Reply to Metro vs Paramount (vs other top clubs)

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[quote=Anonymous][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]
Lot's of good analysis here. In particular, I think it pretty conclusively disproves the narrative that gets repeated over and over on these forums that Paramount has superior training and is developing players that Metro didn't want and turning them into open qualifiers and D1 prospects. The data presented supports the opposite conclusion - Paramount is taking players who were trained at other clubs, achieving some success, until those players leave for other clubs because they couldn't handle the toxic culture. Metro Travel tends to hold onto more players from season to season and achieves success by developing those players, although there are some notable examples of players who don't come to Metro until 16s or older. Also, for a variety of reasons it is true that Metro still tends to attract more of the highest potential players.

One interesting thing to watch in the coming seasons as the players on Paramount and Metro's youngest team (that are still somewhat new), will be how many of the players on their 11s and 12s teams end up still being top players at 17s and 18s. A lot of the girls that seem super promising at 11s or 12s are the ones who physically mature a little earlier so they seem really exceptional against their peers, but as they age up can sometimes plateau. Similarly, when looking at players who are 11 or 12 it's not always obvious where they are going to end up height-wise. It's possible that a girl who is 5'10" when she's 12 might grow to 6'3" or might not grow another inch. Also, at 11s and 12s, players are more likely to be playing because that's what their parents want. By 14 or 15, if the player is not enjoying the intensity or able to handle the pressure of being on one of these teams with big goals and expectations, they will likely look for something else.

In terms of your conclusion on which club to buy stock in, I don't think that "Paramount stock for the short term because they are winning now" is the right choice if you look at the complete picture.

It is true that Paramount earned more bids to USAV Nationals this year, but as is often the case with Paramount, that is a single stat that gets amplified while ignoring the bigger picture. I borrowed the information showing divisions and results from Nationals below from another thread and eliminated all but the Paramount and Metro teams:

[b]18s[/b]
Open, Metro 18 Travel, 13 of 48
National, Paramount 18 Walter, 27 of 48

[b]17s[/b]
Open, Metro 17 Travel, 3 of 36
National, Paramount 17 Nick, 34 of 48

[b]16s[/b]
Open, Paramount 16 Nick, 33 of 36
National, Metro 16 Travel, 2 of 48

[b]15s[/b]
Open, Paramount 15 Maureen, 29 of 36
National, Metro 15 Travel, 1 of 48
National, Paramount 15 Cruz, 37 of 48

[b]14s[/b]
Open, Metro 14 Travel, 13 of 36
National, Paramount 14 Cozad, 33 of 48
Freedom, Paramount 14 Anderson, 29 of 48

[b]13s[/b]
National, Metro 13 Travel, 27 of 48
National, Paramount 13 Jaz, 17 of 48

[b]12s[/b]
National, Metro 12 Travel, 31 of 48
American, Paramount 12 Jaz, 26 of 64

So Paramount had 8 total bids versus 7 for Metro. Paramount had 2 Open bids, 4 National bids, 1 American bid, and 1 Freedom bid. Metro had 3 Open bids and 4 National bids. So in terms levels of bids, I'd give the edge to Metro with all 7 of their bids being in the National or Open divisions.

What about results?  Metro did particularly well this year at Nationals with 17 Travel finishing 3rd in 17 Open, 15 Travel winning the 15 National championship, and 16 Travel coming in 2nd in 16 National. The other two Metro teams that played in Open did pretty well too, with 18 Travel finishing 13th out of 48 and 14 Travel finishing 13th out of 36.

Paramount on the other hand did not do as well. Their two Open qualified teams, including their much lauded 16s struggled, with Paramount 16s finishing 33rd out of 36 and Paramount 15s finishing 29th out of 36. One bright spot for Paramount was their 13s finished ahead of 13 Travel with Paramount 13s finishing 17 out of 48 and Metro 13 Travel finishing 27 out of 48.

In a more head to head comparison, Metro came out on top of Paramount at CHRVA Bid Regionals at every age group that had both a Metro Travel and Paramount team except for 18s, where Paramount beat Metro in the quarterfinals.

So if your criteria for which club to buy stock in is their win/loss performance, I think Metro is the better choice.
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