Florida Cup/Showcase Dec 9 — what are people thinking?

You are in a rare situation. Most travel follows the models described above where the cost given to parents is a lump sum that doesn’t seem to add up.
 
There are no registration fees paid by the club for any DA showcases.
At my dd’s club, we pay only the actual cost of flight, hotel, van/bus rental, gas and food. Nothing is marked up and our club itemizes and publishes all costs for each trip.
Thanks fan2 --

This is the case for my kids as well, and all other DA/ECNL clubs I have knowledge of ... Guessing poor Jones's is anomalous.

And again, the club/team itself isn't taking in revenue for these (general travel costs) services. While they are certainly significant, we view these costs as an investment towards our kid's life goals.
 
There are no registration fees paid by the club for any DA showcases.
At my dd’s club, we pay only the actual cost of flight, hotel, van/bus rental, gas and food. Nothing is marked up and our club itemizes and publishes all costs for each trip.
Same.....we do pay a lump sum, but the budget is accessible should you want to see it.
 
There are no registration fees paid by the club for any DA showcases.
At my dd’s club, we pay only the actual cost of flight, hotel, van/bus rental, gas and food. Nothing is marked up and our club itemizes and publishes all costs for each trip.

Our club is the same. We get a breakdown of all expenses when the team travels so we know what we are paying for.
 
Hmmm ... The DA Championships last year and the DA Cup results to this point might suggest otherwise, but we can agree to disagree there. No doubt that there isn't an abundance of talent, mostly due to sheer numbers in SoCal, and a local league there (horse was beaten dead a decade ago) would clearly be as talent rich as most any in the nation.

Really just having a tough time getting passed your, "Traveling out of state for league games is just a way for clubs to siphon money from parents" ... Tough to figure how are the clubs themselves are making more money from parents that are traveling like the DA than they are from those parents with kids on team not traveling with the same frequency? They all pay the same club dues don't they? And if there is a discrepancy it's much more typical for the lower level folks to pay more than the DA folks isn't it?
GDA has 13 clubs in SoCal. ECNL has 7 clubs. That means there are 20 teams per age group in SoCal. I said a league that consisted of 8-10 teams, so this would tend to concentrate higher end players and make this league as competitive or more competitive than any league in the country/world. I also said teams NOT clubs. If each team had to earn their spot, good coaches would be rewarded and clubs would not have a monopoly on the best players. Clubs would then be encouraged to invest in good coaching. Yes, there would still be recruiting versus development issues, but I cannot think of any way around that for elite teams.

I guess you are right about the club/money issue, except for the fact that the coaches most certainly enjoy having their travel and meals paid for by the parents.

SoCal has the population, climate and facilities to produce world class soccer teams. We don't really need to travel for that, especially for league games. Under my proposed system, the SoCal championship team could compete with any team in the country.
 
GDA has 13 clubs in SoCal. ECNL has 7 clubs. That means there are 20 teams per age group in SoCal. I said a league that consisted of 8-10 teams, so this would tend to concentrate higher end players and make this league as competitive or more competitive than any league in the country/world. I also said teams NOT clubs. If each team had to earn their spot, good coaches would be rewarded and clubs would not have a monopoly on the best players. Clubs would then be encouraged to invest in good coaching. Yes, there would still be recruiting versus development issues, but I cannot think of any way around that for elite teams.

I guess you are right about the club/money issue, except for the fact that the coaches most certainly enjoy having their travel and meals paid for by the parents.

SoCal has the population, climate and facilities to produce world class soccer teams. We don't really need to travel for that, especially for league games. Under my proposed system, the SoCal championship team could compete with any team in the country.

Agree with most of your talking points.....couple of small disagrees....GDA has 11 clubs in SoCal (14 in SW), ECNL has 9 (12 in SW)....still works out to 20 :)......coaches meals and travel, never had an issue with this....its only the DOCs and coaches with 3 or more teams that make big money to not have most of gone after travel, fuel,food....my buddy's kid coaches at a large club in SD and I don't think there's much being made by most of the rest....never minded SO LONG AS the coach was hard working like CB.....im ok with the money side of things so long as fees don't get into the 3s 4s and even 5s!!!!!
 
Thanks fan2 --

This is the case for my kids as well, and all other DA/ECNL clubs I have knowledge of ... Guessing poor Jones's is anomalous.

And again, the club/team itself isn't taking in revenue for these (general travel costs) services. While they are certainly significant, we view these costs as an investment towards our kid's life goals.

While all of us would LOVE for our kids to get scholarships, it's not always a for sure thing. You say you see it as an investment towards your kids life goals, for our family, it really put a dent in our pockets and hindered what we could do as a family. So a lot of times our vacation WAS The damn showcase.

Experts say that you should not look at your child's experience as an investment but another step in the growing process. Why? cause our kids may never get recruited or that coveted scholarship that is so nice to talk about at house parties. You don't need to make snide/condesending comments about what I wrote. That was our experience-i have no reason to bullshit.

Look up non profits and how much they make annually and how much assets they have. It 's shocking how much clubs are making.

Surf: 2.4 million, 438k assets
Arsenal: 2.7 million, 260k assets
Socal Blues: 1.8 million, 400k assets

Mustang: 3million, 4 million in assets
Rage: 1.8 million, 1.7 assets
De Anza Force: 2.9 Million, 1.5 assets

this is what each club makes a year and a lot of these clubs have multiple 501C3's so that it doesn't look as much. My whole take on this was that GDA/ECNL programs are expensive and those who don't think so should have a reality check. I'm glad you and many of your programs are transparent with regards to an itemized budget. Ours wasn't as transparent and parents (minus us and a few other) didn't mind writing a blank check. There were some of us "poor" families that asked, but kind of got the run around. OUR BAD
 
While all of us would LOVE for our kids to get scholarships, it's not always a for sure thing. You say you see it as an investment towards your kids life goals, for our family, it really put a dent in our pockets and hindered what we could do as a family. So a lot of times our vacation WAS The damn showcase.

Experts say that you should not look at your child's experience as an investment but another step in the growing process. Why? cause our kids may never get recruited or that coveted scholarship that is so nice to talk about at house parties. You don't need to make snide/condesending comments about what I wrote. That was our experience-i have no reason to bullshit.

Look up non profits and how much they make annually and how much assets they have. It 's shocking how much clubs are making.

Surf: 2.4 million, 438k assets
Arsenal: 2.7 million, 260k assets
Socal Blues: 1.8 million, 400k assets

Mustang: 3million, 4 million in assets
Rage: 1.8 million, 1.7 assets
De Anza Force: 2.9 Million, 1.5 assets

this is what each club makes a year and a lot of these clubs have multiple 501C3's so that it doesn't look as much. My whole take on this was that GDA/ECNL programs are expensive and those who don't think so should have a reality check. I'm glad you and many of your programs are transparent with regards to an itemized budget. Ours wasn't as transparent and parents (minus us and a few other) didn't mind writing a blank check. There were some of us "poor" families that asked, but kind of got the run around. OUR BAD
What is their expense ratio? Field costs, Coach Pay Roll, etc?

ive served on a Club Finance committee and you would be surprised how quickly the expenses escalate. Field costs are ridiculous these days.
 
What is their expense ratio? Field costs, Coach Pay Roll, etc?

ive served on a Club Finance committee and you would be surprised how quickly the expenses escalate. Field costs are ridiculous these days.

we were told that the registration fees (again this was first year of GDA os don't get your undies in a bunch) for showcases covered field, officials, and admin fees. it was about 800-900 per team. Im sure every ECNL/GDA team/club runs things differently and some are more transparent than others.
 
we were told that the registration fees (again this was first year of GDA os don't get your undies in a bunch) for showcases covered field, officials, and admin fees. it was about 800-900 per team. Im sure every ECNL/GDA team/club runs things differently and some are more transparent than others.
DA charges clubs $50 per player per year. So yes, that would be about 800-900 per team.
 
we were told that the registration fees (again this was first year of GDA os don't get your undies in a bunch) for showcases covered field, officials, and admin fees. it was about 800-900 per team. Im sure every ECNL/GDA team/club runs things differently and some are more transparent than others.
No bunching...just sharing experiences.
 
DA charges clubs $50 per player per year. So yes, that would be about 800-900 per team.

the 800-900 was per showcase/tourney or that's what we were told. The regular club registration for DA clubs in our area was about 4k per year. This was player registration only not including traveling, field rental, tournament and showcase fees.
 
DA only charges clubs a registration fee of $50 per player per year. Not per showcase. There are no additional fees for refs, fields, etc charged by DA for DA games, playoffs or showcases. If your club told you otherwise that is not honest. In this way, DA teams cost the club less than other teams in some areas because they are not paying ref fees, league registration fees and tournament entry fees.

Your club will have additional expenses for training fields, coach travel, coach salary, etc and they decide what to charge parents for their own expenses independently of DA.
 
While all of us would LOVE for our kids to get scholarships, it's not always a for sure thing. You say you see it as an investment towards your kids life goals, for our family, it really put a dent in our pockets and hindered what we could do as a family. So a lot of times our vacation WAS The damn showcase.

Experts say that you should not look at your child's experience as an investment but another step in the growing process. Why? cause our kids may never get recruited or that coveted scholarship that is so nice to talk about at house parties. You don't need to make snide/condesending comments about what I wrote. That was our experience-i have no reason to bullshit.

Look up non profits and how much they make annually and how much assets they have. It 's shocking how much clubs are making.

Surf: 2.4 million, 438k assets
Arsenal: 2.7 million, 260k assets
Socal Blues: 1.8 million, 400k assets

Mustang: 3million, 4 million in assets
Rage: 1.8 million, 1.7 assets
De Anza Force: 2.9 Million, 1.5 assets

this is what each club makes a year and a lot of these clubs have multiple 501C3's so that it doesn't look as much. My whole take on this was that GDA/ECNL programs are expensive and those who don't think so should have a reality check. I'm glad you and many of your programs are transparent with regards to an itemized budget. Ours wasn't as transparent and parents (minus us and a few other) didn't mind writing a blank check. There were some of us "poor" families that asked, but kind of got the run around. OUR BAD

Agreed Jones that a scholarship isn't a sure thing and we share the same affliction when it comes to showcases being our family vacation ... Have recently decided to send 'em solo to save the $ for more worthwhile trips ourselves.

It seems I've come across as a snide BSer, so would like to clarify that I too have no reason to BS. The reality is, the majority of kids still playing at the U16+ ECNL/DA level will have a scholarship offer in some form or fashion if they so choose ... Just too many of them to go around. That said, I can see a bunch of Susie Californias ruling out anything east of Palm Springs which would hinder those opportunities.

Sure ... These clubs make $ ... Youth soccer is a business ... etc, etc ... But to get back my original point -- The clubs themselves aren't making any more $ from ECNL/DA parents than they are from those with kids playing at a lower level are they?
 
Agreed Jones that a scholarship isn't a sure thing and we share the same affliction when it comes to showcases being our family vacation ... Have recently decided to send 'em solo to save the $ for more worthwhile trips ourselves.

It seems I've come across as a snide BSer, so would like to clarify that I too have no reason to BS. The reality is, the majority of kids still playing at the U16+ ECNL/DA level will have a scholarship offer in some form or fashion if they so choose ... Just too many of them to go around. That said, I can see a bunch of Susie Californias ruling out anything east of Palm Springs which would hinder those opportunities.

Sure ... These clubs make $ ... Youth soccer is a business ... etc, etc ... But to get back my original point -- The clubs themselves aren't making any more $ from ECNL/DA parents than they are from those with kids playing at a lower level are they?

that's a good question and I don't know is probably my final answer. lol. I would hope that things are legit and every penny is accounted for but as someone that's traveled with kids on sporting events for other sports can say that it doesn't cost that much to travel. Again, it could be that our club stays at swanky places, eats and she-she restaurants, etc. I really don't know. :(
 
Quick question- How often are games updated on the USDA website? I see San Diego Surf and Solar for the 05's have not updated their results from back in the first half of the season. Is that the Clubs responsibility or the Referee?
 
Hmmm! Very interesting question. I believe it's the referee's responsibility to report the score of any home game and not the club. Both those games were indeed home games and should have been reported by San Diego Surf and Solar. Maybe its a little gamesmanship going on. Either way Thorns won 1-0. not sure what the Solar vs FC Dallas was. Hope this answered your question.
 
Hmmm! Very interesting question. I believe it's the referee's responsibility to report the score of any home game and not the club. Both those games were indeed home games and should have been reported by San Diego Surf and Solar. Maybe its a little gamesmanship going on. Either way Thorns won 1-0. not sure what the Solar vs FC Dallas was. Hope this answered your question.
Yes, in previous years for DA it was the referee's responsibility to report scores. I can't imagine that has changed.
 
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