European model pays for kids to develop in the club and this is a great environment. This opens opportunity for a select group that may include some economically disadvantaged kids BUT school sports already do this in my area. And my issue is the Euro club model eliminates 99% of kids who might want to get into the sport. The club only wants to develop kids who show tons of talent around age 9-11. But what about the rest? School sports are inclusive. Anyone can try out, the school provides transportation, and at least at my school we did fundraisers and such so if you couldn’t afford the sports fee or equipment like cleats, you didn’t have to pay. Maybe schools won’t churn out the world class talent this channel wants, but I’m honestly ok with this and hope the model of professional athlete children doesn’t take over.
I just lost a player, U10, due to not being able to afford club soccer. Thing is, even if the club offered a huge discount or even free, his parents would make little effort to get him there. I also coach a recreational team. I am a licensed coach and have 15 years' experience in coaching. On my rec team where the fees are very cheap, $125 for spring and fall sessions, only a couple of the kid's parents are committed to getting them to practice. So in retrospect, the parents that pay more, are more committed to get their children to practice.
Great video! I'm definitely pissed about the structure of our top youth leagues (and I think it's like that in most youth sports - like lacrosse for instance). Making videos like this will help get the word out about how things really need to change. About the video, I was thinking you could do your lighting better so your face isn't so shadowy.
Thanks! I’m in temporary accommodations while I get work done on my house and I don’t have my light or any other equipment with me. Had to make the best of the situation.
Inner city school sports funds got cut a decade ago…Charter schools don’t have sports…it’s a suburban image sport rn…. You need kids from tough backgrounds to handle the international game. I’m not saying there aren’t any good suburban players but you need a mix.
This is so accurate. We are paying $1800 for my 9 year-old to play club soccer. My other kids play rec league. The difference in coaching and skill set is more lopsided than I had expected!
Expat Englishman in Virginia. Four kids, one of whom (6) is eligible for travel football. Here in my slice of Northern VA it's around $2200. I laughed that idea out of existence. Not only is the cost ridiculous, but the standard is questionable. I don't think these kids could compete with your average school/Sunday league side back home. I just don't.
$2200 for a 6 year old. No every day of the week. Let the kids play. You probably are a better coach than they will have. Get them doing skill drills and just playing and having fun until they close in on puberty then if they are the best or one of the best on their team. Maybe start looking at some type of travel team 12 and under.
All you’re doing is complaining. It’s really simple. The money needs to come from somewhere. If you don’t want the families to pay, the programs need sponsorships. The best coaches will want to be compensated fairly. So they’ll go to the money. FYI, this is true in most sports in America (even basketball and baseball)
Money isn't the only barrier to youth soccer development, there's also the time commitment required on families of travel teams. Instead of traveling to multiple states during the season, perhaps they should focus more locally and have one big tournament at the end of the season that encompasses multiple states.
Good call out on the accessibility of coaching licenses. Like you, I have a USSF D license but cannot find myself to make that leap to C. Our club will reimburse us the fee over the course of 5 years though so that does mitigate it.
Don't even bother. I have my C and will never do the B. Many coaches I know have done it and their experience was horrible. Most of the scrutiny about their performance had little to do with coaching, but how they formatted their homework documents and the way a session was filmed. The moderators were also not on the same page, so one would tell a coach what to do and what they want to see, the next day a different guy would say the opposite. It's just an unprofessional mess that feels like a money grab.
The problem also is these families pay and the kid might not be best and they expect the coach to play them because they are paying. Of course you limiting the pool of talented players from all backgrounds.
Growing up I didn’t have a lot of money, I played rec soccer up until my 8th grade year where a local club offered me a “scholarship” to play for free. The amount of skilled I gained in the first 2 years of club was bigger than my entire life playing rec soccer. Give the best kids a chance and we can be the best in the world in soccer too
If we eliminate government funding as an option (apparently 19% of revenue in Germany… I’m sure taxpayers wouldn’t vote for this) and solidarity payments are finally improving, you only have sponsorships and donations to make up the gap. That’s a huge gap… tbh Sponsorships are hard… 1) clubs have to employ a salesperson to get sponsorships, 2) American small businesses are threatened. How many of them have closed due to the pandemic and rising costs (restaurants), Home Depot, Costco and Amazon? Americans are generally not loyal to buying from their community. 3) businesses generally feel online and TV marketing are more effective than community advertising. As for the biggest percentage “fees”, we’re getting to the point where innocence is losing… American football and basketball have pay-to-play (like AAU) so how can disadvantaged kids afford it??? There are nefarious ways like handlers who don’t have the kids’ best interests and treat them as investments. As MLS and soccer in America get bigger (like better salaries), that’s the direction we are heading. I only hope soccer is preparing for this…
This video brought me to your channel and I'm hooked. You've got a new subscriber. I'm a huge fan of local soccer and love to support my local club, Indy Eleven. Id love to see you do some research and talk about the weird dynamic that exists between the USL and MLS in America. Maybe even dive into the MLS habit of opening expansion teams in cities that already have USL teams and effectively killing the local club scene. Indianapolis is currently going through this with our beloved local club's stadium being axed and the city bringing in outside ownership to build a stadium for a potential new MLS team.
Wow first of all thanks so much for your comment I really appreciate it. And 2nd I actually wrote about Indy Eleven and the MLS struggle on my newsletter here: itscalledsoccer.substack.com/p/a-shakespearean-betrayal Sometimes I don't have time to turn everything into a video, record, edit it so I write instead.
I don't think you understand the economics of soccer in Europe vs US. In every town in Europe, the local club can sell their talented players to a bigger club for huge sums. Selling just one academy product can fund the entire program for a generation. Then there is the trickle down payments made to local clubs from the TV deals sold at the top level. These sources of funding are simply not available to the US youth soccer clubs. There is no chance of getting paid for the talent we create and we get nothing from our association, so we have to charge at the point of delivery. Unless you think the best coaches should work for free, there are no other sources of income except parents.
Thank you Jake and your guests, that’s definitely insightful and optimistic. I don’t want to be the rain cloud bc I truly see the improvement in our senior team, u23s and U17-20s, but unless free mls academies start popping up everywhere, like several per state that provide a direct pathway to say Nyfc and the mls increases wages by a large amount and adopts promotion and relegation to infuse money into the clubs who get to move up where gonna be stuck right where we are. There need to be 60 or 80 clubs for example to make something like this work. 3 or 4 divisions of 20 clubs and the last and first three need to move up and down. But to make this happen the unthinkable in American sports must occur. NO PLAYOFFS. In addition soccer still must compete with already established, more popular football basketball and baseball, sports that have domestic final proving ground that leads to actual wealth for those who reach the top level of their sport. It’s an uphill battle but i think our best shot is having our players develop here early on then go over seas. What are your thoughts Jake and guests.
I'm not sure why it always comes down to promotion and relegation. NO! Let me ask you something. How popular is champions league? That is why Europe needs playoffs.
I didn’t expect a "solution" to pay-to-play, but I wish you could've pointed out some realistic sources of funding for soccer programs. Pay-to-play exists because travel soccer and coaching is expensive, and enough parents are willing to shell out a premium to get access to those services. Who is going to pay for the coaching and facilities for millions of kids, if not the parents? What revenue sources are American clubs supposed to tap into that will solve this huge gap? They are usually excluded from solidarity payments, so that's out. Which level of government would be giving the handout, local, State, or Federal? I can't imagine anyone would choose to stake their survival on government funding always being granted year after year. Getting funding from parents at least means you can always pay your bills so long as you can recruit the kids/parents each year. I think that we won't see a reduction in pay-to-play until coaching licenses are easily aquired en-masse and professional clubs proliferate and pump money into partnerships with youth clubs.
You know what I have to agree with you upon reflection. I'm working hard to become a better storyteller, writer, and editor. I'll keep this in mind as I make future videos. In regards to your question, I agree with you that it starts with the cost to become a coach and how few current adults have soccer experience relative to all other sports.
@@JakeLandau I think the editing was good, along with getting guests who work in the industry to opine on the topic. I think this video covers "pay-to-play" in very surface level, broad strokes. Someone who had no idea about what soccer is like here would've gained some insight. But I think you could make a much more informative and impactful version of this, using your connections in the game and interviewing skills to create something really interesting. Have you ever sat down with a director of a pay-to-play academy and drilled down into how they run their program? How much of their funding comes from parents vs. other sources? How much money goes into coaching vs. travel expenses vs. everything else? Where do they think things are going, for themselves and their model more broadly? How many "scholarships" do they have for kids who can't afford it, and has that number gone up or down over the years? And so on. It would be interesting to hear the details from a current or former higher-up in one of these organizations. Indeed, I was hoping for a deeper dive with your cousin from the "other side" of pay-to-play, so to speak. You could ask your cousin the same kinds of questions above, and I think you'd have a great video. I know you've got enough on your plate with a baby and all, but I'd love to see something like that nonetheless. Much love dude.
To help me understand this better, can you compare this to how kids learn the other 4 major team sports in the US? (not just compare to how England does it with soccer) Like, how much did a pro football player spend in their youth leagues? Baseball, basketball & hockey too? I'd imagine hockey is fairly expensive- needing all the gear and renting ice time, on top of coaching. Whereas basketball is probably less, because a young kid can develop a lot just by playing friends/siblings in the driveway - because a team just has 5 players, it's easier to assimilate real-game scenarios with fewer people. But that's a guess. Does anyone know more about how all 5 sports compare in that respect? And can anything be learned from the other sports?
I'm not an expert but some resources online suggest that competitive hockey and soccer are the most expensive averaging $2,000+ per year per child. Baseball is around $1100 a year, with basketball and American football around $600. This video is about the soccer part, but there is likely a wider issue of youth sports becoming maximized for profit.
Hockey is easily the most expensive. It is a rich kid's sport. It is also very local, huge swaths of the country don't have youth hockey at all. Basketball/Baseball/Football all have kids participating through local youth programs and schools. Basketball and Baseball have parallel systems similar to youth soccer academies in travel baseball and the AAU circuit for basketball. Those systems also favor kids that have families willing to pay for better coaching, but there is generally more quality of coaching across the board, so there can be a (more narrow) path for poorer kids. Football is exclusively through local youth programs and schools. Families with money can move their kids to better programs for better coaching, but again, there is generally more quality coaching across the board. Soccer should be a sport that is easily accessible for kids. You just need a ball to play. But, to really develop quality professionals you have to be giving kids quality coaching at a young age. The challenge with the US is that soccer is a growing sport, there are more kids playing now than did 20 years ago. That's great, but that also creates a generational gap. How many parents have the skills to teach their own kids? How many soccer dads are equipped to coach 9/10 year olds? Those dads played baseball, or basketball, or football. They didn't play soccer. That coaching gap creates a market inefficiency that pay-to-play fills.
@@JakeLandau Thanks for the follow-up. I think part of my curiosity is: how much do kids learn by playing pick-up (and in their backyards, driveways or parks) vs being in organized leagues right away? I mean, didn't Pele start with a sock full of newspaper? Or Beckham perfecting his kick in his backyard? I seem to see American kids playing organized, coached soccer on regulation-size fields at a very early age. I just wonder if, as the popularity grows, and MLS salaries increase, if there will be a more organic path to excellence. Of course good coaching will be a huge part of that as they get older, but then they'll know... i.e. a kid can play basketball in the neighborhood day after day, and when it occurs to that kid & parents that there's some real talent a cut-above, then paying for coaching & such makes sense. The other thing is that the other 4 sports are more likely to lead to college scholarships, which gives kids incentives to play for hours in the backyard (well, that and the glory of being pro). Here, the path to pro soccer is only recently transitioning away from college. College sports can pay for scholarships because of the revenue they make, because there's a built-in audience with the student-body & alumni. Though soccer academies receive money when a player turns pro. I'm kind of rambling, but trying to find the money trail in each sport to try to find a possible solution for soccer...
My son is 2014 born. Playing in a solid club in Hawaii. $1400 for year round club fees. New kit every 2 years $240. 4 tournaments a year $55 each. Averages to about $150 a month. 3 training sessions a week and weekend games/scrimmage. He loves to play. This club may be the most expensive in the state. Overseas travel maybe once every year or two for those who can make it. We haven’t gone on a trip yet. Hawaii soccer is legit and we could use a pro team.
@@JakeLandauYesssss! Saw a whole skit about that. Dude was working at Walmart before getting into coaching lying that he played in the Premier League. Now he drives a Range Rover.
@ItsCalledSoccer So Jake, I believe you on that breakdown of Europe vs US funding but do you have a link to the actual research or report for more details?
Solving the issue with Pay to Play and PR/Rel goes into the same line. Those two issues can be fixed in a dense population city like LA or NY. Once we start talking about places where people need to drive 30 minutes to a city that has a soccer field that's the issue. The reality is that pay-to-play in the USA is not an easy thing to fix. Everything has to be done in school.
That's fair. I agree that pay-to-play and accessibility are challenging issues, especially in less densely populated areas. While fixing everything through schools would help, we also need community and local initiatives to make soccer more accessible for everyone, no matter where they live.
So everyone agrees money is the issue and I won't dispute that. Soccer is like #4 on the sports list in the US and until that changes the money train from pro clubs may not change a lot. Most of the European model won't fly here for that reason and for the size differences in our country compare to say England ( size of Ohio ) or Spain and Germany ( Texas is bigger)
The other thing that I can't stand is the ragging on many local high school and middle school level coaches. They do need improvement but lots of times it is that coach or no soccer program. So be a little more respectful. Also, any program that is signing 14 year olds and under to contracts. Kids who cant legally sign contracts I want nothing to do with.
i remember 15 years ago when my son was playing soccer in montgomery county, md and the cost for him to play on that team was $700/month + $1000 at the start of the season...lol, the coach was an illegal immigrant from nigeria who drove a brand new mercedes suv. *smfh*
Yep. My parents didn't see the point. My Brother had a natural skill with the ball. Started with shooting the ball through the Gaps on latters to improve his accuracy.
Thanks for making this video. It has been an eye opener when I had learned about this pay-to-play system in US youth soccer after watching few videos in this topic. It's really sad for 9yr old son who has been obsessed with soccer in last 2 years and a standout player in his local recreation team. I'm in a crossroads whether to get him to join a local traveling club and jump into this pay-to-play system bandwagon or stick to recreational sports. The college recruitment process for soccer talent seems to fueling US soccer pay-to-play system. What's the point of paying all that money over the years for a shot at small slim chance at landing a D1 scholarship where only 11 players in the roster get the free ride. Even if my son gets a free ride as a D1 player, he will be focusing most of his time and energy being a student athlete and not into his study and the end goal of land a well paying job. In the end, it's better off saving/investing all that money for future college tuition than line up someone's pocket.
I’m actually inspired by this video. As someone with a 15-year-old daughter who’s black, and yes did start soccer late two years ago , to go to tryouts with new and old players and see a ratio of 97 to 99% young white girl players, out of about 59-150 prospects, and no one see a problem with this. It’s kind of disgusting. I’ve actually decided to start my own Academy, and this was my first research video confirming my thoughts. I’m glad to see that there are people, particularly white ,who understand something is off. Thank you for the start of a long journey.
Wow thanks for this comment. Good luck on your journey. Let me know in the future if I can help get the word out or connect you with someone that can help.
This pay-to-play system effects everyone regardless of race or socioeconomic status. All the children who wants to soccer should given a chance to develop and few talented players, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, should be given a shot to further develop their skill without paying the exorbitant amount of money. It must be exhausting to constantly thinking about the race and what % are white and black.
@@Joseph-eh4rsrace does matter, did you even watch the video? Underserved communities do not have access to top, elite, high quality academics. Some communities do not have anything available in their area.
Great Vid. Although at it's premise it's utterly wrong, it does show passion and a ton of work. Any time some says "pay-to-play". What they really mean is, "someone else needs to pay for my children". Seriously, how is it that every other major sport in America can find the "best players" under a similar system and soccer (one of if not the cheapest sports)) can't do the same thing? Yet every "privileged" American needs to be outraged at a system that has worked extremely well for 50ish or 60ish years.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment! The point is to highlight that the pay-to-play system in soccer can disproportionately affect lower-income families and limit the sport's talent pool. Other major sports often have more community and school-based support, making them more accessible. Trying to address these barriers in soccer specifically aims to ensure that all players, regardless of financial background, have the opportunity to succeed. This isn't outrage, this is a tangible impact on our society that the system disproportionately excludes kids from lower incomes.
@ItsCalledSoccer affect lower income? I have a household income of 120,000 a year and my twin boys quit their last year of club due to it being too expensive and shitty coaching. The club parents were doctors, dentists and producers lol its getting out if control.
@@Danzigscat I don't mean this to sound snidey, but $120,000 a year is not middle class anymore. Lower-income in this case yes I'm usually talking about $60,000 or less per household, but in reality depending on where you are that can be any households making less than $200k. That's not a dig at you, that's a dig at America.
@ItsCalledSoccer, you are not snidey at all. Like you said it's too expensive for more ansmd more families. You and I are just asking the questions of how more kids can get to play the beautiful game with atleast somewhat qualified coaches. Keep the videos coming!
I was hoping for more focus and details on tangible solutions to the problem in this video. To me, it seems like this video was more of "we should make soccer free, we should make coaching licenses less expensive, we should be more like other countries, people are greedy..." rather than what can actually and realistically be done to change. Why didn't you all discuss how Open goal project works? How are they funding free soccer? How can you expand that model? Look, I wish youth sports could be free but it's a problem all across youth sports, not just soccer. Focusing on just soccer, a huge problem that no one mentions when comparing our system against other countries is that soccer is not engrained in our culture like it is elsewhere. Its lack of popularity and history makes it impossible to expect the infrastructure of soccer in this country to be as developed as others. You said it in your video, other countries fund youth soccer through professional clubs. These clubs would have to be supported at a high enough level for them to make enough money to offer youth soccer for free. We don't have that system of professional clubs in this country because we don't have a strong history of soccer and the popularity of soccer isn't strong enough to support the thousands of clubs we would need all around the country. I think one of the best things we can do is to support your local club. It all comes down to the fact that soccer is not popular enough in this country at least not popular enough to follow models like they have in Europe and Brazil. The game has to be more popular where enough money can be funneled down to support free youth programs.
The system isn't that different in Canada. Yes, there are barriers because of this system. But how come grassroots basketball, hockey, and other sports are pay to play and North America produces some of the best athletes in those sports? The system does work but it doesn't for soccer. It is getting better though... one indicator is our players are getting signed overseas to play (Tajon Buchanan to Inter Milan as a recent example)
Is the cost to play soccer so much different than the cost to play other sports in the US? And if so, what is the reason for that? The Europeans subsidize their development programs for soccer. Leagues, tournaments, and travel all take money and time to operate. It's not "greed" to make money operating businesses and services. That's just engaging in the economy. It's claimed that "soccer is a suburban sport" because of "pay-to-play". But there are fees for youth baseball, basketball, and football leagues in the US as well. Why are these not "suburban sports"? Maybe soccer is a "suburban sport" for cultural reasons, not because of "pay-to-play". The local government or community in the US is not going to pay for youth soccer programs like they do in Germany. To expect or demand otherwise is spitting into the wind. Clubs can kick in more money if they think it will be a worthy investment, but it must be understood that the costs of soccer leagues in the US are likely greater than in Europe because the overall population density is lower in the US and the interest in soccer as a percentage of the population is lower, as well. Travel is likely far greater if you want to put together a league matching a comparable talent level as European youth leagues. The revenue and profits of US soccer clubs are much lower than in Europe, as well. So there will be far less money that clubs can justify for youth soccer development in the US. What am I missing here? How is youth soccer in the US so much different from other youth sports? Why is youth soccer in the US being compared to Europe instead of to other sports in the US? The problem with youth soccer development in the US is likely the paucity of soccer expertise at every level of American play except for the very top. In every small town in America you can find multiple people with decent knowledge of baseball, basketball, and football. And the same can be said for soccer in Europe. I'm sure it's as least somewhat better now, but when I was a kid in a small town many of my local U-8 and U-10 coaches didn't know a thing about soccer and learned through books or videos just before taking over as coach. It was far easier to get decent tennis coaching in my town than decent soccer coaching. The demand for competent coaching ability exceeds the supply. There's nothing to be done for that except for the sport to grow organically. If interest in the sport pervades the culture the way it does for the major American sports things will become more local and more competitive and prices will come down. But you can't magically end up with tens of thousands of competent youth coaches spread out across the US just by throwing money around. The only thing you can do, is to concentrate the best coaches at the top academies to get the best development for the youths who have developed interest in the sport and have developed their games to a promising level from whatever lower-level development background they came from. Governments and communities are not going to pay money for those elite soccer programs in the US. Clubs have less money to chip in and less to gain from doing so than in Europe. So parents are going to have to pay market prices for high level coaching and leagues. It's going to be expensive unless and until the breadth of soccer culture catches up somewhat with that of other sports in the US and with that of Europe. It's just inefficient to try to compete with the big boys when you don't have the underlying, organic interest and expertise they have in the big-boy countries.
Ok I get it. My son plays in Singapore where he doesn’t have to play. He had to to tryout and make the team. They are sponsored by PUma and Shopify. But we did have to pay in his early year. Barcelona,Real Madrid, and Ruro Soccer Leagues. We are American. But in the US the sport is not the number 1 sport. My son will come back to the US and we’ve been told he’s a better chance playing club soccer than highschool soccer. This is not he same in Basketball or Football. So where does the money come from?!!? That’s the question.
I have yet to see those “youth pipeline specialists” to provide good coaching for free. They all talk the talk but when push comes to shove, it’s yeah, please pay me $60/hour for coaching, cause they don’t work for free. What a surprise.
When stocks investment started in the USA, we got the 1929 market crash. Crypto that the Japanese invented, crashed in the USA, USA is only country with a real estate crash. Drugs that cost $5 elsewhere, costs $400 in the USA. You get billed for cleaning your ears thousands of dollars out of pocket in some places. Timeshares only exist in the USA. Private equities are investigating into emergency room services in renowned hospitals and tearing things down. The USA has a greed problem.
Context always matters. Every sport in the USA is pay to play. Travel teams are paid for by parents and sponsors and fund raisers. This is not unique to the sport of soccer.
If better coaching is part of the problem, then the next target needs to be USSF because their licensing courses are grossly overpriced and the content is abysmal. Coach Education in the US is absolutely awful so when you consider that families are paying what they are for such a poor product, it's a massive issue. Great video Jake.
This is a problem globally, particularly outside Europe where youngsters struggle to find quality coaching because the number of qualified coaches is relatively small. Huge investment is required in many countries to significantly increase the number of qualified coaches available.
This and no Futsal are the worst. I guess it's becoming "more fair" because kids are increasingly having to pay to play other sports like US football, baseball, etc, as funding is cut. 😂
Every top player in american soccer paid there way to become who they are, this is why i dont believe usmnt has the best players in there squad, living in a major city in america i seen countless good players that didnt have the funds to pursue a dream
It is difficult to find good coaching EVEN IF YOU PAY FOR IT. Coaching in this country is atrocious. It is too focused on athleticism over development of skills and game IQ. So we end up with great athletes with average skill and shit decision-making.
100% true... just look at what teams do well at the college level, they almost all kick the ball down the field, so a striker can score.... creativity and decision making and scanning and moving into space are completely de-valued in all US systems... it only matters how fast, big, strong, you are..... with the VERY VERY VERY few exceptions.....the norm is big, fast, strong, kick-the-ball play.
We are trying. Where I coach we focus more on the technique and fundamentals at a very young level and keep harping to the kids how players like Messi, Modric etc aren't the biggest but they focused on skill to get to where they are. I also think one of the best changes to youth soccer recently is the build out line, which encourages building out of the back rather than just having your biggest kicker boot the ball into the midfield off a goal kick.
But but if kids were good enough they’d get picked up by academies hurdurrr! (My least favorite argument from people who think this pay to play system isn’t a problem)
The root of this problem is not having an open system. In an open system, every community can have a adult team. And when the clubs make $ by selling players or moving up the pyramid, their incentives switch from finding as many rich parents as possible to developing pro players.
I wish people would be more explicit about the system being anti-Latino. I grew up in California and live in Texas, and I can tell you that pay to play overwhelmingly effects Latino kids in these places. We need to stop tip toeing around it and just say it’s anti-Latino racism. Otherwise we’ll never solve it
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Every city in USA has pickup soccer, free. And some players are really excellent. And in fact I have seen that people are really nice......almost all the time. A ten year old can go play with adults and not get beat on physically, although they won't hesitate to embarrass you, but they won't hurt you. It's free, and you can use meetup or other sites. You absolutely do not need pay to play soccer to develop. Just ask Ronaldo fenomeno. He only played futsal in the favelas until he was drafted into an academy .
Aaaaaaaaannnnnnnd , there are lots of excellent players. They are, on average, much better than even the best youth players. A thirteen year old silvan cavanaugh would not be special in most adult pickup games .
Also, this video has a big emphasis on college. But college is a terrible way to be a pro athlete, because you do mediocre schooling and mediocre sports. Do one or the other. Soccer is unique in that you can get tons of exposure once you get on a division three or four USA pro team, and they hold open tryouts. If you're actually a baller, you can do an open tryouts for USA division three or four, and they will sign you. They'll pay you peanuts, but you can do it. And it's exposure. And if you're actually a baller it will show. If you're cannon fodder it doesn't matter anyway. You're not gonna be a top pro if you aren't a standout in division three or four. They will see it instantly if you have more talent that everyone in your division.
Do you think it's a problem when dad/coaches start or join clubs and it's solely for the purpose of making $ so there kid can play up a level or also get sent away to MLS next, or an expensive academy? I've seen it with my own two eyes that's why I ask, it's almost as if once there kid makes it they forget all there coaching duties and become fanboys to there own kid? Thanks for this content glad you have your ear to the pitch! ⚽🇺🇲🤑
Another thing that would really help is having easier access to watch soccer. Soccer was never on tv when I was a kid in the 2000s. Basketball, football, and baseball all were on tv which led to me growing up loving and playing those sports. Same went for everyone I knew. We didn’t know anyone aside from Ronaldo and David Beckham. We didn’t care, it was all about the sports stars we had access to watch. We all spent hours a day replicating LeBron, Kobe, and even Tim Duncan trying to be like the stars we idolized. I want to see a generation of American kids who can turn on an MLS game any given night and find new players to love and show them the game. There shouldn’t be a need to pay even more to watch our own domestic league on “Apple TV”. People who fall in love with a sport at a young age will never abandon it; even if they’re not good players it’ll grow the fanbase and support for the game. Then they’ll show their kid all the games and take them to see their local teams just like past generations have done with the more traditionally popular sports here. Idek if I’m making any sense anymore this turned into quite a little rant. oh well, I think enough of my point got across. good video 👍
Was at our futsal place 2 weeks ago & there was a birthday party at the facility. The kids instead of playing a pickup baseball or basketball game were playing soccer on the basketball/futsal empty court. All of them white suburban kids.
Your rant is heard loud and clear over here! I have to sign up for apple TV, fuboTV, TH-cam TV, ESPN+ etc just to watch a games..cancelled all those subscriptions and I take my son to a sports bar smh.. my favorite is how they promote MLS next, and they charge you to watch those games as well! So now we are already treating non accomplished teens as if there highly decorated professionals lol. Good rant 🇺🇲⚽🤑
Soccer is a rich kids sport in my area. Who can pay $2200 club fee, $700 kit( new kit every year), three out of town tournaments in the summer, and staying in a hotel 4 times a season for league games? It's looking more like the early 90s when only a couple kids on the high school team played club. The coaching is so bad for both club and high school that its comical the way they do practices.
The EA and ECNL teams here in Spokane WA are for the owners to get rich, and the parents get to brag at cocktail parties that their kid plays premier soccer lol
You’re absolutely right, the costs of competitive soccer can be outrageous. Not everyone can afford those club fees, kits, and travel expenses, making it tough for not just the lowest income families but the 99%. It’s frustrating to see soccer become so exclusive, and the quality of coaching can definitely vary.
$2000 for what, exactly?
@davidday2373 club fees. Basically field rental and most of it goes to the owner of the club and club director. Coach gets a little bit
There is grass roots soccer among the immigrant communities, you just have to really be in the community to see it. They deal with the problem with volunteer coaches who played as kids and by forming larger teams so they can defray the costs of competing amongst more families. And/or they form their own rec leagues and just play each other.
But I still insist, the best way to support everyone is reform soccer at the high school level. There are only a few things that are needed for that.
First, athletic directors in the USA almost never have any soccer experience and they have dictatorial control over the hiring process. Unlike any other government job, coaches in the USA don't require a hiring process with any oversight. There is no penalty for refusing to hire the best candidate without cause and giving the job to a friend. The sort of hiring processes used with high school soccer coaches would be class five felonies on any contractual work. I've literally seen a guy with no coaching experience hired over a guy with Barcelona youth training in Spain purely because of the buddy system.
Second, there are very weak standards for coaching ability to enforce any of this or to prove one hire better than another to an athletic director who has no knowledge of the sport, and there are very weak programs for teaching youth soccer to high school coaches. You end up with too many coaches that thing "Remember the Titans" is the best guide to how to coach.
Third, we need to push states to go to two seasons a year for soccer - fall and spring. This would remove the need for club seasons to a large extent and basically end pay to play as it exists today. The only reason parents pay for that crap is they don't want their kid falling behind. The kids don't even want it, they just don't want to fall behind. Instead of club soccer being the default, coaches could offer tutoring and skills programs in off seasons and kids could actually play with their friends competitively. Club and travel soccer could be confined to kids that are standing out at the high school level, preferably backed by USL and MLS scholarship programs and not as the default for basically everyone that plays. If the rich still want to pay for it, then fine - advantages of wealth. But the pressure to go that route would be off.
It is similar in other sports. I coach Little League baseball. Most “good” players are now switching to travel ball. Same types of costs. It is sad.
Thank you for putting this together. I don’t think anyone has really addressed the main issue: it costs money to get quality coaching. Doesn’t matter where you are in the world, a great coach will need some kind of compensation to spend time coaching kids.
It’s correct to lament pay to play, but nobody seems to propose a true solution for how to compensate coaches if there is no revenue coming to the club.
I’d love to hear more on this topic: if the club is free, where does the money come from for facilites, coaches, leagues etc etc
When I was 14 I was selected, through a process, to play a tournament in Holland for the U15 National Team (PTPSA). Unfortunately, MY FAMILY COULDN'T AFFORD $5000+ FOR ME TO GO.
Imho, the main pivot that would most benefit enjoyment and skill development of soccer in North America would be to have more of a pickup soccer game culture.
We could have tried to reform high school soccer with better coaching training, moving for states to adopt two seasons a year, and generally working up from the grass roots.
But we had idiots in charge that wanted to recreate the European academies despite the complete lack of infrastructure to replicate them and so the parents paid for their stupidity.
I do think that historically that created part of the problem. That we tried to replicate a European club system without any of the top-level support.
@@JakeLandau We have developed top level support since the great disaster of 2006, with an MLS program that provides something like a top level academy for the most obvious and promising stars. But we will never be able to replicate Europe because our local communities feel no loyalty to professional teams. Our sporting loyalty is given to scholastic athletics - college and high school football for example. You cheer for a high school or a college, not a group of semi-pros representing some local gymnasium and I don't see that changing any time soon.
So since you have no local club providing the entertainment, you also have no local fans partially funding the youth development through ticket sales. And the government has no interest in funding clubs, because it's already funding schools that serve the same purpose and more with greater equity.
I honestly don't want to replicate the European system, because I don't want every youth player signing pro contracts at 11 like in South America. I've seen that system implemented in the community, and kids coming out of those clubs have chronic sports injuries by age 15. I have no interest in replicating gymnastics with soccer.
Ultimately, if you want to get rid of "pay to play" you have to ask "Who is going to pay for it and why?" We created pay to play when we didn't ask who was going to pay for it.
Club programs are succeeding only because the quality of high school coaching is correctly perceived as dreadful. That's now a fixable problem but it requires legislation and work with government. There are enough legislators now who have kids who have seen the problem that we could solve this at a State by State level, but USSF has it's eyes elsewhere.
High school, junior high, and college programs could be the US’ secret development weapon. Free to play. Professional coaches. 20,000 high schools covering every community in the nation. 4,000 universities that can be a development league for players who don’t catch on with one of the few pro teams in the US.
@@ThreeRunHomer That was the way we were headed I think until Gulati pivoted with the support of the US fan base in 2006, using fan anger about the WC results to give him carte blanch to reinvent US soccer. We lost a whole generation of players to that mess and by 2018 had almost completely left Europe. We were only saved by MLS academies after Seattle, Portland, and Atlanta joining the league made it profitable. Now we have strong academies in Dallas, Philly, NYRB and increasingly Columbus and top flight teaching in most major cities. But the high school scene is a mess and doesn't have to be that way. The problem is about 40% of the US fan base is so busy envying Europe they are deaf to having another way to do things, even though it's obvious that due to the vastly different sporting landscape in the USA versus Europe we have to find a different way to do things.
@@celebrim1 Connecting a local club to a community is the key. In Indiana, we had that with high school basketball until the government equity Nazis forced class A, B, C and D levels on the end of year tournament. No more Cinderella stories, no more Friday night packed high school gyms, no more season ticket holders for high school basketball or tickets willed to the next generation. All the value of community representation and involvement was gone in instant. If we want community involvement and support for the local team the U.S. needs to implement a promotion and delegation system.
Pay to play is not going away anytime soon. First of all, coaches have to pay for their coaching education and licensing. We need more scholarships for all levels of play. More players who have made it out of our system should really turn back around and start a fund for our programs. Our communities must also start supporting their local clubs by buying tickets and showing up. Currently, my son’s previous coach was earning over 50k per year. He coaches part time and has never won anything. My son was only playing in tournaments. He’s gotten a ton of attention from colleges, but it is hard to know if that’s truly due to his talent or just because they believe we are able to pay for the ID Camps. As parents, we need to help out our local clubs with fund raisers and making soccer visible in our neighborhoods. In vote neighbors, family, and friends. Make it fun.
Jake. Fantastic topic. Great guests. Great discussion. Thanks for your efforts!!
Cheers thanks so much!
I like the school-sports model in the US where I am. Yes, the European model pays for kids to develop in the club and this is a great environment. This opens opportunity for a select group that may include some economically disadvantaged kids BUT school sports already do this in my area. And my issue is the Euro club model eliminates 99% of kids who might want to get into the sport. The club only wants to develop kids who show tons of talent around age 9-11. But what about the rest? School sports are inclusive. Anyone can try out, the school provides transportation, and at least at my school we did fundraisers and such so if you couldn’t afford the sports fee or equipment like cleats, you didn’t have to pay. Maybe schools won’t churn out the world class talent this channel wants, but I’m honestly ok with this and hope the model of professional athlete children doesn’t take over.
Us model don't work for world level football, USA will never become elite in football if don't change to a proper model !
I just lost a player, U10, due to not being able to afford club soccer. Thing is, even if the club offered a huge discount or even free, his parents would make little effort to get him there. I also coach a recreational team. I am a licensed coach and have 15 years' experience in coaching. On my rec team where the fees are very cheap, $125 for spring and fall sessions, only a couple of the kid's parents are committed to getting them to practice. So in retrospect, the parents that pay more, are more committed to get their children to practice.
Great video! I'm definitely pissed about the structure of our top youth leagues (and I think it's like that in most youth sports - like lacrosse for instance). Making videos like this will help get the word out about how things really need to change. About the video, I was thinking you could do your lighting better so your face isn't so shadowy.
Thanks! I’m in temporary accommodations while I get work done on my house and I don’t have my light or any other equipment with me. Had to make the best of the situation.
@@JakeLandau I had a feeling there was a good explanation. I wish you the best.
I don't anything's gonna change here in the U.S.
Inner city school sports funds got cut a decade ago…Charter schools don’t have sports…it’s a suburban image sport rn…. You need kids from tough backgrounds to handle the international game. I’m not saying there aren’t any good suburban players but you need a mix.
This is so accurate. We are paying $1800 for my 9 year-old to play club soccer. My other kids play rec league. The difference in coaching and skill set is more lopsided than I had expected!
If you are paying 1800 for a 9 year old to play club soccer maybe you should rethink your priorities.
Expat Englishman in Virginia. Four kids, one of whom (6) is eligible for travel football. Here in my slice of Northern VA it's around $2200. I laughed that idea out of existence.
Not only is the cost ridiculous, but the standard is questionable. I don't think these kids could compete with your average school/Sunday league side back home. I just don't.
$2200 for a 6 year old. No every day of the week. Let the kids play. You probably are a better coach than they will have. Get them doing skill drills and just playing and having fun until they close in on puberty then if they are the best or one of the best on their team. Maybe start looking at some type of travel team 12 and under.
All you’re doing is complaining. It’s really simple. The money needs to come from somewhere. If you don’t want the families to pay, the programs need sponsorships. The best coaches will want to be compensated fairly. So they’ll go to the money. FYI, this is true in most sports in America (even basketball and baseball)
Best coaches? lmao Whaant tournanmet of importance has the US won at any level..?
Nothing Americans care about@@AlbertReed-i8v
@@AlbertReed-i8vYou clearly didn't understand the OC's point.
Money isn't the only barrier to youth soccer development, there's also the time commitment required on families of travel teams. Instead of traveling to multiple states during the season, perhaps they should focus more locally and have one big tournament at the end of the season that encompasses multiple states.
Good call out on the accessibility of coaching licenses. Like you, I have a USSF D license but cannot find myself to make that leap to C. Our club will reimburse us the fee over the course of 5 years though so that does mitigate it.
Don't even bother. I have my C and will never do the B. Many coaches I know have done it and their experience was horrible. Most of the scrutiny about their performance had little to do with coaching, but how they formatted their homework documents and the way a session was filmed. The moderators were also not on the same page, so one would tell a coach what to do and what they want to see, the next day a different guy would say the opposite. It's just an unprofessional mess that feels like a money grab.
Go coach at your local high school/middle school. To heck with USSF whatever license.
The problem also is these families pay and the kid might not be best and they expect the coach to play them because they are paying. Of course you limiting the pool of talented players from all backgrounds.
It’s all about the money 💰
Growing up I didn’t have a lot of money, I played rec soccer up until my 8th grade year where a local club offered me a “scholarship” to play for free. The amount of skilled I gained in the first 2 years of club was bigger than my entire life playing rec soccer. Give the best kids a chance and we can be the best in the world in soccer too
If we eliminate government funding as an option (apparently 19% of revenue in Germany… I’m sure taxpayers wouldn’t vote for this) and solidarity payments are finally improving, you only have sponsorships and donations to make up the gap. That’s a huge gap… tbh Sponsorships are hard… 1) clubs have to employ a salesperson to get sponsorships, 2) American small businesses are threatened. How many of them have closed due to the pandemic and rising costs (restaurants), Home Depot, Costco and Amazon? Americans are generally not loyal to buying from their community. 3) businesses generally feel online and TV marketing are more effective than community advertising. As for the biggest percentage “fees”, we’re getting to the point where innocence is losing… American football and basketball have pay-to-play (like AAU) so how can disadvantaged kids afford it??? There are nefarious ways like handlers who don’t have the kids’ best interests and treat them as investments. As MLS and soccer in America get bigger (like better salaries), that’s the direction we are heading. I only hope soccer is preparing for this…
This video brought me to your channel and I'm hooked. You've got a new subscriber.
I'm a huge fan of local soccer and love to support my local club, Indy Eleven. Id love to see you do some research and talk about the weird dynamic that exists between the USL and MLS in America. Maybe even dive into the MLS habit of opening expansion teams in cities that already have USL teams and effectively killing the local club scene. Indianapolis is currently going through this with our beloved local club's stadium being axed and the city bringing in outside ownership to build a stadium for a potential new MLS team.
This is even more complicated because the only reason the local club was trying to build a stadium was to make a bid to join the MLS anyways.
Wow first of all thanks so much for your comment I really appreciate it. And 2nd I actually wrote about Indy Eleven and the MLS struggle on my newsletter here: itscalledsoccer.substack.com/p/a-shakespearean-betrayal
Sometimes I don't have time to turn everything into a video, record, edit it so I write instead.
I don't think you understand the economics of soccer in Europe vs US. In every town in Europe, the local club can sell their talented players to a bigger club for huge sums. Selling just one academy product can fund the entire program for a generation. Then there is the trickle down payments made to local clubs from the TV deals sold at the top level. These sources of funding are simply not available to the US youth soccer clubs. There is no chance of getting paid for the talent we create and we get nothing from our association, so we have to charge at the point of delivery. Unless you think the best coaches should work for free, there are no other sources of income except parents.
Thank you Jake and your guests, that’s definitely insightful and optimistic. I don’t want to be the rain cloud bc I truly see the improvement in our senior team, u23s and U17-20s, but unless free mls academies start popping up everywhere, like several per state that provide a direct pathway to say Nyfc and the mls increases wages by a large amount and adopts promotion and relegation to infuse money into the clubs who get to move up where gonna be stuck right where we are. There need to be 60 or 80 clubs for example to make something like this work. 3 or 4 divisions of 20 clubs and the last and first three need to move up and down. But to make this happen the unthinkable in American sports must occur. NO PLAYOFFS. In addition soccer still must compete with already established, more popular football basketball and baseball, sports that have domestic final proving ground that leads to actual wealth for those who reach the top level of their sport. It’s an uphill battle but i think our best shot is having our players develop here early on then go over seas. What are your thoughts Jake and guests.
I'm not sure why it always comes down to promotion and relegation. NO! Let me ask you something. How popular is champions league? That is why Europe needs playoffs.
I didn’t expect a "solution" to pay-to-play, but I wish you could've pointed out some realistic sources of funding for soccer programs.
Pay-to-play exists because travel soccer and coaching is expensive, and enough parents are willing to shell out a premium to get access to those services. Who is going to pay for the coaching and facilities for millions of kids, if not the parents?
What revenue sources are American clubs supposed to tap into that will solve this huge gap? They are usually excluded from solidarity payments, so that's out. Which level of government would be giving the handout, local, State, or Federal? I can't imagine anyone would choose to stake their survival on government funding always being granted year after year. Getting funding from parents at least means you can always pay your bills so long as you can recruit the kids/parents each year.
I think that we won't see a reduction in pay-to-play until coaching licenses are easily aquired en-masse and professional clubs proliferate and pump money into partnerships with youth clubs.
You know what I have to agree with you upon reflection. I'm working hard to become a better storyteller, writer, and editor. I'll keep this in mind as I make future videos.
In regards to your question, I agree with you that it starts with the cost to become a coach and how few current adults have soccer experience relative to all other sports.
@@JakeLandau I think the editing was good, along with getting guests who work in the industry to opine on the topic. I think this video covers "pay-to-play" in very surface level, broad strokes. Someone who had no idea about what soccer is like here would've gained some insight.
But I think you could make a much more informative and impactful version of this, using your connections in the game and interviewing skills to create something really interesting.
Have you ever sat down with a director of a pay-to-play academy and drilled down into how they run their program? How much of their funding comes from parents vs. other sources? How much money goes into coaching vs. travel expenses vs. everything else? Where do they think things are going, for themselves and their model more broadly? How many "scholarships" do they have for kids who can't afford it, and has that number gone up or down over the years? And so on. It would be interesting to hear the details from a current or former higher-up in one of these organizations.
Indeed, I was hoping for a deeper dive with your cousin from the "other side" of pay-to-play, so to speak. You could ask your cousin the same kinds of questions above, and I think you'd have a great video.
I know you've got enough on your plate with a baby and all, but I'd love to see something like that nonetheless. Much love dude.
To help me understand this better, can you compare this to how kids learn the other 4 major team sports in the US? (not just compare to how England does it with soccer) Like, how much did a pro football player spend in their youth leagues? Baseball, basketball & hockey too? I'd imagine hockey is fairly expensive- needing all the gear and renting ice time, on top of coaching. Whereas basketball is probably less, because a young kid can develop a lot just by playing friends/siblings in the driveway - because a team just has 5 players, it's easier to assimilate real-game scenarios with fewer people. But that's a guess. Does anyone know more about how all 5 sports compare in that respect? And can anything be learned from the other sports?
I'm not an expert but some resources online suggest that competitive hockey and soccer are the most expensive averaging $2,000+ per year per child. Baseball is around $1100 a year, with basketball and American football around $600. This video is about the soccer part, but there is likely a wider issue of youth sports becoming maximized for profit.
Hockey is easily the most expensive. It is a rich kid's sport. It is also very local, huge swaths of the country don't have youth hockey at all. Basketball/Baseball/Football all have kids participating through local youth programs and schools. Basketball and Baseball have parallel systems similar to youth soccer academies in travel baseball and the AAU circuit for basketball. Those systems also favor kids that have families willing to pay for better coaching, but there is generally more quality of coaching across the board, so there can be a (more narrow) path for poorer kids. Football is exclusively through local youth programs and schools. Families with money can move their kids to better programs for better coaching, but again, there is generally more quality coaching across the board.
Soccer should be a sport that is easily accessible for kids. You just need a ball to play. But, to really develop quality professionals you have to be giving kids quality coaching at a young age. The challenge with the US is that soccer is a growing sport, there are more kids playing now than did 20 years ago. That's great, but that also creates a generational gap. How many parents have the skills to teach their own kids? How many soccer dads are equipped to coach 9/10 year olds? Those dads played baseball, or basketball, or football. They didn't play soccer. That coaching gap creates a market inefficiency that pay-to-play fills.
@@JakeLandau Thanks for the follow-up. I think part of my curiosity is: how much do kids learn by playing pick-up (and in their backyards, driveways or parks) vs being in organized leagues right away? I mean, didn't Pele start with a sock full of newspaper? Or Beckham perfecting his kick in his backyard? I seem to see American kids playing organized, coached soccer on regulation-size fields at a very early age. I just wonder if, as the popularity grows, and MLS salaries increase, if there will be a more organic path to excellence. Of course good coaching will be a huge part of that as they get older, but then they'll know... i.e. a kid can play basketball in the neighborhood day after day, and when it occurs to that kid & parents that there's some real talent a cut-above, then paying for coaching & such makes sense.
The other thing is that the other 4 sports are more likely to lead to college scholarships, which gives kids incentives to play for hours in the backyard (well, that and the glory of being pro). Here, the path to pro soccer is only recently transitioning away from college. College sports can pay for scholarships because of the revenue they make, because there's a built-in audience with the student-body & alumni. Though soccer academies receive money when a player turns pro. I'm kind of rambling, but trying to find the money trail in each sport to try to find a possible solution for soccer...
@@kevbk6222 Great points. -thanks
@@kevbk6222maintaining an ice hockey rink is a massive cost.
Same in Australia. Greed prioritised before junior development.
My son is 2014 born. Playing in a solid club in Hawaii. $1400 for year round club fees. New kit every 2 years $240. 4 tournaments a year $55 each. Averages to about $150 a month. 3 training sessions a week and weekend games/scrimmage. He loves to play. This club may be the most expensive in the state. Overseas travel maybe once every year or two for those who can make it. We haven’t gone on a trip yet. Hawaii soccer is legit and we could use a pro team.
Lots of European coaches making big money in the US youth pay to play system. All about the 💵.
Having a british accent is worth an extra 50%
@@JakeLandauYesssss! Saw a whole skit about that. Dude was working at Walmart before getting into coaching lying that he played in the Premier League. Now he drives a Range Rover.
Great video on a big problem in American soccer
Thanks so much Michael
@ItsCalledSoccer
So Jake, I believe you on that breakdown of Europe vs US funding but do you have a link to the actual research or report for more details?
Solving the issue with Pay to Play and PR/Rel goes into the same line. Those two issues can be fixed in a dense population city like LA or NY. Once we start talking about places where people need to drive 30 minutes to a city that has a soccer field that's the issue. The reality is that pay-to-play in the USA is not an easy thing to fix. Everything has to be done in school.
That's fair. I agree that pay-to-play and accessibility are challenging issues, especially in less densely populated areas. While fixing everything through schools would help, we also need community and local initiatives to make soccer more accessible for everyone, no matter where they live.
So everyone agrees money is the issue and I won't dispute that. Soccer is like #4 on the sports list in the US and until that changes the money train from pro clubs may not change a lot. Most of the European model won't fly here for that reason and for the size differences in our country compare to say England ( size of Ohio ) or Spain and Germany ( Texas is bigger)
I agree with all of these points. Great video and it would be great if this can get to the eyes of important decision makers for some change.
The other thing that I can't stand is the ragging on many local high school and middle school level coaches. They do need improvement but lots of times it is that coach or no soccer program. So be a little more respectful. Also, any program that is signing 14 year olds and under to contracts. Kids who cant legally sign contracts I want nothing to do with.
i remember 15 years ago when my son was playing soccer in montgomery county, md and the cost for him to play on that team was $700/month + $1000 at the start of the season...lol, the coach was an illegal immigrant from nigeria who drove a brand new mercedes suv. *smfh*
Why complain if you still chose to pay?
@@nerychristian because the structure of the system left no options...herpderp!
What does the ethnicity and the country of the coach has to do with this issue
@@amr254 because they are living and working illegally in the usa, running a racket. what's so difficult to understand???
@@douglasharley2440so it’s okay if you’re swindled by a white man?
Yep. My parents didn't see the point. My Brother had a natural skill with the ball. Started with shooting the ball through the Gaps on latters to improve his accuracy.
Thanks for making this video. It has been an eye opener when I had learned about this pay-to-play system in US youth soccer after watching few videos in this topic. It's really sad for 9yr old son who has been obsessed with soccer in last 2 years and a standout player in his local recreation team. I'm in a crossroads whether to get him to join a local traveling club and jump into this pay-to-play system bandwagon or stick to recreational sports. The college recruitment process for soccer talent seems to fueling US soccer pay-to-play system. What's the point of paying all that money over the years for a shot at small slim chance at landing a D1 scholarship where only 11 players in the roster get the free ride. Even if my son gets a free ride as a D1 player, he will be focusing most of his time and energy being a student athlete and not into his study and the end goal of land a well paying job. In the end, it's better off saving/investing all that money for future college tuition than line up someone's pocket.
I’m actually inspired by this video. As someone with a 15-year-old daughter who’s black, and yes did start soccer late two years ago , to go to tryouts with new and old players and see a ratio of 97 to 99% young white girl players, out of about 59-150 prospects, and no one see a problem with this. It’s kind of disgusting.
I’ve actually decided to start my own Academy, and this was my first research video confirming my thoughts. I’m glad to see that there are people, particularly white ,who understand something is off.
Thank you for the start of a long journey.
Wow thanks for this comment. Good luck on your journey. Let me know in the future if I can help get the word out or connect you with someone that can help.
@@JakeLandau Will do , Thank you! Shout out from Long Island, NY.
This pay-to-play system effects everyone regardless of race or socioeconomic status. All the children who wants to soccer should given a chance to develop and few talented players, regardless of race or socioeconomic status, should be given a shot to further develop their skill without paying the exorbitant amount of money. It must be exhausting to constantly thinking about the race and what % are white and black.
@@Joseph-eh4rsrace does matter, did you even watch the video? Underserved communities do not have access to top, elite, high quality academics. Some communities do not have anything available in their area.
How about starting with having 2 covered Team benches at every field and bathrooms.
Great Vid. Although at it's premise it's utterly wrong, it does show passion and a ton of work. Any time some says "pay-to-play". What they really mean is, "someone else needs to pay for my children". Seriously, how is it that every other major sport in America can find the "best players" under a similar system and soccer (one of if not the cheapest sports)) can't do the same thing? Yet every "privileged" American needs to be outraged at a system that has worked extremely well for 50ish or 60ish years.
Thank you for your thoughtful comment! The point is to highlight that the pay-to-play system in soccer can disproportionately affect lower-income families and limit the sport's talent pool. Other major sports often have more community and school-based support, making them more accessible. Trying to address these barriers in soccer specifically aims to ensure that all players, regardless of financial background, have the opportunity to succeed. This isn't outrage, this is a tangible impact on our society that the system disproportionately excludes kids from lower incomes.
Other sports don't have a similar system.
@ItsCalledSoccer affect lower income? I have a household income of 120,000 a year and my twin boys quit their last year of club due to it being too expensive and shitty coaching. The club parents were doctors, dentists and producers lol its getting out if control.
@@Danzigscat I don't mean this to sound snidey, but $120,000 a year is not middle class anymore. Lower-income in this case yes I'm usually talking about $60,000 or less per household, but in reality depending on where you are that can be any households making less than $200k. That's not a dig at you, that's a dig at America.
@ItsCalledSoccer, you are not snidey at all. Like you said it's too expensive for more ansmd more families. You and I are just asking the questions of how more kids can get to play the beautiful game with atleast somewhat qualified coaches. Keep the videos coming!
I was hoping for more focus and details on tangible solutions to the problem in this video. To me, it seems like this video was more of "we should make soccer free, we should make coaching licenses less expensive, we should be more like other countries, people are greedy..." rather than what can actually and realistically be done to change. Why didn't you all discuss how Open goal project works? How are they funding free soccer? How can you expand that model? Look, I wish youth sports could be free but it's a problem all across youth sports, not just soccer. Focusing on just soccer, a huge problem that no one mentions when comparing our system against other countries is that soccer is not engrained in our culture like it is elsewhere. Its lack of popularity and history makes it impossible to expect the infrastructure of soccer in this country to be as developed as others. You said it in your video, other countries fund youth soccer through professional clubs. These clubs would have to be supported at a high enough level for them to make enough money to offer youth soccer for free. We don't have that system of professional clubs in this country because we don't have a strong history of soccer and the popularity of soccer isn't strong enough to support the thousands of clubs we would need all around the country. I think one of the best things we can do is to support your local club. It all comes down to the fact that soccer is not popular enough in this country at least not popular enough to follow models like they have in Europe and Brazil. The game has to be more popular where enough money can be funneled down to support free youth programs.
The system isn't that different in Canada. Yes, there are barriers because of this system. But how come grassroots basketball, hockey, and other sports are pay to play and North America produces some of the best athletes in those sports? The system does work but it doesn't for soccer. It is getting better though... one indicator is our players are getting signed overseas to play (Tajon Buchanan to Inter Milan as a recent example)
Does American football, flag football, baseball, and basketball also have pay to play? If so, then why are they successful?
Is the cost to play soccer so much different than the cost to play other sports in the US? And if so, what is the reason for that? The Europeans subsidize their development programs for soccer. Leagues, tournaments, and travel all take money and time to operate. It's not "greed" to make money operating businesses and services. That's just engaging in the economy. It's claimed that "soccer is a suburban sport" because of "pay-to-play". But there are fees for youth baseball, basketball, and football leagues in the US as well. Why are these not "suburban sports"? Maybe soccer is a "suburban sport" for cultural reasons, not because of "pay-to-play". The local government or community in the US is not going to pay for youth soccer programs like they do in Germany. To expect or demand otherwise is spitting into the wind. Clubs can kick in more money if they think it will be a worthy investment, but it must be understood that the costs of soccer leagues in the US are likely greater than in Europe because the overall population density is lower in the US and the interest in soccer as a percentage of the population is lower, as well. Travel is likely far greater if you want to put together a league matching a comparable talent level as European youth leagues. The revenue and profits of US soccer clubs are much lower than in Europe, as well. So there will be far less money that clubs can justify for youth soccer development in the US. What am I missing here? How is youth soccer in the US so much different from other youth sports? Why is youth soccer in the US being compared to Europe instead of to other sports in the US?
The problem with youth soccer development in the US is likely the paucity of soccer expertise at every level of American play except for the very top. In every small town in America you can find multiple people with decent knowledge of baseball, basketball, and football. And the same can be said for soccer in Europe. I'm sure it's as least somewhat better now, but when I was a kid in a small town many of my local U-8 and U-10 coaches didn't know a thing about soccer and learned through books or videos just before taking over as coach. It was far easier to get decent tennis coaching in my town than decent soccer coaching. The demand for competent coaching ability exceeds the supply. There's nothing to be done for that except for the sport to grow organically. If interest in the sport pervades the culture the way it does for the major American sports things will become more local and more competitive and prices will come down. But you can't magically end up with tens of thousands of competent youth coaches spread out across the US just by throwing money around. The only thing you can do, is to concentrate the best coaches at the top academies to get the best development for the youths who have developed interest in the sport and have developed their games to a promising level from whatever lower-level development background they came from. Governments and communities are not going to pay money for those elite soccer programs in the US. Clubs have less money to chip in and less to gain from doing so than in Europe. So parents are going to have to pay market prices for high level coaching and leagues. It's going to be expensive unless and until the breadth of soccer culture catches up somewhat with that of other sports in the US and with that of Europe. It's just inefficient to try to compete with the big boys when you don't have the underlying, organic interest and expertise they have in the big-boy countries.
I love the quick shade, "Broken clock"! 😂
Ok I get it. My son plays in Singapore where he doesn’t have to play. He had to to tryout and make the team. They are sponsored by PUma and Shopify. But we did have to pay in his early year. Barcelona,Real Madrid, and Ruro Soccer Leagues. We are American. But in the US the sport is not the number 1 sport. My son will come back to the US and we’ve been told he’s a better chance playing club soccer than highschool soccer. This is not he same in Basketball or Football. So where does the money come from?!!? That’s the question.
Why is High School Soccer not a better route for development... like Basketball, Baseball, Football, etc? And, btw, those sports aren't cheap either.
I have yet to see those “youth pipeline specialists” to provide good coaching for free. They all talk the talk but when push comes to shove, it’s yeah, please pay me $60/hour for coaching, cause they don’t work for free. What a surprise.
Excellent video as always!
Thank you! Cheers Tobes!
When stocks investment started in the USA, we got the 1929 market crash. Crypto that the Japanese invented, crashed in the USA, USA is only country with a real estate crash.
Drugs that cost $5 elsewhere, costs $400 in the USA. You get billed for cleaning your ears thousands of dollars out of pocket in some places. Timeshares only exist in the USA. Private equities are investigating into emergency room services in renowned hospitals and tearing things down. The USA has a greed problem.
Context always matters. Every sport in the USA is pay to play. Travel teams are paid for by parents and sponsors and fund raisers. This is not unique to the sport of soccer.
So Jake where do Euopean Cluns get their revenue from? Great show Jake.
Is youth Baseball cheaper? Youth Hockey? Yout Football?
High school and college football and baseball teams have always been a viable free-to-play route to the pro leagues.
@@ThreeRunHomerthe truth is if you are good enough soneone will pay for you to play.
Also soccer is one of the cheapest sports to play.
If better coaching is part of the problem, then the next target needs to be USSF because their licensing courses are grossly overpriced and the content is abysmal. Coach Education in the US is absolutely awful so when you consider that families are paying what they are for such a poor product, it's a massive issue.
Great video Jake.
This is a problem globally, particularly outside Europe where youngsters struggle to find quality coaching because the number of qualified coaches is relatively small. Huge investment is required in many countries to significantly increase the number of qualified coaches available.
@@jamesvass737 I couldn't agree more having coached in the youth game for 10 years now.
Most of these kids learn soccer through training, not culture
Not true. They learn by living soccer at home school and in some club training
This and no Futsal are the worst. I guess it's becoming "more fair" because kids are increasingly having to pay to play other sports like US football, baseball, etc, as funding is cut. 😂
It is taking over everything not just soccer at this point
My son plays academy outdoor but plays in a futsal league on fridays, two 45 minute games.
Every top player in american soccer paid there way to become who they are, this is why i dont believe usmnt has the best players in there squad, living in a major city in america i seen countless good players that didnt have the funds to pursue a dream
FIFA should flood American inner cities with coaches who teach kids how to play the sport.
Is this the key to winning a World Cup? I think it is.
Almost every player who has the abilities gets a scholarship from the club. This is very exaggerating. There are tons of cheaper options also.
ZERO OVERSIGHT OF COACHES IS A PROBLEM.
It is difficult to find good coaching EVEN IF YOU PAY FOR IT. Coaching in this country is atrocious. It is too focused on athleticism over development of skills and game IQ. So we end up with great athletes with average skill and shit decision-making.
100% true... just look at what teams do well at the college level, they almost all kick the ball down the field, so a striker can score.... creativity and decision making and scanning and moving into space are completely de-valued in all US systems... it only matters how fast, big, strong, you are..... with the VERY VERY VERY few exceptions.....the norm is big, fast, strong, kick-the-ball play.
We are trying. Where I coach we focus more on the technique and fundamentals at a very young level and keep harping to the kids how players like Messi, Modric etc aren't the biggest but they focused on skill to get to where they are.
I also think one of the best changes to youth soccer recently is the build out line, which encourages building out of the back rather than just having your biggest kicker boot the ball into the midfield off a goal kick.
If pay to play wasn't a thing, USA would have won a major tournament by now.
Thousands 😂 that all? It's easy 5 to 10k. I don't even know with clubs that fly out of state. 💰
But but if kids were good enough they’d get picked up by academies hurdurrr! (My least favorite argument from people who think this pay to play system isn’t a problem)
So if I was good enough would I get picked up by an academy here in the U.S. ? Could you explain how it works
Pay to play is not the problem.. Soccer people still using that excuse
Imagine paying Top Dollar just for realised that you are losing the match, again...again.... and again.....😅😂
FOREIGNERS MONEY MAKING IDEAS...NEED PASSIONATE AMERICAN COACHES (WITH OVERSIGHT)!
The root of this problem is not having an open system. In an open system, every community can have a adult team. And when the clubs make $ by selling players or moving up the pyramid, their incentives switch from finding as many rich parents as possible to developing pro players.
Infantino is an idiot, but he's right about this
In the UK it costs about $70 per month for 1 child to play coached soccer. There is a thriving industry of bad coaches who rum terrible set ups.
My son is 10 & here in Atlanta it's $1300 for a 8 month season, usually 40 games & 4 tournaments, 3 practices a week.
I have to disagree with you. Los Angeles is beautiful
haha wut?
Start by calling what it is " Football". That alone is a good start to get paid like Football players in Europe for example.
Where is your centering, not mentioning via someone else's video, but centering of race in this video? The literal most important factor, and yet...
I wish people would be more explicit about the system being anti-Latino. I grew up in California and live in Texas, and I can tell you that pay to play overwhelmingly effects Latino kids in these places. We need to stop tip toeing around it and just say it’s anti-Latino racism. Otherwise we’ll never solve it
He was speaking about the MLS itself 💀
It’s a scam