Is USAU Prioritizing National Teams Over Youth Ultimate Development?
USA Ultimate's (USAU) financial documents have been released, sparking controversy over the organization's priorities. Critics argue that USAU is devoting more resources to its national team programs than to youth ultimate development and coaching. Former World Age Group Ultimate (WASY) head Tim Smith has highlighted this issue on his Ultral Discord channel. Keith will delve into the specifics of USAU's financial data, exploring how 20% of total expenses goes towards national team programs compared to 14% for youth programs and coaching. Additionally, Keith will examine previous financial reports and national team data to better understand the context surrounding this issue. The conversation will discuss whether USAU is effectively prioritizing investment in grassroots development or favoring elite programs that generate revenue through player participation fees and tournament event fees.
USAU's focus on national teams: hurting youth ultimate development? Experts weigh in with insights from recent tournaments.
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USAU released its audited financial documents for 2024. It's actually like nice to see them back doing timely financial reporting. Nonprofits also have to post what's called a form 990, which you can find publicly uh on the internet that shows things like how much money they made, much they spent, uh how much they pay their top their top staff, uh people who make more than $100,000 a year. um and you know various other things to make sure that uh because they get this taxexempt status uh that they are you know on the up and up. Um so USAU posted their most recent financial documentation and there was some conversation in the world discord around uh one element of the way that they spend their money. Um and let's see I'm going to pull up the actual numbers here. National team programs came in as 20% of total expenses or USA's year. Uh this is again 2024. Uh and then the youth programs and coaching came in at 14% of total expenses. And uh Tim Smith, former WASY uh head uh posted this in the Ultral Discord and said this feels like an immediate talking point. So Keith, I'll throw it to you first. What do you make of the fact that USAU is spending more money on their national team programs than on their youth programs and coaching? I I want I I want to continue to use Tim as a resource before we get into this uh as uh a little more context around this using some of their previous national team data basically and and previous uh financial data that they they've released from other years. Uh so like he basically said that you know they're drawing in revenue also from both national team program and and competition programs that would include youth. Uh so like the national team program is probably they're probably spending around 600,000 on it that about 50% of it is covered by stuff that they're acrewing from players participating. Uh and then meanwhile it's about 72% of the competition athlete programs is covered by the event fees. All those tournament fees that we all pay uh and the rest is subsidized by membership revenue. Um but youth not specific there. So uh going back to to your question specifically about youth though. Um yeah it it is I can't...
