Every season, Georgia families spend thousands of dollars on youth sports in fees, travel, uniforms and other expenses.
University of Georgia senior Gabriella Etienne experienced that life, competing for a club soccer team in Cherokee County.
While parents complain about the costs and headaches of this system, it has rarely been studied critically by scholars. How did this expensive system arise, and what are its impacts on talent development?
New research from UGA's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication presented evidence that the youth sports system is a market response to the American system of linking sports to education. Etienne interviewed executive directors and heads of coaching at four elite Georgia clubs, as well as officials at Georgia Soccer's state office for the study.
"Virtually no other country tries to do sport development through schools in the way the United States does," said Welch Suggs, co-author of the paper and associate director of the Carmical Sports Media Institute at the Grady College.
Schools are funded unequally, and the resources available to an athlete depend heavily on geography and economic class. Elite, privatized club systems developed in response to this disparity, offering quality coaching and competitive schedules for a hefty price tag.
Playing for a private sporting club can cost anywhere from $1,000 to $10,000 annually once league registration and fees are factored in. This commodified "pay-to-play" structure prevents many talented players from low-income families from accessing the training and resources they need to advance as players, the researchers said.
Low-income families at disadvantage in children's sports
Suggs and Etienne found that barriers to entry also exist beyond finances.
Time is money, and families with working parents often can't carve out entire weekends to travel 100 or more miles away to tournaments. Athletes from lower-income families may not have reliable transportation to practices and games. Tryouts posted only in English unintentionally exclude non-English speaking players.
Some clubs award scholarships for talented players from underserved communities, but these isolated efforts only go so far in addressing broader infrastructural issues, the researchers said.
Collaboration between teams could help young players succeed
There may be options for young players across the country, but it starts with overcoming the competitive instincts baked into the American sports market, Suggs said.
Programs are inherently wired to battle against each other - for players, resources and wins on the pitch - but seizing opportunities to collaborate could mitigate some of these challenges.
Better access to collaborative scholarships to address existing barriers could be a start.
"If we can find ways to come together and establish a pathway that we're all decided on," Etienne said, "that might be a way to have more success and let more people be involved in the game."
Etienne presented this research at UGA's Center for Undergraduate Research Opportunities Symposium before the article's publication.
The study was published in the Journal of Policy History and is part of a broader research project on soccer in Georgia. Suggs plans to include the work in a book tentatively titled "Georgia and the Beautiful Game," under contract with the University of Georgia Press.
