I started comparing 4th, 5th, & 6th grade numbers of teams to their roughly corresponding soccer age groups (U10, U11, and U12) by looking at the Football and Cheerleading Club of Johnson County, the Blue Valley Football Club, and the Heartland Soccer Association.
I know there are more clubs for both football and soccer. Leawood, Shawnee, and the YMCA have recreational soccer teams that I'm not counting. Likewise DeSoto, Lees Summit, and CYO have sizable tackle football programs. And there are probably dozens of Parks and Rec programs for both soccer and flag football that might skew the numbers some. But I had to start somewhere.
In the Football and Cheerleading Club of Johnson County (FCCJC) last year there were 61 fourth, fifth, and sixth grade teams playing last season. For those same three grades in the Blue Valley Football Club, there were 59 teams, making a total of 120 teams playing tackle football in those grades in our area.
By comparison, in the fall of 2010 there were 175 premier and recreational U10, U11, and U12 boys soccer teams playing in the Heartland Soccer Association.
I only studied those grades and ages because Olathe middle schools start playing school football now in the 7th grade, and some 2nd and 3rd graders play flag football rather than tackle. In addition, soccer has larger recreational programs in the individual Heartland member clubs at younger ages, that then subsequently gravitate toward Heartland competition beginning at about U10.
Bear in mind that the soccer teams have smaller rosters. U10 teams play 6 v 6 with maximum roster sizes of twelve, and U11 and U12 teams play 8 v 8 with maximum rosters of fourteen. In my experience, the 6 v 6 teams often carry ten or eleven players, and 8 v 8 teams average about fourteen players.
Football teams play 11 v 11 at all ages, and rosters can become quite large - but coaches and area directors don't really like that, and we usually see teams try to have between fifteen and twenty-two players. I estimate eighteen as average.
Soccer is far more stratified than football. Both FCCJC and Blue Valley Football seed their teams, placing them in A and B leagues. FCCJC occasionally has divisions within a league for scheduling purposes, but they are equal.
Soccer has as many as five premier divisions, and sometimes 2 or 3 recreational divisions. These numbers consolidate somewhat at higher ages 11 v 11 teams, but there are almost always three or more divisions, even through high school. Their seeding meetings can sometimes be quite contentious.
Finally, all these numbers are somewhat cloudy due to players that play both sports. Not every soccer team has a football player, but an awful lot of football coaches I talk to have kids rostered that also play soccer.
| Football Soccer Teams Estimated # Players Comparison | FB Teams | S Teams | FB Players | S Players |
| 4th Grade/U10 A Divisions | 16 | 7 | 288 | 75 |
| 4th Grade/U10 B and C-G Divisions | 21 | 46 | 378 | 483 |
| 4th Grade/U10 TOTAL All Divisions | 37 | 53 | 666 | 558 |
| 5th Grade/U11 A Divisions | 16 | 8 | 288 | 112 |
| 5th Grade/U11 B and C-G Divisions | 25 | 58 | 450 | 812 |
| 5th Grade/U11 TOTAL All Divisions | 41 | 66 | 738 | 924 |
| 6th Grade/U12 A Divisions | 21 | 7 | 378 | 98 |
| 6th Grade/U12 B and C-G Divisions | 21 | 49 | 378 | 686 |
| 6th Grade/U12 TOTAL All Divisions | 42 | 56 | 756 | 784 |
| All 3 Grade-Ages, A Divisions | 53 | 22 | 954 | 285 |
| All 3 Grade-Ages, B-G Divisions | 67 | 153 | 1,206 | 1,981 |
| All 3 Grade-Ages, All Divisions | 120 | 175 | 2,160 | 2,266 |
I'm not sure what, if any, conclusions to draw from these extrapolated numbers. Both FCCJC and Blue Valley are 1/2 the size of Heartland Soccer, but taken together are right there in terms of numbers. And that surprised me.
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