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Post by newguy on Aug 7, 2024 22:20:25 GMT -5
What if…
Atlanta United, and every other MLS club, announced they are reforming MLS Next and each going to have twelve junior teams at every age group (u8-u18) essentially trying to destroy the local club structure.
AU says we will fill out twelve teams at each age outside of first academy team that will all pay ($1k) or about half of what most of us are paying for clubs now. Goal is to combine the top 200-300 kids in the state/region under a single development umbrella. 22 games against the rest of your AU league to move to regionals against the other Southeastern teams that finished ranked against themselves the same way. So AU, Clt, Nash, Orl, Miami all play teams ranked first versus first, second vs. second, etc in round robin. Allows clubs to see more kids on a regular basis and maybe US Soccer to have a path to see more kids at the same time.
Biggest drawback I see is kids/parents not wanting to say they are on team twelve but let the marketing department figure that out by not naming teams by number or color. Would your kid rather say they played for XYZ Club ECNL or they played for Atlanta United or the future NWSL version?
There has to be a better way and I’m not saying this is it but MLS isn’t going anywhere because billionaires don’t lose and they tilt the game when necessary. AU is the thing that can kill the politics of the local club fiefdoms.
It’s late and I know I have holes in my plan but curious as to thoughts since I’m still way too new to all this.
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Post by rifle on Aug 8, 2024 8:56:56 GMT -5
Interesting thought but.. fudge MLS.
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Post by lajolla39 on Aug 8, 2024 9:19:26 GMT -5
Trying to be cheaper to compete against pay to play will never work.
MLSN "works" against pay to play because it's a combo of Acadamies and Pay to Play. The Acadamies are what keeps MLSN above ECNL clubs. Without the Acadamies MLSN and ECNL are basically the same thing.
The process works for getting players into MLS. The problem is MLS as it's structured today will never be a top tier league on the world stage. With salary caps and no pro/rel it will never be the league the best players choose to play in.
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Post by randomparent on Aug 8, 2024 9:48:06 GMT -5
What if… Atlanta United, and every other MLS club, announced they are reforming MLS Next and each going to have twelve junior teams at every age group (u8-u18) essentially trying to destroy the local club structure. AU says we will fill out twelve teams at each age outside of first academy team that will all pay ($1k) or about half of what most of us are paying for clubs now. Goal is to combine the top 200-300 kids in the state/region under a single development umbrella. 22 games against the rest of your AU league to move to regionals against the other Southeastern teams that finished ranked against themselves the same way. So AU, Clt, Nash, Orl, Miami all play teams ranked first versus first, second vs. second, etc in round robin. Allows clubs to see more kids on a regular basis and maybe US Soccer to have a path to see more kids at the same time. Biggest drawback I see is kids/parents not wanting to say they are on team twelve but let the marketing department figure that out by not naming teams by number or color. Would your kid rather say they played for XYZ Club ECNL or they played for Atlanta United or the future NWSL version? There has to be a better way and I’m not saying this is it but MLS isn’t going anywhere because billionaires don’t lose and they tilt the game when necessary. AU is the thing that can kill the politics of the local club fiefdoms. It’s late and I know I have holes in my plan but curious as to thoughts since I’m still way too new to all this. I appreciate you trying and your post. I don't agree, here is my perspective, that is a bit cynical of the club soccer scene. 1. We already have limited competition between clubs that have acquired smaller clubs, now we propose going full monopoly mode trusting AU is better? 2. Practice location matters more to us than "league level." So where are practices? We have done the travel an hour plus for a top team circus act before, never again, especially at older ages when they have high school. 3. MLSNext can't play high school. Unless my kids were at AU (top team) my kids would be unwilling to give up high school soccer. This would be a hard no for us. 4. It feels like you want to make US soccer better. Why do my kids care about that? Every two years from every kid in Atlanta, one kid makes it to the MLS. Hardly anyone is going pro. 5. Does this help with college recruiting? Unless you have had a son that plays on the top teams in ATL, have watched them grow up and graduate high school will you realize that the soccer scholarships are scarce and underwhelming, the schools that will offer scholarships are not the schools you would think about, they don't always align with what your kid wants to do, half the boys are burned out and don't even pursue it, the ones that do go through all that 70% of them quit soccer their freshman year! Hell our two biggest schools UGA/GaTech do not even have a team. I do agree having ECNL and MLSNext to be closed off fiefdoms is silly, and think a better solutions would have been old school classic1/2/3 or sccl pro/rel but that strips away power and money from the big clubs and parents love bragging to their friends that their kid is on ECNL so it will not happen. The thing you learn after while, if you have kids at different clubs and see a lot is hardly anyone outside of parents that have kids on ECNL/MLS Next teams care about those teams. Maybe the kids/families on ECRL/NAL care, but that is it. Youth soccer is a kids game, played by children, who learn valuable lessons. That is it. When your kids are 30 that is what they will say they did it for, of course until they have a kid, who scores 8 goals in a U5 rec game. |
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Post by blu on Aug 8, 2024 10:48:33 GMT -5
Nothing will ever kill the politics...
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Post by Soccerhouse on Aug 8, 2024 11:02:35 GMT -5
I think the challenge is running a youth club and a professional academy are 2 completely different beasts.
I honestly thought when AU was announced, they would gobble up a local club -- concorde for example given Blanks involvement with them in the past. SSA would be another example.
Also at the time, I thought interatlanta made sense given being in town.
Imagine them having thousands of kids across the state in a built pay to play "feeder" program. Like you said they could carry 10 teams in an age group -- why because the name on the kit.
They could charge more NOT less to play there, and thousands would line up to foot the bill.
All this 3-5 million a year would help pay for the top players, who play for free.
MLS, i.e. atlanta united aint' doing this for charity or the good of the game, its all about making money and tax write offs to offset NFL revenue if not profitable (example -- MLS buy ins are spread out over multtiple years by nfl owners and used to offset revenue from football)
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