ECNL Moving Forward

Brian Griffins BFF wrote:With Texans out of ECNL and the rumor strictly from this forum-FC Dallas on its way out, will ECNL fill those spots?  I'm assuming they won't sit on their hands and accept the reduced teams for the Texas Conference.  
Would I be assuming incorrectly or if they do fill those vacant spots who would be the clubs to fill them?  Would they come from the DFW area?  

Brian Griffins BFF wrote:The question that keeps coming back in my mind from this conversation is where did the depth of the west coast and east coast come from?  It feels like the intent here is to keep the elite leagues as "limited" as possible.  But to grow the sport-to be equal to either coast in terms of popularity and talent depth don't you need to continue to allow more opportunities?  If the popularity in Austin, Houston, SA were equal to other girls sports wouldn't we have more talent/competition?  Sting Austin has improved year over year...if they are patient and allow the opportunity to grow Sting A should be fine and so would anyone else in South Texas...Oklahoma-has some serious wood to chop.  Soccer has a loooong way to go up there.  

Going back to ECNL, I'm not sure they can risk keeping the league small...to stay relevant don't they have to assume DA will continue to poach other clubs for both of their leagues?  I think we all agree FDL was created specifically to take down ECNL.  DA is to grab the top talent and FDL is intended to take down any competition-ECNL.  Timmy's right, AF and LP would have been the first logical choice but that seems more unlikely for LP.  So who does that leave from this area?  Would ECNL consider a team by team basis for each age?

5050Ball wrote:

Brian Griffins BFF wrote:The question that keeps coming back in my mind from this conversation is where did the depth of the west coast and east coast come from?  It feels like the intent here is to keep the elite leagues as "limited" as possible.  But to grow the sport-to be equal to either coast in terms of popularity and talent depth don't you need to continue to allow more opportunities?  If the popularity in Austin, Houston, SA were equal to other girls sports wouldn't we have more talent/competition?  Sting Austin has improved year over year...if they are patient and allow the opportunity to grow Sting A should be fine and so would anyone else in South Texas...Oklahoma-has some serious wood to chop.  Soccer has a loooong way to go up there.  

Going back to ECNL, I'm not sure they can risk keeping the league small...to stay relevant don't they have to assume DA will continue to poach other clubs for both of their leagues?  I think we all agree FDL was created specifically to take down ECNL.  DA is to grab the top talent and FDL is intended to take down any competition-ECNL.  Timmy's right, AF and LP would have been the first logical choice but that seems more unlikely for LP.  So who does that leave from this area?  Would ECNL consider a team by team basis for each age?

Small?  They've added any club with a pulse over the past year or so.

DeltaTauChi wrote:The "E" in ECNL stands for Elite.  At some point, if you keep expanding your membership just for the sake of expansion, you stop adding Elite clubs/teams.

If ECNL wants to drive the Stings/Defeeters/AHFCs/Challeges/TSCs of the world to GDA, then if Solar and FCD leave to be exclusive to GDA, ECNL will replace those clubs with more clubs that are no better, or even worse than Sting A and OK C have been this year.

The engine that has driven the success of ECNL has been the ability to set up quality league matches and showcases that pit a LOT of prospective NCAA D1 level talent against each other, and then bring large amounts of that talent together in one location at the showcases/playoffs, and get the NCAA D1 coaches out to those events in f orce.  If ECNL gets to the point where it starts incrementally adding more non-D1 talent, than D1 talent to the league, they will start losing college coaches, and will start losing players as well.

Correct me if I am wrong, but between Year 1 and Year 2 of GDA, I don't think ECNL has a single club that was ECNL exclusive in Year 1, defect and go to GDA in Year 2.  There were some clubs that were doing both GDA and ECNL in Year 1 of GDA, and I believe about an equal amount of those clubs ended up becoming only either GDA only, or ECNL only in Year 2.  On top of that, I believe there were 1 or 2 clubs that were GDA only in Year 1, that switched back to ECNL in year 2.

So the net movement of existing GDA/ECNL clubs between the leagues from Year 1 to Year 2 was about equal.  My guess is that you will see similar type net neutral movement this year as well.

By the way, everything above that I said about ECNL, also applies directly to GDA.  If GDA keeps expanding for the sake of expanding, and adds clubs that aren't competitive, the result will be GDA driving clubs back to ECNL.

Foxysoccermom wrote:Very good points. Whatcha think bige?

Big Ern wrote:

Foxysoccermom wrote:Very good points. Whatcha think bige?

Thanks for the nod foxer --

Fantastic thread and I agree wholeheartedly with the majority of it.  The only bump in the road was BFF's, "I think we all agree FDL was created specifically to take down ECNL.".  It's not really BFF's fault as it is a common misconception to many of those on the outside, even though it has been discussed many times on this forum (but per usual, casually ignored by the average, small minded troll).  The FPDL was neither created by the USSDA, nor is it intended to "take down" the ECNL.  It is a regional arm of the USYS National League program that is aligned with clubs in OK, NTX and STX that have GDA programs.  They are two entirely different entities that are neither governed by, nor operated in conjunction of one another.  I doubt that there were (or are) any folks over at the offices of USSDA or USYS that had any intent, or belief for that matter, that they would "take down" the ECNL.

The way I (and most other smart people that I've spoken with about it) see it ... The only path the GDA can take to become the clear #1 is to address both the HS and substitution issues.

Big Ern wrote:Sooo ... By that ^ rationale, BFF, you're implying that the folks at USYS met with the folks at USSDA and conspired to abolish the nationwide, ~100 club strong ECNL by forming a league made up of 6 clubs in two states?

Conspiracy theorists are such fun ... Don'tcha think Bdub?

Texas Rangers?  Franchise value?  

Big Ern wrote:

Foxysoccermom wrote:Very good points. Whatcha think bige?

Thanks for the nod foxer --

Fantastic thread and I agree wholeheartedly with the majority of it.  The only bump in the road was BFF's, "I think we all agree FDL was created specifically to take down ECNL.".  It's not really BFF's fault as it is a common misconception to many of those on the outside, even though it has been discussed many times on this forum (but per usual, casually ignored by the average, small minded troll).  The FPDL was neither created by the USSDA, nor is it intended to "take down" the ECNL.  It is a regional arm of the USYS National League program that is aligned with clubs in OK, NTX and STX that have GDA programs.  They are two entirely different entities that are neither governed by, nor operated in conjunction of one another.  I doubt that there were (or are) any folks over at the offices of USSDA or USYS that had any intent, or belief for that matter, that they would "take down" the ECNL.

The way I (and most other smart people that I've spoken with about it) see it ... The only path the GDA can take to become the clear #1 is to address both the HS and substitution issues.

AtThePitch wrote:

Big Ern wrote:

Foxysoccermom wrote:Very good points. Whatcha think bige?

Thanks for the nod foxer --

Fantastic thread and I agree wholeheartedly with the majority of it.  The only bump in the road was BFF's, "I think we all agree FDL was created specifically to take down ECNL.".  It's not really BFF's fault as it is a common misconception to many of those on the outside, even though it has been discussed many times on this forum (but per usual, casually ignored by the average, small minded troll).  The FPDL was neither created by the USSDA, nor is it intended to "take down" the ECNL.  It is a regional arm of the USYS National League program that is aligned with clubs in OK, NTX and STX that have GDA programs.  They are two entirely different entities that are neither governed by, nor operated in conjunction of one another.  I doubt that there were (or are) any folks over at the offices of USSDA or USYS that had any intent, or belief for that matter, that they would "take down" the ECNL.

The way I (and most other smart people that I've spoken with about it) see it ... The only path the GDA can take to become the clear #1 is to address both the HS and substitution issues.

I wasnt going to, but what the hell....

Ill go ahead and add to the issues they need to worry about, and rank them.

1.  MLS pulling their boys clubs from DA and going forward with their own league... its been all over national soccer media for months now, and yes that will impact the girls side of things.  

2.  Losing more bigs that are not MLS (see above, will increase the hurt), Tophat as an example is the next Big to announce they are going all in on ECNL.  You keep losing the bigs, and MLS and then what does it become

3.  High School soccer/any non DA related soccer is not permitted -  lots of folks are finding this to be an issue.  My ECNL player trains as much as a DA kid, but has the option to modify her schedule as she sees fit.  She can also and has been able to get in extra matches and guest play. As an example she has been asked and will be guest playing with an east coast DA club team at the upcoming jefferson cup.  that would not be happening if she was tied down by DA.

4.  substitution rules -  i had an issue with this initially, but im more along the lines of hey, nothing in life is guaranteed, and even if you change the rules there is no guarantee a kid will play anyways.  

5050Ball wrote:DA started with far too many clubs - an obvious shot across the ECNL bow.  Some of those clubs had no history, in fact, were basically created to take the DA spot in a given market.

ECNL's response was to hand 2 spots per age group to those dual clubs who would drop DA for ECNL-only. Then fill in the holes with clubs without any history of competing at the National level.

In turn, DA fills their holes with more clubs without any history of competing at the National level.  

So, to replace Michigan Hawks, Indiana Fire, Eclipse Select, FC Stars, PDA and LAFC Slammers, DA picks up the likes of Michigan Jaguars, Cleveland Impact, OK Energy, Sporting Omaha, Arlington SA and SJEB Rush.

On the ECNL front, San Diego Surf, Sereno, Dallas Texans and OC Surf (formerly West Coast FC)  dropped ECNL to go DA only.  ECNL responded by adding KC Athletics (who were dropped by DA) and the likes of OK Celtic, Wilmington Hammerheads, Pac Northwest and created a new club (previously a DA tactic) in Florida.

Bottom line is NEITHER league needs any more clubs.  In fact, they both should contract to enhance quality.  But that would not be in the best interests ($$$) of either organization.  

Teams in Dallas are "forbidden" to play other quality Dallas teams in lieu of driving 200 miles to play teams of lesser quality.  Totally absurd.

Big Ern wrote:No doubt timmy -- I  this ^

But where would that leave the uber elite Denver market that are a part of Frontier?  Methinks that US Soccer/US Club/USYS tend to think a bit more "big picture" when making decisions like these.