Although I agree that that narrative is changing, the change is slow and hasn't necessarily trickled down to every club out there. To be clear--I don't think a lot of youth coaches and parents realize that they're sacrificing development in the name of winning; I think a lot of times they use winning competitive games as a yardstick to measure progress too early and too often. If that makes sense. Not a bad point regarding HS, but what about the years prior to that?
The point of this thread is that the premise isn't true. It probably was true 30 years ago, but this is what each sport has done at the high school level since then: PHP: 1980 2012 % Chg per yrBaseball 415860 474219 14.03% 0.44%Basketball 569228 535289 -5.96% -0.19%Cross Country 163094 248494 52.36% 1.64%Football 937677 1095993 16.88% 0.53%Golf 117273 152725 30.23% 0.94%Swim/Diving 84204 133823 58.93% 1.84%Tennis 131290 159800 21.72% 0.68%Track 524890 575628 9.67% 0.30%Wrestling 273326 272149 -0.43% -0.01% Soccer 133649 411757 208.09% 6.50% Sorry for formatting, but I think it can be read. What you can see is that soccer participation (this is at the boys' high school level) has more than tripled, growing at six and a half percent a year during that time (and that's over 32 years), while none of the other sports has shown significant growth against the population (probably all but cross country and swimming/diving are actually down vs the population size). Barring something significant coming in to shake up the pattern, it will almost certainly surpass baseball in the coming years. Maybe even basketball, if given a little longer.
Here are the men's sponsorship rates in NCAA Division I. No signs of soccer growing at that level. 100% basketball 91% cross country 86% baseball 86% golf 82% outdoor track 76% tennis 75% indoor track 71% football 59% soccer (down from 66% in 1981-82) 39% swimming 23% wrestling http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/PR2013.pdf
Yes, but in the same span of time, women's soccer participation has skyrocketed. I'm guessing that the relative decrease in men's college soccer is more of a product of Title IX than actual decrease in interest.
It's not Title IX, exactly. It's more that schools want to spend way more money on football. Title IX is an easy scapegoat when schools just want to spend money on football.
I'm not trying to blame Title IX for anything. You're right that football is the big culprit, but that's mainly because of the way the law is written and the fact that there are 85 scholarships for football and no women's version of comparable participation. In order to keep things even, sometimes 2 or 3 men's programs have to be sacrificed to make up for the huge number of scholarships that football uses. You can blame football for that, but you can't blame schools for wanting a football team when it is really (with men's basketball) the only sport that makes money.
No wonder at all. College is not the only option for footballers unlike American-football or basketball. In fact it's the last resort. Yup, football and college just don't go together.
http://www.ncaapublications.com/productdownloads/PR2012.pdf Div I is the only level that has actually lost teams. Here are the totals since 1989: Div I: -17 Div II: +35 Div III: +65 The number of Div I players has actually grown a bit (4909 vs 5719)--but it's doubled at the other two levels. It's been pretty clear the Div I teams fall is a product of "policy." Q: Was that policy more about Title IX, or about football? A: Yes
Isn't it a bit of a copout to attribute everything to "policy"? Title IX doesn't apply only to D1 colleges. Its scope includes smaller colleges and high schools, as well. Division I is where the level of amateur competition is by far the most intense, and at that level, soccer hasn't managed to gain any ground on baseball at all. In recent years, lacrosse and ice hockey haven't been bleeding any D1 programs at all, while soccer is losing them steadily. Those sports all face Title IX hurdles that are bigger than soccer's but are keeping stronger participation. This must reflect more than just policy.
I believe that soccer is actually the #1 sport for women's participation. But the position of soccer is very different for women than it is for men. Behind basketball, it's arguably the #2 choice for serious athletes. In contrast, soccer on the men's side is kind of an afterthought. People like to play it, but it's nothing close to the big four.
Not only is this comment wrong (as has been shown to you about 20 times), it has nothing to do with sponsorship levels.
What I meant by that situation is that in the debate between Title IX and the spending and personnel invested into other sports (but mostly we mean football), both 'sides' don't have the full picture because it's due to the interaction between the two. Both are necessary causes for it, but neither are sufficient causes, only together do they present a good explanation. Only at the one level where you have both Title IX and large spending and huge rosters/scholarships invested in football does soccer representation suddenly become an uphill battle. Sorta brings it full circle to my OP lo those many years ago, because what prompted it was the question being put to the University of Houston AD at the time of why there was only one Div I men's soccer team in the State of Texas (at the time). His response was to claim that soccer was a game that kids gave up to pursue other sports when they became teenagers, and the purpose of this thread was to demonstrate the untruth (or datedness) of this theory.
Last I'll say on it as well. Not even remotely true. College sports lose money. I work for one of the few athletics programs in the nation that actually makes money. http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/2010/0317/NCAA-mens-basketball-bracket-Even-top-seeds-lose-money
Can't say I buy into that article's conclusions. The underlying justification for men's basketball losing money is that basketball revenue "will help subsidize the school's other sports, but even then won't cover the cost of running a college's entire athletic program." That may be true on a technical level, but it isn't really men's basketball that's losing the money. It's the other sports. http://www.ncaapublications.com/p-4...ntercollegiate-athletics-programs-report.aspx The latest numbers are from 2011. FBS median revenue generated from men's basketball $4.95 million. FBS median expenses from men's basketball $4.37 million. The numbers also show that if a team has a good year, it can make profits of several million, more than enough to cover losses in bad years.
Exactly. I noticed the same thing myself. The article was talking about the athletic departments as a whole losing money.
Keep smoking. US college american-football and basketball is like 2nd and top 5 for those sports in the world. US college soccer is like what? 300th and the gap is getting larger. Not an attractive product at all, so no wonder at all about the poor sponsorship in US college soccer. It all goes to other soccer options first.
Bear in mind that you don't know if they're actually booking all their expenses, or if they're including subsidies as revenues. The whole American sports industry is full of dodgy figures.
On a broad level, I agree with you, although I'm not inclined to believe that schools are cooking their paperwork (not saying you believe this, either). So I'd be surprised if many of them are improperly counting revenues. I'm pretty sure that the revenue figures don't include alumni contributions, which are an important piece of the financial puzzle in their own right.
They generally don't include money from general university funds, which athleticsdepartments often draw upon to balance the books.
Update for this past year: Code: Year Soccer Baseball Gap 1972 78510 1974 98482 1976 115811 1977 115811 1978 141070 1979 132073 1980 133649 1981 149376 1982 161167 1983 162504 1984 173423 398608 225185 1985 180281 391810 211529 1986 196028 393905 197877 1987 203984 406046 202062 1988 208935 407630 198695 1989 218973 412825 193852 1990 220777 413581 192804 1991 228380 419015 190635 1992 236082 433684 197602 1993 242095 430401 188306 1994 255538 438846 183308 1995 272810 440503 167693 1996 283728 444476 160748 1997 296587 444248 147661 1998 309484 449897 140413 1999 321416 455305 133889 2000 330044 451701 121657 2001 332850 450513 117663 2002 339101 451674 112573 2003 345156 453792 108636 2004 349785 457146 107361 2005 354587 459717 105130 2006 358935 470671 111736 2007 377999 477430 99431 2008 383561 478029 94468 2009 383824 473184 89360 2010 391839 472644 80805 2011 398351 471025 72674 2012 411757 474219 62462 2013 410982 474791 63809 I may be missing something in the table, but it looks like the first time in the history of the survey that boys' high school soccer participation is down from the previous year.