ECNL forcing Brave & Union Partnership
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Anonymous
NOVA is so over saturated with ECNL clubs, we're never going to be competitive on the national level. I think the Brave/Union merger is a step in the right direction and will help but realistically speaking there should be only 2~3 clubs in Northern Virginia. Northern Virginia Population: 3.16M - 5 NOVA Clubs (Arlington, Union, Brave, VDA and NVA) all serve the same market (1,338 square miles) San Diego County Population: 3.28M - 3 San Diego Clubs (SD Surf, Mel Mar Sharks, Rebels SC) - 4,261 sq miles Orange County Population: 3.15M - 3 OC Clubs (Pataedores, Slammers FC, SoCal Blues) - 948 sq miles |
Anonymous
Nova going to 4 clubs imminently. DC metro area is 5.5M, with no ECNL option in DC proper, and I think only 2 in the MD burbs (Bethesda and MD United). So you’re close to the same ratio of about a club per million that those CA clubs have. |
Anonymous
| More than 3 in the OC, but your point is spot on, too many clubs round here! |
Anonymous
i think ecnl is woke to nova football problems… And carolinas while we are at it…. Why they haven’t demanded more team mergers is the rise of mls next and GA in this state. Push to hard and business make business decisions |
Anonymous
GA is also spreading fast in NOVA MD. In NOVA , GA is adding VRSC and SYC in addition to TSJ FCV and MD is adding coppermine in addition to Armour and Celtics. Seems to me like ECNL , MLS Next and GA are competing businesses. |
Anonymous
| Stop worrying SoCal soccer mecca, and worry about your backyard. Start beating NC teams consistently, then work your way north, PA +NJ consistently have the best teams on the East coast not VA |
Anonymous
People don't want to hear that the ECNL Mid-Atlantic is weak in comparison to the North Atlantic. |
Anonymous
| Just saying, stop focusing on Cali and TX cause its like Real Salt Lake focusing on Real Madrid. Its beyond laughable |
Anonymous
| ECNL league badge is the only thing any club around here has in common with the clubs in the Sonoran or Texas conferences, so it is about much more than the Atlantic young padawan |
Anonymous
| But how are any of our top teams supposed to compete nationally if the weekend ECNL games are not challenging? The great teams here could be even better if there was better competition locally with fewer ECNL teams. |
Anonymous
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In the Charlotte area we have, on the boys side, two clubs each with 2 ENCL National teams and 2 ENCL-RL teams. In addition we have 2 MLS Next programs including an Academy and what must be a half-dozen NPL teams.
The dilution is real! I'd love to have a league based around Charlotte with a 90 minute max travel rule. Raleigh can meet us in Greensboro if they must. Kids who want to go pro can be in MLSN and the rest of us can stay local. |
Anonymous
| Wasn't this the DA model? Bring DA back or actually say that it is the intention of US Soccer to empower the GA to do this considering it's dramatic growth over the last two quarters. I don't care that they are smaller clubs, becuase its worth acknowledging that something is brewing with such dramatic expansion. Boiling it down to trying to keep up with ECNL isn't good enough. The next 2-3 years should be interesting cuase the shake-up is not over in youth soccer. Let's see what happens first ECNL folds or NCAA athletics folds? One of these will happen becuase they are intrinsically tied to each other in a way that MLSN and GA are not. |
Anonymous
We would drive to NY for a single game in the DA. The GA is losing top clubs and adding weak clubs. The GA is not tied to college soccer but ECNL is? Both of them are. |
Anonymous
| But do I need my kids team to be competitive nationally if my goal is just to help put a thumb on the scale for college admissions? |
Anonymous
| Not was PP is saying in my mind. ECNL is intrinsically linked to college, it has no purpose without college. GA is more than college and intends to be more influential with new standing with US soccer. And of course college ties into GA, professional women's soccer is too new to go all in silly. Doesn't mean there shouldn't be an attempt to create pro pathway. Don;t let Union's recent social media propaganda fool you, there is not pro pathway in ECNL, They simply have the best players, and those players are going pro. The best players don;t care about the league the care about how they are treated. They would have gone pro from any ABC league around either way |