First timer here, I'm looking to put my 4 year old in tee ball or soccer in the spring. Does anyone have any recommendations on what league to join or which to stay away from? (Assuming there are multiple)

Thanks, I'll check it out. I asked him tonight if he would rather play tee ball or soccer and his response was "I rather play Aggie football so you can watch me on TV". Gold.

We live in NB and have done multiple leagues in soccer, baseball, basketball. I would say age 4, go with i9. Like Agdoc said, its 1 day a week commitment and I feel like it actually gives the kids a chance to apply what they learned. You practice 30 min, then immediately have a game for 30 min. Then next year play with NBYSA or NBLL. My son did i9 age 3/4 and then NBYSA for age 5 to current age 8. My daughter is 5 and doing i9 soccer because her interest is questionable, but she wants to try.

Also heads up, NBLL is competitive and gets intense quick. My son dropped out to stick with soccer/basketball. NBLL once they hit age 6 or 7 starts to have practice 1 day, hitting practice 1 day and games up to 2x/wk. Not all is "required" but of course your kids falls behind the team if you dont try to keep up. Frankly, 3 to 4days/ week was not what we wanted to do at such a young age.

I would also start with soccer at age 4. Works on some coordination, they are constantly moving, and learn the fundamentals of being on a team. tee-ball at that age can bore some kids because of less action. He will be just fine and not "behind" if he starts teeball/coach pitch next year.

I'll add just 1 thing in case someone searches this thread later. If your kid ends up really enjoying soccer, at around age 7 think about putting them in Ajax Academy. Ajax is the local select soccer program, but for ages 6-10 they offer an Academy program that doesn't require a tryout. Practices are Mon/Wed with a game or sometimes multiple games on Saturday. There is some minor travel to SA, Boerne, etc, but never too far.

I have a 10u and 6u in NBLL right now. I have never seen the competition y'all talk about and oldest diesel is actually pretty good. Covid sucked last spring.

Competitive may have been a poor word choice. Time consuming is more like it. And I will qualify, we had 1 season experience and may have been an individual team situation. But for my 7 yr old there was regular practice, batting practice, and most weeks had 2 games. It was a lot. We have primarily been in soccer/basketball outside of the 1 NBLL season.

In response to the Ajax academy. My experience is if you have a good coach when playing for nbysa then I would stay there till you get to select. But it all depends on your coach's you end up with at nbysa. My son plays for Ajax now on a select team. My youngest daughter still plays nbysa because we have a good coach and it's the same team every year. My middle daughter did nbysa and Ajax academy but she did not enjoy the academy so she went back to nbysa.

I was on the Board for NBLL for the last 5 years. It's a great League. That said, I'd hold off at age 4 on tball. Get a tee, glove, and some balls and work in the back yard and start LL at age 7-8. Soccer is a better sport for really young kids

Baseball starts getting competitive around age 10 in Minors and gets very competitive at age 11-12 in Majors. 10-11 is also when you see coaches start putting together tournament teams so you definitely want to get in at 7-8 to make connections early if you think he'll want to play school ball. My son played for CHMS in 7th-8th and there wasn't a single player that made the team that didn't play some Select ball. Now he's a Junior in HS and same situation there.