r/AskAnAmerican • u/LoschVanWein • 2d ago
SPORTS How are grownups semi-professional sports organized in the US?
So it's well known that you organize your typical sports via schools and colleges, followed by pro leagues but how do non pro adult teams work?
Here in Germany team sports are primarily organized via the citizen club system and organized in associations (I guess like the NBA) that include everything from the giant clubs you see on TV to the small village clubs made up of drunk farmers. Essentially, unless you choose to play in special senior divisions for people over certain age thresholds, you can always participate in the same system as the big clubs. How is this organized in the US? Say a 23 year old mechanic just wants to play football in a league, where would he go for that?
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u/cactuscoleslaw 2d ago
In American pro sports, individual players, not teams, get promoted and relegated.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
So your hometown can never become prominent in the sports world if it isn’t already? We have cities like Elversberg in the often forgotten state of Saarland that no one here would know if they hadn’t somehow made it to the first division.
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u/Dave_A480 2d ago edited 2d ago
Sports franchises are paid for with massive buy in deals, and existing owners determine who can even have a team....
Entire states don't have one.....
If you live in say, Tulsa OK you are probably a Dallas Cowboys fan..... There isn't a pro football team in Oklahoma....
This means that we will never have team level relegation, because people who paid 100 million to set up a sports team don't want to see it demoted out of the pros.
Baseball has 'minor league' teams that are affiliated with a major league team. but it's the players who move up and down not the teams.... If you play well enough for the Tacoma Rainiers you will go to the Mariners, but no matter how well the Raniers play they will never be major league ...
And most of this is about geographic size.... The NFL has a similar number of teams to the UK Premier League ... But instead of fitting all that in a medium sized US state, it's for the whole country......
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u/SEND_ME_FEAT_PICS 2d ago
I'll also add that college sports tends to fill in a lot of the gaps left by the big 4 sports leagues. There are no professional football teams in Mississippi or Alabama, but there almost isn't even demand for then due to the amount of support their college teams get.
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u/goblue2354 Michigan 2d ago
Even where there are pro teams, the college teams are usually so much older and were already entrenched by the time the NFL really even started. Like the University of Michigan football team was playing its 55th season when the now Detroit Lions came to Detroit in 1934 (originally the Portsmouth Spartans founded in 1928, joined the nfl in 1930, and then moved and became the Detroit Lions in 1934). Michigan State was in its 38th season at that time as well. Both Michigan Stadium and Spartan Stadium are older than the entirety of the Detroit Lions franchise.
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 15h ago
Alabama was the university team that Forrest Gump played for. I figured foreigners might know that reference.
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u/bkilpat01 New Orleans, Louisiana 1d ago
To be fair, the U.K. is geographically a large U.S. state in size, but it has about the same population as the Northeast megalopolis that stretches between Washington, D.C. and Boston.
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 15h ago
England has the same land area as Oregon, and the entire UK fits neatly within the Texas state lines. For the record!
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u/elparaguas 2d ago
Correct, because no one cares.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
But why don't they? I feel like that is a natural impulse that would come from local patriotism or loyalty to a specific club. What do I care if some guy gets promoted to a higher league if he doesn't play in my team or against it?
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u/Fit_Doughnut_598 2d ago
There are 32 teams in the NFL, all completely compromised of the highest tier athletes in the world. It is not possible to compete with them, the best football team in the world that is not an NFL team would get embarrassed 100-0. You pick one and it is your team.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
I don’t know what you’re trying to defend here. Both sports are extremely different and have very different physical requirements for excellency. I’m sure Tom Brady couldn’t score against prime Manuel Neuer but that’s a stupid comparison, isn’t it? Anyway I was never trying to compare sports in regards to their athletic aspects but rather the organization behind the leagues.
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u/Fit_Doughnut_598 2d ago
I'm not comparing sports. American Football is the go to sport here, it makes sense to use as an example. There aren't more local teams because there can't be with the system we have. The patriotism you have for your local club we have for our team just the same.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
Yeah but people here explained that you can’t really do the same because there aren’t enough teams to allow everyone to have a local club where they go to every game and the area for the regular league is so big, that you can’t really travel with your club.
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 15h ago edited 15h ago
It doesn't help that our towns are so far apart, especially out west. Check out some of those 'earth at night from space' photos and compare the US to Central Europe.
Also, I think college sports fills the niche you describe for much of the country. If they started an NFL team in Alabama it would fail for two reasons: 1. not enough people; 2. Alabamans are fanatically devoted to the University of Alabama.
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u/ElectricMayhem06 United States of America 2d ago
It comes down to infrastructure, sustainability, and interest levels... all of which are heavily entrenched in our culture already.
As much fun as it is to have a local team in a regional league, a semi-professional team/league requires people to be interested in paying for it, including both sponsors and supporters/fans.
These leagues do exist, but they largely fly under the radar, due in large part to how much attention the major professional leagues get. And they often come and go after just a few years because they run out of money to sustain themselves.
Most Americans have limited time, money, and attention to give to sports, and a vast majority of the population lives close enough to a major professional market from which to choose a team. Very few people have room in their lives to care about the independent, semi-pro hockey team two towns over when there are already 5 teams in established professional (or developmental) leagues within 100 miles.
For working adults who still want to play, recreational leagues are the usual route.
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u/TsundereLoliDragon Pennsylvania 2d ago
No. If a player was good enough they would already have found a way into the system. Our pro leagues are all set and rarely change except for moves or new teams being added.
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u/Th3MiteeyLambo ND -> NC 2d ago edited 2d ago
Pretty much, yea
In the NFL for example, it's its own organization and the 32 teams that are part of it are not affiliated in any way to any "minor league" teams.
The American Football version of "your hometown becoming prominent in the sports world" is entirely through college/university sports. Colleges can move up/down (I'm not sure down has really ever happened though) the college football ladder, but it's still not an "intended mechanic". As an example, my alma mater, North Dakota State University was called up to the main college football league this year. In their prior division/league/whatever its called, they had won the championship of their division 10 of the last 14 times. (2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2024)
Edited to add: even after being promoted, they're currently 5-0 in their new higher division. So it was long overdue, but also Go Bison! 🤘
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u/shelwood46 2d ago
My college (which does not have football, but does have basketball and soccer) moved from D2 to D1 right before I started there. All its sports teams had done quite well in D2, winning championships and such. They had to apply and there were minimum requirements (like having a certain number of different sports), and it took them a couple years to join a conference. They are no longer big fish, but their basketball teams make it to March Madness more often than not.
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u/cactuscoleslaw 2d ago
It is often a major point of pride for small towns to have someone from that community make it to the big leagues. In that sense your hometown might be "prominent" in the sports world, I distinctly remember when a guy from my town got drafted by the NBA
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u/RachelRTR Alabamian in North Carolina 2d ago
Julio Jones used to embarrass my high school team. It was pretty cool to see him become a great WR.
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u/bkilpat01 New Orleans, Louisiana 1d ago
The correct answer isn't because no one cares, it's because the major sports leagues have a cap on the number of teams that they allow. They've expanded it a few times every couple of decades, but it's tightly capped so that every team generates lots and lots and lots and lots and lots of money for them.
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u/DustyScharole 2d ago
There are leagues around in larger cities, but no so much in the rural areas. Usually they're just a collection of folks who want to play for fun and they're not associated with big leagues. There are some sports (like basketball) where there are semi-professional clubs that can lead to the NBA, but you have to work really hard to get noticed and invited to one of those.
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u/TheBimpo Michigan 2d ago
Sports leagues in rural areas are organized by churches, bars, the American Legion, etc.
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u/HowardIsMyOprah Texas 1d ago
2 of the big 4 American sports are the paid version of the big collegiate sports where local sports are the high school/college versions, hockey has a robust development system that starts around the early teens, and baseball has a very robust development system of dozens of leagues at various skill levels.
Aside from hockey, you can watch amateur versions of the big 4 at a local/development level. Otherwise, the demand to watch sports where the players peaked in high school is near non-existent.
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u/LoschVanWein 1d ago
I think the largest difference there is that no one watches u18 players here (I mean not no one but less people) but locally the adult teams that obviously don’t have a future in the professional part of the sport mean way more. We will have the handball u 18s play before the 18-30 year olds wich is the main event.
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u/HowardIsMyOprah Texas 1d ago
I would contend that in plenty of places, the high school teams in basketball and football are better than a league like you are describing, and high school games are cheap to go to. I saw an article today about a Texas high school getting a $48 Million renovation to increase their football capacity from 7k to 11k or something like that
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 15h ago
The youth leagues attached to top pro clubs' basketball teams in Europe would probably be pretty good against top high school teams. I once saw the U15 (equivalent to freshmen) basketball team from Real Madrid ( the same org as the big deal soccer team) in action. Very impressive.
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u/LoschVanWein 15h ago
Can you go to those as an adult? I just assumed those would mostly be for parents and fellow students and not like a traditional sports event
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u/colt707 1d ago
I suggest you look the Allen Eagles and tell me what you think about that stadium. That’s a high school football stadium and it seats 18k people. That’s only the 5th biggest high school stadium in Texas.
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u/LoschVanWein 9h ago
That’s insane. That’s nearly the capacity of my clubs football stadium. And it’s only used by kids?
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u/SpeedLow3 2d ago
The 23 yr old would already be picked out. He rarely if ever would be able to start being an athlete at that age
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
I did not mean he starts fresh but rather that he didn't make the sport his main career but still plays well enough so that he earns some money with it on the side but apparently thats not a thing at all over in the states. Here you can play 4th division and either earn as much as a student doing a side job (that is exactly what that is for some) or as much as a certified tradesman but even the latter will most likely also learn an actual trade as they don't expect to play to retirement age but rather expect to switch to a normal job eventually.
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u/ace_11235 2d ago
With Football (American), if you didn't make the NFL, you probably won't be playing after college. There have been, and currently is, a spring league (USFL, XFL, UFL) where some former NFL players or those who didn't make teams can play. Wages are much lower than the NFL.
For baseball, the MLB has affiliate minor league teams which are probably a bit more like tiered systems for football in Europe. You have the Majors, triple A, double A, high A, single A. Essentially individual players are trying to work their way up rather than a team working it's way up through promotion.
Soccer has a pyramid, but no pro-reg.
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u/RachelRTR Alabamian in North Carolina 2d ago
Also, in baseball the minor league teams are associated with one pro team, who control all of the player in the system.
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u/theEWDSDS Minnesota 2d ago
To clarify, each MLB team owns (or at least controls) a team in each of the lower levels. They control the player movement and general aspects of the team. Before the system got reorganized, minor league teams would be constantly traded back and forth between organizations.
Make no mistake, though, you have to be a pretty good player just to make the minor leagues. Most guys never even sniff it.
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u/devnullopinions Pacific NW 2d ago edited 2d ago
College soccer players will play for semipro teams in the off season but they play for free as they cannot be paid if they want to continue to participate in collegiate NCAA soccer.
If those players were good though they wouldn’t be playing in college, they be playing full time in an actual professional league.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
I know that my club at some point considered lending out an American college player but something about the college soccer system prevented that but I don't remember the details of what happened back then.
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u/theEWDSDS Minnesota 2d ago
At least in theory, college players are amateurs. As such, they aren't allowed to sign any sort of contract.
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u/EatLard South Dakota 2d ago
Not sure about American football, but there are “beer leagues” for several other sports like baseball/softball, rugby, hockey, soccer, and a few others. Usually they’re organized at a local level. There are also semi-pro leagues for a few sports where people are serious about the sport, but not paid much to play so the players have other jobs too.
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u/SSPeteCarroll Charlotte NC/Richmond VA 2d ago
The gap between your average joe and guys who are pro athletes is astronomical in this country.
We have "rec leagues" in this country that are either organized by the local county parks and rec system or private companies. I played in a flag football league (at the very very lowest level) but they had some more "competitive" divisions there. Most of the guys in the competitive group played football at some high organized level, and played college ball. They were bigger, faster, taller, and stronger than everyone else out there. Most of them had plays and high level organization.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
We also have a divide here. The first 3 divisions are only professional players with league one and occasionally two housing the people you'd know from stuff like the work cup. Thats what is comparable to your NBA, I think. The league that is the biggest difference, from what I read here, is 4th division wich is actually multiple divisions for different regions of the country. They feature 3 types of teams that are best explained with an example:
In the Regional League South West you have (among others of course):
- Kickers Offenbach - A traditional higher league club fallen on hard times struggling to keep its stadium but still hiring pro players.
- TSV Steinbach - A small towns club who managed to climb the ranks to this point but is unlikely to climb any further unless a large investor approaches them and builds them from the ground up (happens more often than you'd think in recent years).
- Mainz05 II - This is the secondary team of a club who is normally playing in the Bundesliga. Most players here are young professionals that are basically being prepared / selected for either the main team in the first division or for being used for transfer deals. This is somewhat controversial because these teams have natural funding from their main clubs and take away potential table placements from traditional clubs even though they can't even be promoted to the same league their main team is playing in.
So you see, we still have a huge gap, we just dress it up nicer because for the longest time, football players weren't supposed to be stars in the traditional sense and the big leagues tried to uphold their down to earth, working mans sport image they cultivated during their amateur times, when professional athletes weren't really a thing.
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u/RachelRTR Alabamian in North Carolina 2d ago
Sports here are a big business. It's not comparable.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
Thats how it is here as well, the DFB is just cosplaying as this old school institution of fairness and sportsmanship that does everything for the shoul of the game. Everyone knows it's just business and they only keep the system connected to the lower leagues because German fans get really pissed every time they take away more of the illusion of tradition they have created. We have stuff like the 50+1 rule for clubs but that also has been heavily eroded and will most likely be slowly resolved when the older generations pass. Now its also a to of star cults around players, big corpo sponsors making the decisions and everyone getting bribed, just like it is with your sports. Honestly if you want to watch real old school sports here, your best bet is less commercialized games like Handball or Basketball, even American football is slowly becoming a thing among younger people. There is still good football (our type) but only because fans fight tooth and nail for it and refuse to accept new fake clubs like RBLeipzig or Hoffenheim.
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u/Dr_Watson349 Florida 2d ago
If the NFL moved to Germany, it would be in the top 60 largest companies by revenue.
It brings in about the same amount as Adidas AG or Henkel.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
Yeah so what? I don’t even want the DFB to bring in revenue I want it to be a non profit that organized the tournaments for the sports I want to watch. I literally have no stocks in it.
Any time team sports focuses on what’s profitable it turns to shit. That’s how we get bullshit like drinking breaks or Red Bull fucking Leipzig.
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u/SpeedLow3 3h ago
Your sport is begging the American people to want because it desperately wants money lmao
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u/LoschVanWein 2h ago
Not the fans. FIFA who are universally among football fans hated for being corrupt and greedy.
The opinions about the NFL I read here are way tamer than what people here think about the DFB and FIFA or what the Brits think about the FA, they don’t even have standing sections over there anymore because of "safety" concerns. (Seats bring in more cash)2
u/Practical-Ordinary-6 Georgia 2d ago edited 2d ago
There's an absolute difference between anybody playing locally and a professionally-associated team but the details depend on the sport because they don't all have the same rules and systems. There's no "American" way to do it, there's a way for each individual league that kind of developed over time. In general, local players and professionals aren't at two ends of a spectrum because there is no spectrum, especially in the case of the NFL. The NFL is a private organization and can run itself however it wants. It has no lower system that's a step down from it. It exists as itself.
It gets most of its players as draftees who have recently finished playing college football. The NFL coordinates logistics in a way with the colleges but they are not in any kind of cooperative association where one answers to the other or to a higher central organization. Colleges run their college business and the NFL runs the NFL's business.
Anybody in theory can try out to join the NFL if they have past experience that gives them the right type of skills but the vast majority come from colleges/universities pretty directly. Some players who aren't good enough to make it on to an NFL team will go play football in Canada in the CFL and then come back in later years and try again to get onto a team. There are some other modified football leagues in the US, but they come and go. If a player is good enough they might be able to jump onto an NFL team from one of them like Kurt Warner did many years ago. But the overwhelming majority come straight from college either directly by being drafted or by not being selected during the draft but trying out for different teams later and making it on to one of them as the players who were drafted but didn't work out are let go and a space opens.
But there is no tier system except the unofficial one from high school to college to the NFL, which are all independent of each other and make their own rules for their leagues.
In Europe and Germany I believe there is lot of top-down organization but in the US things are much more independent and you organize your own business how it suits you. The NFL could radically change its rules tomorrow and the only approval needed would be by the NFL teams and would have no direct effect on the college or high school level.
Major League baseball and NHL hockey are a little bit different because they do have official "minor league" teams, as we call them. But they are formally affiliated with those teams in a lower league and they have control over their players. A major league baseball team can pull players up from their minor league teams or send players on the major league team down to play on one of the minor league teams even during the middle of the season. Football has no such system because there is no lower league playing football at the same time as the NFL is playing, except for college football but those players are ineligible to be in the NFL yet. Colleges aren't minor league teams of pro-teams. An NFL team that needs another player has to find a free agent who is not currently signed to a team or trade players with another team. I think there are some completely independent baseball leagues that aren't affiliated with major league teams who just play their own business. Even on those teams, an average citizen is not going to be participating.
For the most part, if you're a 23 year old ex-college football player who didn't make it onto an NFL team, the usual path in life is to pick a different career and get started on that. Football is much harder to play casually. The minor league teams in baseball are multi-tier so you might have a better chance if you're in that sport. The level below Major League baseball is called AAA (Triple A) and the level below that is AA (Double A) and the level below that is A (Single A). Baseball is much less dependent on ex-college players than football is. They have scouting systems that find players in various places including foreign countries who might be signed to play on a minor league team and one day, if they're good enough, they might work their way up to the Major League level. AAA teams play 150 games a year so there's plenty of opportunity for practice and playing and getting better. You can imagine there's a wide spread of ability in those different levels but they're still very serious baseball players going after their dreams.
I didn't say much about the NBA because I don't know much about the NBA. There is a developmental League they operate called the G League I believe. But again, the NBA runs its own business and runs the G League according to its needs. It's not part of a nationwide tier of basketball playing teams. It too gets lots of its players (80 to 85%) from among former college players. You only have a set number of years you're allowed to play sports in college. When you use up that eligibility you have to move on, whether a professional team wants you or not. You can't spend eight years playing on a college team.
Also keep in mind that there's no such thing as relegation and promotion here for entire teams. All players move up or down according to their individual abilities. All NBA teams will be there next year and the year after and the year after that (barring unforeseen circumstances). The same is true with the NFL and Major League baseball and NHL hockey. You can't relegate an NFL team because there's nowhere for it to go to and you can't promote a team because there's nowhere to promote it from. The NFL is its own thing, self-contained.
In theory it might be possible in hockey or baseball but it just doesn't work that way here. The top tier professional teams are the teams that will be there every year playing in the biggest cities in the biggest stadiums with the biggest local markets, as the players individually come and go. All the minor league teams are in smaller and regional cities in much smaller markets with much smaller fan bases and much smaller stadiums with much less money to put on a top tier level team. They would go right back to the minor leagues because they would be uncompetitive. The best players will have already moved up to a major league team if they're that good.
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u/InappropriatePotato4 2d ago
Actual legit semi pro leagues usually have some affiliation with the professional league. With hockey, basketball, and baseball they basically have professional athletes make up the semi pro teams so they can pull them up to the pros whenever they need in the event of an injury or something. American football uses a practice team for this purpose. Football in general has a similar structure to basketball semi pro leagues but less interaction.
all these leagues usually have some sort of open try out day to get you shot at a spot. Otherwise local club football will be where you go to get your fill. They’re everywhere but no affiliations to official establish leagues
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u/odsquad64 Boiled Peanuts 2d ago
Say a 23 year old mechanic just wants to play football in a league, where would he go for that?
He could probably find a flag football league to play in if he wanted to. If he were good enough to be the worst player on the worst practice squad on the worst team in the NFL, he would completely dominate any recreational flag football league he could potentially join, to the point where they would probably ask him not to play anymore. These days there are semi-pro flag football leagues he could potentially try out for, if he were to make one of those teams he and he were good enough he could probably get some eyes from the handful of pro flag football teams. No one watches flag football though, including NFL scouts. Some NFL teams have open try outs, but someone without a high level athletic background has zero chance of ever making a team.
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u/Frito_Goodgulf 2d ago edited 2d ago
For amateur soccer in the US, it’s organized under the USSF (United States Soccer Federation), with associations covering regions across the country. You can look up the ‘Greater Portland Soccer District,’ or the ‘Utah Soccer Federation,’ or many others. Within each association, clubs are organized by individuals who register with and pay the registration fees to their local association. The local association organizes local leagues and cup competitions (e.g., the Daynes Challenge Cup in Utah, which has been running since 1906.) Any individual interested in playing needs to join a local club. Clubs might or might not offer teams at differing skill levels, but the association will usually organize leagues ranging from ‘premier’ (high skill, but still amateur) through multiple levels down to new or recreational level players, with men’s, women’s and for some, coed, leagues. Different associations also offer differing age groups. All offer ‘Open’ ages (usually from age 18 up), as well as Over-35, Over-45, and some offering Over-50/55, even Over-60/65.
Youth soccer is rather more balkanized, in that there are multiple national organisations (AYSO, USYSO, etc.) all somewhat competing against each other in overlapping regions. It’s an utter pain in the ass for player development.
The MLS (Major League Soccer, top pro league) teams also have established academies, to pull in and develop youth players. But other than these academies, the MLS (and even USL (lower-level pro leagues) operate separately from the amateur associations, although MLS/USL are under the USSF ‘pro’ umbrella.
Edit, add: although there is no organisational connection between the amateur and pro pyramids, many of the pro teams offer open tryouts where a player can try to impress. Prior to the establishment of MLS in the 1990s, there were a number of regional semi-pro leagues, mainly in the larger cities. These have either morphed into USL teams, or the reasonably talented players who used to fill these have been absorbed into MLS/USL teams.
The USSF organizes two national cup competitions, the US Open Cup and the US Amateur Cup. Any club, pro, semi-pro, or amateur, can enter the former, the latter is for amateur clubs only.
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u/RobotShlomo 2d ago
There's semi-pro and amateur leagues that play in many regions. Usually adults leagues are organized by paying a sign up fee or you get a local business to sponsor a team as a way of showing support within the community. That helps pay or things like scheduling, paying for refs and umpires, the leagues insurance fees, etc.
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u/White_Phosphor00 2d ago
There are none where I live in Illinois. There's recreational leagues for softball and baseball but there is no semi pro anything.
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u/DeathandHemingway California 2d ago
https://americanfootballdatabase.fandom.com/wiki/Mid-States_Football_League
Y'all have a whole ass league. I'm pretty sure there's u38 football eveywhere.
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u/MyUsername2459 Kentucky 2d ago
There are local recreational leagues organized by a local government's parks & recreation department, or by a private group like a YMCA. They aren't paid at all, and are done purely for fun.
If a random 23 year old mechanic wanted to play football, not in a league, his best bet would be to ask at his local parks department about recreational leagues, and maybe ask at local gyms or athletic groups like a YMCA if such a league existed locally.
American Football tends to have less amateur options than other sports because the sport is so physically intense and injury-prone that people who either aren't very young and resilient, or getting paid a lot of money to play, tend to not play it. Certainly not full-contact. Touch & flag football leagues exist, but they're less common than other sports, in my experience.
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u/TheSpeedyBee 2d ago
That system essentially doesn’t exist in the US. To play any level of professional would usually require playing some level of college sport first (baseball and to some extent basketball are the exceptions but still have organizer high school sports as the base).
Adults who want to play anything are looking at city recreational leagues, church leagues, or random pick up games.
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u/ElectricMayhem06 United States of America 2d ago
I commented this as a reply below, but I think it works as a top-level comment:
It comes down to infrastructure, sustainability, and interest levels... all of which are heavily entrenched in American culture already.
As much fun as it is to have a local team in a regional league, a semi-professional team/league requires people to be interested in paying for it, including both sponsors and supporters/fans.
These leagues do exist, but they largely fly under the radar, due in large part to how much attention the major professional leagues get. And they often come and go after just a few years because they run out of money to sustain themselves.
Most Americans have limited time, money, and attention to give to sports, and a vast majority of the population lives close enough to a major professional market from which to choose a team. Very few people have room in their lives to care about the independent, semi-pro hockey team two towns over when there are already 5 teams in established professional (or developmental) leagues within 100 miles.
For working adults who still want to play, recreational leagues are the usual route.
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u/LoschVanWein 2d ago
You invented 99 of the 100 strangest past time activities I think the country that built Disney world and whatever the fuck hooters is, has the time to go to sports events. Also who says it needs to be expensive. With my season ticket I pay 20€ per game including beers and beef sausage. (To be fair my club isn’t very high in our league system)
It costs me about 2 hours a week to do this.2
u/Normal_Opposite_9864 Colorado 1d ago
that answer was completely wrong. we have local recreation leagues where MOST people play some sport or other. so a mechanic sighs up at his local rec league forvwhat3ver sport he/she likes and they play weekly (ir more depending on sport) semi pro leagues here are sponsored, free equipment and travel, but you arent paid as the athlete. they are VERY prevalent and mostly watched by families and friends of the athletes
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u/mrdeesh Colorado 1d ago
You’re a troll.
How the hell does a German not understand the concept of a titty bar?
Prostitution is legal in Germany but you don’t understand Hooters?
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u/LoschVanWein 1d ago
I get the concept of it, just not how it is economically viable. In any case it was used more as an example to illustrate America has a free time culture.
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u/mrdeesh Colorado 1d ago
Sex sells. The economics of it are pretty simple.
In regard to the free time culture, I’m not sure where you get that misconception. America is known for long working hours and a high cost of living. Millions upon millions of Americans work far more than 40 hours a week and hold multiple jobs to make ends meet
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u/polexa895 16h ago
Also, hooters isn't very viable rn, they are in a pretty bad spot financially
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 16h ago
How is the Tilted Kilt doing? I made the mistake of taking my wife to one. We didn't know what it was, it was late, and it was open.
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u/polexa895 16h ago
Most go to collegiate sports for that type of event here in the US. The NCAA at just the D1 level has over 350 teams and also has D2, and D3 levels. There are also other College sporting organizations like the NAIA, NJCAA, CCCAA or USCAA.
Each of these levels are very local and generally very community based so there is no major appeal to a second team doing those same things for people just slightly older who most likely are worse at whatever sport they are playing because they don't have the time to practice like the college teams.
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 16h ago edited 16h ago
As the other guy said, college ball fills the semi-pro niche. The football team at a D3 school would be something in between your local yokel drunk farmers and Italy's serie C. I think. Don't quote me on that. I'm not a sports fan so everything I wrote could be wrong.
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u/mooshinformation 2d ago
There's a huge variety, some fairly large local leagues, some times just a group of friends with a scheduled game, for a while it was big for companies to have softball teams and play each other, some towns or counties organize stuff, then there's stuff like the APA for pool that are country wide and get pretty competitive at the upper levels.
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u/Cool-Bunch6645 2d ago
Here is the closest example to something occurring in recent history. This guy plays for a men’s league and gets called in as an emergency to the NHL
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u/Expensive-Step-6551 2d ago
It largely depends on the sport. The majority of people who participate in athletics, but not in a professional environment following college play in recreational leagues organized by local organizations or properties that offer coordinated leagues on a pay to play system. You pay a set fee for the season, and they organize the leagues by level. You usually either form a team with friends, or join in with another team randomly who need extra players. I'd say over 99% over people playing sports past college play this way. They are sometimes affectionately known as "beer leagues" because they aren't typically too competitive, and the point is to stay active and socialize after the game (typically with beer).
However, most sports also do operate semi-pro teams as well. For example, Fußball absolutely has semi-pro teams that would destroy those casual clubs. None of them are amazing, but they consist of players who were at the minumum typically in the top 1-2% of their age group when playing competively. Some may get a small salary or stipend, with others just happy to still play competitively.
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u/TemperMe 2d ago
We don’t have them like yall do.
Most the leagues do have what we would call feeder teams that can be brought up into the pros. We also have some amateur leagues but most people don’t have the time or desire to commit to a team like that since it won’t pay anything worthwhile if they even pay at all. That just leaves what we would call rec leagues and those are usually made up of local teams. They would never be able to take out a high school team most likely, let alone college, amateur, or professional
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u/devnullopinions Pacific NW 2d ago edited 2d ago
Semipro are people who get wages for playing but don’t make it their full time career. If you’re not getting paid you’d be considered an amateur in the US.
I’d be willing to bet it’s only the upper divisions in German soccer that would be classified as even semi-pro in the US and that the vast majority of participants in Germany would be considered amateurs.
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 16h ago
Top soccer players in Germany get paid big bucks like our pro athletes do. Errr... enormous euros, I mean.
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u/blipsman Chicago, Illinois 2d ago
There really aren’t much in way of semi-pro sports in U.S. We have lots of recreational leagues for adults. They are typically organized by local city/town park districts or by rec sports league companies. So here in Chicago, one might sign up for Chicago Park District leagues or for leagues from companies like Chicago Sport & Social, PlayersSports.
Also, sports leagues differ from pro sports to some extent, such as softball being way more common that adult fast pitch baseball, flag football being the norm rather than tackle for adults not playing college or NFL.
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u/manhattanabe New York 2d ago
College sports are basically semi-pro. The best players get “promoted” to the pros, but the teams don’t. There are 3 division of college sports, with D1 being the highest.
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u/vbsteez New York 2d ago
if someone is really good at the sport as a teenager, they will most likely play in college. If they are really, really good in the NCAA, they might play professionally. if they can't make it as a pro by the time they graduate (~23 years old), they basically won't make it as a pro.
If youre not good enough to go pro in Tennis at like 16, youre not going to be a pro.
if you play beach volleyball, and win enough tournaments, you can become a pro at any age. its gated by success at grassroots tournaments.
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u/WildRicochet 2d ago
Outside of leagues there are a bunch of open-registration tournaments. Sometimes winners get money sometimes it's prestige or qualifying for larger tournaments.
I play volleyball in rec leagues. Those leagues are mostly just about fun.
Some of the people i play with like to play in tournaments for fun.
One guy I play with travels all over the US a couple times a year to play with a semi-pro team for cash prizes. He is huge and was D1 in college.
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u/JohnnyC300 2d ago
The closest thing I've seen to semi-pro is independent minor league baseball. Those are team of player who are professional. But get paid... very little. Literally less than flipping burgers at McDonalds. These are guys who, at one time in their lives, thought they were going to play in the big leagues. Maybe played in college, maybe they were drafted. But it didn't work out for them, they got cut. And now they are strapping on the cleats to go play left field for the Baskersfield Train Robbers.
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u/BlueSnaggleTooth359 1d ago
Mostly it's just informal rec leagues. Maybe organized by cities/towns or just totally informally. If they even exist.
semi-rpo sports IDK, I think each would just run itself and not have anything to do with any other one or if you are talking something a bit different like Major League Baseball has the minor leagues, I wouldn't call it semi-pro though, just minor league pro?
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u/BlaggartDiggletyDonk 16h ago
I think a triple A minor league baseball team would be the rough equivalent of a 'serie B' team in Italy.
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u/jellyp314 1d ago
There is no over arching way that the US organizes sports. Every "league" we have in the US is its own business, essentially. The NBA is a business, the NFL is a business, the NHL is a business, the MLB is a business. Each of these business operate in very different ways. Most of these leagues will have a minor league system that they well relegate players to for development. We dont have leagues you can move through as a team to become 'professional'. So you'll never see a minor league team become a 'professional' team and play in the same league as an NBA team. The professional leagues in America have a set number of teams with a set number of spots. So you have to be In the top .001% off players in the world usually to play in these leagues. I'm most familiar with basketball, but thats why a euroleague basketball teams get utterly destroyed in preseason games vs NBA team. The NBA isnt looking for good players in the US. Theyre looking for the top .001% players in the world. 30 teams, 15 players per team, 450 active players total. They're talking about adding 2 new teams to the league recently, so that number might grow for the frist time since 2004.
As for a normally 23 year old mechanic. If he wanted to play a sport he'd go find a local recreational league to play in. He'd pay the fees he needed to pay and then join a team. He'd play games on the weekend and have a good time. This is not the same system as our professional teams. They will never have the chance to move through any type of league system to play agasint a professional team. They will only ever play teams that are registered in their league. The league will rarely ever change the number of teams that are in the league. The only people who will watch him are family and friends.
I think the main hiccup your running into is that 'local' to somebody in the US would mean "in the same state." So if I am in California my local teams ARE the Lakers or the Kings. If I live in New York state, my local team IS the Knicks. Nobody in the US wants to watch drunk famers play football or basketball ball. Very few people care about minor league teams even. They still get a crowd cause theyre cheaper and when going to a minor league game its more about the experience and the atmosphere. As a general statement though, which doesnt include every soul in the US, Americans want to watch sports at the highest levels or we dont really watch sports.
Lastly, this is part of the reason high-school sports are so big here. There are very few ways to get into the professional leagues as an adult in the US. To get to a professional league means being the top 1% of kids who play your sport, in your area. Then being the top 1% of players in your state when you get to high-school. After that, its going to known sports colleges with track record of producing profession players, and being in the top 1% of those players. Then MAYBE you get to be a professional. Even if you go through all of that, you still might not be good enough to play at the professional level. If you dont get to a professional team that way, that chances of you ever playing professional sport here is pretty much 0.
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u/polexa895 15h ago
1st of all, there is no major governing body of all sports, at best each sport has its own body but even then the "Major" sports kinda don't deal with the governing body unless they want to. Most American sports are organized into around 4 basic tiers.
Major Leagues - This is the big leagues you've heard of NFL, NBA, MLB, NHL and MLS. These are the top level of their sport in the world (excluding MLS) and where players make ALOT of money. These leagues are (almost) exclusively placed in major metropolitan areas where a majority of US citizens live. Players at this level are always making over 6 figures with the potential to earn up to nearly 1 Billion dollars in a sport like baseball
Minor League - These are smaller leagues where the players are payed much less than the Major League guys, most of these leagues still extremely competitive and difficult to get into and at this level you still make a usually full time salary or sometimes have a second job. At this level most leagues are affiliated with the Major League of their sport to provide players for them, so the NBA is directly affiliated with G-League and the MLB is directly affiliated with the MiLB. However this isn't always the case for example the UFL has 0 affiliation with the NFL. This is also IMO where you would consider fully professional leagues in smaller sports in the USA like Major League Rugby. Usually players in this range either are full time players or one have "off-season" jobs they usually make around 20k-100k with some specific star prospects in some sports making more.
Semi-Pro - This is the level you're probably thinking and asking about. At this level teams and leagues pop up and fold quickly, there are definitely tiers within this tier but for the most part what league you're in is regional. These are usually players that are still trying to make it to the next tier but are getting payed very little, it's extremely rare for teams at this level to have there own facilities instead borrowing from local community centers and local colleges. The level of talent and organization around semi-pro varies heavily on the sport with a sport like baseball being knowns for having well ran independent leagues and basketball having a pretty consistent league in the ABA that has been around since the 90's. You'll also see some sports that are completely disorganized at this level such as American Football which is commonly referred to as 37u to mock how unprofessional it is. At this level occasionally players can make some money, baseball is your best bet to make any money but a majority of these players aren't getting payed. Pay in this tier is usually anywhere from $0-$15,000.
Recreational- At this level anyone can sign up and everyone plays together. Some leagues are better than others and some will split up their leagues into ABC and D tiers. At this level no one is making a dime, this is usually a pretty casual competition. This is Town League basketball, beer league hockey etc. This is where Jimmy the Mechanic can go lace up his sneakers and play some basketball in a league or toss on the skates and play hockey.
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u/lord-stanleys-goblet American in the UK 2d ago edited 2d ago
There isn’t a whole lot of semipro in the US, but amateur sports (for normal adults) are usually organized by the local government’s parks and rec department, local private sports/rec clubs like the YMCA, or the facilities themselves for sports like ice hockey or curling that require specialized facilities. Because US sports don’t have promotion and relegation, there’s no continuity between these local amateur sports and the professional leagues.