Boyd has never really been a dedicated FCD player. He lives in OKC and I think he's played just a handful of matches with the U16's. Doesn't surprise me that he would think "If I'm going to drive all the way to Dallas 3 times a week, I might as well join a residency program." Ambrose I'm not sure about.
And what sort of money will those "reserve" players make? At least, in Europe, they can easily pull six figures. Here? They'll probably be angling for a college scholarship in no time.
We are not in Europe and most of 'our' professional reserve players will not make 6 figures. Soccer economics in the US are more like the lower leagues in Europe. It is obvious the soccer landscape is different in the US than the top leagues in Europe. Now that amateurs and professionals can play together I can envision a 'reserve' team made up of young professionals that signed offered contracts and amateurs still trying to prove themselves worthy of a professional offer. Most will ultimately go to college since only the truly best will be offered a professional opportunity. That's the nature of professional soccer. Not everyone is good enough, only a few each year per team. I also do see truly elite young professionals offered close to 6 figures if the pro team thinks they are deserved. Eddie Gaven and E.Johnson were offered close to $80K almost 10 yrs ago so I do envision a scenario where some do get offers over 100K. B. Leyva makes 75K. You are stating the obvious as if it is something to be ashamed of.
Which is why, as Vanney said or implied, the majority will still go the college route. A $30K scholarship to a top school still beats $12K playing for the reserves. PS. My take is that the reserves should be merged with the USL and play a bunch of matches there.
I like your idea. The number of sustainable Division 2 teams is shrinking every year. Keep the strongest D-2 teams and fill out the rest of the league with reserve MLS teams.
Fwiw, the current CBA already negotiated what a developmental or equaivalent roster spot would be, and it's $31k. A scholarship will still probably beat that, but you can eat on it.
But there'll probably some addendum for the reserve/academy players to pay them below $31K. Some will make the roster and will be paid under the CBA. Others will be given some other designation. When you think about it, the "serious" 16-19 YO reserve/academy prospects could amount to 15-25 per club. There's no way they'd be on the league minimum. It's just too many kids to pay.
10 Professional Youth Academy getting 40K a year is 400K a yr on salary plus you can use amateur academy prospects, trialists, interns if you will can easily fill out any roster spots. Heck Landin's 1.2 Million per season for 2 yrs could pay for 60 youth players for 6 teams. It's all about budgeting and emphasizing talent development. Do we sign average European players or invest in youth development. It's really little bit of both. Adidas just reupped their contract emphasizing youth development worth $20 Million a Yr.
The majority has to go to college because professional soccer should only offer the very best. No one has ever addressed the 9.9 soccer scholarship rule. I still do not believe that every D1 college soccer player is on a full ride and most are not $30K aYear and the reserve players do not make $12K. I want the reserves connected as closely to the MLS and our nation's top professional play as possible. Other than that I completetly agree with your post.
Well, even if you're not on a full scholarship, there are (legitimate) ways to cover the gap by student loans, grants, summer jobs and so on. Plus, there's a post-graduate career for kids with the scholastic aptitude, where a decent college degree matters quite a bit.
The best thing that MLS could do to promote development would be to make all first time rookie contracts from academies exempt from the cap and allow them to be exempt from the senior roster sort of like the U21 rule in EPL (not sure if that's a good analogy). That way teams can have as many rookies as they want and call them up whenever they want.
That's what Buzz Carrick also seems to agree with: Frisco ISD Approves Rule Change to Accommodate the FCD Academy 3rdDegree Blog/ESPNDallas.com
It's starting to take shape. http://www.fcdallas.com/news/2011/01/soccer-intensive-academic-curriculum-begins-spring-semester
And included is a good example of why. If you live in Ft Worth, as one player does, a full school day + 3.5 hrs practice time is essentially impossible if you're tacking on over an hour of commute each way. It's a 12-hour day as it is. You pretty much have to minimize nearly every other complication to make that work.