ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A large club adopts MLSnext programs. All their U12s and all their lower ranked teams in the high age groups stay NCSL and all go school year. Next question is if the 2nd ranked MLSNext/GA go school year or not. Organization wise, they are gonna have to deal with birth year/school year shuffling somewhere internally. Would MLSNext care what they do with the 2nd team and dictate it? Would the club care when and where they do the shift, i.e. is it easier to just treat the top team and birth year or does it not matter? I have suspicions, think only top team goes BY. But, it's gonna be odd for these kids on the cusp of 1st/2nd team.

I can’t imagine any p2p club dealing with that. The “reshuffle” would send many septq4 to ecnl and why take a spot on a second team if it’s a different age cutoff with no easy path to the top team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wrote the comment at 7:49. It seems to me that MLS cares about BY for top team... but maybe I am wrong?

Why would they care so much about BY ? Particularly at the expense of alienating the pipeline. I could see ODP as they are more singularly focused on international but mlsnext is a pure business wanting to grow and different age cutoffs for different tiers does not seem in their best interest business wise.

[Anonymous]

I am basing my speculation on 2 reasons: unclear guidance from USYS announcement and that ECNL announced changes in 2026 but MLS did not make any announcement. B/c USYS didn't make a definitive decision, it seemed like not every organization wanted to switch.

But is MLSnext 2 a money grab or a legit pipeline? If legit pipeline I would think they go BY. If just a way to provide an ECNL Regional counter/option, i.wonder if they don't care all that much and defer to whatever is easier for the clubs...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A large club adopts MLSnext programs. All their U12s and all their lower ranked teams in the high age groups stay NCSL and all go school year. Next question is if the 2nd ranked MLSNext/GA go school year or not. Organization wise, they are gonna have to deal with birth year/school year shuffling somewhere internally. Would MLSNext care what they do with the 2nd team and dictate it? Would the club care when and where they do the shift, i.e. is it easier to just treat the top team and birth year or does it not matter? I have suspicions, think only top team goes BY. But, it's gonna be odd for these kids on the cusp of 1st/2nd team.

I can’t imagine any p2p club dealing with that. The “reshuffle” would send many septq4 to ecnl and why take a spot on a second team if it’s a different age cutoff with no easy path to the top team?

I had a club try that with my kid. Didnt go well for them. My son now starts on their rival across town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am basing my speculation on 2 reasons: unclear guidance from USYS announcement and that ECNL announced changes in 2026 but MLS did not make any announcement. B/c USYS didn't make a definitive decision, it seemed like not every organization wanted to switch.

But is MLSnext 2 a money grab or a legit pipeline? If legit pipeline I would think they go BY. If just a way to provide an ECNL Regional counter/option, i.wonder if they don't care all that much and defer to whatever is easier for the clubs...

They probably don’t care about the clubs and the nightmare created by a different registration system for the top two teams starting at u13. However, splitting their customer base in half or more with a different age cutoff would hurt their bottom line and path towards the top league. For MLSN2, the incentives are playing high school and a pathway to college exposure (advantage SY) , as well as a pathway to 1st tier (requiring same registration as tier 2)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A large club adopts MLSnext programs. All their U12s and all their lower ranked teams in the high age groups stay NCSL and all go school year. Next question is if the 2nd ranked MLSNext/GA go school year or not. Organization wise, they are gonna have to deal with birth year/school year shuffling somewhere internally. Would MLSNext care what they do with the 2nd team and dictate it? Would the club care when and where they do the shift, i.e. is it easier to just treat the top team and birth year or does it not matter? I have suspicions, think only top team goes BY. But, it's gonna be odd for these kids on the cusp of 1st/2nd team.

I can’t imagine any p2p club dealing with that. The “reshuffle” would send many septq4 to ecnl and why take a spot on a second team if it’s a different age cutoff with no easy path to the top team?

This exodus would trickle down to third teams as well unless they view mlsn2 as an end of the road league for themselves (some will some won’t).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am basing my speculation on 2 reasons: unclear guidance from USYS announcement and that ECNL announced changes in 2026 but MLS did not make any announcement. B/c USYS didn't make a definitive decision, it seemed like not every organization wanted to switch.

But is MLSnext 2 a money grab or a legit pipeline? If legit pipeline I would think they go BY. If just a way to provide an ECNL Regional counter/option, i.wonder if they don't care all that much and defer to whatever is easier for the clubs...

They probably don’t care about the clubs and the nightmare created by a different registration system for the top two teams starting at u13. However, splitting their customer base in half or more with a different age cutoff would hurt their bottom line and path towards the top league. For MLSN2, the incentives are playing high school and a pathway to college exposure (advantage SY) , as well as a pathway to 1st tier (requiring same registration as tier 2)

I disagree they don't care. Kids and families are the customers of the clubs, but the customers of the leagues are the the clubs themselves. They need to keep clubs in their platforms and mixed registration systems is a nightmare for DOCs, who are the very ones who make these decisions. I imagine they've been hearing lots of feedback.

[Anonymous]

So how's that "i guarantee GA will announce SY by EOW" going?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how's that "i guarantee GA will announce SY by EOW" going?

Apparently GA yesterday TWICE put out their new 25-26 Conferences and then twice took it down. For those of you here who have a direct line to Trish the commish, can you check with her ?

Did the intern accidentally put Los Angeles Surf to the mid-Atlantic ?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So how's that "i guarantee GA will announce SY by EOW" going?

Apparently GA yesterday TWICE put out their new 25-26 Conferences and then twice took it down. For those of you here who have a direct line to Trish the commish, can you check with her ?

Did the intern accidentally put Los Angeles Surf to the mid-Atlantic ?

Seems like an incredibly petty response.

So the answer is that GA hasn't announced anything BY or GY.

[Anonymous]

Ha where is Trish's friend now..all BS

[Anonymous]

LMAO there's not a single piece of useful information on any of these 1,011 pages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ha where is Trish's friend now..all BS

Something will be announced 5 months from now and Trishs friend will run around saying "see, I told you so"

The same thing happened with this thread back in July of 2024.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ha where is Trish's friend now..all BS

Something will be announced 5 months from now and Trishs friend will run around saying "see, I told you so"

The same thing happened with this thread back in July of 2024.

That’s what I was thinking as well. Just have to have some patience. Six months from now things will be clear.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LMAO there's not a single piece of useful information on any of these 1,011 pages.

Actually, lots of stuff was reported here first before "official" channels. But I'll let you go back and find it