ECNL moving to school year part 2

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

MLSN teams will stop participating in ECNL SY tournamants. Which will force ECNL teams to play up in BY MLSN tournamants against MLSN teams if they want to go up in ranking.

See how that works. The sword cuts both ways.

It’s Mr. Ugh, he’s back! And as usual missing the point. Probably just tunnel vision in the hopes your July kid can stay on the mlsn2.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Just explaining what will happen if MLSN stays BY and ECNL goes SY. Both leagues have a stalemate. MLSN teams will have to play up at SY tournaments and ECNL teams will need to play up in BY tournaments.

Since MLSN is the higher league ECNL will be the one that has to play up against MLSN teams. But overall both leagues will just stop playing against each other in cross league events.

MLSN wouldn't be the highest league if they stay BY so this scenario wouldn't happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

ECNL wishes you were running MLSN instead of a fanboy posting on DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

MLSN teams will stop participating in ECNL SY tournamants. Which will force ECNL teams to play up in BY MLSN tournamants against MLSN teams if they want to go up in ranking.

See how that works. The sword cuts both ways.

It’s Mr. Ugh, he’s back! And as usual missing the point. Probably just tunnel vision in the hopes your July kid can stay on the mlsn2.

It may be overthinking it, BUT MLSN/GA could gain IF they delay SY a couple of more years to serve as a possible landing point for players screwed over in the rush to SY.

That could be true. If MLSN2 stays BY then for sure that may be the strategy.

To me it looks like ECNL is preparing for a world where MLSN stays BY with all of these new pre-ECNL rumors.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

ECNL wishes you were running MLSN instead of a fanboy posting on DCUM.

Yep, all I do contribute to this forum and play Soccer Manager 2025.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

MLSN teams will stop participating in ECNL SY tournamants. Which will force ECNL teams to play up in BY MLSN tournamants against MLSN teams if they want to go up in ranking.

See how that works. The sword cuts both ways.

It’s Mr. Ugh, he’s back! And as usual missing the point. Probably just tunnel vision in the hopes your July kid can stay on the mlsn2.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Just explaining what will happen if MLSN stays BY and ECNL goes SY. Both leagues have a stalemate. MLSN teams will have to play up at SY tournaments and ECNL teams will need to play up in BY tournaments.

Since MLSN is the higher league ECNL will be the one that has to play up against MLSN teams. But overall both leagues will just stop playing against each other in cross league events.

MLSN wouldn't be the highest league if they stay BY so this scenario wouldn't happen.

Not if they keep their reputation and recruit like crazy (it's the tried and true formula for ENCL, after all, built on being more exclusive -- which they run risk of giving up with their expansion push).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

That's not fair. MLSN academies don't care about the international calendar either. Heck, DCU hacked 20 percent of their teams and started charging tuition. International calendar not one of their issues for sure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

MLSN teams will stop participating in ECNL SY tournamants. Which will force ECNL teams to play up in BY MLSN tournamants against MLSN teams if they want to go up in ranking.

See how that works. The sword cuts both ways.

It’s Mr. Ugh, he’s back! And as usual missing the point. Probably just tunnel vision in the hopes your July kid can stay on the mlsn2.

I have no idea what you're talking about.

Just explaining what will happen if MLSN stays BY and ECNL goes SY. Both leagues have a stalemate. MLSN teams will have to play up at SY tournaments and ECNL teams will need to play up in BY tournaments.

Since MLSN is the higher league ECNL will be the one that has to play up against MLSN teams. But overall both leagues will just stop playing against each other in cross league events.

MLSN wouldn't be the highest league if they stay BY so this scenario wouldn't happen.

Not if they keep their reputation and recruit like crazy (it's the tried and true formula for ENCL, after all, built on being more exclusive -- which they run risk of giving up with their expansion push).

Clarify the "they" parts. Everybody is expanding like Boston Market in the early 90s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

That's not fair. MLSN academies don't care about the international calendar either. Heck, DCU hacked 20 percent of their teams and started charging tuition. International calendar not one of their issues for sure.

Then, why have they kept saying (or others for them) that they wanted to stay BY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

That's not fair. MLSN academies don't care about the international calendar either. Heck, DCU hacked 20 percent of their teams and started charging tuition. International calendar not one of their issues for sure.

Then, why have they kept saying (or others for them) that they wanted to stay BY?

They haven't said anything. And MLSN wanting to keep all of youth soccer BY and wanting to just keep MLSN BY are two separate things.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

That's not fair. MLSN academies don't care about the international calendar either. Heck, DCU hacked 20 percent of their teams and started charging tuition. International calendar not one of their issues for sure.

Then, why have they kept saying (or others for them) that they wanted to stay BY?

They haven't said anything. And MLSN wanting to keep all of youth soccer BY and wanting to just keep MLSN BY are two separate things.

Ok, but why then? Just worried about the disruption/ECNL flexing its muscles?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pre-ECNL program lower than U9 is another money grab. We already have it here in our area for U11-U12 and it is a hot mess. The lower level clubs who are getting throttled in it hate it so much. It makes no sense.

Seems like it's more about partnering with smaller clubs and replacing USYS as the league for those clubs' top teams. Maybe that improves their development pipeline.

This is right. It is about finding feeder clubs. And ECNL’s growth is currently, (in a NL / RL model) top end limited - clubs typically can only have one team per age bracket and those teams have roster limits.

Think about this in a business model perspective. If big clubs have their own rec program, have classic, have tiers of competitive regional and national soccer (DPL, NPL, USYS NL, MLSN / ECNL / GA), the money for the club comes from the classic league and rec programs - that’s how they pay for staff and full time coaches at the top end.

ECNL’s share of wallet from that club is pretty small. AND ECNL’s ability to grow by adding clubs is relatively limited (time, talent and infrastructure).

So…how does ECNL grow its revenue? By seeking a larger share of wallet from the existing clubs, AND creating a product that can be scaled to clubs that they can’t bring into RL / NL for a variety of reasons (market size / saturation, financial resources, existing talent at the smaller club, etc).

ECNL is commercializing as a league. Which in youth sports, has never ended well for that league.

So, basically in a macro-sense USYS lost at the elite level with its NL and Elite64/Club Premier (even though it's still around and provides decent competition) and now US Club which is dominant in girls and No. 2 in boys at the elite level (ECNL) wants to grow by taking more of the USYS pie at the lower levels, the stronger state leagues, basically. And while many of these clubs already serve as pipelines to ECNL, they want to formalize them as they compete with MLSN/GA. Who knows they might eventually merge in some fashion if successful but then they may lose their edge in all the largess (similar to how USYS can struggle now).

One of the fundamental problems USYS faces, US Club does not. USYS is still straddled with 50+ state orgs and an ancient operating structure. Plus, for whatever reason, USYS feels they need to serve everyone regardless of costs. It is like the USPS model vs UPS/fedex.

ECNL doesn’t need to serve everyone, just everyone in their key markets. And once you have a customer, it is easier to keep them down the line.

The danger is in diluting their brand to where these leagues hurt their overall image. But with MLSN2, they probably feel the danger is worth it. Tier 2 was a direct shot on them…

So…AYSO? 🫣

I like ECNL. I have one kid in ECNL. ECNL is run by tweedle dum and tweedle dee. They are like a kid who misses a wide open goal because their eyes got too big. It seems to me their whole strategy is a miss based on their fear and ego.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL is going to have pre ECNL for 7v7 and will start in 26/27. With U9!

The writing was on the wall for this. It is the next logical step in trying to keep MLSN at bay. Particularly if MLSN stays BY. Each league will need/want to create their own silo from u8 through u19.

I think it will take longer for MLSN to spin up their own alternative. They don’t seem to have the overhead needed.

MLSN does not be benefit from a silo age cutoff, ECNL boys does.

That doesn’t make any sense.

You’re right it makes sense to limit your talent pool and force a less popular age cutoff.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, not sure what that dude is talking about. Of course MLSN wants their own silo. Why else create MLSN2 with all of these random clubs (who all get to now claim they are MLSN)?

‘Less popular age cutoff”? Would love to see the data on that. It seems like SY would naturally be the more popular generally to the public but I’m willing to learn.

SY was most popular based off Directors feedback, BY was not far behind.
However there was a good size group that chose other and could write in their ideas besides Aug 1 or Jan 1.

Some club directors did choose school grade or GY.

Not true.

The options were SY 9/1 or BY 1/1. Many people didnt like SY 9/1 and voted other because of it. Once USYS + US Club got SY 9/1 they changed it to SY 8/1. This would likely have changed the number of other votes in some fashion.

Also other votes didn't equate to just GY. Other was everything, 8/1, SY+30, biobanding, etc.

SY was the most popular and the feedback was from directors (who don't like change/extra work) plus anybody else who wanted to comment. So clear win for SY.

Not a clear win at all. There was a large percentage that wanted BY.

Also rec tends to align with SY. While higher level soccer aligns with BY. From a club owner perspective SY makes sense because you have 10x the number of littles teams then olders top teams.

If the question would have been asked "which would you prefer for olders top tier teams". It would have been completely different and likely in favor of BY.

The littles and rec fans think they have the nunbers to push everyone else around. What they dont understand is the top tier teams might just break off and do their own thing if their needs are ignored. In fact this is exactly how ECNL was initially formed.

But you’re guessing and making assumptions here. Either SY was the more popular option or not. And no club owner wants two options for team formations. They want one.

ECNL also wasnt formed because people didn’t like an age cutoff. Again, you’re making a ton of assumptions. The question was, what is the most popular of the two cutoffs.

Actually, a lot of clubs already had two cutoffs. Those that had in-house rec, often would do GY for u-little. Your experience in this landscape, regardless of tier, is always such a small microcosm. USSF was actually really smart in splitting the baby.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MLSN won’t give up their progress in being the top boys league and lose top august-Dec players(customers) to ECNL.

How would they prevent that if they don’t switch to SY?

They will go SY. No incentive for them not to switch.

Staying exclusive and still matching the international calendar. ECNL is taking a risk in this pivot when it comes to elite, especially for the boys, where it becomes less of a rival and more of a feeder.

Except for the academies, not a single MlSN club gives a shit about an international calendar. They care about college commits and drawing in more players.

That's not fair. MLSN academies don't care about the international calendar either. Heck, DCU hacked 20 percent of their teams and started charging tuition. International calendar not one of their issues for sure.

Then, why have they kept saying (or others for them) that they wanted to stay BY?

They haven't said anything. And MLSN wanting to keep all of youth soccer BY and wanting to just keep MLSN BY are two separate things.

Ok, but why then? Just worried about the disruption/ECNL flexing its muscles?

Disruption concerns are everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL is going to have pre ECNL for 7v7 and will start in 26/27. With U9!

The writing was on the wall for this. It is the next logical step in trying to keep MLSN at bay. Particularly if MLSN stays BY. Each league will need/want to create their own silo from u8 through u19.

I think it will take longer for MLSN to spin up their own alternative. They don’t seem to have the overhead needed.

MLSN does not be benefit from a silo age cutoff, ECNL boys does.

That doesn’t make any sense.

You’re right it makes sense to limit your talent pool and force a less popular age cutoff.

That doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, not sure what that dude is talking about. Of course MLSN wants their own silo. Why else create MLSN2 with all of these random clubs (who all get to now claim they are MLSN)?

‘Less popular age cutoff”? Would love to see the data on that. It seems like SY would naturally be the more popular generally to the public but I’m willing to learn.

SY was most popular based off Directors feedback, BY was not far behind.
However there was a good size group that chose other and could write in their ideas besides Aug 1 or Jan 1.

Some club directors did choose school grade or GY.

Not true.

The options were SY 9/1 or BY 1/1. Many people didnt like SY 9/1 and voted other because of it. Once USYS + US Club got SY 9/1 they changed it to SY 8/1. This would likely have changed the number of other votes in some fashion.

Also other votes didn't equate to just GY. Other was everything, 8/1, SY+30, biobanding, etc.

SY was the most popular and the feedback was from directors (who don't like change/extra work) plus anybody else who wanted to comment. So clear win for SY.

Not a clear win at all. There was a large percentage that wanted BY.

Also rec tends to align with SY. While higher level soccer aligns with BY. From a club owner perspective SY makes sense because you have 10x the number of littles teams then olders top teams.

If the question would have been asked "which would you prefer for olders top tier teams". It would have been completely different and likely in favor of BY.

The littles and rec fans think they have the nunbers to push everyone else around. What they dont understand is the top tier teams might just break off and do their own thing if their needs are ignored. In fact this is exactly how ECNL was initially formed.

But you’re guessing and making assumptions here. Either SY was the more popular option or not. And no club owner wants two options for team formations. They want one.

ECNL also wasnt formed because people didn’t like an age cutoff. Again, you’re making a ton of assumptions. The question was, what is the most popular of the two cutoffs.

When ECNL formed, age cutoff wasn't an issue. It later became one as one of the primary reasons stated -- for the most elite players -- to switch to BY. Since everyone switched, it didn't matter BUT now there's a choice and provides an opportunity/lane. What's less clear is whether that's a development advantage as well as an economic one.

"It later became one as one of the primary reasons stated -- for the most elite players -- to switch to BY." Everyone switched to BY in 2016. What are you talking about? Elite players didn't go to ECNL because of BY. They went to ECNL because the top clubs decided (at the time) to join ECNL. It has absolutely nothing to do with an age cutoff.

" it didn't matter BUT now there's a choice and provides an opportunity/lane." What choice? Everyone is still BY for at least the next year.

The decision to switch to BY was for elite player development. ECNL (thru US Club) switched to SY because it believes it'll have economic benefits by aligning with what most of rec wants and the supposed college pipeline. Those who ultimately believe BY is STILL better for elite player development -- MLSN primarily -- have to decide whether staying BY makes sense for development and can work economically.

This is spot on. And it’s totally OK!