A Parent’s Guide To The Business Of Youth Sport.
Zooming out to look at the big picture is key in navigating the various agendas around your kid.
Welcome to edition 173 of The Physical Movement and our growing community. Happy Thanksgiving to our Canadian subscribers and thanks for spending a few minutes. This week we tackle some of the considerations in escorting your kids through youth sport so their best interests are kept as the priority. Let’s dig in:
At some point in our youth athletes’ experience in their/your chosen sport, the business side starts to creep in. As parents, it is important to zoom out on what is happening if you hope to scale and navigate through this different and prevalent side of youth sport.
The traditional community sport model is no longer the default program. We are familiar with the small yearly registration fee to cover registration, field/court/ice time, officials, uniforms that used to be the norm.
At some point however, the travel/elite/AAU started to creep in with the promise of better coaching, more practice time, nice team apparel, including customized equipment bags, more travel and “exposure” and a “better, stronger” experience. Fees and expenses went up accordingly, now thousands of dollars per athlete per year in many cases.
The lure of “better development”, prestige, not falling behind or keeping up with the joneses and college scholarship looms large as reasons for jumping on board. Families are taking out loans and 2nd mortgages to keep up with the fees. Many are excluded as they can not afford to pay the fees. The most talented young athletes are recruited with fees subsidized or waived. The uneven playing field of opportunity is alive and well, and parents need to have their heads on a swivel on how to work through these variables if they want what is best for their development.
This side of navigating youth sport is not to be confused with the need for youth sport organizations to adopt an accountability model in running their organization. The Physical Movement covered that in the article below.2
The notion that youth sport is a business.
From The Physical Movement article July 4, 2021 on the Uncomfortable Truth 5:
“Who's responsible is a tough question to answer as youth & amateur sport is a $28+ Billion / year North American industry with no CEO. With so many profiting so much, there’s zero hurry to admit this is a problem let alone attempt to institutionalize this racket. You might as well ask for all of the guns back at the same time. There are few enforceable rules or regulations, and little to zero accountability & oversight. In the USA, there is no Department of Sport. In Canada, there is currently no Minister of Sport and, those we have had in the past, are simply shuffled to fill the portfolio which serves as a double whammy - no sport experience and no business experience.” Matt Young
We have documented the need for youth sport governing bodies to be run like a business if they are in business. I should qualify that: run like a successful business. A successful business has accountability and defined roles. They have a blueprint for everything. They manage by discipline and not by the swing of the mood of the day.
With that in mind, as parents we need to grasp the concept that little Jimmy/Jenny’s youth sport experience on the travel team with the higher costs changes the way teams are assembled. It changes how playing time is determined. It changes many of the priorities around why our young star started to play in the first place.
Not sure about you, we did not sign our youngster up to stay in hotels 6 times a summer or drive 3 hours on a weeknight to a hockey game on a snowy night in February.
The reality is, up to 15 years old there is no “elite”. All kids are learning, and they learn and grow at different rates, so some will stand out more at an early age while others catch up.
The goal is to play, not travel.
It amazes me that a summer soccer or baseball team needs to go to 5+ tournaments out of town during their season to play games when most of our communities have lots of opportunities to play within 30 minutes of home.
The concept of “best on best” being key to young participant development as blown common sense out the window.
Our 9 year- olds don’t need to stack up against the best 9 year-olds 3-5 hours away every weekend in order to have fun, develop and learn.
This is the baseline thinking that we, as parents, use as a filter these opportunities. The costs, both financially and to family life are not essential at this stage of the game. To boot, all this travel and sitting on the bench on a “travel” team does not help our young person’s development 1 bit.
They need to play!
How Do Parents Navigate The Business of Youth Sport To Preserve Your Kids Best Interests?
This is about your kids. Not for parents ego. Leave a legacy of prioritizing their development over all else. This is simple not easy as it means putting our ego on the back burner.
Be very aware that most youth sports organizations with travel and elite teams are run like a business, and as such have motives beyond a positive experience for our young participant. Many have financial and personal agendas, and they are not prioritized with your family’s agenda. Worst of all, they are often not accountable for their decisions.
Awareness is key to navigating this for your kids agenda.
Be informed of the options in your community. There are organizational options in most communities that will offer mission statements and guidelines in line with your goals. The days of only having 1 option locally are no longer the only option if they don’t align with your values.
Be clear on your values and purpose. While we assume these are the same for all, they are not. Verbalizing with your spouse and your child. Anything outside of having fun and develop physically, mentally and socially should be reconsidered.
Fight the urge to keep up with the joneses. While we live in a social media compare to others world, fight the urge to go with the peer pressure of “everyone is doing it”. Your young participant is not falling behind if they are not on the super 8 year old travel team playing 70 games a season. In fact, they will fall behind if they don’t move every day. Use this as a guideline. They need to play to get the benefits of the activity.
Evaluate the experience as you go. Adjustments can and should be made based on the experience.
See something say something. Get involved. With or without experience in coaching, contributing to the experience is needed and welcome as long as doing so for the right reasons. If something seems off, then it probably is, and should be discussed. Matt Young discusses that in his outstanding video as part of the “Give Sports Back” article below 1.
Additional Resources On Topic From The Physical Movement
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From reader and coach Phil Campbell: (Thanks Phil)
Great article Greg!!! Love this: “The reality is, up to 15 years old there is no “elite”. All kids are learning, and they learn and grow at different rates, so some will stand out more at an early age while others catch up.” There are “elite prices” for parents with resources. Also love this: “Our 9 year-olds don’t need to stack up against the best 9 year-olds 3-5 hours away every weekend in order to have fun, develop and learn.”
I could argue, if they are that good at age 9 and need to compete in best-on-best competitions, they matured quickly and the great majority will be caught and passed by kids maturing normally. At age 9, they need to be kids as you have written over and over! They need to play and have fun while learning how to get along with others in a workgroup setting as preparation for life, but and they do not need to be compared in a best-vs-best system.
I’ve had a few baseball athletes coming for two-session speed technique training express similar opinions. I’ve asked, “Are you excited about playing baseball in college?” The response from several high school seniors is, “I don’t really want to play in college. I’m just burnt out on all the travel.” Not every athlete feels this way, but when you hear this message from several baseball athletes who have the credentials of size, speed and skills to continue paying after high school, it raises the question, what’s happening in baseball to cause this?
Baseball athletes have to know the game early -- too early in my opinion. Baseball is similar to the decathlon in track and field as baseball athletes have to be great at several different sport movements. They have to be great at catching, throwing, batting, and be showcase fast. Each discipline requires a different set of high-level skills, which comes from proper technique and practice. Malcolm Gladwell’s “10,000 hours” theory applied means thousands of reps in each athletic movement. Baseball is Malcom Gladwell X 4.
How is this going to be resolved? I don’t know. The solutions aren’t easy. I’ve thought about this issue for years and still come up with no answers. All I can do is my part. I work with athletes twice, only twice, to teach them optimal speed technique. I give them my book on why it’s important to practice with optimal technique so when they are at practice or at the performance center, they will get a positive neuroplastic adaptation to their training by using consistent optimal technique.
While I’ve seen a few highly skilled baseball athletes drop out of the sport, I sure do love it when I get follow-up email that an athlete has signed with an university and playing the sport they love. - Phil