This would exclude a TON of very good players! Wow Registration Cost 14U-19U - 10 payments of $315 per player ($3,150) This cost includes coaching fees, indoor and outdoor practice and game fields, all event registration costs, goalkeeper training, club support, and game film. Teams will practice up to 4 times per week and will play 30-40 games during the 2019-2020 season, including 3 showcase events. Then add... Travel Cost 14U-19U - 10 payments of $650 per player ($6,500) This cost includes air or bus travel for all away games and events, lodging for all overnight trips, and meals while traveling. Teams will travel to 12-15 events during the 2019-2020 season. Maybe this is the biggest rip off of the DA or is this normal for clubs who are not MLS affilliated? Wow - again!
Last year I charted (tried to chart) all the costs relating to DS & DD's soccer adventures. This included club fees, team assessments, family hotel rooms, family travel, food & drink on the road, and a new pair of cleats (the old ones wore out). This did NOT include uniforms as we were in the 2nd year of a uniform contract and didn't need to supply new ones. DS was on three teams... club, HS, and state ODP. His total was right around $6000. There was an additional $4K to send him to Germany w/the ODP team. He probably did 30-40 games through all three teams. He probably averaged just over 2 practices/week.
Regarding the cost...it is normal in the DA for non-MLS affiliates. You are correct regarding the club fees, however I looked back at travel and think it is closer to $4,500 for the year (9 away games and 3 showcase / playoff events). So $7,500 for the year. Played 29 games + 2 friendlies, and would have intra-squad scrimmages on weekends without games (in addition to the 4 trainings during the week). Eclipse ECNL is more expensive (parents have to travel with their player adding hotel, air and food), and typically have 2 trainings / week while Sockers has 4. So there is a huge value difference between Sockers DA vs Eclipse ECNL. Sockers is less expensive and train 2x more than Eclipse. But yes, expensive. However there are scholarships available through the DA and Sockers has the Sockers Youth Foundation. http://www.ussoccerda.com/scholarship-program
Crewman-I am guessing that is without regional league travel and 2 or 3 showcases based on age? If “all said and done” includes travel that is actually great
Those numbers don't even touch it. Our last year of ECNL over 6 years ago, we spent over $45,000. That factored in her travel, our travel, hotels, meals out, etc. If you truly want the cost, you have to add in all the times during the week you aren't home to make dinner and you end up with a whole lot more than you expected. This was also having a good group of parents who rotated the travel, so we did not make every trip.
Can someone elaborate on what the benefit of all this money spent is? I can think of much more economical ways to play quality competition... Is it about potential exposure to a school like Stanford, going to a West Coast tourney/showcase, and getting into a school that has the golden ticket diploma? IS this ONLY way to garner consideration of Natl team? Club prestige with parents crazy enough to shell of this kind of dough? I'm thinking of how our countries main sports are a pathway for kids from disadvantaged backgrounds and then I look at soccer ... I gotta say when US recently played Mexico and things got chippy, I was routing for Mexico. there's nothing more annoying than the rich kid bully
There was an article about a year ago saying how millenials aren't joining country clubs. My theory is that youth sports have replaced the country club, the lake house, the ski cabin. You see the same people every weekend, not just anybody can join, you get to get away from the house for a weekend, etc. At this point, wouldn't the 3star hotel industry collapse? The ripple effects on the waffle iron makers? Is it really elite soccer without a team picture from Olive Garden? Think of the starwoodgardensuitesexpress workers you know and love...
As I understand it, it's same as any large club... better coaching, better competition, and more exposure (whether to YNT or college coaches). Spending $45K/year makes no sense to me. The benefits just aren't there. DS tried out for an MLS DA team. The cost would have been $0. But the travel... 4+ practices a week, two hours away from home. When DS heard that PLUS he couldn't play school ball (which he enjoys), he "phoned in" his tryouts. Even at $0 cost, that's a lot of travel time. We weren't sure that was worth it to us. So it was fortunate he didn't get selected.
For all the money Americans spend the best player (arguably) to ever come out of the US is Pulisic who still pales in comparison to any euro and can barely sniff the starting XI at Chelsea. Granted he made it to the EpL but the US has never, ever produced a world class talent who can dominate overseas not just play but be top quality.
This is so true. We used to belong to a country club - 400 acres of rolling hills and mature forests along the Fox River in Illinois. There was downhill skiing, night club, full size swimming pool, beach house where we had fish and lobster boils. Every 4th there would be sheet cakes with strawberries and blueberries in the design of the American flags. Tennis courts were constantly being used and as kids we would swim team in the morning and then just run around all day long - every day of the week. That all ended and in a recent descussion on our facebook page, it was brought up that many kids starting playing sports that were not offered by our club - soccer, football and baseball specifically. Many of the kids went into travel sports and as they did - attendance dropped at the club. Eventually you had parents asking why they are paying for a membership when they are never there. Really sad - but I agree, as a society we've shifted to deep into travel sports that we've lost a good deal of "family time". I guess that's a reason why when I go with my kid to MRL games out of state, we make a point of trying new local food, visiting museums and site seeing as much as we can. Once we just took a drive in a remote part of Tennesee.
There are often or more MRL teams that are ranked higher then DA and in some cases ECNL teams on the girls side.
Yeah I know. And GotSoccer rankings are the worst. YSR are not that far behind but they are better then GS.
If you think about it, "rankings" for youth soccer really mean nothing. I'll admit, as a parent, yes I look at the rankings. Between GotSoccer and YSR, I'll go YSR all the time.
Clint Dempsey and Brian McBride had good careers is the EPL along with Keller, Friedel and Howard. Pulisic will get his chance and prove his worth. It will probably take until next year when Roman sacks lampard.
There is no benefit. I am fortunate enough that we were going to be able to pay for college anyway, so we did it because she wanted to do it. The hope was clearly making it to higher levels, USWNT type stuff, but it became apparent very quickly that even though there were 15-18 girls on the team that could have been in that discussion depending on what they ate for breakfast that day, they were only going to refer the two that they preferred. Once she realized that, we were gone to clubs where she could enjoy herself.
I wonder how much these great players from the older generations had to pay to play soccer growing up in the US. I doubt it was the 5k a year. I know my family would have never payed those amounts because we wouldn't be able to afford it. It just seems kind of silly and ridiculous. I even played ODP and those costs weren't as high as it is today. I have no clue what are the costs for ODP today but I would imagine it is high as well but I could be wrong about that. Brief story about Tim Howard: I am the same age as him and my team played against his team when we were about 12 years old in the state cup. At that time there was a huge buzz about Tim and he turned out to be the real deal. We ended up losing that game and we did not score against him.
And when your kid is around 15/16 and still has desire to play at a high level - then you may need to factor in things like a few private lessons, physio, gym membership, regular remedial massage, personal trainer, sprint coach, $200 cleats, custom inserts and video equipment to film them for video to send coaches.
I need to find a sprint coach for DS. He runs funny. Still one of the fastest on the team, but runs funny. If he ran "correctly" I wonder how fast he'd be. Oh, and don't forget editing software.
Same here! So funny to read this! I'm thinking a little outside the box and looking into Don Beebe speed camps..
Be careful with running coaches. They tend to teach techniques of linear sprinting which can be different than sport-specific running styles. Heres a clip of an analysis of Cristiano Ronaldo's running and a traditional sprinter: