re: What would you like to see from soccer in the US going forward?

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so now southern california is the south now

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Uhhhhhh, yea, I didn't say the Confederacy



ETA: Look I don't really give a shite, I have no reason to care where athletes come from, I just wanted to show you that you were wrong

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If you look at where the elite American athletes come from, the majority are in the south, yet a lot of these southern schools don't have soccer programs.

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Stop being biased. Maybe in the college football ranks but in other sports no.

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Historically the best area for american soccer players has been the DC area, California and Texas. Who also produce great football talent.

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You realize this is part of the problem? The solution some are arguing for is to grow the pool of talent in the area that produces the highest level athlete our nation produces.

ETA: Also, "the deep south" is one of the last areas where the game isn't growing.

I've heard others state the NFL is a league based on athleticism. Isn't one of US soccer's goal to tap into some of that talent early and develop it into technically sound soccer players? Sure, not every athlete can be trained into a soccer star, but if the pool grows the law of averages will take over.

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Oenophile Brah

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look at my other post

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My theory is that if you give high schooler's the opportunity to play at the college level, it could increase the overall talent level of who is playing soccer. And from the increased talent pool, you could pull the best players out of college soccer for academies or whatever.

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This is along the lines of my thinking. What I am saying is a lot of kids give up soccer early to focus on other sports that have more opportunities for them like college. Obviously not all of these kids would end up being superstar soccer players, but as a previous poster said it would increase the pool therefore the likelihood of finding a superstar. If they keep playing and are good enough by all means put them in an academy, but without the aspiration of college a lot of them will give it up too early to ever know

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Your assumption is that the rules can't be tweaked. NCAA Football is about to turn amateur rules on it's head. Soccers increasing popularity could help influence the NCAA to allow flexibility for teams/players.

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based on what

no more video games

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based on what

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I'll bet you a chicken sandwich the NCAA begins to allow football players receive a stipend or other considerations within 2 years.

NCAA Soccer wouldn't even require financial assistance. It only needs a Title IX exemption (only ) to allow all schools to participate.

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Football players already receive stipends

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Increased*

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But outside of the national team, what would you like to see happen in US soccer?

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It needs to be aggressive with expansion in the post-WC environment. I'm not sure they were prepped for this kind of response, but they have it, now they need to run with it as fast as possible.

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More viewers for MLS?

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I'd like to see high school soccer draw say maybe 1/4 or 1/5 the fans as high school football. Here we've gotten about on a par with the baseball crowds and are above things like swimming, power lifting, tennis, etc. I'm not sure about basketball crowds because it's been awhile since I went to a game but I think soccer might be a little short of their crowds.

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This is really a marketing and promotion area. The USSF and the MLS should probably team up and cooperate to build something bigger. Sponsored statewide tournaments. Mini-US Cups. They already do this, but they need to expand.

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I'd like to see a venue for the "in between" ages - the age where most rec programs stop or the numbers dwindle dramatically and the high school and clubs of high school players kick in. Maybe Jr. High or maybe an extension of he rec teams?

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I think the MLS should start acquiring the best/biggest independent clubs across the country. Most likely, they already have a revenue stream and business model working. Acquire. Simplify. Train. Expand. Roll that into their MLS cities and other larger urban areas, and you can mold that infrastructure to build your network. The risk is getting people involved who may not be the best managers, but I would run with that depending on the history of the club.

MLS Academies should eventually cover all age ranges with a team or two, depending on the size of the city.

The problem in this country is that we have far more ground to cover for traveling kids clubs. The longest drive border to border in England is 9 hours. Germany is quite a bit more, though not as much as it would be even just top to bottom here. We'll have less kids playing over a wider area, and I think equal competition is crucial to our development. Having an MLS Academy run to the state tournament and stomp all of the rec teams does no good. I'm not sure how we fix that, though.

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I'd like to see more news coverage. We've made strides for that here with the local paper providing articles and photos weekly. And you see some television coverage throughout the state around playoff time. But there still is a long way to go to make an impression on kids and parents deciding what sport or sports to concentrate on.

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This comes with marketing and promotion. The question is: How do you go about building the fanaticism for local soccer that exists for local football? I'm not sure you have to be innovative (I've been trying to think of something out of the box the MLS/USSF could do but nothing seems apparent).

I think with the right plan, Academies could do that. You have to build area pride and a place for them to display it. But the concentration of players is never high enough to raise the stakes. That's really the question though.

How do you get everyone in Kansas City buying into Sporting KC brand? How do you get them to feel pride about the success of SKC and the entire system?

Answer those questions and build from there.

it is a shame that the jesters are the biggest club in a city of 400k and a metro of 1.1 million...

That's not the point though. Kids play sports as kids and dream about going to college to play. If soccer had that established setting everywhere (not just some places), more kids and parents would have their freak athletes playing soccer and maybe thinking about college. All of a sudden they are 16 and they are absolute studs and they end up not going to college while the other guys that aren't studs fulfill their dream and play in college.