New youth football rules

[RamblinWreck09]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/...y-shrinking-it.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur

6-9 players
No kickoffs or punts
Smaller field
No 3 point stance

Too little too late? Youth football is just about dead here. Even with city and county rec departments combined they still only managed 3-4 teams for each elementary school age group in the fall. That's about a quarter of what soccer did just for the city. Now some of the middle schools are thinking about combining teams due to low participation.

 

[DressCheeseSideSeaboard]

In what year will football cease to be played?

 

[KG01]

In what year will football cease to be played?

Probably coming sooner than we think.

I notice most teams here in town are only like 15-20 kids. Basically everybody playing both ways. I recall when I was a kid, it was rare that a kid played both o and d because there were so many kids involved.

Due to lack of participation, in a few years, quality of play will suffer to the extent that it'll be noticeable and the money will start to decrease. Beginning of the end IMHO.

 

[southendzoneBEE]

Rec ball may be dying, but pop Warner and other leagues arent. The good players have started joining travel teams completely separate from the rec dept, and the rec dept teams are garbage. The rec game I saw had 10 v 10 , two 10 minute halves. It was pathetic. And then I saw a youth league game and it was just short of a highschool atmosphere.

 

[GoGATech]

Rec ball is dead where we live. Schools in our area all have started sports programs for the lower grades. We start "real" football in 3rd grade.

 

[BigGTMike]

The basic fundamentals and techniques change as the body goes through puberty anyways. There is no reason to subject young kids to the hitting. The basic rules can be taught through other methods and observation.

 

[BigDanT]

The basic fundamentals and techniques change as the body goes through puberty anyways. There is no reason to subject young kids to the hitting. The basic rules can be taught through other methods and observation.

I'm definitely thinking this is more of the trend. Football is king at any high school level.

 

[eg1]

In our local football association, there was no tackle football at all for the Tyke division (age 6-8) last Fall for the first time since the '70s. Only 5 years ago there were enough players for 4 teams of 9-a-side in that age division.

It's getting harder to convince Moms to let their boys play tackle in a country where youth hockey doesn't allow full contact until age 13.

Football Canada has proposed a timetable for changing the youth game progression

http://footballcanada.com/football-canada-releases-strategies-aimed-to-improve-the-sport/

Flag football, on the other hand, is wildly popular. There were over 1000 players last Spring, with over 100 on a waiting list.

 

[ramblinwreck24]

Here in Columbus and Phenix City they have had to go find more coaches and create more teams at the rec level because the turnout has been so large. Middle school games around here have just as many people as a high school game. I guess it depends on the area.

 

[TampaBayJacket]

Youth football seems fairly stable down here in Tampa Bay area. My son played 9 yr old ball this year. Something I did notice was the wealthier suburb areas had less participation than urban areas. Not sure if it's always been that way since this is my first year observing it, but it did correlate with a report I read that football wont die but will eventually be a nearly 100% lower income demographic sport. On a side note, these teams from the rougher areas of our league in Pinellas County had some serious talent that will move on to the HS teams here. I see why this area is so heavily recruited by all of FBS.

 

[KG01]

Youth football seems fairly stable down here in Tampa Bay area. My son played 9 yr old ball this year. Something I did notice was the wealthier suburb areas had less participation than urban areas. Not sure if it's always been that way since this is my first year observing it, but it did correlate with a report I read that football wont die but will eventually be a nearly 100% lower income demographic sport. On a side note, these teams from the rougher areas of our league in Pinellas County had some serious talent that will move on to the HS teams here. I see why this area is so heavily recruited by all of FBS.

I can see that happening. It's just a cheaper option. "Academy" level soccer, baseball, etc. cost over a G now for a season. And that doesn't even include a lot of related costs.