Announcement

**Unregistered** · 07-27-2020, 11:05 PM

Struggling for sure. People are hesitant to lose a boat load of money two years in a row. And let�s face it for the national leagues - college scholarships will be drying up faster than the Sahara - so what is the allure of the the high priced national leagues.

Fool me once shame on you fool me twice shame on me.

For the high school aged kids no reason to pay fees until much much closer to the actual season which usually starts late November.

**Unregistered** · 07-27-2020, 11:13 PM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Seeing many posts for open tryouts with preseason set to start soon. Perhaps parents are holding off on committing? Or maybe it's just a compressed tryout season.

Lots of people and players are moving around. First you have at least 50% of players with at-risk family members choosing to sit this out a few months.

Then you have all these parents who paid in full, to find their clubs lacked financial ability to give any money back except by a credit (no refunds), they want to move.

You have coaches moving around, players trying to follow them.

It�s interesting that all the clubs are asking for money for the upcoming season, the more expensive the club and academy, the larger the attrition.

The best teams aren�t losing players. Why would you leave a top team?

**Unregistered** · 07-27-2020, 11:30 PM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Lots of people and players are moving around. First you have at least 50% of players with at-risk family members choosing to sit this out a few months.

Then you have all these parents who paid in full, to find their clubs lacked financial ability to give any money back except by a credit (no refunds), they want to move.

You have coaches moving around, players trying to follow them.

It�s interesting that all the clubs are asking for money for the upcoming season, the more expensive the club and academy, the larger the attrition.

The best teams aren�t losing players. Why would you leave a top team?

Agreed Darwinism- it�s the old survival of the fittest - if you are on one of the best teams /clubs you will be fine - the others I wouldn�t give any money to.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 07:54 AM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Lots of people and players are moving around. First you have at least 50% of players with at-risk family members choosing to sit this out a few months.

Then you have all these parents who paid in full, to find their clubs lacked financial ability to give any money back except by a credit (no refunds), they want to move.

You have coaches moving around, players trying to follow them.

It�s interesting that all the clubs are asking for money for the upcoming season, the more expensive the club and academy, the larger the attrition.

The best teams aren�t losing players. Why would you leave a top team?

PSA just sent another email about "lower pricing"

If they can do it now, why didn't they do it when they start forming the team?

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

PSA just sent another email about "lower pricing"

If they can do it now, why didn't they do it when they start forming the team?

You mean PSA just sent out their fees and rates for 2020-2021 now? Or lowered their rates as they realize competition and leagues in Fall will be very different.

MOST clubs around PSA Princeton, and their affiliates: STA, Wildcats, SDFC, Sportika, are cheaper. Heck, all-in after voluntary tournaments and travel to �added tournaments,� PDA is more reasonable than PSA and Matchfit.

PSA has baited people into making decisions before. For example, if PSA just lowered rates, will they refund people who paid in full earlier?

At least you know that PSA is having difficulty rostering teams, cutting fees to attract people.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 08:36 AM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

PSA just sent another email about "lower pricing"

If they can do it now, why didn't they do it when they start forming the team?

The problem that they�re probably having at PSA is getting enough players to have 3 or 4 teams in every age bracket. Newman needs his coaches to have 5 or 6 teams each for his business model to work.

As to why now, any business charges what they think the market will pay for its product. If this is true about the price reduction then there is clearly some changes in portions of the youth soccer market.

I wonder what they�ll do about people who have already paid now that they are offering lower prices. Sounds like problems coming.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 08:46 AM

destination clubs have no issue - your PDAs, World Class, etc will have full rosters (probably too full) with no problem. The smaller operations where the competition for players is harder is where you will see some issues with open spots or incomplete teams for a while.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 11:06 AM

Survival of the fittest. If you're not offering a quality product at a good price value you may not survive the shrinking player pool. It's not necessarily a bad thing - weed out some of the garbage clubs and coaches - but it's not good for youth soccer in the long run if many of these players don't return

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 11:22 AM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Survival of the fittest. If you're not offering a quality product at a good price value you may not survive the shrinking player pool. It's not necessarily a bad thing - weed out some of the garbage clubs and coaches - but it's not good for youth soccer in the long run if many of these players don't return

I think this long break and all that has come with it has really opened up a lot of people's eyes.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 12:11 PM

Thankfully our entire team decided to move to another club in April. Our former club is great at not telling you details and in their view they didn't lie because they didn't say anything.

It was relatively easy for us a group even though the club in this new branch won't have more than 4-5 total teams. I think our new club have dealt with the reality of not having teams for each age group for 2020/2021 and are not mailchimping more tryouts and ID sessions emails 2-3 per week. We're coming up on August-the time for building teams is quickly running out.

That said, I have never seen so many clubs and town travel "players needed" notifications.
Also, I have never seen so many whole teams move from club to club.
Actually happy to see more power and choice in the hands of the consumer.

It looks like we are at the point of complete market saturation as so professionally coached clubs and town travel programs are "looking to fill roster spots". I agree that many of the current clubs will not survive the shrinking player pool.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 12:23 PM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Thankfully our entire team decided to move to another club in April. Our former club is great at not telling you details and in their view they didn't lie because they didn't say anything.

It was relatively easy for us a group even though the club in this new branch won't have more than 4-5 total teams. I think our new club have dealt with the reality of not having teams for each age group for 2020/2021 and are not mailchimping more tryouts and ID sessions emails 2-3 per week. We're coming up on August-the time for building teams is quickly running out.

That said, I have never seen so many clubs and town travel "players needed" notifications.
Also, I have never seen so many whole teams move from club to club.
Actually happy to see more power and choice in the hands of the consumer.

It looks like we are at the point of complete market saturation as so professionally coached clubs and town travel programs are "looking to fill roster spots". I agree that many of the current clubs will not survive the shrinking player pool.

What do you mean about your former club not telling you details and, in their view, didn't lie?

That's good that your new club isn't spamming everyone and everywhere with ID and tryout notices. Your coach should be able to call around to contacts if you really need more players on your roster. You see kids play over time and get to know who is out there.

Definitely seems like there are way more teams looking for players than I ever remember though. Entire teams moving club to club seems like a bad precedent. That is a statement about the former clubs more than anything. Having teams moving around wholesale seems to work more for the coaches that are taking them as they probably work out a financial deal to make it happen. If it trickles down to the families, then that's good as well, but I doubt that clubs are making entire teams free because of a move.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 12:28 PM

Originally posted by Unregistered View Post

Thankfully our entire team decided to move to another club in April. Our former club is great at not telling you details and in their view they didn't lie because they didn't say anything.

It was relatively easy for us a group even though the club in this new branch won't have more than 4-5 total teams. I think our new club have dealt with the reality of not having teams for each age group for 2020/2021 and are not mailchimping more tryouts and ID sessions emails 2-3 per week. We're coming up on August-the time for building teams is quickly running out.

That said, I have never seen so many clubs and town travel "players needed" notifications.
Also, I have never seen so many whole teams move from club to club.
Actually happy to see more power and choice in the hands of the consumer.

It looks like we are at the point of complete market saturation as so professionally coached clubs and town travel programs are "looking to fill roster spots". I agree that many of the current clubs will not survive the shrinking player pool.

I�m surprised you haven�t seen these players needed notices before. I see them every year after tryouts from all clubs.

**Unregistered** · 07-28-2020, 01:14 PM

Yup. We have had a few too many "elite" leagues, "elite" clubs, and "elite" teams all asking us to pay through the nose because of their eliteness. A little humble pie will hopefully make this a real marketplace again - although I doubt this will last very long. Like everything else in my life right now, it all depends on how soon we have a vaccine! :)