Reply to Metro vs Paramount (vs other top clubs)

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I want to add that if you look at the top clubs in top volleyball regions—such as A5, Legacy, and Circle City—you’ll see that their top teams play in Open, their second teams in USA, and their third teams in American, Liberty, or Freedom divisions. They have a pyramid system where players can move up or down based on their development. This is a stable and proven system for success.

Paramount is moving in this direction. Their 15-1 team played in Open, 15-2 in National, 14-1 in National, and 14-2 in Freedom. Now, they’re adding 14-3 and 15-3 teams. With their own gym and the growing popularity of volleyball, it's not hard to predict that they'll add 11-3, 12-3, and 13-3 teams in the coming years.

Currently, Metro is only good for the top two players at each position and age group. It's not even good for the third-best players in those categories. Metro is adding 15-2, 16-2, and 17-2 teams, but as I wrote above, the success of these teams depends on how much the club invests in them—the quality of coaches they hire and the training they provide. They haven't done much to their regional teams.[/quote]

I agree that the "pyramid" you describe is a proven recipe for large club success.  Its the same structure used by the hundreds of clubs that have multiple teams in an age group, including many in CHRVA. But neither Metro or Paramount actually use the pyramid structure, even though Paramount added 2s teams. For this years' Paramount 13-1, 14-1 & 15-1 teams, I couldn't find a single player who moved up to the 1s from the prior years 2s.

Look at the 14-1, 15-1 and 16-1 makeups for this year compared to their rosters last year:
- 2025 16-1, 6 new players, 7 returning. [i]No players moved up from 15-2 to 16-1.[/i]
- 2025 15-1, 7 new players, 7 returning. [i]No players moved up from 14-2 to 15-1.[/i]
- 2025 14-1, 9 new players, 6 returning. [i]No players move up from 13-2 to 14-1[/i]

Out of 42 players on those three teams, 22 (52%) seem to have come from outside of Paramount 2024 club teams. If you look back at 2023, its over 75% and after 3 years (2023) it probably exceeds 85%. This matches another PP who covered their 18s team in depth, showing only 1 player played on their 16s -- which means 93% of their 18s players came from another club.  That PP pointed out that one of two things is happening: either Paramount's top players are leaving of their own choice, or Paramount is replacing them with better players trained by other clubs.

It is rare for a club to have multiple teams and no movement up to the 1s from their 2s, especially when the 1s teams are losing between 1/3 and 1/2 of their players each year. All of the clubs you mentioned from outside CHRVA do move players regularly because they focus on player development more. A big driver of that development is roster sizes. Paramount averages 14 players on their 1s teams. Circle City and Legacy average 11, and their 2s+ rosters are smaller than their 1s. Paramount's 2s teams averaged 15 players. Roster sizes are a big reason why "pyramids" work.

Paramount's real pyramid relies on other clubs in the region to keep developing talent that they can pull away and use for 1-2 years to win. Essentially, Paramount's pouring water in the top of the boat (bring in new players from other clubs) as fast as they can, while water is leaking out of the bottom of the boat (existing players leaving b/c of environment or lack of development). The boat's still afloat, but if they don't fix the leak it will eventually sink.

Metro Travel hasn't had multiple teams or a traditional pyramid structure. Metro is more like A5 with its "core" club (just called A5) and several "regional" clubs (e.g. Gwinnett). For Metro the regions haven't really developed many players for the Travel teams. Historically, Metro has also relied on other clubs to develop players to the point where they were Travel level, both for the U13 team and then to replace any lost/cut players in the older teams. But because Metro Travel is able to hold on to more of its players year over year and develop them at least as fast as other clubs were developing players, they've been able to sustain their performance without as severe a turnover each year. For example, 8 of Metro's 18s team played U15 with them.

TLDR: Despite all of the marketing thrown out by both Paramount parents and staff, Paramount hasn't had any success developing players from their 2s teams (and soon 3s teams) onto their top teams. They've really just copied the legacy Metro Travel model of focusing on their top player development. Except Metro Travel holds on to more of its travel team year over year than Paramount does.  So despite having 2s (and soon 3s) teams, the lack of player development has forced Paramount to aggressively recruit out of other clubs to find talent to replace the roughly half of 1s players they have been losing each year.

That's why you see posts like "HOV Lanes coming to 495 -- its a much shorter drive from Maryland now!". Paramount needs to reach into the MD side to keep their talent pipeline going and clubs like MVSA, MD Juniors, MOCO, etc. that have 3+ teams at most ages and have been running U11/U12 teams for years are generally viewed as good talent developers.

Finally, Paramount's teams being in different divisions at USA nationals is directly related to how they did at CHRVA bids -- its not a choice made by the club in how they register them. Its determined by how they finish at bids. If 14-2 beats 14-1, then 14-2 would have been in National and the 14-1 in American or Freedom.

Paramount does choose to put their teams in different divisions at qualifiers, but there is zero uniqueness to that approach in club volleyball. In CHRVA, a lot of clubs have multiple teams in an age group that attend qualifiers, and virtually all of them do the same thing.  You might see a 1s team in USA, a 2s team in Liberty and a 3s in America for example. Its common practice across the country, especially at AAU Nationals where the top clubs are trying to win a national championship at one of the 7 levels.

[quote]If Metro and Paramount were two companies, I would buy Paramount's stock over Metro's[/quote]
If you are buying stock based on win/loss record and bids, both clubs are very good. I would probably buy Paramount stock for the short term because they are winning now, but Metro Travel is still the blue chip. But your focus weren't focused just on winning - most of your argument focused in player development.

I would short stock in Paramount if their future is tied to successful training of 2s (and now 3s) players into 1s players. When zero players move up to your top teams and half the players leave every year, something is broken in your culture and your player development pyramid. That's not going to change without significant adjustments in both philosophy and coaching. Either they fix it or the boat will start sinking.[/quote]

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