The Face of American Soccer Player Development is About to Change...

I just finished listening to MLS' annual State of the League address. Don Garber gives this speach every year before the All*Star game. I wasn't going to listen this time around, but I decided I should. I was finishing up lunch, why not? I am glad I did listen.

First on the docket was the announcement of the new ABC/ESPN broadcast deal. The network will pay the league millions of dollars a year for the right to broadcast games. Blah blah blah, make money money, blah. It is worthwhile to note this is the first time the league has received a rights fee for their games. Check that, Fox Soccer Channel announced their deal last week, they're paying a fee, so FSC beat ESPN to the punch by a week or so. This is good for the league as they can get out of the television business and allow others to invest their money in the production of the television product. Hopefully the quality of the presentation will grow, helping Americans grow their interest in the game. Additionally, MLS will free up some much needed cash for things like player development.

Garber went on to talk about expansion, 16 teams by 2010. Toronto in 2007 to make 13. Then one more in 2008, then two more in 2010. This is positive because the footprint of the league is growing. From a player perspective, once expanded you will have 448 players (assuming roster size doesn't change) as opposed to 336. Those additional 112 players will be putting pressure on each other to improve. There may be a dilution of talent as many fear, but that will be temporary as better players join the league. Additionally, if this next bit of info is true, within 5 years there'll be quality players coming out of the woodwork playing in MLS.

So here is the big news from the press conference. MLS is "weeks away" from finalizing a vertical player development system. What does vertical development mean in soccer? Youth academys. For the first time, MLS clubs will be allowed to sign players to professional contracts without the player being subject to the MLS SuperDraft and strange back room draft processes. (see my post about Johnny X). This is a huge development. I've been calling for this kind of change for a few years now and I know many people share my ideas on it.

As I've been highlighting here, the current American youth soccer development system is a close knit group revolving around a group of coaches who control the Olympic Development Program (ODP) system. If you can't play ODP, you're not going to be noticed by adidas ESP, you're not going to be noticed by the youth national coaches, you're not going to be noticed by the best colleges and you're not going to be noticed by MLS. There are way too many kids who have the passion, drive and talent who can't afford to commute 3 hours round trip to ODP training sessions. Players who can't afford to be on the best regional club team that gets them a look on the local ODP team. We obviously don't have all of the details, but this opens the door to soccer as we know it in the rest of the world.

Here is my ideal scenario:
1) Each MLS club sets up a youth academy. The goal of the academy will be to develop soccer talent to win games on the senior side. The league will not limit the size of the academys.
2) To cast the biggest net, the club will have a couple teams in each age group, starting with U-11 or something. The teams will compete against other club teams in the region.
3) The clubs will be able to field teams at various USL levels, playing against each other and other top talent.
4) Clubs will see this as a competitive advantage. They will do their best to develop more players then the other MLS clubs.
5) Within seven years or so, each MLS side has three - five kids who they developed.

One big question...is this the death nail for college soccer? There is already a trickle of kids who leave the States to play soccer abroad. They skip college and it hasn't been a problem yet. Depending on the size of the league and the size of each club's academys, you could have a large majority of top soccer prospects skipping college or going to class while earning a professional pay check. Instead of college coaches recuiting the best club talent, MLS will be trying to buy them. The top college programs will no longer be able to compete on the soccer side of things. While I'm sure many kids will still go to college because they know professional soccer isn't in their cards, many will hope to make it big and will skip college. This will be interesting to watch.

So, to sum things up, MLS had a big State of the League address today. The league is going in the right direction and things apear to falling into the world mold even more. Thank goodness!