There is a lot of money to be made in youth sports. Do the math – A soccer club with 1,000 members that charges $500.00 per player a year – is not unusual. On top of that you have transportation to “Showcase” elite tournaments, possibly private lessons at $50.00 an hour, it quickly adds up. The directors of these clubs have a vested in playing more games or matches and encouraging private lessons. AAU Basketball is big time business with shoe contracts and huge travel budgets. Folks this is no longer a bake sale operation. The “coaches” make much more that the average high school coach or teacher and they are really not accountable to anyone. This might be the root of the whole problem. The coaches of these teams dangle the carrot of wining college scholarships as the incentive. In reality they are holding out false promises, misleading the parents and children. There are just not that many scholarships. The parents would be better off saving and investing their money for their child’s education. I understand we all need to make a living, but doing so at the expense of youth bothers me. Not sure what the solution is except to get the sports back into the schools as I suggested the other day. There is no doubt in my mind that this problem will get much worse before it gets better.
8 Comments
James Marshall
I work with many youth athletes here are some figures for you that the kids’ parents tell me how much it costs:
12 year old county tennis player (of which there are hundreds) – £12k per annum
18 year old judo player – national standard – £17k.
That is sterling. Kit, training, competitions, travel, hotels and so on.
Don’t talk to me about talent making it through- it is having middle class parents, one of whom has to be a permanent chauffeur.
James Marshall
oh and this in yesterdays paper about the adverse effects of it all:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/19/childrens-football-competitive-organised-professionalism
CoachHoran
I agree completely and am glad to hear someone with a good platform stating it. I think this has been the undoing of track and field to some extent. Track’s best have often been multi-sport athletes in their youth. Now many top notch athletes have already been funneled into one sport where they play for a school team for part of the year and then are immediately funneled into a club system outside of the season before they are ever exposed to track and field.
This is most notable for soccer and basketball in my area, but is also true for cheerleading, lacrosse, baseball, dance, etc. There is a ton of money involved even at the youngest levels and kids are roped into committing to participate throughout the year.
The sad thing is that the current trajectory is to focus less and less on the school team and more and more on the club team. Many kids say “college coaches only recruit from the club system”. Sadly, in many situations they are correct. With budget cuts and poor coaching salaries in high school and middle school sports many schools struggle to find and keep high quality coaches.
If it weren’t for the fact that high schools own so many of the sports facilities I’d say that scholastic sports will continue to shrink in favor of club sports unless there is a drastic change soon.
Charles Ndung'u
so true, this issue should be addressed soon. good you brought it out
Ascah Kasisi
I agree completely
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App
I had no idea that youth sports is such a lucrative business.