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Why are fewer kids playing youth soccer?

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    #31
    Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
    And there will be a lot more decline over the next 5-10 years and beyond once the kids that grew up playing travel sports start having their own families. Those kids are going to remember how much they really didn't enjoy the whole thing and will not subject their own kids to what they went through. Many of those kids are already voicing that one regret that they really have about playing travel sports is how much of their youth they missed out on by not being a "normal" kid and doing things that "normal" kids do - hanging out with friends, playing, social activities, going to high school events, parties, etc.
    Agree. Travel, expense & birth year have all taken big chunks out and then the kids that do make it to college ball don’t get much scholy money, don’t play much, etc and sour on the whole deal... probably won’t repeat with their own kids. Continued downward spiral.

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      #32
      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
      Agree. Travel, expense & birth year have all taken big chunks out and then the kids that do make it to college ball don’t get much scholy money, don’t play much, etc and sour on the whole deal... probably won’t repeat with their own kids. Continued downward spiral.
      Most kids don't start soccer at age 6 thinking about college soccer. The drops in the analysis are 6-12 year olds. Those are the country's future players, or in this case no future players. As for those with college as an aspiration (usually by middle school) there's very little money and opportunities for boys because of fewer scholarships, fewer program and competition from international players. The women's side has many more opportunities.

      But I agree with all above - I think more families are taking a step back and questioning the sanity of all the expense and travel and time, and to what end?

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        #33
        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
        This is a talking soccer poll to see why there has been an overall decline in youth soccer participation over the past few years.
        Parents are wise to the scam and vote with their checkbooks. Even for top boy players, very few get real college offers. Truth is... soccer is not worth the cost and time. Get off the field and make memories with your kids. You will know at an early age if your kid has exceptional talent.

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          #34
          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
          Most kids don't start soccer at age 6 thinking about college soccer. The drops in the analysis are 6-12 year olds. Those are the country's future players, or in this case no future players. As for those with college as an aspiration (usually by middle school) there's very little money and opportunities for boys because of fewer scholarships, fewer program and competition from international players. The women's side has many more opportunities.

          But I agree with all above - I think more families are taking a step back and questioning the sanity of all the expense and travel and time, and to what end?
          You need to keep it all in perspective. We had a chubby 7-year old that fell in love with the game. she worked her tail off and is now being offered a great scholarship!

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            #35
            Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
            You need to keep it all in perspective. We had a chubby 7-year old that fell in love with the game. she worked her tail off and is now being offered a great scholarship!
            Stop perpetuating the soccer scholarship myth. They are few and far between, as with most sports. Kids should be playing because they love the game. They would probably love the game more if they weren't being pressured to play in an "elite" league. Many just want to play for fun. They would probably play more if they weren't being dragged all over the state (or region or country) to play games. Parents might encourage them to stick with it if they weren't paying so much.

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              #36
              Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
              Parents are wise to the scam and vote with their checkbooks. Even for top boy players, very few get real college offers. Truth is... soccer is not worth the cost and time. Get off the field and make memories with your kids. You will know at an early age if your kid has exceptional talent.
              No most parents don't because few played the game themselves. There's so many teams for their kids to play on their kid can be a star somewhere. Clubs perpetuate the lack of understanding by always having spots for kids. Parents also can't tell good coaching from bad, so they use game records as a proxy for development.

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                #37
                Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                Stop perpetuating the soccer scholarship myth. They are few and far between, as with most sports. Kids should be playing because they love the game. They would probably love the game more if they weren't being pressured to play in an "elite" league. Many just want to play for fun. They would probably play more if they weren't being dragged all over the state (or region or country) to play games. Parents might encourage them to stick with it if they weren't paying so much.
                We are starting to meet the families (players and parents) of the incoming freshmen on our daughter's college team starting in August, 2019.

                Many of the parents did play a sport in college (softball, basketball, hockey, etc.). Probably not a huge surprise, parents cultivate these kids from a young age....

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                  #38
                  Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                  We are starting to meet the families (players and parents) of the incoming freshmen on our daughter's college team starting in August, 2019.

                  Many of the parents did play a sport in college (softball, basketball, hockey, etc.). Probably not a huge surprise, parents cultivate these kids from a young age....
                  Thank you for telling us some useless information about you Kid going to college. You obviously didn't go did you ? Read the question again.

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                    #39
                    Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                    We are starting to meet the families (players and parents) of the incoming freshmen on our daughter's college team starting in August, 2019.

                    Many of the parents did play a sport in college (softball, basketball, hockey, etc.). Probably not a huge surprise, parents cultivate these kids from a young age....
                    Former athletes spawning more athletes isn't the same as developing soccer players.

                    Comment


                      #40
                      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                      Agree. Travel, expense & birth year have all taken big chunks out and then the kids that do make it to college ball don’t get much scholy money, don’t play much, etc and sour on the whole deal... probably won’t repeat with their own kids. Continued downward spiral.
                      The effect of birth year on participation is negligible, nil. Even those kids who actually decided not to play travel and continued to play rec with their friends would be counted. These totals are rec and travel and the vast majority of kids playing soccer are in rec leagues.

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                        #41
                        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                        Football is way down.Dangerous down. Baseball fields like tennis courts are empty most of the year. Soccer is the second most played sport and is way above basketball which is the third.
                        Video games and other electronics is number one activity.
                        W-T-F are you talking about? Soccer is WAAAYYYY behind basketball in terms of participation. In fact basketball is almost double (4.3 mil to 2.3 mil) what soccer is these days.

                        Sooooooo, thanks for wasting our time with your useless, fictional points that we can all just disregard because it's all anecdotal and not based in reality.

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                          #42
                          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                          W-T-F are you talking about? Soccer is WAAAYYYY behind basketball in terms of participation. In fact basketball is almost double (4.3 mil to 2.3 mil) what soccer is these days.

                          Sooooooo, thanks for wasting our time with your useless, fictional points that we can all just disregard because it's all anecdotal and not based in reality.
                          Even baseball is well ahead of soccer (3.9M vs 2.3M soccer). Baseball is soooooooo boring....
                          https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kid...cipation-rates. Tackle football is declining but flag football is up. Total football is just under soccer but football is nearly all boys.

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                            #43
                            Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                            Even baseball is well ahead of soccer (3.9M vs 2.3M soccer). Baseball is soooooooo boring....
                            https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kid...cipation-rates. Tackle football is declining but flag football is up. Total football is just under soccer but football is nearly all boys.
                            As you can tell by bicycling being at 16 % these figures are more “do you play ...?” Not a surprise that large sections of the country do not pick up a soccer ball.

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                              #44
                              Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                              Even baseball is well ahead of soccer (3.9M vs 2.3M soccer). Baseball is soooooooo boring....
                              https://www.aspenprojectplay.org/kid...cipation-rates. Tackle football is declining but flag football is up. Total football is just under soccer but football is nearly all boys.
                              Some of the other statistics are very telling...The graph at the bottom discussing proper training of coaches...

                              If you exclude "other sports" as we have no idea what that indicates...

                              Soccer is at the bottom or close to it in every category. From Safety to knowledge of the game. Soccer also has the worst "churn" rate (losing players vs adding new ones).

                              I do wonder if a lot has to do with soccer's demand that kids specialize in the sport at such an early age...year round soccer tends to lead to burn out quicker.

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                                #45
                                Most of the players who quit club in our big club before birth year change, quit because:

                                1. Got to the competitive travel age and failed to make the A team. Players usually hung on for at least one year of B team but then quit to make time for other things.

                                2. Top player, great multi sport athletes forced to choose by middle or high school to concentrate on one sport. Especially in the case of boys, many of the top multi sport players chose to drop soccer

                                3. Miscellaneous dropping soccer due to school academic demands, wanting to be in the party/social crowd at high school and not willing to spend so much time at soccer, or the parents said not or can’t spend the that much money and time on soccer.

                                After the change to birth year, at our club, we lose about an additional 15-20 players at the 8th-9th team mix up shuffle and the 11th-12th two teams into one with a dozen kids forced out or to B teams. We are a mid sized club so losing 15-20 additional players per year due to birth year has made a significant negative impact. We are the only club in our area and pre birth year fielded at least two teams at every age group except the oldest which had one team with a large roster of about 22-24. After birth year, we can’t even field one team at one of the older age groups and can only field 2 teams at one of the high school age groups. A dramatic drop off.

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