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ECNL moving to school year part 2
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Anonymous
| MLSN staying BY makes zero sense in the business sense. That model is already on the edge with all the travel, rules, etc. parents are growing tired of it and MLSN2 is going to have talent issues with many parents and kids not wanting all the restrictions and travel. A lot of kids are multi sports athletes and don’t want to play soccer in HS either, but don’t want soccer matches in the middle of winter. Many parents and kids are wanting the NPL route now and some of these kids are super talented and could be MLSN1 starters. Staying BY would reduce MLSN player pool further. |
Anonymous
Eh, it makes some sense in that they are doing well, winning in markets, why change? There is also the argument that they are trying to align themselves with a european pro model and therefore will not change. I think it does make sense to change to continue to directly compete against their competitors, it allows their P2P clubs to better organize themselves, and makes the pipeline of players consistent. Basically, changing to SY allows them to continue doing what they have been successful at. With GA now going SY, the talk of BY clubs and a whole ecosystem of BY clubs, tournaments, etc. is done. And the Euro model talk only really applies to a few of the academies. Most of it (the P2P MLSN1 clubs and all the new MLSN2 clubs) is just for marketing and is no different from all of the other US youth leagues. |
Anonymous
Hahahaha MLSN is the top tier youth boys league and because of this can do anything they want. |
Anonymous
I could see the merger happening with ECNL and USYS' National League ... they would leave the other parts of USYS to probably run by itself (similar how GA is having GA-A run by itself and less from GA). USYS' National League could be rolled into ECNL-RL or a version of that. |
Anonymous
Norcal is trying to do this and its not going well. Localized leagues give control over an area. Unfortunately localization is the exact opposite methodology of national leagues like MLSN, GA, ECNL. The two groups are like oil and water. They just cant be integrated into a single entity. |
Anonymous
I guess I could see USYS ceding control and over site of the National League to US Club. Basically ridding themselves of that while still allowing a pathway for their patchwork of clubs to have some bigger exposure. But it doesn't really move the needle or really change anything that I can see. |
Anonymous
If these 2 collaborate, probably the best move would be for ECNL to operate the national league and merge it with its ECNL RL as the tier under its highest level. |
Anonymous
I worked at a large state USYS org in the early 00s. The writing was on the wall then that they needed to fold into a regional or a national structure. Once online registration became a thing, there was no reason for the majority of our office (or any of these state offices) to exist. But here we are 20 years later and they are all still around... |
Anonymous
Here’s how it will work. All of soccer up to u13 will become SY. Those top teams/players will be predominantly Aug-Mar kids. At u13, if faced with an age cutoff change, those parents and kids will overwhelmingly choose a SY cutoff league to maintain their trajectory (not saying that is right or wrong, it will just be true). Therefore MLsN will lose priority in the top player pool. |
Anonymous
Anything is better than being the youngest. College isn't likely for youngest anyway. US boys don't have many D1 college slots and the youngest month for girls doesn't either. |
Anonymous
The USYS states still do operate ODP -- which remains great in concept AND in pulling together talent especially at younger ages -- but I have to say in our experience, there was hardly a session where some message wasn't wrong OR info screwed up. After going through it, you see why people move on to other programs/opportunities and why those have emerged. |
Anonymous
Why doesnt "anything is better" include playing on the B team with players your grade? |
Anonymous
True but there is no reason it wouldn't better run and coordinated from a regional or a single national office. Every state has an ODP person (or persons) and they all run it differently and it inevitably turns into a mess in most states. Plus, its very branding no longer makes any sense. The entire thing needs a re-brand. |
Anonymous
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What I find interesting is our state USYS is great at u-littles. All the big clubs are apart and have their top teams basically play through 9v9 (and a lot of the top kids would meet/play via ODP). The state cup in those years truly crowned the best team in the state.
For many years, once 11v11 began a few top clubs split off and went to ECNL/GA or MLSN, while the rest were in the USYS National League. Now, it's all fragmented, where many of those top USYS National League clubs have gone either to ECNL/ECNL RL or MLSN/GA. The loss of clubs is stark in our state where they opened up the state cup to nonmember clubs and giving the elite division winner an automatic entry to the national championship (used just be a regional invite). There's trouble in Denmark (USYS). |
Anonymous
The reason your office is still around is because the local league is someone's business. A national league is free to buy them out or create their own local league in that area. But they wont do this because that would be expensive and talk is free/cheap. |