Just out of curious are the SwitchBacks and Rapids looking to form a MLS / USL partnership or are the SwithBacks looking to stay an independent team to themselves. In light of the parntership with ESPN and NASL with USL becoming D2 as well. Will teams in USL not an affilate of an MLS club be looking to NASL as a better prospect being that all costs and standards for both will be equal
http://switchbacksfc.com/sfc-announces-2015-player-kevin-durr/ Before attending the Air Force Academy, Durr was a member of the U.S. U-15 National Team in 2005-2006, and a member of the Olympic Development Program Europe since 1998. He also played for: – FC Garmisch-Partenkirchen (2007-2009) – FC Bayern Munich (2005-2007) – Bayer Leverkusen (2003-2005) – U.S. Adidas All-Star Team (2006)
1. Switchbacks are interested, Rapids are not. Rapids now pretty heavily involved with their new affiliate, the Charlotte Independence. 2. Why failing USL would the SB move to NASL? If they can't match USL new D2 standards they wouldn't meet NASL's reqs either.
Intersting with Charlotte being across the other side of the country. Charlotte renovating a SSS/Lacrosse stadium with decent capacity. Looks like they will be living up to there name and be Independent. Sure they will take loaned players from an MLS club but don't appear like they want to be anyones development team.
Actually, I am guessing the Independence might be the wrong name. They are pretty tied to the Rapids, including the coaching staff. My fav was their coach showing up for a TV interview on a Charlotte channel in a Rapids jacket.
Did not know that. Seems like an odd pairing considering the distance. I guess each MLS club will use their affiliate in their own way. Charlotte being a split major league/top Minor League city. A new AAA baseball stadium and a newly renovated SSS/Lacrosse. having that capacity they are likely expecting to see type of attenedance like SRFC and InDY. As well Womens National team matches. Even potential future for NWSL
Charlotte owner worked with our President and they are friends. Rapids also have full coaching/ staff authority over them as well.
Wow that makes sense. Like a Baseball Minor League affiliate or NHL's AHL affiliates, the major league club does not need to own its minor affiliates but does need the full coaching/player/staff authority over the actual club on the field.
San Jose and SRFC do not seem to have a healthy working relationship. At some point the Quakes will look for a place to get some guys some playing time. I am not sure how Iron Clad the SJ and SRFC agreement is but the SBs are looking and the Quakes seem in the market for a new affiliate as well.
Don't the Rapids also have an academy in North Carolina? The Carolina Rapids ... it's odd, but there is some reasons other than just being Jacksonville.
Yep @UxSxAxfooty can provide more detail By the way, really like the SKC plans to put their USL side in Garden City, wish we had that kind of foresight in our FO.
In my opinion, and many Kansans...Garden City makes no sense. Heck, Garden City is closer to the Rapids than they are to SKC.
Uh, I'm no Kansan (close, but not) ... and I LOVE it ... set up shop where the talent is, geography be damned!
Where the talent is? Don't get me wrong, but I'm sure there's a lot more talent in other areas than in Garden City/Finney County, Kansas with a population of 36,000+ (county). I understand there's a large Latino population out in western Kansas, but there's still a loooooooong way to go for any fruits of the labor to be harvested there.
If you limit it to Finney County then sure ... but I think their intentions is to basically cover the western half of the state of Kansas. Starting out with Liberal, Garden City, Dodge City and Scott City. There are enough JuCo's out there that if you get a full academy feeding those JuCo's and then playing USL PDL in the summer, you can have a secondary academy out there. Get a "residency" type of thing like RSL has in Arizona and you can bring in kids from northern Texas, the panhandle of OK, eastern Colorado, etc as well. Some kids (Kevin Ellis went out to Great Bend CC) from KC area may go out there to JuCo and spend their summers at the PDL team/residency. They're spending money on developing talent ... they've pretty much got the market on the talent in the KC area, with affiliates all over the place in high dense population locations in Omaha, Des Moines, Nashville, Columbia, MO, St. Louis, Witchita, Evansville IN, etc. This was a chance to get a different environment/type of player. Some players from SW Kansas may get invited to play for the Sporting U16/U18 teams in KC (like players from Nashville, and other affiliates) ... and players from the suburbs of KC, Omaha, St. Louis, Columbia, Nashville, may get sent to SW Kansas for a period of time to get a different type of training/exposure, etc. Nothing wrong this. As opposed to starting up a PDL team to play at Swope which would essentially be the same group of players playing with the same teammates in the same environment WITHOUT spreading the footprint, why not do this? I also hope if they ever do a USL "Sporting 2" team like others have done ... they do it in a different market (like Omaha, or Witchita or Columbia, MO).
Wichita and/or Omaha would be my first (second, third, and more choices) than western Kansas. Go where the populations are. Go where there is established soccer (especially for PDL/USL). I really hope someone can go to Omaha or Lincoln for USL, PDL, or NPSL. Garden City barely supports soccer -- they don't even have a soccer team (dropped it but bringing it back in fall 2015). Garden and Dodge have the only men's teams in western Kansas, unless you include Northwest Kansas Technical College. Great Bend (which is Barton CC) is still a good 2+ hours away from Garden City, by the way (as is Pratt). With the way that America does club soccer (pay-to-play), a SKC club in western Kansas will be hard to sustain without major funding. Those families cannot and will not pay. I'm not saying "don't go to western Kansas." I just don't believe going there for PDL (or USL) is a wise decision. Sure, try to get an academy going...if it is fully-funded (which not many are). Sounds like Garden/Dodge just closed a plant and may be closing another. That hurts the population that's there already and potentially anyone that will be moving in that area.
I'm pretty sure that the SKC wouldn't go out there and require them to "pay to play" ... Sporting Academy isn't pay to play ... and I'm not sure about the affiliates. I don't think the USL club will be there ... and the PDL isn't exactly a HUGE investment if it's added to an academy. It's basically during the college offseason and the academy players can fill out the roster as well. I don't know about the plants closing and that sort of thing, so I won't comment on that, but I am pretty confident that the academy "which will likely be a residency at some point" won't be pay to play ... as well as the PDL team won't be pay to play. Like I said, we already have affiliates in some high population markets ... nothing wrong with trying to scout/recruit/develop a different type of player.
SKC's affiliates "pay to play." It's how club soccer is done in America [unfortunately]. A quick search, although hard to find fees at times, has SKC affiliates paying somewhere between $1200-1700 per year, that's not including tournament fees and uniform fees -- this is for their high school teams. PDL is a huge investment, depending on what they allow. Expansion fees are large, I would assume that MLS teams do get a discount though. With MLS contracts as low as they are, spending $100,000 per year for a PDL team is a pretty spendy endeavor. I have no issues with spreading the reach. Not at all. But, I also know affiliate programs are a nice paycheck for MLS clubs who have them (I know one MLS team had a popular affiliate that paid the club $30,000 per year to be an affiliate). The affiliates are supposed to get some "perks" from their parent club, but often are left without the true perks they signed on for. Also, around 23 of the 80ish DAs, as of 2013-14, were fully-funded. That's the Academy teams, that isn't the affiliates and the pre-Academy teams. The last DA discussion I was at stated there were 4,000 youth players in the DA system. If the 23:80 ratio for fully-funded is true, then maybe we can say that 1200:4000 players get fully-funded Academy benefits. That's not many players in this country at all, I doubt they'd be doing that in an area that is more-or-less an experiment.
That's all very fair ... and a lot of those Academies are pay to play at many levels within the Academy but they have a certain number of players on them that they "waive" the fee as well. Essentially having the kids that can afford it ... pay for some of the ones that can't by artificially bumping up those fee's ... either way, I don't mind them setting something like this up ... and paying for whatever they need ... it helps develop soccer everywhere ... I'll let them say where it's right to spend the money and where it isn't. As a fan, I appreciate the fact that we're putting our footprint down out in that area.
USL @USL 4m4 minutes agoFlorida, USA The snow has slowed, @SwitchbacksFC remain up 3-1 on @RealMonarchs with 15 minutes to go. Join us: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmLK7JvrJIY… #USL #COSvSLC
Unfortunately, I don't have much information to add to the observation that the Rapids are affiliated with a Charlotte-based youth association. I do know I initially was quite startled initially to see a bunch of kids sporting Rapids' gear at the recent Liverpool-Milan friendly last summer. In any case, the Carolina Rapids obviously adopted the Rapids' branding, but Crookham, the Rapids' Youth Development Director, has also been active, at least in an advisory capacity, with the Carolina club. Still, formally I believe they remain independent of the Rapids. Moreover, since Charlotte's inception this year, Carolina has also affiliated with them and a Carolina Rapids' academy player participated in some of the Independence's preseason and played in a friendly. It seems very likely that Hinchey's Charlotte connections, from his time with the Bobcats, factored into both affiliations. That said, and while I'm not sure anyone has a firm idea about the prospective direct benefits to the Rapids from the Carolina affiliation (like homegrown signings), North Carolina as a state produces more players than Colorado, there are no other MLS teams with stakes in the area, and there are a number division I NCAA teams nearby (Davidson, UNC Charlotte, UNC, Duke, Wake Forest). On those counts, it's difficult to criticize that and how the Rapids have developed the relationships. My sense, though, is that Carolina is not the top academy association even in Charlotte (though a native would probably provide a better view) and I'm not aware of any current YNT players at the club.
Yes, it would seem that the Rapids would want their D2 team closer, but then again, Colorado brewers Oskar Blues and New Belgium both have facilities in North Carolina. It must be in the water!
The D2 location is pretty overrated...not sure it really is an attraction for most teams. Columbus - Austin - 18 hours New England - Rochester - 6 hours Houston - Charleston - 16 hours Chicago - St. Louis - 5 hours NYCFC - Wilmington - 9 hours Dallas - Arizona - 15 hours SKC - Oklahoma City - 5 hours Orlando - Louisville - 12 hours Colorado - Charlotte - 22 hours Outside of these, not many are in good proximity (DC/Richmond, San Jose/Sacramento, Philadelphia/Harrisburg are 2 hours apart). Montreal, NYRB, Toronto, LA, Portland, Seattle, Salt Lake, and Vancouver all host within the same city/area (11 within 2 hours and 9 that are within 5+ hours). Tulsa, OC, Colorado Springs, and Pittsburgh are without an affiliate. So, in reality, being "away" from the region is almost more common than being nearby. Now, it wouldn't be hard to say...X-MLS team should just pair with Y-MLS team because it's closest. Currently, Charleston (16 hours), Richmond (2 hours), and Louisville (12 hours) are top 3 in the Eastern Conference while Sacramento (2 hours), Arizona (15 hours) and Seattle (local) are top 3 in Western Conference. Nothing really says that there's "true" success with being more local. Meanwhile, of the bottom 6 (3 from each Conference), 5 of the 6 are considered "local" to their affiliate club.