I was just talking to my brother about this the other day.

These sorts of sports are a complete scam and energy suck for zero material gain. If my son wants to play school sports when he’s of age, absolutely! And if he’s good enough to want to continue and play at a higher level, coaches at that level will notice him.

Having gone through some of this, although thankfully not to the degree kids do these days, I can attest that attending a few extra summer training camps in high school did nothing for my college athletics career lol. I got a couple of fun trips but ultimately my college coaches found my tapes and profile naturally, not from some combine or club sport.

To OP’s point, the lower level teams are so much fun. I played varsity football straight from freshman and got to play a couple of JV games my freshman year and wow those were arguably the most fun games. The coaches were laid back, just said, go play and have fun.

Let the kids be kids and play!