City Soccer offers a model of programs for a lifetime of participation. Play, coach or get involved in other roles on or off the field…

City Soccer programs aim to be the destination players and coaches seek to play and develop, alongside participation in a local club.

Our foundation works with clubs, associations, and governing bodies to make better use of play-space and programming in a local area.

What Makes The City Soccer Programs & Model Unique? 

This was realized on accident, and took a lot of time and miles to figure out.

The programs at home were going unexpectedly well. We assumed other organizations would be out there finding similar solutions. After years of attending conventions and visiting clubs to learn about what others were doing, a strange thing occurred: no one else seemed to be doing quite the same thing.

All over the country and in many places abroad, there simply seemed to be no operators doing the same things—or evening thinking in a similar way. But how? How were some of our most successful and popular programs not being realized by anyone else? 

The reason should have been obvious, but we did not consider what was right there at home all along. It went back to that unusual circumstance from which we began. Our situation was different in some key ways:

• A major city that truly had to start over, there was no existing soccer or sport-infrastructure.
• There was a flood of people showing up who had no where else to play. We had to organize this in some way. 
• No one could be turned away, so a wide range of needs and and interests had to be considered. 
• A devastated economy and many people without work meant that sustainable programs had to be offered low-cost, or less.

It was an extremely unusual set of conditions and differences, proving some major disadvantages and advantages. A different set of questions and thinking was driving the development of the programs.

Post-Katrina

Starting new programs in the wake of a natural disaster, no one can be left out. When fields are not available, make use of non-traditional play-spaces. Get back to playing now; get to the fields later.

City Soccer programs have been shaped by the needs of people at a time of scare resources and space. Since, the programs have been shaped to fit the needs of clubs, associations, and governing bodies.  

In the years immediately after the storm, infrastructure and economy struggled to return. Disaster relief efforts filled the city, as everything had to be rebuilt. Fleets of emergency vehicles and temporary structures had to be parked somewhere, and sport parks were seen as the solution. The parks and playing-fields were filled with trucks and trailers. This was a problem for the recovery of sport. We had to develop programs with what was available.

As word got out, people came flooding in. Some were experienced players, others had never played in their lives. Everyone needed an outlet. Our thinking was influenced by a different set of questions: If no one can be turned away, how can everyone play and be satisfied? How can can activities be shaped to provide? Where are lines drawn—that separate one program from another? The unusual circumstance created unusual questions, which created unusual answers. We did not know what to do. Just let people play, and pay attention.

Organizing programs so everyone wants to come back. It was a crash course in Program Design. The process taught how people can participate, and how can be different from person to person, need to need, interest to interest, level to level, and so on…

As people play and provide feedback, the design of different programs begins to take shape.

The game is for everyone.

Operating and developing soccer programs for people all over a city, while working with the range of organizations and their leaders, a lot is illuminated. What follows is a very good sense of the local soccer landscape. 

A diverse set of stories step on the field everyday. Players truly come together from all backgrounds and circumstances. Relationships form, networks extend and communities build and prosper through the power of people in play-spaces, with well designed programming. Watching this process and progress play out over time is always amazing. To watch and truly understand how this happens is to want make the game accessible and available to anyone.

On the other hand, developing a deep understanding for the landscape of local soccer also illuminates the problems and their severity. An awareness is gathered for those who miss out, see no options or are left behind. The individuals and groups who create the problems become very apparent. Problems in local sport are very much related to the ways in which local leaders and their organizations operate and make poor decisions. Those leaders may be well-intended, but without the awareness or qualifications to execute appropriately. Or, those leaders may be more deliberately operating with clear conflicts of interest, not so well-intended. It takes all sorts. 

Amazing and unbelievable stories run the gamut, from the most inspiring people to some of the nastiest. We have certainly experienced the best and worst of it, factoring it all into the development of City Soccer programs!

In 2015 and 2016, a study was conducted by Louisiana Soccer Association to quantify soccer-service rates across the state.  

The results were interesting. Soccer-service was found to be roughly 2.5%-11% by parish, with exceptions in rural areas.

Most notable was the New Orleans Metro Area, despite having the largest total number of players and most competitively dominant clubs. The soccer-service rates in Orleans and Jefferson Parishes were some of the worst in the state. In those two most densely populated parishes in the state, the total number of players could be tripled, and service-rates would still measure as some of the worst in the state. 

Taking the study step farther, trying to identify the “hot-spots” for the problem, data provided a very interesting implication about the use of public play-spaces. The number of people able to use a field determines a park’s capacity for service. At some level, the fields are then considered full. Everyone else is now locked out of the park.

How many people are able to use a field, before it is considered full, is one major aspect of program-design.The key to program-design is improving capacity, availability, and quality on traditional approaches to soccer and sport programs. 

With better program-design, we see an increase in the capacity of parks and the ability for people to attend. As a consequence, outcomes and impact of parks and programming also increase across the board. 

A Much Needed Solution. While traveling to learn from others, we realized that common problems in the game were repeating all over the United States, and even abroad.

We saw common problems that we were not seeing within our programs. It seems like there was a need to share what we were doing.

This is why Unite The Game Foundation was established—to share our solutions to common problems, delivered to local playing fields.

How Much Of A Solution, And How Can It Be Certain? The Numbers Speak Volumes. Through research in and around our own programs, we have learned a lot about what works, what does not, why and how.

By working on projects with others, we have been able to develop useful tools that can help where problems in common need similar solutions. We share tools, insights, and resources through our Foundation. If you are interested, please reach out.

Quantifying the impact of programming at community play-spaces is a tall order. It requires help from others a lot bigger and smarter than us.

We worked together with 13 football associations across Europe and the UK, as well as 12 universities, in a project organized and funded by UEFA and WHO. The study aimed to measure the impact of participation in football across a nation, a region and then locally at one particular football club. The result of this work is a baseline model we can use determine impact of programming and prospective programming at community play-spaces. We can quantify and consider the logic of investment in play-spaces and programs at a location, the power of football!

The only way to tackle BIG problems is to work together. 

Our focus as an operator of programs has been research and development, only working on a scale large to continue improving the way we do things. Beyond this, we aim to share our programs with others.

We share our programs and results with others. 

Through our Foundation, we aim to help local clubs, associations, and governing bodies by sharing solutions that aid program or facility development. 

More on the Foundation can be found at unitethegame.org

Since 2005. Unite The Game has been an initiative aimed to provide resources that aid and bring together soccer enthusiasts. The original effort was in the form of an online social platform that brought people to fields and provided some useful functionality to help operators organize the game. The platform eventually gave way to the popular NBC Sport Engine.