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Post by bogan on Sept 20, 2024 4:32:13 GMT -5
From a post by Thomas Farrey at the Aspen Institute:
“Did you know the youth sports economy in the US alone is larger than all revenues flowing through the NFL or any other professional league in the world? Parents alone spend north of $30B minimum annually, by our count.
Now private equity is entering the space. Excellent piece this week by Ira Boudway of Bloomberg News on how an industry famous for squeezing out value claims it will make the youth sports experience better — and maybe more accessible. We’ll see.
My quote in the piece: “Private equity could be the best thing that happened to youth sports. It could also be the worst thing. It’s going to come down to their imagination, intelligence and patience.”
What I mean: youth sports today is largely a Wild West, mom-and-pop run space in which the average age at which kids quit is 11. Youth 6-17 playing organized sports has fallen from 58% in 2016 to 54% in 2022, according to federal data. It’s why Aspen Institute Sports & Society #ProjectPlay recently challenged our network to lift that rate to 63% by 2030, starting with the leading organizations at our national roundtable (63X30).
Will private equity firms bring professional management, program standards, and safety risk mitigation practices that improve the experience and reduce attrition? Could PE develop more high-quality, locally delivered models to engage more kids at a lower price point? Could PE help replace the PE (phys ed) lost in schools?
Or will PE do the easy thing and just try to wring more $$ out of an increasingly smaller pool of families with the income to stay in the youth sports arms race?
My sense is greater returns can be achieved via the former option. But it will take leadership and something of a B Corp mentality — a recognition that when business plays with kids, the interests of the kids need to come first. A youth-centered sport ecosystem for all should be the animating vision, and the goal should be helping the supply of quality experiences meet the demand for them (from kids and parents, 85% of whom want their kid involved in sports). One key will be improving coach quality.
Again, we’ll see. Stay tuned.”
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Post by rifle on Sept 20, 2024 4:41:09 GMT -5
I’m don’t buy the claim about youth sports business being a bigger money generator than NFL. I would like to see how they came up with that.
My years long “willing suckers” observation still stands. Soccer clubs are in the business of separating willing suckers from their money. I was among them. It takes hindsight to understand and that is what the industry is counting upon. By the time you understand it, your kid is aged out.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Sept 20, 2024 9:11:32 GMT -5
Yea, and the worst part is leadership at these clubs make no attempt to make things cheaper for the "consumer" --- everything in their eyes is dollar signs.
UFA and arsenal is the perfect example --- thousands of kids now have to annually pay $50 to buy a mandatory new arsenals warm up shirt. That entire partnership is BS, just like chelsea and SSA was etc.
The goal should be how can we make this more affordable to players -- but there is zero attempt to make the game more accessible to all. It’s a business and we are the suckers.
private equity would ruin it even further, as clubs go from the small neighborhood club to the mega club, all the personal connections are gone -- it no longer has anything to do with the community and its all about money. The second private equity gets involved it will all be about profit -- look you will take your kid to training and have to pay to park -- that is the future.
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Post by terimakasih12 on Sept 20, 2024 10:06:03 GMT -5
I’m very cynical about this. I just don’t see how private equity firms wouldn’t ruin the soccer landscape like they have for nursing homes or prisons. I could foresee increased profits for organizations coupled with higher consumer costs and lower quality. Go ahead and sign me up. 🤦♂️
The only good thing I can think of having private equity takeover is that they would likely cut many unnecessary positions. That would show people how bloated these organizations truly are. Of course, the organizations would then implement massive fee hikes (at the recommendation of the private equity companies) and we’d sign the check each year while promising ourselves “this is the last time”.
I’d love it if we could instead work on making the game more accessible and focus elite leagues or pathways on players who are truly elite. That would be much harder, but would benefit so many more.
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Post by soccerparent02 on Sept 20, 2024 10:23:27 GMT -5
I’m don’t buy the claim about youth sports business being a bigger money generator than NFL. I would like to see how they came up with that. My years long “willing suckers” observation still stands. Soccer clubs are in the business of separating willing suckers from their money. I was among them. It takes hindsight to understand and that is what the industry is counting upon. By the time you understand it, your kid is aged out. I will have to disagree. Besides soccer, there are many other things besides soccer and fitness that are developed or learned during the process. 1. Teamwork 2. Following directions from adults/teammates 3. Strategizing/thinking on the move 4. Goal setting/monitoring progress and evaluation 5. Time management/academic life 6. Leadership 7. Learning to deal with winning and losing 8. Friendships/connections for the future 9. Potential playing at the next level 10. Kids having fun relieving the day's stresses. These just come to mind and I am sure if I asked our kid, he would add to the list. While our kid ultimately took an academic scholarship to Ga Tech, he had double digit offers to colleges in all levels. He was proud of that number because he knew his hard work on the pitch was worth it. His team did great as well. |
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Post by guerillaman on Sept 20, 2024 10:30:25 GMT -5
I’m don’t buy the claim about youth sports business being a bigger money generator than NFL. I would like to see how they came up with that. My years long “willing suckers” observation still stands. Soccer clubs are in the business of separating willing suckers from their money. I was among them. It takes hindsight to understand and that is what the industry is counting upon. By the time you understand it, your kid is aged out. I will have to disagree. Besides soccer, there are many other things besides soccer and fitness that are developed or learned during the process. 1. Teamwork 2. Following directions from adults/teammates 3. Strategizing/thinking on the move 4. Goal setting/monitoring progress and evaluation 5. Time management/academic life 6. Leadership 7. Learning to deal with winning and losing 8. Friendships/connections for the future 9. Potential playing at the next level 10. Kids having fun relieving the day's stresses. These just come to mind and I am sure if I asked our kid, he would add to the list. While our kid ultimately took an academic scholarship to Ga Tech, he had double digit offers to colleges in all levels. He was proud of that number because he knew his hard work on the pitch was worth it. His team did great as well. I don't think we are questioning the benefit of organized youth team sports -- the question is at what cost -- you could satisfy all of this for 1/2 the costs. I've lost track of leadership at these clubs recently, but on the boys side SSA seems to be the only one trying to trully establish some sort of pyrmaid and true structure. maybe from a far, it looks great, but when your their its a different story, but they seem to be trying. I've lost track again of nasa/concorde leadership -- dave smith used to be focused on lake point back in the day vs nasa leadership. We all know about greg, but at the end of the day, maybe the joke is on us -- he is the only director I actual see at soccer fields - he's always around. All these years I had it wrong, Greg is the good guy and everyone else sucks!!! UFA leadership is basically a private equity firm, their leadership never attends a single higher level boys event and nor seem to care about the boys side. UFA is a girls club and the boys program is all about dollar signs. If UFA owned fowler, they would for sure require parents to buy annual parking passes. perfect example its small but how to reduce costs -- stop changing training jersey colors. just keep them the same. but nope, they want their uniform sales and kickbacks from the shoe companies. |
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Post by rifle on Sept 21, 2024 12:04:14 GMT -5
I’m don’t buy the claim about youth sports business being a bigger money generator than NFL. I would like to see how they came up with that. My years long “willing suckers” observation still stands. Soccer clubs are in the business of separating willing suckers from their money. I was among them. It takes hindsight to understand and that is what the industry is counting upon. By the time you understand it, your kid is aged out. I will have to disagree. Besides soccer, there are many other things besides soccer and fitness that are developed or learned during the process. 1. Teamwork 2. Following directions from adults/teammates 3. Strategizing/thinking on the move 4. Goal setting/monitoring progress and evaluation 5. Time management/academic life 6. Leadership 7. Learning to deal with winning and losing 8. Friendships/connections for the future 9. Potential playing at the next level 10. Kids having fun relieving the day's stresses. These just come to mind and I am sure if I asked our kid, he would add to the list. While our kid ultimately took an academic scholarship to Ga Tech, he had double digit offers to colleges in all levels. He was proud of that number because he knew his hard work on the pitch was worth it. His team did great as well. I still appreciate the experience and it didn’t hurt me financially.. but you watch some low level “club” tournaments you will know it’s just a business. Everyone willing gets to play. |
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Post by bogan on Sept 21, 2024 17:01:33 GMT -5
rifle…yeah, I could have enjoyed it more for less money…🤣
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Post by randomparent on Sept 23, 2024 10:39:24 GMT -5
I will have to disagree. Besides soccer, there are many other things besides soccer and fitness that are developed or learned during the process. 1. Teamwork 2. Following directions from adults/teammates 3. Strategizing/thinking on the move 4. Goal setting/monitoring progress and evaluation 5. Time management/academic life 6. Leadership 7. Learning to deal with winning and losing 8. Friendships/connections for the future 9. Potential playing at the next level 10. Kids having fun relieving the day's stresses. These just come to mind and I am sure if I asked our kid, he would add to the list. While our kid ultimately took an academic scholarship to Ga Tech, he had double digit offers to colleges in all levels. He was proud of that number because he knew his hard work on the pitch was worth it. His team did great as well. I still appreciate the experience and it didn’t hurt me financially.. but you watch some low level “club” tournaments you will know it’s just a business. Everyone willing gets to play. I agree with what you said 100%, but I also can't think of a tournament that I considered "high level" that I didn't think it's just a business. All you have to do is to see who gets to qualify for "nationals." |
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Post by Soccerhouse on Sept 23, 2024 11:58:25 GMT -5
I don't see US Club relinquishing control at this point. They own youth soccer now.
MLS next will have to offer a better carrot for non mls clubs to join them, and even with that US Club will still maintain control of most of youth soccer levels.
US Club is about $$$, yes they have streamlined the approach and made interstate travel similar etc (no need for state based permissions to travel etc).
The reality is once you shift to a non subsidized model, and remove volunteer coaches from the equation its expensive to run a club -- paying coaches, field rental and insurance.
The advantage AAU has is rich ex NBA players and rich locals sponsoring specific teams. It's still hard to get on those teams, but it's there.
In the US the ex soccer players don't have those kind of resources to sponsor a team and is there even the infrastructure to do so?
If a parent wanted to cover the expense for an entire team lets say, could they set up individual team sponsorship or is all club based for example? Not saying their is value in that investment etc, but would help.
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