GA & MLS NEXT Form Strategic Alliance
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Anonymous
*on the girls side… |
Anonymous
I think the bigger point here isn’t ECNL to College, but rather Youth to Pro on the girls side. If you don’t see that wave coming, you’re blind. ECNL just doubled down on Youth to College. The NCAA is doubling down on chaos. And GA just placed its bet on Youth to Pro. If you can’t see that, you’re blind. GA’s bet looks like a risky one, but it isn’t, because of the pot odds, it’s actually very savvy and has a tremendous EV for very little wagered. ECNL however basically just put their future in the hands of a newly unstable bipolar scratch ticket addict (the NCAA). Their bet looks like “business as usual” but the payoff of business as usual is linear and low payoff, so they made a huge bet on a small payoff. Sounds smart, but it’s closer to a coin flip than a sure thing, so it’s actually a pretty bad bet, with a negative EV because of the bet size. ECNL is suffering from the innovators dilemma. Whereas GA has little to lose at trying new things. |
Anonymous
Fine to be called blind but I really do not think there is a market for Youth to Pro on the girls side. No market at all. Sure you could fill the seats but at least half if not more of the top girls would stay on the Youth to College path. NCAA is not all that unstable when you go outside of revenue sports. Actually doing fine. But there is a bigger problem with your analysis. GA did not place a bet on Youth to Pro. What they did was enter into an agreement that paves the way for future work and agreements. The GA Youth to Pro is at best 3-5 years in the future and will take 3-5 years to get off the ground is MLS acadamies are a guide. 6-10 years is a long time. I agreee you have to start somewhere and this may be the start. If the top GA teams leave this year -- GA dies. |
Anonymous
Agree to disagree on youth to pro for the girls side. I think debates can be had as to it not being lucrative and therefore not worthwhile for “my” daughter. But it’s absolutely happening, in NWSL and Europe. Europe will be where it really takes off though. As for the 3-5 years for GA to lay the foundation, you’re not wrong. And the announcement was the beginning of that, hence playing their bet. ECNL will be 2 years before the SY shift, so it’s all very much inline. I do quibble with your analysis of no chaos in the non-revenue sports. I see the exact opposite. The revenue sports are catching the headlines and making the waves and bringing change, but all of those changes affect revenue sports differently than non-revenue. And on the bias, non-revenue is always negatively affected. I appears that in the near future many schools will begin dropping non-revenue sports, some already have started. What does ECNL do when universities move their soccer into D3, but keep their revenue sports in D1? What does ECNL do when schools drop their soccer programs? What does ECNL do when there are fewer scholarships in soccer because schools chose to not offer them? What does ECNL do when they’re no longer placing kids into schools with at least their first year covered, but instead placing them into a semester, in a sport increasingly dominated by upper classmen from the transfer portal? |
Anonymous
How did GA go all in on “youth to pro”? Does the alliance prevent top youth players from ECNL from signing professional contracts in NWSL and abroad? NWSL isn’t even mentioned in the press release. It’s great to see GA trying to do something to survive but this alliance is more marketing than anything. |
Anonymous
This is correct. The GA took a slight risk, where the only thing that will come from it is reward. The path to college will still be there. The path to pro will be the icing on the cake. |
Anonymous
You are having a hard time understanding how this would work. No one is saying that this pathway to pro would make everyone on a specific team a pro player. What will happen (see any MLS Academy) is that they will attract the top talent in an area. The very top players could “possibly” go pro, while the 99.9% have a guaranteed roster spot on the top colleges. |
Anonymous
| GA is still path to NCAA and this will just strengthen it as an option. Best players will be coming back to GA like when it was DA. |
Anonymous
So what is going to happen is Washington Spirit will start an academy. That academy will play in the GA? |
Anonymous
They will either create one or take an existing club (probably an old DA one) and they will play in the GA. I do agree though that this was a Hail Mary to keep the last of their top clubs. I do think the clubs that have GA/ECNL may get plucked |
Anonymous
I don’t think MLSN wants to just take any ecnl boys program just because they have GA. There will be a select few that they will consider adding. I think the focus will be more on converting clubs that already have MLSN with ECNL girls to GA. The next option would be converting full ecnl clubs by offering the MLSN option. |
Anonymous
Let’s be real here.. both ECNL and MLSN are adding clubs that don’t necessarily belong. There are a number of clubs that can convert from ECNL to GA because if they lose MLSN, they are driving away their boys program. ECNL will have to take the top clubs and grant them full ECNL status or else I think they are in big trouble. |
Anonymous
Unfortunately there are no big money European teams willing to pay millions for a few NWSL academy graduates to fund the academies, there are very few pro women roster slots with only 14 teams and the average player makes $65k. Limited supply and limited demand now and at least for the next decade. Soccer is choosing to pretend GA is something it isn't with a press release and no real actual action rather than supporting girls club soccer with funds through any of these leagues. Not a great sign for the future of the women's NT. |
Anonymous
The fact is the top of the pyramid for women’s soccer in the US right now is college. That’s where most of the money comes from (total college scholarships/NIL money is more than what NWSL provides). The leagues are set up to support college as the destination. This will remain until there is more money coming from the pro system. On the men’s side pro system has more money than colleges so it works differently. Follow the money, people. The pro money needs to be there first before the system that everyone here wants can happen. The system doesn’t change first. |
Anonymous
US Soccer has nothing to do with this. Just soccer dads drawing lines to connections that aren’t really there. |