Reply to DC United's New Youth Plan

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]https://www.dcunited.com/post/2018/09/11/dc-united-academy-announce-dmv-pathway-2-pro-program?utm_source=social&utm_medium=twitter

Soooo, if you're not one of their designated "elite" 5 soccer clubs or you are not a partner club, you're just rec.  Some of their partner clubs suck and are completely disorganized.  [/quote]

I hadn't focused on that bottom tier.  It does say "rec & feeder teams," but the idea that Potomac or Bethesda are going to feel kids through PPA, or Alexandria is going to feed kids through Arlington, is pretty funny.[/quote]

I'm in DC and not familiar with the whole dynamic.  But I have seen PPA teams and I haven't been impressed with any of them. They don't play in competitive leagues and don't appear to get the best players in the area. Did money change hands? What's the point of this? Because I simply don't see how an honest arrangement looking to find the best players would go to a club that's definitely not producing the highest level of players in the area. It seems debatable with a lot of clubs, but not with PPA.[/quote]

PPA is basically rec+ to low level travel. In MoCo, most kids start out in MSI rec, which is cheap and parent coached. If they are somewhat more serious but don't want to do travel, they can move up to MSI Classic starting in 4th grade. Those teams may have parent or professional coaches, but are still pretty affordable and you have to travel around the county for games. The guys who run PPA saw that there was a huge market for parents who are willing to pay a lot of money for a rah-rah sports experience for their kid at convenient locations that requires no parent volunteering. The soccer level is not high, but it's easy and they have fun uniforms and events.

The guys who started it are incredibly good at marketing (both very good coaches too, though though many of the coaches in the PPA program are so so). I assume that they either knew some DCU guys or reached out to them to get the affiliation agreement. Yet another example of people who want to be able to tell gullible parents that they are offering an "elite" product to entice them to sign up. Unlike all the other are clubs that do this, PPA is for-profit, so they are actually making tons and tons of money from their program. [/quote]

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