Reply to current list of implosions, additions and Club shake ups...

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Can someone just start a town /city based travel league where say Bethesda plays Potomac, Gaithersburg, Kensington, Chevy Chase etc.? Same for Virginia. More than one team per town/city as necessary.Then we could put a stop to this insanity. Kids could play with their friends and it would be plenty competitive.[/quote]

This is how Little League is organized. There is a national Little League organization that issues franchises to local clubs, along with a franchise comes a defined territory. All players for the club have to reside within the franchise territory. At one time all coaches, umpires and board members of the club also had to reside within the territory, but I think they've relaxed that. This is a million years away from where youth soccer is in terms of regimentation.

Almost everywhere, Little League has the best facilities of any youth sport. The reason for this is that the franchise system makes fields a hyper-local issue. You can't jump to another club for better facilities, you have to work within your territory (or move). Local governments are more willing to spend on facilities when they know that local residents are going to use them. (Plus baseball has that "apple pie" cred that soccer just doesn't have.)

The downside is that this is not a player-friendly way of organizing. If you are a promising player who lives in a territory that happens to be poorly run you are out of luck. Also, the territory system is a vestige of the racial segregation that was the norm for much of the 20th century. When it began Little League was segregated. Even when it officially integrated the boundaries were maintained along the lines of racial segregation to keep white players from playing with non-whites. If you look at a map of Little League boundaries for DC they pretty clearly follow racial boundaries.[/quote]

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