‘A rich white kid sport?’ Hometown socioeconomic, racial, and geographic composition among U.S. women’s professional soccer players

ABSTRACT

This analysis merges data on women listed on National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) season rosters between 2013 and 2018 with 2000 U.S. Census data to examine socioeconomic, racial, and geographic indicators for players’ hometowns, measured as the places they attended high school. We compare hometown indicators against national averages and between players based on career longevity and national federation subsidization status. Findings show that players’ hometowns are whiter and less black or Latino, more suburban, and less socioeconomically disadvantaged than the national average, with higher per capita, median household, and median family incomes. Subsidized players, compared to the non-subsidized, and multi-year players, compared to single-year players, come from hometowns that are less black and less socioeconomically disadvantaged, with higher per capita and median household incomes. A lower percent of subsidized player hometowns are city centres compared to those of the non-subsidized.

Acknowledgments

The findings of this paper were earlier presented at the 40th Annual Conference of the North American Society for the Sociology of Sport held from 6-9 November 2019 at Virginia Beach, VA.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Gleeson, ‘Hope Solo Says Youth Soccer in the U.S. Has Become a ‘Rich White Kid Sport”.

2. Eckstein, How College Athletics are Hurting Girls’ Sports.

3. Keyes, ‘Making the Mainstream’; Markovits and Hellerman, ‘Women’s Soccer in the United States’; Swanson, ‘A Generational Divide’; ‘Soccer Fields of Cultural [Re]production’; and Williams, A Beautiful Game.

4. Andrews, ‘Contextualizing Suburban Soccer’; Andrews et al., ‘Soccer’s Racial Frontier’; Friedman, Playing to Win; and Reck and Dick, American Soccer.

5. Subsidization refers to the payment of player salaries by a national soccer federation and not the NWSL. Since 2013, U.S. and Canadian soccer federations have covered some player salary costs outside of team salary caps, typically for a limited number of players on respective national teams. This arrangement was referred to as ‘allocation’ until 2019, at which time the NWSL introduced new ‘allocation funds’ for the 2020 season. Up to $300,000 can be purchased from the NWSLby a team for use above team salary caps and for players who meet certain criteria. Given potential confusions between ‘allocation status’ and ‘allocation funds,’ we prefer the term ‘subsidization’ to distinguish players paid to play in the NWSL by their federations.

6. Allison, Kicking Center.

7. Washington and Karen, ‘Sport and Society’.

8. Dubrow and adams, ‘Hoop Inequalities’; Sabo and Veliz, ‘Surveying Youth Sports in America’; Snellman et al., ‘The Engagement Gap’; and Spaaij, Farquharson, and Marjoribanks, ‘Sport and Social Inequalities’.

9. Abrams, ‘Inhibited but not “Crowded Out”’.

10. Bale, ‘The Place of ‘Place’; and van Ingen, ‘Geographies of Gender, Sexuality and Race’.

11. Allison, Davis, and Barranco, ‘A Comparison of Hometown Socioeconomics and Demographics,’ 616.

12. Woolcock and Burke, ‘Measuring Spatial Variations,’ 23.

13. Allison, Davis, and Barranco, ‘A Comparison of Hometown Socioeconomics and

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14. Grainey, Beyond Bend It Like Beckham.

15. Marston, ‘Rethinking “Ethnic” Soccer,’ 337.

16. National Federation of State High School Associations, ‘Annual Report’.

17. Acosta and Carpenter, ‘Women in Intercollegiate Sport,’2.

18. Collet, ‘Soccer, Politics, and the American Public’; and Markovits and Rensmann, Gaming the World; Williams, A Beautiful Game.

19. Eckstein, How College Athletics are Hurting Girls’ Sports; Friedman, Playing to Win; Reck and Dick, American Soccer.

20. Eckstein, How College Athletics are Hurting Girls’ Sports, 42.

21. Ibid., 43.

22. NCAA Demographics Database.

23. Williams, A Beautiful Game, 69.

24. Markovits and Hellerman, ‘Women’s Soccer in the United States’; Markovits and Rensmann, Gaming the World.

25. Allison, Kicking Center; Grainey, Beyond Bend It Like Beckham.

26. Sabo and Veliz, ‘Surveying Youth Sports in America’.

27. Allison,Kicking Center; Andrews, ‘Contextualizing Suburban Soccer’; Keyes, ‘Making the Mainstream’; and Markovits and Hellerman, ‘Women’s Soccer in the United States’.

28. Bairam, ‘The Origins and Spatial Diffusion,’ 101.

29. Allison, Kicking Center; Andrews et al., ‘Soccer’s Racial Frontier’; Friedman, Playing to Win; Reck and Dick, American Soccer; and Swanson, ‘A Generational Divide’.

30. Andrews, ‘Contextualizing Suburban Soccer,’ 32.

31. Andrews, ‘Contextualizing Suburban Soccer’; Friedman, Playing to Win; and Swanson, ‘Soccer Fields of Cultural [Re]production’.

32. Reck and Dick,American Soccer, 22.

33. Andrews, “Contextualizing Suburban Soccer’; Keyes, ‘Making the Mainstream’; Markovits and Rensmann, Gaming the World; and Swanson, ‘A Generational Divide’.

34. Andrews et al., ‘Soccer’s Racial Frontier’; Grainey, Beyond Bend It Like Beckham; Keyes, ‘Making the Mainstream’; and Swanson, ‘A Generational Divide’.

35. Spaaij, Farquharson, and Marjoribanks, ‘Sport and Social Inequalities’.

36. Allison, Kicking Center,31.

37. Christopherson, Janning, and McConnell, ‘Two Kicks Forward, One Kick Back’; Shugart, ‘She Shoots, She Scores’; and Williams, A Beautiful Game.

38. Macdonald et al., ’Birthplace Effects,’ 236.

39. Bairam, ‘The Origins and Spatial Diffusion,’ 101.

40. Allison, Davis, and Barranco, ‘A Comparison of Hometown Socioeconomics and Demographics’; Bairam, ‘The Origins and Spatial Diffusion’; and Woolcock and Burke, ‘Measuring Spatial Variations’.

41. Woolcock and Burke, ‘Measuring Spatial Variations,’ 27.

42. Cullen and Leavitt, ‘Crime, Urban Flight, and the Consequences for Cities’; and Liska, Bellair, and Logan, ‘Race and Violent Crime in the Suburbs’.

43. Allison, Kicking Center; and Swanson, ‘Complicating the “Soccer Mom”’.

44. Spaaij, Farquharson, and Marjoribanks, ‘Sport and Social Inequalities’.

45. Eckstein, How College Athletics are Hurting Girls’ Sports.

46. Loré, ‘Alex Morgan Says U.S. Youth Soccer Model Has Gotten Worse’.

47. Aspen Institute, ‘Sport Participation and Physical Activity Rates’.

48. Allison, Kicking Center.

49. McGovern, ‘#SheBelieves, But Who is She?’

50. Aspen Institute, ‘Sport Participation and Physical Activity Rates’.

51. Allison, Davis, and Barranco, ‘A Comparison of Hometown Socioeconomics and Demographics’; and McGovern, ‘#SheBelieves, But Who is She?’