Alex Blackburn, MBA

@UnivofKansas and @UMKC alum. Northland Rugby forward. Platte County Rugby coach. Opinions are my own.

[Bob Fescoe @bobfescoe]

Maybe losing in the World Cup in 2026 will be what changes youth sports in America. Parents are tired of being ripped off so their kid can play a sport. Its time for Youth Sports Reform. Parents incomes should NOT determine if a kid can play a sport.

[Cyrus Smith @CoolCyWrites]

Norway made youth sports free 40 years ago and just made the quarters for the first time ever. Probably not a coincidence.

[Dan Wetzel @DanWetzel]

Maybe making travel soccer even more expensive will help the US finally get good.

[Aakash Gupta @aakashgupta]

In Germany, a talented 14-year-old earns his club money. In America, his parents pay the club $15,000 a year.

That single inversion explains why "we will not" is the most accurate line ever written about US soccer.

FIFA built a global system for this. Training compensation and solidarity payments send a cut of every transfer fee back to the clubs that developed the player, from age 12 onward. Develop one future pro and your academy gets paid for a decade. Barcelona's La Masia, Ajax, every Bundesliga academy runs on this logic. The kid is the asset.

US Soccer refuses to enforce those rules. When Seattle's Crossfire Premier claimed its $60,000 share of DeAndre Yedlin's transfer to Tottenham, it got nothing. Claims on the Dempsey and Bradley transfers died partly because the federation couldn't even produce the youth training records.

So American clubs earn zero dollars when a kid turns pro. They earn when a kid enrolls. Which makes the parent the customer, and the product is whatever keeps the parent writing checks: travel tournaments, hotel weekends, $500 showcase events, private training at $100 an hour. Elite pathways run $8,000 to $20,000 a year. A comparable academy spot in Italy costs about 120 euros.

Follow the incentive one level deeper and it gets darker. A club dependent on fees can't cut its weakest paying players, so rosters optimize for retention over development. The scouting pool shrinks to families who can afford the cliff, which appears around age 11, exactly when development matters most. The country runs a talent filter sorted by household income instead of ability.

Every four years someone proposes fixing this. The proposal always requires the people profiting from the $15,000 model to vote themselves out of business.

They will not.

[Alex Blackburn, MBA @TheBurnCFB]

Legend. @landryshamet

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

Lawrence Super Regional‼️

#RockChalk

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

LAWRENCE REGIONAL CHAMPIONS 🏆

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

HAWKS TO THE SUPERS!!!

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

HAWKS TO THE REGIONAL FINAL 😤

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

Lawrence Regional? LAWRENCE REGIONAL!

#RockChalk

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

BIG 12 BASEBALL BELONGS TO KANSAS 🏆

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

HAWKS TO THE CHAMPIONSHIP 😤

[Michael Swain @MSwain247]

BREAKING: Kansas has landed coveted tight end Mason Oglesby. He picks KU over finalists Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio State.

He is the highest-rated TE to commit to KU in the @247Sports era.

More: https://t.co/MZS9qZoWEK

[Kansas Baseball @KUBaseball]

THE KANSAS JAYHAWKS ARE YOUR BIG 12 CHAMPIONS 🏆

[Adam Sullivan @Sully_2029]

Kansas clinches a share of the Big 12 title. Jayhawks are conference champions for the first time since 1949.

#FitzMagic

[Kansas Men’s Basketball @KUHoops]

He’s not going anywhere.

[Alex Blackburn, MBA @TheBurnCFB]

MARCH IS HERE!

Join the KC Northland Rugby Football Club Bracket Challenge! $5 per bracket entry made payable to the Northland RFC (@northlandrfc) Venmo. Fill out the Google Form below to get started:

https://t.co/zEQJOYiniA

[The Field of 68 @TheFieldOf68]

Melvin Council brings the entire Kansas roster out to midcourt for his senior day speech and even gets Bill Self to bark 😂👏

[Alex Blackburn, MBA @TheBurnCFB]

🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸