The American Youth Sports Business Model
Youth sports are big business here in the United States, roughly 12.04B dollars worth of business. We’ve built enormous state-of-the-art facilities and created elite programs for the youngest among us to create and hone their skills. Former professional athletes are offering their services to train young Johnny and Suzie to help them get that DI scholarship and eventually play professionally or on the international stage. The dream of playing at the highest levels seems more attainable than ever because there is so much access to these high-level sports and training.
When many of these kids are as young as 12-14, their schedules are filled with team practices, private skills sessions, mental toughness coaching, off-the-field physical preparation/sports performance training, recovery room sessions, cryotherapy sessions, games, and let’s not forget school and in some rare cases, even social lives. As parents, we’re asking our kids to live the lives of professional athletes without taking into account the fact that they’re not professional athletes.
The American Youth Sports Business Model forces two things:
Specialization
Year-round play
This specialization and year-round play are what makes this model run, but believe it or not, according to the data, they’re the two worst things that you can do for development. They’re anti-development. So then why are they pillars of this model? We’ll talk about that today.
The Numbers
Before we get into the meat of this article, I’m going to lay out the numbers when it comes to youth sports. On average, American families spend about $890 per year on youth sports. Now, before you tell me I’m an idiot and it’s way more expensive than that, just understand that this is the average of every family who has a child playing a sport of any kind. Rec, high school, travel, club, etc. all of it. A track and field family may spend $200 total on a high school track and field season, while a AAA hockey family may end up footing a $30,000 bill when it’s all said and done. $890 is the average of all money spent for every family in the country.
$890 doesn’t seem like all that much to be honest. Break that down over a year and that’s $75 per month, or $17 per week. That’s pretty affordable for most families. But this number doesn’t tell the whole story. If you’re reading this, it’s probably because your kid is either playing “higher level” sports or has ambitions of doing so. This means that you’re well above this average number.
If your child is playing travel or club, here are the numbers that you’re more than likely accustomed to seeing:
Volleyball
Lower End Average - $8,000
Upper End Average - $24,000
Basketball
Lower End Average - $7,000
Upper End Average - $23,500
Baseball
Lower End Average - $8,000
Upper End Average - $28,000
Softball
Lower End Average - $7,800
Upper End Average - $28,000
Soccer
Lower End Average - $8,500
Upper End Average - $27,500
Lacrosse
Lower End Average - $9,500
Upper End Average - $31,500
Ice Hockey
Lower End Average - $8,000
Upper End Average - $46,000
Tennis
Lower End Average - $12,500
Upper End Average - $46,000
These are the numbers that you’re more than likely paying if college recruitment exposure is the overall goal. Below are the costs associated with playing from age 12 through year one of college:
Volleyball
Lower End Average - $56,000
Upper End Average - $168,000
Basketball
Lower End Average - $49,000
Upper End Average - $164,500
Baseball
Lower End Average - $56,000
Upper End Average - $196,000
Softball
Lower End Average - $56,400
Upper End Average - $196,000
Soccer
Lower End Average - $59,500
Upper End Average - $192,500
Lacrosse
Lower End Average - $66,500
Upper End Average - $220,500
Ice Hockey (the first year of college is typically age 21)
Lower End Average - $72,000
Upper End Average - $414,000
Tennis
Lower End Average - $87,500
Upper End Average - $322,000
As you can see, families are spending a fairly large fortune on youth sports every year. Keep in mind that this is for one child playing at this level. If you’ve got more than one, you have my condolences and RIP to your retirement account.
The cost of sports is very quickly getting very much out of hand. There are a lot of reasons for it, and we’re going to talk about many of them today. What drives this though? For what reason would families put themselves into a financial mess like this?
The Promise
The promise for most families is playing in college at the NCAA level. Some parents even believe that their child is destined to play at the highest levels of competition, whether professionally or at the Olympic level. A study from 2022 showed that 54% of parents believe that their child will play sports in college.
It gets worse. Back in 2015, a study showed that 26% of parents believed their children would become professional athletes one day in the future. Fathers are apparently even more delusional, as a study done just four years later showed that 40% of fathers believed that their children would play professional sports. The problem? Less than 0.03% of high school athletes will ever wear a pro jersey that doesn’t have someone else’s name on the back of it.
Will your child play NCAA athletics? The numbers don’t really support it. About 7% of all high school athletes will play NCAA athletics. 2% will play at the NCAA Division I level, and 5% will play at the NCAA Division II and III levels. This doesn’t include ACHA, AAU, or NAIA college athletics, but when most kids dream of playing in college, it’s at the NCAA Division I level. Typically, kids don’t dream of wearing a USF ACHA Division M3 hockey club jersey. Wearing a college jersey is admirable at any level; I have a ton of respect for every single kid playing at every level past high school who worked their ass off to get there. But, if you’re being honest with yourself, the goal is always NCAA DI. It’s just a fact.
Let’s say your kid is in that 7% of high schoolers who make it to the NCAA ranks. What are the odds that they get a full-ride college scholarship? Well, there are roughly 520,000 NCAA athletes spread out across all sports at all three levels. Do you know the percentage of those kids who are on a full ride? 1%. There are a little over 5,000 kids who are going to college for free to play a sport.
I’m not putting these numbers out there to dissuade anyone from chasing a dream. If your kid has a dream, I think as a parent, you should do everything in your power that is reasonable to do to help them achieve that dream. Notice that I said “reasonable to do”, that’s a huge factor here. I believe parents have been put into positions to have to do completely unreasonable things to help their kids chase their dreams of playing sports at the highest levels. We’ll talk about that next.
The Things We Do For Our Kids
As you’ve seen in this article, sports are expensive and are only getting more expensive as time marches on. Parents are told that their kids will be left behind if they don’t do x or y when it comes to sports, so they’ll break their backs (and banks) to do what coaches tell them needs to be done.
A survey from 2022 done by LendingTree showed that 33% of families take on debt for their children to be able to play youth sports. That same study also found that 59% of families say that their child’s sports cause serious financial strain on their families.
Debt and cost aren’t the only unreasonable things families are forced to do. Many organizations force families to sign what amounts to a unity pledge stating that the kid won’t play other sports or for any other organizations. I coached a 16U hockey team one year and we had an off weekend where two kids asked if they could play for a thrown-together last-minute team at a non-sanctioned tournament. With USA Hockey, you have to release kids to be able to play for other organizations, even if it’s just for a game or two. Our hockey director said no because they could get hurt, and then they wouldn’t be able to play for us. That’s insane.
These same organizations also have coaches who push kids into specialization (and some parents do that all on their own) where they only play one sport starting as young as 12U. Every single piece of data that we have shows how detrimental this is both physically and emotionally, yet these kids are specializing younger and younger at the behest of both organizations and coaches because if the kid isn’t playing with you, you’re not making money.
If you have more than one kid, think about this: what about your other child? Are they being toted around to every practice, tournament, game, etc? Do they have to spend all of their free time at the field/court/rink/gym or in the car while your child who plays does their thing? Are they kind of made to feel like a second-class citizen in their own family where they can’t ever do something fun for them because their sibling always has sports? If you’re able to balance that as a parent, then my hat is off to you because I see this as one of the biggest unnoticed costs of youth sports today, and I see it far too often.
Here is another cost that is often unnoticed: your family bends to the will of the child. Their practice, tournament, and game schedules dictate when/if you eat dinner, when/where/if you vacation as a family, what your plans on the weekends are, etc. That’s a lot of power for a 12-year-old to wield, and it’s setting them up for disaster down the road, where they may end up with main character syndrome. The family does what they want to do all of the time and as they get older they don’t understand why they’re not getting their way. It sets them up to really struggle in the real world. Obviously, as a parent you’re not setting it up this way, it’s just ultimately a cost of playing higher-level travel/club sports year round.
15 years ago these things would have been seen as completely unreasonable for the average American family, but now it’s seen as normal. If you’re not “all in” both from a financial and time cost perspective then you’re made to believe that your kid will fall behind and that you’re a bad parent.
What is Driving the Costs?
There are a few things that are driving the need for all-in, year-round sports. And we’re going to talk about what I think are the biggest four now.
State of the Art Facilities
Now I’ll be the first to say I love many of these facilities. I’ve even worked at a few of them and they’re a great resource for the local community. They’re beautiful, and many times the owners leave no expense spared. You’re left thinking that if you can’t get better there, then you can’t get better anywhere.
Some of the facilities cost in the 10s of millions of dollars to build and the time cost to build them is easily a few years. The people funding these projects have 10s of millions of dollars tied up in these projects, so when they’re finally open they expect to start seeing some kind of return, and that’s completely fair. I’m sure many have a 20-30-year plan to get their money back and are realistic about the future of their new facilities, but that’s not always the case. These aren’t charities, and they’re there to fill a void in the market to make money.
In addition to the dollar and time costs of building these facilities, many have enormous overheads. If you have a 100,000+ sq ft facility, you’re going to need a lot of staff. It's not unheard of for these facilities to have $80-100,000 plus monthly employee expense. Then you’ve got property taxes, energy bills, insurance, payment processing, scheduling software, and other utilities on top of that. When it’s all said and done your local baseball or hockey facility may be spending a quarter million dollars a month just to open the doors and turn on the lights.
Also, most of these facilities aren’t bought with cash, they’re financed. If they’ve borrowed to build these facilities, then they’ve also got to service that debt. A 10 million dollar facility that was built on a loan at 5% interest with a 20-year term will cost about $66,000 per month. Now add in payroll expense, utilities, licenses, insurance, taxes, marketing, etc. and you’ll quickly see why your kid’s travel/club sports seasons are quickly becoming unaffordable. These facilities are expensive to build, and also expensive to run and maintain. Those bills all have to get paid if they want to keep their doors open.
I know this because I run a facility of my own. When you pay to train with me you’re not paying for just my time; you’re paying for every other bill we have here at my gym, which some months adds up to 9-10k. And that’s before anyone gets paid, myself and our financier included. In addition to that, it cost us roughly 180k just to open the doors when everything is added up, that all has to be paid down at some point. As a consumer, you’re also paying for all of that. These sports facilities are no different.
For-Profit Organizations
When I was growing up, just about every sports club was a nonprofit 501c3. Those days are gone. These clubs and organizations now have boards and owners looking to make money every year, and hopefully see some level of growth. They’re not just there for your child’s development, they’re really there to make a profit. I have no problems with profits, I’m a capitalist. But this new system causes organizations to look out for their best interest, not yours or your child’s.
This also means that these organizations are run like a business, and not a development sanctuary. They’re getting kickbacks for certain things, they’re upselling their customers, and it probably feels like you’re being nickeled and dimed all along the way. Hell, I know parents who have to pay a fee to watch their kids play. They’re changing parents admission to watch their kids play a sport that they already pay for. Imagine paying an organization team fees, then paying a tournament fee to play in a tournament, and then having to pay an admission fee to watch your child play. It honestly sounds criminal.
These organizations also now have a vested interest in keeping your child on the field/ice/court all year long. The more your child plays, the more money they make. When the goal is development of the child, I feel like this is a pretty big conflict of interest as every piece of data we have says kids need time away from their sport.
Private Skills Training
I’m going to open this section with the fact that my business only exists due to the boom in youth sports. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for the big push to professionalize kids in youth sports. We also exist to make money, so I’m not hating on anyone who is in the sports development profession for the right reasons and who is making good money. I also do everything I can to ensure our training is affordable so we don’t box anyone out. This whole operation is incredibly expensive to run, but I do my best not to screw anyone over, often to my detriment. With my experience in some locations, I could get away with charging almost double in many cases, but then we would box out anyone who isn’t incredibly well off. That’s not why I’m here.
I’m also honest with people about what their needs actually are, and while I could talk people into spending more money here, I choose not to when they don’t need to. These relationships are based on trust that I’m going to do the right things by them, lying is a good way to destroy that relationship. But, I know A LOT of coaches and facilities who don’t operate that way.
This brings me to my next point which is these fees are becoming absolutely insane. What used to be the cost of training privately is now the cost of training with 4-5 other kids a lot of the time. I saw a social media graphic the other day for a volleyball coach advertising a slot that costs $120 per kid for five kids, for an hour. That’s $600 this coach is charging per hour, and your kid is getting 20% of this coach’s focus. That’s senior partner attorney money to spend an hour doing sports drills. I know of another local hockey coach who will charge upwards of $75 per kid and have 15 kids out on the ice. This situation is a little bit different because he has to pay for the ice at about $400 or so per hour, but he’s still pocketing over $700 for an hour’s worth of work where your kid is getting at best 6% of the coach’s focus. The costs of this training have gotten completely out of control and it’s only happening because people continue to pay it. But why are they paying for it?
Well, if your kid wants to play on the local travel or club team, they are going to have to have some face time with the coach of that team. That coach probably offers private and semi-private training, so that becomes an “in” with that coach. Getting in front of that coach more often is going to make it harder for that coach to cut your kid because if they get cut, they’re probably losing you as a private client and, thus, losing your money. A lot of parents play this game because they know they have to. If their kid is going to play, they’re going to have to play the game. There was always a running joke in my local hockey community that you don’t even try out for a certain coach’s team if you’re not training with him because there is zero chance you’ll make that team. That’s just the way it is.
A lot of these coaches know this, and they know parents want their kids to make these teams, so they know they’ll spend ungodly amounts of cash to make that happen. It’s awful, and many of these coaches are pricing families out of playing a sport completely.
Not all coaches are this way, I know a few who are in it because they love to help people and are good at what they do. These coaches are also honest with families and don’t sell a dream that isn’t probable and, in many cases, isn’t possible. They don’t prey on the emotions and dreams of parents and kids. They’re good people, and they provide a good service. But they’ll often get lost in the noise of coaches promising the moon in an effort to get your cash. It’s sad.
Let’s put pen to paper here and see the potential costs of a sport that I’m more familiar with than any other: hockey. If you listen to the general consensus, you’ll need a skills coach who will have you skate around some cones learning moves that you may have one chance per season to pull off, you’ll need a power skating coach who is probably also your skills coach, and you’ll need an off-ice coach who is probably your skills coach as well because he/she sold you on their skills. This coach also happens to be your hockey team coach, crazy right?
Let’s say you’re practicing with your A/AA team twice per week, so you’ll have three open days per week to spend time with this coach. Once per week with the power skating coach and twice per week with your skills coach. You only do off-ice during the off-season because your coach knows he can’t command the same dollar amount for off-ice as he can on-ice work. These sessions will run you $70-100 per session, plus ice fees so let’s call it $100 per session to make it easy math. There are about 36 weeks in the hockey season, so you’re looking at almost $11,000 in private training. If you were stern about only training twice per week with this coach, you’d still be looking at $7,200 in addition to all the other costs associated with the sport that season. Extrapolate that out for the coach who probably has 8-10 other clients like you and you can see this coach is making a small fortune for about 20 hours per week of work.
Now, good for this coach. I’m not going to hate on someone for making money, but is this extra work necessary? Is this honest work? Is the coach the best person for your strength and conditioning, your skating, and your skills? My guess is no unless they’re a total anomaly who happens to be good at everything (these people don’t exist). They’re just a good salesman, and they’re preying on the desires of the family for their kid to get really good at the sports game. They know the pain points which are making the team, playing time, and the dream of playing at the highest levels of play. And they use it to their benefit.
None of this is to say that your kid won’t get better. They probably will unless the coach either doesn’t care or is completely inept at their job. If that coach gets your kid at 12U, they’ll have them for the next 10 years. These bonds are hard to break once a kid thinks a coach is responsible for their success. I deal with it all the time with older, higher-talent kids/adults that I get. They need someone who can take them to the next level, so they come here. It’s often a battle to get them to understand that a lot of the things they were doing before were wrong or unnecessary. They don’t realize that they have been successful in spite of the things they’ve done in the past, not because of it. I’ve lost clients because of it. Many of these coaches know this which is why you’re being sold on private training a lot more often when your kid is 12 than when your kid is 17-18. This can be great, but only if you pick the right coach.
This is the way it works. I can’t tell you how many kids I lose at the end of the summer to sports. We know that kids are only here so they can excel at their sport, and going to go off and play their sport is why they’re here. I’m more than happy when they’re able to get back to the sports that they love. But they lose out on crucial development because sports coaches tell their parents that they need to be on the ice/court/field more during the season when the reality is that they need to train off the field of play YEAR-ROUND if they want to make it. Every kid that I’ve had that made it to the highest levels of play were year-round trainers. Every single one. What is the reason these coaches say things like this? Because they don’t make money when the kids are at a facility like mine, they make money when your kids are training with them. And oftentimes (most of the time), it’s to the detriment of your child’s development.
Camps And Showcases
Let me start this off with the fact that camps can be a great learning opportunity for your kids and there are some camps that are run very professionally where your kid will indeed get better in the short timeframe that is the camp.
That being said, my daughter will never attend week-long sports camps unless I personally know the coaches. The reason for this is that I’ve worked at many of these summer and off-season camps, and I know exactly how many of them are run. A lot of even the highest touted camps aren’t what you think they are.
Many are “fly by the seat of your ass and what can we do that takes up the most time or wears them out the most?” babysitting services. I worked for Tampa Bay Lightning camps back when I was still playing college hockey, I’ve worked all kinds of figure skating and hockey camps while I was at an ice sports facility, and I worked tennis camps at one of the most prestigious tennis academies in the world. I’ve seen some great, well-run camps, but I’ve seen mostly the opposite. When I say mostly, I mean 95% of them.
These camps can often run hundreds or even thousands of dollars for the week. They offer hours and hours of your kids playing and training for their sports. They can be really fun and a way to keep your kids active during downtimes, but many of these are just money-makers for the people who put them on. If there is an “off-ice” or “fitness” component, just know that 99% of the time, this will be run by a sports coach who doesn’t understand the physical needs/adaptations for the sport, and it’s more than likely going to be eyewash. Kids don’t really get any better and no one is really looking at them as far as scouting for the next level goes.
As your child gets older, many of these camps will be advertised with the notion that your child will be seen by lots of scouts. This often justifies the enormous price tags these camps can carry. It is not always the case though. For example “Division I scouts in attendance” can mean as little as two, and they may only be there for an hour or so of the entire week looking at 100 kids. I’ve seen it happen in real life. While there are plenty of great exposure camps, do your homework and make sure the camps are reputable before you go writing any checks or swiping any cards.
If your goal for having your child attend camps is to let them have fun and stay active then send them as often as they want to go. If the goal is exposure or getting better, then do your homework and make sure everything is above board.
These four things are the biggest drivers of our development model costs here in the United States, in my opinion. For-profit organizations, huge facilities dedicated to one sport, private skills training, and camps/showcases account for thousands of extra dollars for sports families every year at the very least, and most are completely unnecessary.
The consequences of this model are right in front of us, but oftentimes, we thumb our nose at it because we truly believe that more is better. “Athlete X played every day growing up and he made it to the NFL!” you often hear. What about the 10,000 other guys who did the same and ended up needing total knee or hip replacements or now have CTE? Playing year-round is a detriment, not a benefit.
Specialization Doesn’t Work
I’ve been working with athletes for the past 15 years as a coach, a strength and conditioning coach, and, at one point, an athletic trainer as well. Prior to that, I played sports, mostly ice hockey by the time I was in my late teens. But before I specialized, I played a myriad of sports. I played soccer, taekwondo, gymnastics, cheerleading in high school, tee-ball, baseball, flag football, basketball, wrestling, golf, track and field (I sprinted and threw), and roller hockey. I also grew up playing outside with my friends and on the playground at school.
I am thankful for much of my young life growing up, but what I’m most thankful for is that the system we currently have for developing athletic talent didn’t exist. I was allowed to try everything and eventually gravitate towards what I was good at and enjoyed. We had church league basketball, city-run tee-ball/baseball, and football where the costs weren’t boxing kids out of potential and success.
Gymnastics gave me a really good base of movement and kinesthetic awareness, soccer taught me to move in all planes of motion, basketball helped me become a better jumper and more elastic, baseball taught me good hand-eye coordination, golf taught me patience, cheerleading taught me how to work in an environment with absolute nutcases, track and field taught me how to be explosive and fast, wrestling taught me how to use leverage, and taekwondo taught me to defend myself. Most of these sports were played at the rec level, so I would practice once a week and play a game or two on the weekends. None of them were year-round. Every sport played a role in my overall development towards becoming the best possible athlete I could be. I’m thankful that I didn’t have to pick one sport and position at the age of ten. I would have never worn an NCAA hockey sweater.
None of that exists anymore. Gone are the days of trying everything out and figuring out what you’re good at/enjoy. Gone are the days of growing into a sport and being a late bloomer. Kids are specializing before they’re ten now and are asked by sports organizations to be “all in” from day one, and believe it or not, it’s making it less likely that your child will ever make it.
This specialization model is mostly driven by organizations, coaches, the desires of the child, and the false bill of goods sold to the parents and families of these kids. It’s the market responding to the demands of the consumer. And this is a situation where the consumer has mostly been lied to, or is lying to themselves in some cases. According to the data, these are some of the biggest problems with early specialization:
Forced early adaptation leads to an increased rate of injury
Immediate skill improvement followed by a quick taper of skill development
Best performances are at 14-16 years old
Increased rate of quitting before 18 years old
Performance inconsistencies from week to week and year to year
Specialization is a huge part of the American Youth Sports Business Model, the model runs on it. But this specialization is hurting the very people the model is supposed to help. If you’re interested, I wrote much more in-depth about this here, and here, and have two podcast episodes that can be found here, and here.
There Are Too Many Games
I’ve worked with kids who play upwards of 60-70 hockey games per year before they’re even twelve. That’s double the number of games played in college and almost as many as played by professional hockey players. These programs tout themselves as development-driven while being void of anything resembling development.
Contrary to popular belief, you don’t develop during games. You actually develop your skills in practice when there’s no pressure, and then you can perform those skills in real time during games. With a game load this heavy, there’s very little chance for development as a player, and definitely almost no time for development off the field of play. Too much pressure to perform in games leads to a lack of creativity due to a lack of risk-taking. Risk-taking is how we get better and increase our sport IQ. It’s how we learn the game itself. We’ve got an epidemic of highly skilled low sport IQ players in the United States right now, and it’s due to the game load throughout the season.
Pro athletes have the schedules they do because they’re playing purely for entertainment purposes. The goal is for these organizations to make money. While there is some level of development at the highest levels of sports, the vast majority of their time in practice is spent learning plays, developing schemes, maintaining a skill set, and getting ready for games. The games are what matter, and that’s why they play so many. Your child needs more time in practice and preparation. Here’s an example of why:
Little Johnny plays hockey. He loves to play but isn’t quite up to snuff just yet. His skill set, mainly shooting, needs some serious work. Because of this, little Johnny finds himself on the third line and not on either the power play or penalty kill units. This means little Johnny isn’t going to get a ton of ice time during games because the coach has pressure from the parents to win, When he is on the ice, he might not touch the puck some shifts. Hard to picture solid development happening during these games. Now, contrast that with practice. Johnny touches the puck every single drill and even gets a chance to shoot 90% of the time. This means he might spend upwards of 25-30 minutes of practice with the puck actually on his stick. That’s probably 20 or so more minutes of development compared to the 1-2 minutes of touching the puck during games. Little Johnny is significantly better off spending time practicing and developing a skillset, as opposed to playing games where there is pressure to perform and win.
The above scenario happens in every sport and at every age and ability level. Yet, we’re asking these kids to play a schedule that resembles one of someone who is at the top of the skill set pyramid playing the game exclusively for entertainment purposes. It doesn’t add up. Now, I know games are important and fun and will help keep your child interested in playing the sport. But there needs to be a better balance of development compared to performance. We’re treating these kids like they’re pros, and they’re quite literally the furthest you could be from a pro athlete at this juncture.
They’re Over Worked
We ask of our kids more than we ask of our professional athletes. Pro athletes have days filled with training and getting ready to play their sport. They’ll have an hour to an hour and a half of practice, then an hour of training off the field, an hour or two of film, maybe a half hour of treatment, and maybe a meeting or two here and there. Do you know what they do after that? They go home. They don’t have another job that they have to spend 7-8 hours per day at. They get to spend time with family and relax.
These pros also have access to nutritionists, physical therapists and athletic trainers, strength and conditioning coaches, chiropractors, mental health coaches, sports scientists, etc. You name it; they have access to it. They are put in the best position to have the most beneficial training, followed by real-time data-driven recovery protocols.
Our kids don’t often have this. They have school, they have homework, and some even have jobs. They wake up, go to school, go to practice and training, get home and have to do homework before going to bed and doing it again the next day. Most don’t have recovery modalities, a nutritionist laying out their meals for the day, a chef cooking those meals, or someone taking their HRV to ensure they’re recovered enough to do the work at practice or in the gym that day. They just show up and do what’s demanded of them whether it’s beneficial that day or not. For a lot of kids, this is entirely too much.
I see kids as young as 12 walking into my gym with an energy drink. What 12-year-old needs extra energy? A kid that is over-trained, under-slept, and under-recovered, that’s who. A kid who’s burnt out. A kid who’s not going to get any better today, on or off the field. A kid who more than likely is on pace to get hurt at some point as the season moves along.
These kids aren’t pros, yet we’re asking for professional-level dedication from them. It’s hurting them emotionally, and physically.
How Do We Fix This?
To be completely honest, I don’t know that we can unless there is a change in desire from families here in the US. The market responded to the demands of the consumer. The consumer demanded year-round sports with intense game schedules, so we got year-round sports with intense game schedules. The consumer demanded nicer and bigger facilities, so we got nicer and bigger facilities. The consumer demanded more opportunities, so we got more opportunities. On its face, this sounds like a good thing, but instead of being something optional and beneficial, it has now become mandatory and detrimental. Everything is for-profit and privately owned, there are no more city-run recreational leagues. Talented kids who aren’t from well-off families are legitimately being boxed out of sports, there’s nowhere for them to go. The only way this changes is when there is a demand for change.
As a parent, I just want you to know that you’re not alone in thinking this is all rather insane. It is. You play your regular club/travel season, then tournament season, if you’re in high school then you play your high school season, hit the showcase and camp, and then, if you’re lucky, you get a few weeks off before school starts at the end of the summer.
If the goal is a college scholarship, then put those thoughts away into a box and drop-kick that box directly at the sun. If your goal is to allow your kids to learn some athletic skills, some life skills, and meet some lifelong friends, then don’t be afraid to take a step back and let your kid be a kid. Let them try a different sport. Take a vacation at some point during the summer instead of spending that money on summer showcases and camps. Hell, just take some time off and let your child’s body and brain heal.
The way we’re running youth athletic development here in the United States isn’t sustainable in the long run. Sure, some kids succeed in spite of this model, but there’s a trail of broken bodies and crushed dreams paving the way for the few success stories. Remember, only 7% of high schoolers will ever wear an NCAA jersey, and only 0.03% of them will ever wear a pro jersey. Roughly 5,000 kids are on a full athletic scholarship, and the transfer portal means that fewer and fewer of those scholarships will be open to incoming freshmen.
Don’t let this dissuade you from pursuing your dreams or doing the reasonable things to help your child pursue theirs. Shoot for the stars and hope to land on the moon. But be realistic with your expectations.