Quote · New Heights with Jason & Travis Kelce
Live in LA with Will Ferrell, Alex Morgan, Kelley O'Hara, Myles Garrett & Andrew Whitworth | EP 195
Where this was said
Alex Morgan on Growing the Game: Youth Soccer's Broken System
At 56:37 · chapter starts 49:50
Asked how the US can sustain and grow its soccer appetite beyond the World Cup, Alex Morgan gives an answer with real teeth. The youth system, she says, has been 'made as a business' — and that commercialization is strangling development. In the state of California alone, there is a country's worth of kids playing soccer, yet they're flying across the country every other weekend to compete in out-of-state club tournaments for no structurally necessary reason. The travel costs alone make the sport inaccessible to families without significant disposable income. Kelley O'Hara agrees: the best path forward is nurturing the youth pipeline, not just banking on World Cup momentum. It's one of the sharpest policy observations in any episode the brothers have aired [1] — Alex Morgan "Alex Morgan laid out why the US struggles to develop soccer talent at scale: the youth system is fractured, prohibitively expensive, and fo…" 57:40 .
Alex Morgan pointed out that the inaugural Women's World Cup was held in 1991, while the Men's World Cup dates back about 100 years.
Alex Morgan laid out why the US struggles to develop soccer talent at scale: the youth system is fractured, prohibitively expensive, and forcing California kids to fly across the country every other weekend for no good reason. The sport has become a business, and that's strangling the pipeline.
Alex Morgan called the US soccer youth system 'fractured' and too expensive, noting California kids unnecessarily travel across the country every other weekend to compete.
