Saturday 15 Dec 2018

When teams first started the the MLS-USL partnership, I thought it was a pretty good idea. I still think it’s a lot better to partner with a club outside the general area of the patent club. In my opinion , it’s a much lot better option than say an MLS 2 club playing in the USL.

 

That would depend on your academy.

With teams who have good academies I think it's better to have the USL team.

Sounders have something like 8 teenagers signed to their USL team from the academy and I think it's the right move.

Sounders use it as a way to essentially give young foreign players an extra long trial. Nouhou Tolo was brought in this way and is one of the best LBs in the league defensively. There a few others that might make the leap.

It's a place to give your draft picks minutes.

All of this while actually controlling their development and teaching them how your team plays.

 

Signing younger players to the USL team is always a good thing if they end up developing and staying. I still however, question if in the end the academy really works. Have we really seen fruits of the academies yet? When I see 18 year old Alphonso Davies and 19 year old Tyler Adams going to Europe, I don't see how positive this is for the MLS teams. I mean selling Davies for a total of $22 million USD is great for the player and maybe it helps the club a little but I don't see how this academy helps teams or the league if we are developing players for another league to utilize. Neither player is even 20 years old yet and we hardly knew or seen either one play for an extensive period of time. Isn't the idea of the academy to develop our own set of homegrown star players?

 

The Union use their USL team to sign young international players who they think they can develop. It's how Corey Burke found his way into the first team. At seasons and they had five players from Africa between the ages of 18-20 who they signed this past year. Not to mention a lot of Academy kids that are getting valuable minutes at a much higher level. Lastly they can sign them to USL contracts and not lose them on the free while still controlling their rights. It's definitely more beneficial to have as you can only get four players onto an affiliated team I believe and the coach will use them how he pleases instead of with a plan for the first team.

 

So... You think MLS academies need to not do too good at developing players?

That's... Interesting...

Academies need to do their best at developing players. They will end up developing players that range from never going pro to players that get picked up in top leagues in Europe at a young age.

It's all about raising the base level of US domestic talent across the board.

Otherwise why have academies?

 

The initial point I thought was to develop players to play for MLS teams to utilize. Shouldn’t that be the point or goal of every academy or rather to develop players for the parent club?

Garber just said owners are spending $100 million a year on academies without seeing a return so sooner or later they will stop writing checks. Unless they have money to burn or get tax write offs then that’s another story. Still spending all that money without anything to show for it, can’t last forever.

 

I would say that large Davies-like transfer fees are exactly the kind of return that the owners are looking for, even more so than having players play for the MLS senior team. Ultimately, it's all about money.

 

Sure but $100 million spent each year and getting $22 million in return for Davies, that’s a lot of money out the door. That Davies transfer fee also doesn’t come in on a yearly. It also still defeats the initial purpose because Davies isn’t in MLS. It may be great for the player but not for the club or the league.

 

Depends on what a team wants to get out of having a minor league team. Different models work better for different organizations. Colocation works great for ready accessibility and having Academy player fill in with the USL club, USL players fill in with the MLS club, or MLS players rehab or fine tune fitness with the USL club. It definitely helps with a club like Sporting that promotes a consistent style of play from the Academy side through Rangers to Sporting. The different teams regularly train together and players understand their role and progression through the club. If Rangers were in say Omaha or Wichita, that synergy wouldn't be there.

 

You're going to have to show your work if you contend Davies isn't good for Vancouver or MLS. His progression is great for both. It legitimizes the growing talent identification and development capabilities of Vancouver specifically and MLS in general. It helps to raise the profile of both and if he does well with his new club, it will only increase future fees paid and competition for MLS products.

 

No my point is he would be great player for both Vancouver and MLS , especially since he is only 18 . I was actually looking forward to seeing more of him and now as a fan of the league, I don't get to see him at all. Unless I subscribe to Bundesliga games which aren't easy to get, I will probably will see him play once or twice a year at most. That is only if he turns into a starter and is playing regularly.

If the club gets future fees for him , that is great news but that is probably contingent on his performance. There is a good chance most people on this board won't see much of him. I'm betting next year this time, I won't have seen one of his games he played in. Knowing the way top European teams operate, he will probably be loaned out to a lower level team or playing for their youth or reserve team. Again, as a fan of MLS, that does nothing for me and I still don't see how that promotes Vancouver or MLS.

 

11 of the 24 players on RSL's roster are academy signings.

This past year, Salt Lake opened a $70 million-plus academy facility co-located in Salt Lake, moving it north from Arizona, so those players can more easily spend time in/with/around the first team.

What's the level you would want the team to be at before you'd say it "really works"?

One thing that doesn't work: we're about to have our fifth academy player this year alone sign on a free for a team in Europe.

 

That is great for them. The Earthquakes (my team) has had one academy player signed in the 9 years since it was started. That player is Tommy Thompson who has been on the books for 5 seasons and who still isn't a starter. He actually only played in 19 youth team games and was given a token opportunity only because his dad Gregg Thompson was an old NASL player living in the area and knew GM John Doyle.

What level? To be starters for one. If they can develop players to start for the first team and possibly sell them for a profit on bi- yearly basis then that's also a great thing.

If its all about money as an earlier poster suggested and doing the math, you sell one player for $20 million while you are spending 100. If that is the case, I don't see how this helps the club or the owners investment in the academy in the long run. If you are spending money to develop players who actually pan out for the first team though, then I would tend to think its a positive. That is if that really happens though because if it doesn't , I still don't see how or why the owners would want to continue with their initial investment.

Again, unless Garber was lying , the owners are writing it off as a tax loss, or if they don't care about spending it, by MLS standards, $100 million dollars a year on an academy team without nothing to show for it is a lot of money.

 

I'm assuming you mis-typed. It's not $100 million a year on one academy team. That figure is a ballpark estimate of all costs associated with ALL of the MLS academy teams. The average an MLS club spends on its academy teams is 2 and 5 million dollars.

 

I could have sworn he said $100 million for each team. If its across the entire league, and they are only spending 2 and 5 million dollars.,that's not bad at all.

If that is the case though, even though I would have loved to see him in MLS, Vancouver getting $22 million for Davies, is actually awesome news.

 

Nine MLS clubs told Grant Wahl how much they spend on their academies
Interesting point of comparison from that article:
"The total outlay on youth academy spending between the 36 DFL-controlled clubs in the Bundesliga and 2. Bundesliga was about $160 million in 2016. Split between 36 clubs, that’s an average of about $5.5 million per club."

 

RSL typically had five academy players starting this past season. So, success?

 

That's great for them. If the rest of the league can do this, it would be even greater.

 

Looking at the figures again and if they are correct, if it’s really only 2 and 5 million dollars to run the academies across the entire league, that is peanuts and I’m sure adidas , Nike and probably many other sponsors are fitting the bill.

If that is the case, the owners aren’t really losing much. Well other than running and paying for the facilities which most of them already own.

 

Uggg, this whole discussion was because someone actually thought each academy was spending 100 million a year...

Whelp, glad we got that straightened out.

@falvo I agree, 100 million a year on one academy is a complete waste of resources.

 

It's the offseason so lots of such distractions are welcome.

 

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Atlanta makes $2-$5 million dollars, selling $5.00 dollar beers in 10 games...
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As far as the academies working or not , I still would like to see the total numbers across the across the league to see if it has worked or not. As far as the Earthquakes is concerned, the academy hasn't worked at all. By now, their U12's , 13's and 14's from 2010 should be a prime professional age and instead although they signed were a few players on a whim and no one has really panned out yet. It remains to be see if they end up making it.

You have the De Anza Force, Mustangs , Juventus , my cousins Balistics, the Santa Cruz Breakers who discovered and developed Lynden Gooch and Sebastian Lletget's Sporting Santa Clara Sporting. They all hate the Earthquakes and refuse to work with them. Its one of the greatest areas for youth soccer and the Quakes still haven't gotten anyone who is worthy.

 

To be fair, if 'success' is ROI, you need fees to get that. First team players are nice but they'll never pay that bill.