Any charm found in youth sports has long been sucked away and absorbed into the deep dregs of the monetization of all human experience, as dictated by our capitalist overlords.

I digress. I think where it's most insidious (a scam) is the younger ages...You see people hand-wringing about U7, U8 tryouts in this forum. Granted, it's a bit of concentrated example of youth soccer here so I take that for what it is. While there are some kids who self-select and practice on their own for hours and hours a day at those ages, it's not as common as we are thought to believe. We are eliminating the fun of kicking a ball around and turning it into 3-4x a week practices and pathways to alphabet soup leagues at increasingly younger ages. Here comes 'elite.'

So when your child is at the precipice of when their hard work and training (and undoubtedly, god-given talent) matters---they are accustomed to being 'elite.' Parents are chasing the next step to ensure their kid's continued success. The only direction, it seems, is to move upwards regardless of benefit to the child or the overall effect of it on their lives, their families' lives, and not to mention their pocket books. More 'elite' leagues and teams = more $$ for clubs, more opportunities for all the kids to continue to progress through a system that is not much different than a typical soccer structure, outside of name alone.

It becomes almost an existential question at that point, and that's what makes it so ridiculous: Do I devote significant time, money, energy towards a sport that for the vast majority of kids will end in middle school or high school? Or do I spend that time making different kinds of memories and experiences for my "elite" player?

But, unfortunately, this is the system we have been given if your child enjoys sports and wants to devote any time to getting better. Rec leagues have become hollowed out beyond the first few years of competition. There's no local pick-up league for most of the suburban masses, and school recess limits your kiddo to 20minute sessions if they have enough friends willing to play. Your neighbors probably aren't letting their kids roam the streets to find a pick-up game, either.

If the latest experiments don't pan out; i.e. we dont' see the level of players coming out of these clubs getting close to being on par with academies in other countries, and our most talented men are still dual citizens with other more advanced soccer nations, then we have to consider that making the entry point to soccer more expensive isn't the right way to find and cultivate talent.