SeatownJay":2cx6dxd4 said:
I think one of the issues facing the development of young talent is parents pushing their kids towards, and the kids themselves being more interested in, sports with higher financial ceilings, especially with kids that possess the natural athletic ability to be a professional athlete. The median salary in MLS (and let's face it, the vast majority of Americans that go pro in soccer will play in MLS, relatively few will be good enough to go to Europe) is $91,827. The next lowest median salary in the five major North American sports leagues is the NFL at $770,000. That's a huge difference.
If parents are going to spend the time, effort, energy, and money necessary to groom their son to be a professional athlete, they're going to go for sports with the best chance of a big financial payoff.
edit: salary info found here -
http://www.americansocceranalysis.com/h ... lssalaries
While I don't disagree that their is a salary differential between the major sports, i would think it is rare that a naturally gifted athlete is making a decision of what sport to pursue at a young age based on what may make them the most money professionally. They may make a decision based on what avenue is easiest to a college scholarship. But still most kids gravitate towards what they like. And I imagine most difficult decisions are based primarily on that. Then it just comes down to which college is going to pay for their kids to play which sport. D1 soccer programs give away free school as much as any other sport (percentage of program size being considered here)
Its a bit later in life that truly gifted athletes make a decision between that D1 scholarship in football or the one in soccer, basketball, baseball, etc.
In truth, soccer (and then hockey in some areas followed by basketball prep schools) is set up quite well to both identify and then isolate its developing talent.
If you are a parent of a 13 year old, and the local high school football coach thinks you'll be good, but the LA Galaxy DA is willing to whisk you away to their training facility and residential program, I think the choice is more on the immediate gratification.
Soccer probably does lose out to the popularity of other sports in some regards. I just don't believe that the lack of development of soccer players in the US is impacted by its best athletes choosing other sports. What sport would Messi, Ronaldo, etc. have played if they grew up in the US?
The US' biggest and most fundamental issue is the actual size of the country. Great Britain has 64 million people living in a country the size of the state I live in. Spain has 47 million in a smaller area. Our academies right now must focus on the major city centers (and in that, you have to select the cities in which you think the sport is popular). Here is a quick map on how the DAs are set up
http://academy.demosphere.com/
That is ignoring an awful lot of territory/players/potential. But what can you do? I played college in Arizona. I know that population. One academy to service the 6th biggest city in the nation? And nothing for Las Vegas or Utah (3 in Denver, by the way. Colorado is not a strong soccer community, but there is major investment there).
You can see that soccer has had to pick its areas of concentration, in essence picking its sphere of influence and basically leaving the rest to traveling coaches (2nd tier from the bottom) to know they have found something special and direct it upwards.
Not efficient, and I believe the sheer size of our nation is the biggest contributing detriment.