ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

SOCAL league podcast talking about BY vs SY.

[Anonymous]

Summary? For us lazy folks. Anything interesting?

[Anonymous]

Much of the same. Some debate on SY vs BY but everyone is agreed that change is coming in 2026. Good bad or indifferent.

[Anonymous]

No decision is finalized yet but most league admins our leaning towards SY cutoffs for 26/27 but again nothing set in stone or decided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No decision is finalized yet but most league admins our leaning towards SY cutoffs for 26/27 but again nothing set in stone or decided.

Some club admins definitely hate the idea of change do not want to deal with it. But it seems like the final comments is the league reps think SY is better long term for the game.

One director did bring up that BY is pushing out Q4 kids and most teams do not have any players which is not good because we are losing a large group of kids that should be playing soccer.

[Anonymous]

My take away is this is probably going to happen but there is a 0% chance ECNL/US Club make any changes for Fall 25. You can hear the anger some directors have for this change and I’m sure ECNL directors feel the same way. ECNL was hoping us soccer would do their dirty work and force the change for them it didn’t happen so they will play ball and wait it out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No decision is finalized yet but most league admins our leaning towards SY cutoffs for 26/27 but again nothing set in stone or decided.

Some club admins definitely hate the idea of change do not want to deal with it. But it seems like the final comments is the league reps think SY is better long term for the game.

One director did bring up that BY is pushing out Q4 kids and most teams do not have any players which is not good because we are losing a large group of kids that should be playing soccer.

ARRRGGH! Hope they at least acknowledge that they'll be lamenting the loss of Q2 players under SY unless some BY leagues continue and/or something new is done to minimize RAE -- otherwise they just mostly solve for trapped years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Summary? For us lazy folks. Anything interesting?

Good insights from coaches, officials, directors. My takeaway is longtime coaches and officials have noticed a drastic decline in participation since the switch to birth year in 2016, and qouted a former ussf member realizing the mistake only 6 months after the implementation.
Takeaway i herd from the director ( i think his name was kevin?) Did not support the switch, due to how much work it would be logistically on his side.
Seems a little shortsighted to me for a director to say that being the reason not to make the switch. Looks like some club directors don't want the (pain in the ass) of implementing a new system at the cost of growing the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No decision is finalized yet but most league admins our leaning towards SY cutoffs for 26/27 but again nothing set in stone or decided.

Some club admins definitely hate the idea of change do not want to deal with it. But it seems like the final comments is the league reps think SY is better long term for the game.

One director did bring up that BY is pushing out Q4 kids and most teams do not have any players which is not good because we are losing a large group of kids that should be playing soccer.

ARRRGGH! Hope they at least acknowledge that they'll be lamenting the loss of Q2 players under SY unless some BY leagues continue and/or something new is done to minimize RAE -- otherwise they just mostly solve for trapped years.

Someone did say something along the lines of their will always be Q4 kids, who are smaller and younger regardless if SY/BY. So the reason to change shouldn’t be to help younger players because there is always going to be younger players. The reason to change is to grow the participation of the game. Which they seem to think SY will keep more kids involved because they will be playing with kids in their same grade.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No decision is finalized yet but most league admins our leaning towards SY cutoffs for 26/27 but again nothing set in stone or decided.

Some club admins definitely hate the idea of change do not want to deal with it. But it seems like the final comments is the league reps think SY is better long term for the game.

One director did bring up that BY is pushing out Q4 kids and most teams do not have any players which is not good because we are losing a large group of kids that should be playing soccer.

ARRRGGH! Hope they at least acknowledge that they'll be lamenting the loss of Q2 players under SY unless some BY leagues continue and/or something new is done to minimize RAE -- otherwise they just mostly solve for trapped years.

Someone did say something along the lines of their will always be Q4 kids, who are smaller and younger regardless if SY/BY. So the reason to change shouldn’t be to help younger players because there is always going to be younger players. The reason to change is to grow the participation of the game. Which they seem to think SY will keep more kids involved because they will be playing with kids in their same grade.

This is exactly why ECNL is not going to help trapped players next year. It won’t happen. No one cares that much about it. In the end it’s all about participation and what will make the most money for the sport. I think they will definitely change things when they are able to in 26/27 but they don’t care enough to go ahead with it.

Also it sounds like the leagues don’t even have a plan of how to do this or what they are even doing yet.

[Anonymous]

I’m not a league director, so this may sound ignorant, but what is the big deal with changing the registration? Yeah it’s more work, but you usually have to do work when you have a job. If you can read and understand numbers, you can register kids with birthdays from 8/1/15 - 7/31/16, just as easy as you can with 1/1/15 - 12/31/15. Some clubs are just scared of possibly losing some players and breaking up some teams in the short term at the expense of maintaining the status quo, even if doing so is not good for the youth game long term. As someone just said, that is really shortsighted. It’s going to change - rip the band-aide off now so everyone can move on and adjust. Everything will work itself out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a league director, so this may sound ignorant, but what is the big deal with changing the registration? Yeah it’s more work, but you usually have to do work when you have a job. If you can read and understand numbers, you can register kids with birthdays from 8/1/15 - 7/31/16, just as easy as you can with 1/1/15 - 12/31/15. Some clubs are just scared of possibly losing some players and breaking up some teams in the short term at the expense of maintaining the status quo, even if doing so is not good for the youth game long term. As someone just said, that is really shortsighted. It’s going to change - rip the band-aide off now so everyone can move on and adjust. Everything will work itself out.

Thanks for letting everyone know that you've never run a business before and don't understand that there's a cost for every change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a league director, so this may sound ignorant, but what is the big deal with changing the registration? Yeah it’s more work, but you usually have to do work when you have a job. If you can read and understand numbers, you can register kids with birthdays from 8/1/15 - 7/31/16, just as easy as you can with 1/1/15 - 12/31/15. Some clubs are just scared of possibly losing some players and breaking up some teams in the short term at the expense of maintaining the status quo, even if doing so is not good for the youth game long term. As someone just said, that is really shortsighted. It’s going to change - rip the band-aide off now so everyone can move on and adjust. Everything will work itself out.

Thanks for letting everyone know that you've never run a business before and don't understand that there's a cost for every change.

And a gain; the reason you evolve, grow and survive.

[Anonymous]

What I heard on the recording was that everyone agreed that BY made more sense for the top elite players. Primarily because this is how their peers around the world function. There was a specific call out about Academy systems. The SY proponents primarily said that for lower level teams there is a benefit for kids to be able to play with classmates in school. They extrapolated that SY would bring more players to the game because all kids on the team would be in the same grade at school. One coach said SY is a waste of time because they go through tryouts every year and which school you attend has nothing to do with who gets selected for the team.

My takeaway is that elite soccer likes BY and rec soccer likes SY. There's no one size fits all. This explains why MLSN doesn't want to change to SY. If ECNL switches to SY on the girls side it will allow a BY Academy type league to open up shop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m not a league director, so this may sound ignorant, but what is the big deal with changing the registration? Yeah it’s more work, but you usually have to do work when you have a job. If you can read and understand numbers, you can register kids with birthdays from 8/1/15 - 7/31/16, just as easy as you can with 1/1/15 - 12/31/15. Some clubs are just scared of possibly losing some players and breaking up some teams in the short term at the expense of maintaining the status quo, even if doing so is not good for the youth game long term. As someone just said, that is really shortsighted. It’s going to change - rip the band-aide off now so everyone can move on and adjust. Everything will work itself out.

Thanks for letting everyone know that you've never run a business before and don't understand that there's a cost for every change.

Thanks for letting us know that you have never grown a business before. Regulations change from time to time, you have to adapt or you close down. If they aren't nimble enough to change then maybe they should stop wasting everyone's time and go do something else.