Annual Player Registration Report- Female Registrations 2014-15 to 2017-18

Annual Player Registration Report: Female Registrations from 2014-15 to 2017-18 Purpose: The purpose of this report is to describe the annual US Youth Soccer female player registrations, through the Member State Associations, from the 2014-15 through 2017-18 seasonal years. As registrations vary from year to year, a national perspective of the total registrations from which to identify macro trends was desired. US Youth Soccer collects annual player registration data from all Member State Associations. Upon receiving a recent request by a member club of a Member State Association, US Youth Soccer administered a survey to gather more information pertaining to the total number of female player registrations for each seasonal year from 2014-15 to 2017-18. The survey can be viewed in Appendix A. Limitations:  This report may be limited by the self-reporting of registration counts, as it is possible that respondents provided estimates or rounded numbers and no test of self-report reliability was conducted.  This report may be limited by the ability to generalize the findings; despite a response rate of 56% of Member State Associations, as significant variances exist from one Member State Association to another.  This report may be limited by extraneous variables including the ways in which Member State Associations register players, collect and store data, etc.  This report may be limited by the fact that the male registration counts were calculated from the self-reported female counts subtracted from the total annual registrations counts already on file with US Youth Soccer. Methodology: The survey was provided to all 55 Member State Associations via e-mail along with a request to complete within a specified timeframe. A total of 39 Member State Associations responded to the survey. After cleaning the data to only include responses from Member State Associations that were able to provide a count for each of the seasonal years requested, a total of 31 responses remained (56% of all Member State Associations) and were included in the final data analysis. These

2 Annual Player Registration Report respondents collectively represented 51% of all registered players with US Youth Soccer, on average, across the seasonal years from 2014-15 through 2017-18. The self-reported annual female registration counts were used in concert with the actual total annual player registration counts already on file with US Youth Soccer to calculate the corresponding male player registration counts for each respondent. Findings: From the 2014-15 seasonal year to the 2017-18 seasonal year, US Youth Soccer recorded a 5.6% decrease (169,427 players) in total annual player registrations (Figure 1). Figure 1. Annual US Youth Soccer Player Registrations: 2014-15 to 2017-18 Annual USYS Player Registrations Registered Players 3,050,000 Registrations 3,000,000 2,950,000 2,900,000 2,850,000 2,800,000 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 Seasonal Year Within this same timeframe, the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO) experienced a decrease in total player registrations of 3.9% (18,539 players), the Soccer Association for Youth (SAY) experienced a decrease in total player registrations of 19.8% (21,246 players) and US Club experienced a slight increase in total player registrations of 1% (4,484 players) from the 2015-16 to 2017-18 seasonal years (Figure 2). CONFIDENTIAL: Only for use as authorized by US Youth Soccer

3 Annual Player Registration Report Figure 2. AYSO, SAY and US Club Annual Player Registrations: 2015-16 to 2017-18 AYSO, SAY and US Club Annual Player Registrations Registered Players 500,000 AYSO 400,000 SAY 300,000 US Club 200,000 100,000 0 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 Seasonal Year The annual US Youth Soccer player registrations for females decreased 6.6% (42,903 players) from 648,129 players in 2014-15 to 605,226 players in 2017-18 across the 31 Member State Associations (Figure 3). Figure 3. Annual US Youth Soccer Female Player Registrations: 2014-15 to 2017-18 Annual USYS Female Player Registrations Registered Players 650,000 Registrations 640,000 630,000 620,000 610,000 600,000 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 Seasonal Year The annual US Youth Soccer player registrations for males decreased 2.4% (22,377 players) from 895,136 players in 2014-15 to 872,759 players in 2017-18 across the 31 Member State Associations (Figure 4). CONFIDENTIAL: Only for use as authorized by US Youth Soccer

4 Annual Player Registration Report Figure 4. Annual US Youth Soccer Male Player Registrations: 2014-15 to 2017-18 Annual USYS Male Player Registrations 900,000 Registered Players 890,000 Registrations 880,000 870,000 2014-15 2015-16 2016-17 2017-18 Seasonal Year The proportion of male to female registrations by seasonal year remained relatively consistent over time (Figure 5). Figure 5. Annual US Youth Soccer Male vs. Female Player Registrations: 2014-15 to 2017-18 Annual USYS Male vs. Female Player Registrations Seasonal Year 2017-18 59% 41% Male 2016-17 58% 42% Female 2015-16 57% 43% 2014-15 58% 42% 0% 20% 40% 60% 80% 100% Registrations Conclusion: The information contained within this report may prove useful to various members of US Youth Soccer as they review and compare their annual registrations with these national trends. CONFIDENTIAL: Only for use as authorized by US Youth Soccer

5 Annual Player Registration Report Appendix A: Annual Player Registration Survey Annual Player Registration Survey US Youth Soccer desires to more fully understand demographic trends as they pertain to annual player registrations. As such, please take a few moments to answer the following questions. Thank you! *1. The name of the Member State Association for which I am responding: *2. The Member State Association for which I am responding had the following number of players that identified as being female register in the 2014-15 (September 1, 2014 - August 31, 2015) seasonal year: *3. The Member State Association for which I am responding had the following number of players that identified as being female register in the 2015-16 (September 1, 2015 - August 31, 2016) seasonal year: *4. The Member State Association for which I am responding had the following number of players that identified as being female register in the 2016-17 (September 1, 2016 - August 31, 2017) seasonal year: *5. The Member State Association for which I am responding had the following number of players that identified as being female register in the 2017-18 (September 1, 2017 - August 31, 2018) seasonal year: CONFIDENTIAL: Only for use as authorized by US Youth Soccer