Understanding grassroots sports communities
We live in a society overloaded with information about sports. However, little is known about how it is that is organized an why. Indeed, we know sports as a reflection of professional and collegiate sports, yet, we barely understand the importance of its DNA, the sport competition, and know little of the largest portion of the participating community in sports: the Grassroots.
Grassroots sports communities: a large, yet practically unknown territory
Grassroots sports communities congregate more than 98% of the total participating population in sports, an unquestionable indicator exhibiting that the Grassroots community in sport is truly the dominant sector.
To confirm such reality worldwide, the 2007 census of industry participants published by FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, provides adequate statistics validating participant’s developmental demographics.
As per FIFA’s census, soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and grassroots soccer participants represent more than 99% of the total participants in the game (See FIFA's Big Count).
Given its popularity, soccer is probably the best example of a reality for every sport worldwide. However, this overwhelming majority in participation at the Grassroots levels is a common reality among all sports both in the US and worldwide.
In the US, currently, there are approximately 15,000 individuals playing in the different professional sport leagues, and another almost 400,000 intercollegiate athletes in the US.
On the other hand, the US Sport Academy estimates that “there are currently at least 40 million American youth playing in organized sports in the country today and most of this, particularly at the primary school level, is done outside of the school system.”
When compared to the total number of individuals participating in each phase of the sport development cycle, both professional and intercollegiate sports barely represent one percent of the total amount of participants at the Grassroots level in both the US and around the world.
Such indicators help with the understanding of why Grassroots represent an overwhelming majority of its industry in the US. However, such facts also reveal another aspect of grassroots sports that must be further unerstood: The way Grassroots sports communities are organized.
Internationally, Grassroots sport communities are mostly organized and consolidated by a centralized sport system known as the Club System. This internationally known system has its most significant representation in the world governing bodies, known as Federations or Sport Associations.
Conversely, the United States presents a different type of structure for Grassroots sports. The Sports Academy provides a good description of the US grassroots sports structure:
“The lack of a central sports organization in the U.S. has given rise to a primary feeder system for athletic talent through the state-administered school systems as opposed to a government-sponsored club system. Thus, sanctioned intercollegiate sport in the United States has developed into a critical link in the sport organizational hierarchy of the country… Eventually, the best of the collegiate athletes are absorbed into the apex of the pyramid in professional or high-performance sport… Outside of the United States this function is one usually served by a sport club system.”
Those two basic yet different organizational structures, the state run school sponsored system, and the free enterprise, centralized club system, are two of the best known organizational models we accept for the organization of Grassroots sports.
However, when studied closely, the immediate finding is that these two widely known organizational structures in sport barely capture one fraction, the most competitive derivative, of the entire mass of individuals and organizations that constitute Grassroots sports.
Such findings regarding the organizational reality of Grassroots sports is a sign of the free-based and recreational dynamics of the system, yet exhibits the competitive nature of grassroots communities and how hard it is to understand and communicate with its populations.
Grassroots needs for help and guidance
The aforementioned aspects of our understanding of Grassroots sports uncovers yet another major problem; the Grassroots participants, representing the most crucial portion of the development of a community known as the participating youth, are being measured and developed with the values and needs of the professionals, despite the populations’ immense differences in size and purpose.
To make matters more complicated in Grassroots sports, most of the organizations forming these youth-organized competitions, such as the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), Little League Baseball, and Pop Warner Football, operate with scarce professional resources and only with the critical help of inexperienced volunteers.
The challenge for these grassroots sports administrators becomes even more difficult when looking at the variety and the sizes of the constituencies they lead, coach and/or administer.
As an example, AYSO, one of the largest single youth sports organizations in the United States, is run by a team of 50 paid employees in its national office where the organization manages a national operation comprised of over 50,000 teams and 650,000 players, all supported by over 250,000 volunteers nationwide. These volunteers, generally speaking, are soccer moms and dads with very little soccer experience and even less specialized education on coaching or sport administration.
Furthermore, the majority of the formal information available to use as a guideline for such an important segment of the population is mostly focused on “how to play” the game. There are little resources and no structured guidance on what and how leaders of the community should coach or administer their own constituencies. Most importantly, there is a lack of understanding of the “industry” and the correct values to be imprinted that affects a quality level of social, and athletic development.
It’s no wonder the values of professional sports find an easy route to Grassroots competitions as most of the participating community learn such values by watching professional or collegiate sports from various media outlets. Indeed, most of the professional training and information on the industry is based on the needs, experiences, and values of the professional and college populations, the most competitive and idealized phases of sport.
Such indicators describe a need to identify the element of sports that can help with the better understanding of this vast and important sector of the sport industry, and the billions of sport community participants with a common passion for the sports they play, administer, officiate, coach, and follow.
Understanding sports from its DNA
We believe that we have identified that element as the Sport Competition. Indeed, we believe that the Sport Competition is the most important definition in modern sports.
Furthermore, we believe Sport Competition is the essential fiber that gives life to the sports industry, the generator of it all, and the aggregator that meshes and intertwines the billions of sport community participants, professional, collegiate, or even more significant, the Grassroots, which is an immense and important human sector of our society that needs further understanding and support.
But we understand that academic assistance is needed to further understand the Grassoots system as we’ve discovered that most of the documentation and resources related to the matter overlook what we believe is the most defining and critical process in modern sports: the Sport Competition.
Also, we believe that there is a major demand for academic programs that can help improve the quality of the Grassroots activities and their leadership.
To that purpose the FCSF adopted the theory and framework of the Fair Competition Program, a proprietary program developed by Juan Jose (Cheche) Vidal aimed to explain the modern sport industry from its foundational core, the sport competition, as the basis for our research, our educational program and our operational mission.
We live in a society overloaded with information about sports. However, little is known about how it is that is organized an why. Indeed, we know sports as a reflection of professional and collegiate sports, yet, we barely understand the importance of its DNA, the sport competition, and know little of the largest portion of the participating community in sports: the Grassroots.
Grassroots sports communities: a large, yet practically unknown territory
Grassroots sports communities congregate more than 98% of the total participating population in sports, an unquestionable indicator exhibiting that the Grassroots community in sport is truly the dominant sector.
To confirm such reality worldwide, the 2007 census of industry participants published by FIFA, the world governing body of soccer, provides adequate statistics validating participant’s developmental demographics.
As per FIFA’s census, soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and grassroots soccer participants represent more than 99% of the total participants in the game (See FIFA's Big Count).
Given its popularity, soccer is probably the best example of a reality for every sport worldwide. However, this overwhelming majority in participation at the Grassroots levels is a common reality among all sports both in the US and worldwide.
In the US, currently, there are approximately 15,000 individuals playing in the different professional sport leagues, and another almost 400,000 intercollegiate athletes in the US.
On the other hand, the US Sport Academy estimates that “there are currently at least 40 million American youth playing in organized sports in the country today and most of this, particularly at the primary school level, is done outside of the school system.”
When compared to the total number of individuals participating in each phase of the sport development cycle, both professional and intercollegiate sports barely represent one percent of the total amount of participants at the Grassroots level in both the US and around the world.
Such indicators help with the understanding of why Grassroots represent an overwhelming majority of its industry in the US. However, such facts also reveal another aspect of grassroots sports that must be further unerstood: The way Grassroots sports communities are organized.
Internationally, Grassroots sport communities are mostly organized and consolidated by a centralized sport system known as the Club System. This internationally known system has its most significant representation in the world governing bodies, known as Federations or Sport Associations.
Conversely, the United States presents a different type of structure for Grassroots sports. The Sports Academy provides a good description of the US grassroots sports structure:
“The lack of a central sports organization in the U.S. has given rise to a primary feeder system for athletic talent through the state-administered school systems as opposed to a government-sponsored club system. Thus, sanctioned intercollegiate sport in the United States has developed into a critical link in the sport organizational hierarchy of the country… Eventually, the best of the collegiate athletes are absorbed into the apex of the pyramid in professional or high-performance sport… Outside of the United States this function is one usually served by a sport club system.”
Those two basic yet different organizational structures, the state run school sponsored system, and the free enterprise, centralized club system, are two of the best known organizational models we accept for the organization of Grassroots sports.
However, when studied closely, the immediate finding is that these two widely known organizational structures in sport barely capture one fraction, the most competitive derivative, of the entire mass of individuals and organizations that constitute Grassroots sports.
Such findings regarding the organizational reality of Grassroots sports is a sign of the free-based and recreational dynamics of the system, yet exhibits the competitive nature of grassroots communities and how hard it is to understand and communicate with its populations.
Grassroots needs for help and guidance
The aforementioned aspects of our understanding of Grassroots sports uncovers yet another major problem; the Grassroots participants, representing the most crucial portion of the development of a community known as the participating youth, are being measured and developed with the values and needs of the professionals, despite the populations’ immense differences in size and purpose.
To make matters more complicated in Grassroots sports, most of the organizations forming these youth-organized competitions, such as the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO), Little League Baseball, and Pop Warner Football, operate with scarce professional resources and only with the critical help of inexperienced volunteers.
The challenge for these grassroots sports administrators becomes even more difficult when looking at the variety and the sizes of the constituencies they lead, coach and/or administer.
As an example, AYSO, one of the largest single youth sports organizations in the United States, is run by a team of 50 paid employees in its national office where the organization manages a national operation comprised of over 50,000 teams and 650,000 players, all supported by over 250,000 volunteers nationwide. These volunteers, generally speaking, are soccer moms and dads with very little soccer experience and even less specialized education on coaching or sport administration.
Furthermore, the majority of the formal information available to use as a guideline for such an important segment of the population is mostly focused on “how to play” the game. There are little resources and no structured guidance on what and how leaders of the community should coach or administer their own constituencies. Most importantly, there is a lack of understanding of the “industry” and the correct values to be imprinted that affects a quality level of social, and athletic development.
It’s no wonder the values of professional sports find an easy route to Grassroots competitions as most of the participating community learn such values by watching professional or collegiate sports from various media outlets. Indeed, most of the professional training and information on the industry is based on the needs, experiences, and values of the professional and college populations, the most competitive and idealized phases of sport.
Such indicators describe a need to identify the element of sports that can help with the better understanding of this vast and important sector of the sport industry, and the billions of sport community participants with a common passion for the sports they play, administer, officiate, coach, and follow.
Understanding sports from its DNA
We believe that we have identified that element as the Sport Competition. Indeed, we believe that the Sport Competition is the most important definition in modern sports.
Furthermore, we believe Sport Competition is the essential fiber that gives life to the sports industry, the generator of it all, and the aggregator that meshes and intertwines the billions of sport community participants, professional, collegiate, or even more significant, the Grassroots, which is an immense and important human sector of our society that needs further understanding and support.
But we understand that academic assistance is needed to further understand the Grassoots system as we’ve discovered that most of the documentation and resources related to the matter overlook what we believe is the most defining and critical process in modern sports: the Sport Competition.
Also, we believe that there is a major demand for academic programs that can help improve the quality of the Grassroots activities and their leadership.
To that purpose the FCSF adopted the theory and framework of the Fair Competition Program, a proprietary program developed by Juan Jose (Cheche) Vidal aimed to explain the modern sport industry from its foundational core, the sport competition, as the basis for our research, our educational program and our operational mission.
