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Good morning, and thanks for spending part of your day with Extra Points.
We’ve caught full-blown World Cup Fever here in the Brown household. Some of that is born out of ethnic pride, sure, but we’ve been doing more than just watching Brazil. My kids and I have been working on completing the World Cup Sticker Book by grabbing a few packs every time I leave a Home Depot. I’ve been teaching my oldest how to play EA Sports FC with me. We’ve been watching soccer highlights, digging into some history, even kicking the ball around a bit in the back yard.
And that’s got me thinking about doing something I haven’t really done in a long time. I kinda want to play soccer again — not just pass the ball around to my daughters in the tiny, 6-by-6 patch of dirt we call a backyard, but, like, run and jump and play in an actual game.
I’m fortunate, in that I don’t think I’m lacking for people to play with. I live in Chicago (not Naperville, not Evanston, but Chicago Chicago), in a heavily Latino neighborhood, down the street from a park. There are multiple goals already set up, plenty of open space for more and a regular stream of pickup games from the afternoon until late at night.
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But here’s my problem:
I haven’t played organized soccer since high school, which was (ugh) more than 20 years ago. More importantly, I only ever played goalie. I wasn’t a bad goalie, but if the only thing you ever really learn to do is throw yourself at the ball with no regard for safety, you don't learn how to do things like “properly dribble” or “position yourself in midfield correctly with your teammates” or “pass with accuracy” or “perform soccer actions that don’t involve holding the Square button on a Playstation controller.”
If I hopped into a regular pickup game in the neighborhood right now and did anything but play goalie, I’d be embarrassingly outclassed. I would be too incompetent to be a good teammate. And if I tried to play goalie like I did at 17, I’d end up in the hospital — and friends, my health insurance isn’t as good as it was back when I was 17. If you want to keep getting Extra Points newsletters, you don’t want me to dig out my goalie gloves.
So I don’t really want to join a conventional adult pickup league. What I need is something like a remedial soccer class. A place for grown-ups to learn the skills I might have picked up had I paid attention in gym class, or at least played in the field more often. A league for enthusiastic amateurs. A place for dads.
But I don’t believe such a place exists — or at least, it doesn’t exist anywhere close enough to me to be practical. There are plenty of adult pickup leagues in and around Chicago, for multiple sports, but the ones I’ve seen are either (a) at a skill and fitness level vastly different from what I’m looking for or (b) held at locations and times that are completely impossible for any sort of adult with actual responsibilities. I’m not going to go play soccer or basketball at 10:30 p.m. on a Wednesday. I do not have that kind of dog in me.
So I am proposing a new type of league, or camp, or event. And you know who is perfectly equipped to provide this? That’s right. College athletic departments.
Stay with me. I’m not actually kidding about this.
Extra Points readers probably already know that sports camps are already an important income and publicity source for athletic departments. According to data I just pulled from the Extra Points Library, 84 public schools reported generating at least $100,000 in FY25 revenue from sports camps. And 41 of those 84 public schools reported generating more than $500,000; 23 reported more than $1 million.
Schools often use that money to help supplement the salaries of poorly paid assistant coaches in Olympic sports or to help offset equipment or other operational costs for smaller sports.
But these camps are overwhelmingly built for children. Depending on the sport and the school, the focus might be more on pure sport instruction for younger children or on elite technical development for older children. Perhaps some schools even use camps as a stepping stone towards a more formal athlete recruitment process.
If camps do exist for adults, they typically operate more in the wish-fullfilment department. Wealthier dads pay a little money, do a few drills, get their pictures taken with the coach. That sort of thing exists to help placate donors or check stuff off a bucket list. That’s totally fine, and if a school has the fanbase and time to run “Dad Cosplays As a Notre Dame Football Player for a Day” camps, awesome. Have fun.
That’s not what I am proposing. I am proposing dedicating athletic department-controlled facilities, talent, branding and intellectual property towards operating adult instructional/recreational camps/leagues.
For example … are you in your late 30s? Do you think pickleball is for tech bros and senior citizens? Are you at least a little curious about tennis?
Sure, you could maybe take a class at the YMCA or the parks department … OR you could go to the Loyola-Chicago Tennis Dad Camp/League I just made up. An assistant coach will help teach you the basics, you’ll have scheduled time to play against people at similar skill levels, and when you’re done, you get a discount to future Loyola athletic events.
Doesn’t that sound fun?
Alas, in real life, the Loyola Chicago sports camps appear to be just for kids. I’m very glad those camps exist, and if you live around Rogers Park, I hope you take advantage of that sort of programming for the children in your life.
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Does this idea scale? No, probably not. But I can think of plenty of reasons why it is still worth doing.
I don’t think anybody is going to be able to generate $4 million in athletic profits by accidentally recreating Sunday League Football, but for American dads. Athletic departments only have so many open facilities, and they need to prioritize where they spend their resources.
But I do think it could be done profitably, and even if the financial returns were more modest, it could still be worth doing.
After all, virtually every athletic department is desperate to get fans to campus, even if it isn’t for ticket-driven athletic events. The more times a fan shows up, the easier it is for them to enjoy being around the campus and for the school to obtain first-party data on the fan. And in a perfect world, the easier it is for the school to move that person along their journey as a fan — or, even better, as a person invested in the university as a whole.
Schools can do that with concerts, sure. They can do it with free art galleries, localized gardening instruction, political town halls and a whole bunch of other community-focused programming. Hosting adult rec league athletics is just another potential activation, and one that doesn’t require a school to book a famous person or hold an expensive event.
It’s also a branding exercise and long-term value play. One way to help ensure college tennis programs aren’t disbanded as part of a misguided cost-cutting exercise: create more tennis fans. A great way to do that is to get more people playing tennis. If someone loves tennis in general, it’ll be easier to get them to love Razorback tennis. Or Cleveland State soccer. Or UIC baseball. You get the idea.
So if a school can do those things, and make a few thousand bucks, and get one of its operations staffers or GAs a little coaching experience? Seems like a win, win, win to me. And if these camps can’t happen on campus, well, take over a city park and cover it with athletic department branding. Boom, now you have a living billboard in a new community.
That idea is free, everybody. If somebody wants to show their gratitude by upgrading their subscription or grabbing a license for Library, well, that’d be wonderful. But that certainly isn’t required.
In the meantime, I’ll keep doing the thing most adults my age do when they realize there’s an important gap in their knowledge.
I’ll keep watching instructional YouTubes.
