OL to purchase Reign FC

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none

If OL buys Reign, no more excuses for Reign not investing in the academy and using it as a source of revenue for their pro team. The RA needs to become free. (BTW, a rich owner doesn't inherently mean an improved or free academy, just look at Portland Thorns - one of the worst academies in the country despite having the backing of a wealthy owner, the Portland Timbers and probably the highest revenue stream of any NWSL club.) At its best, OL will hopefully bring an improved level of coaching to the region for girls development, and hopefully an influx of French coaching rather than just an over infatuation with British coaching. At its worst, the OL ownership means the Reign Academy just elevates the pay-to-play status quo and becomes a place for rich kids to go to France in the summer to train in OL kits.

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OL is a business and a French one at that. There's no business reason for them to dump money into the academy to train future potential USWNT players and pro players with no future transfer fee payback. That being said the success of the academy reflects on their club and organization so I'm sure there will be some support whether monetary, coaching, etc

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If OL buys Reign, no more excuses for Reign not investing in the academy and using it as a source of revenue for their pro team. The RA needs to become free. (BTW, a rich owner doesn't inherently mean an improved or free academy, just look at Portland Thorns - one of the worst academies in the country despite having the backing of a wealthy owner, the Portland Timbers and probably the highest revenue stream of any NWSL club.) At its best, OL will hopefully bring an improved level of coaching to the region for girls development, and hopefully an influx of French coaching rather than just an over infatuation with British coaching. At its worst, the OL ownership means the Reign Academy just elevates the pay-to-play status quo and becomes a place for rich kids to go to France in the summer to train in OL kits.

This all depends on the business model of women's soccer.

Thorns, the pro side, actually (I think) makes money. It doesn't get the TV money that MLS does, ticket prices are lower, and doesn't sell out Prov Park every match (with a huge waiting list for season tickets), though crowds there are still the biggest in NWSL, and sellouts do occur. But women's/girls's soccer doesn't have the robust transfer market that one finds on the men's side.

Timbers/Thorns owner Merritt Paulson is wealthy, but he's not mega-wealthy. (His father is, but not all of Hank's money is available for his son to invest in pro sports). And he's generally not been a supporter of the academy system of training players--he owned a AAA baseball team before he got the Timbers. And in the "homegrown" system of MLS, it may well be a rational decision that spending lots of money on youth academies in Portland, where the talent pool is allegedly shallow, isn't worth it--just go throw TAM at some South American forwards. (A comment thread in another forum indicated the Sounders have a similar attitude towards their academy--it's for training defensive players; attacking mids and forwards will be bought from abroad. This despite having a prominent MLS and USMNT forward come up through their academy system--the Sounders appear to want fewer Jordan Morris's and more Raúl Ruidíaz's).

Whose academy (Thorns vs Reign) is "better"? A lot depends on age group; the Thorns are decent at U19 (and have one of the most intriguing prospects playing for their academy in Olivia Moultrie, who probably could play for the senior team if NWSL allowed minors to doso), good at U14, and largely terrible in between. Like the Reign Academy up here, the Thorns Academy is caught up in a lot of the ECNL/GDA youth soccer politics, and is viewed as unwelcome competition, not as a step up the ladder, by the local pay-to-play youth clubs. Thorns do subsidize a lot of the cost, so playing for them is similar to the cost of a non-travel club, but it's still beyond the reach of many families. And unlike the Timbers Academy, which is run entirely in house, the Thorns' operations (especially the younger ages) is significantly outsourced to a local youth club. It's one of the better-run clubs in the area (Westside), but the Thorns do look and act a lot like a pay-to-play club, but one that bans players from playing in high school.

Which brings up an interesting point--one I've asked in the Oregon forums and will ask here. Since someone in this thread has offered the usual predictions of the demise of the GDA (predictions that are offered quite a bit--and while it hasn't happened yet, the current US Soccer leadership seems far less committed to the DA program than the Sunil Gulati regime was)--what do you suppose would happen to the Thorns and Reign academies were US Soccer to end the GDA program? Would US Club refuse them entry into ECNL were they to try and join? Or would the established pay-to-play clubs find themselves with two new powerful competitors, clubs that can offer girls something that Seattle United or Eastside cannot, and no longer hampered by the restriction on high school play?

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This all depends on the business model of women's soccer.

Thorns, the pro side, actually (I think) makes money.

Timbers/Thorns owner Merritt Paulson is wealthy, but he's not mega-wealthy.

Here is where you may be missing the point. You are not comparing apples to apples. OL is a publicly traded company in the business of producing soccer players in the same sense that Microsoft makes software and Boeing creates Airplanes. This is not the same thing as your local business leader owning Seattles first NWSL team.

If you think your run of the mill ECNL or watered down GDA equates to a professional pipeline academy you are woefully misinformed.

Soccer development depends on the commitment of clubs especially when it comes to the youth system. European teams are the best in the world at nurturing and creating top soccer players.

You've probably heard of talent factories in Europe. The best players in the world came out of Santos FC Academy- Brazil, Sao Paulo academy – Brazil, RSC Anderlecht Youth Academy-Belgium, Academia Sporting- Portugal, La Masia- Barcelona (Spain) ... the list goes on.

You could tie your horse to your local club that produced one pro in ten years Jordan Morris if you want. And it's okay to feel great about what you are getting from Bernies coaches.

But are you seriously expecting EFC or Crossfire to have a curriculum, coaching and resources on par with OL?

Washington Post "reports Lyon will also assume control of Reign Academy as part of the deal." It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

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Here is where you may be missing the point. You are not comparing apples to apples. OL is a publicly traded company in the business of producing soccer players in the same sense that Microsoft makes software and Boeing creates Airplanes. This is not the same thing as your local business leader owning Seattles first NWSL team.

If you think your run of the mill ECNL or watered down GDA equates to a professional pipeline academy you are woefully misinformed.

Soccer development depends on the commitment of clubs especially when it comes to the youth system. European teams are the best in the world at nurturing and creating top soccer players.

You've probably heard of talent factories in Europe. The best players in the world came out of Santos FC Academy- Brazil, Sao Paulo academy – Brazil, RSC Anderlecht Youth Academy-Belgium, Academia Sporting- Portugal, La Masia- Barcelona (Spain) ... the list goes on.

You could tie your horse to your local club that produced one pro in ten years Jordan Morris if you want. And it's okay to feel great about what you are getting from Bernies coaches.

But are you seriously expecting EFC or Crossfire to have a curriculum, coaching and resources on par with OL?

Washington Post "reports Lyon will also assume control of Reign Academy as part of the deal." It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

Well, the players at EFC are dropped off by some of the nicest shiniest cars around, even though it rains 152 days a year... so yea, there's that. 1 USA - 0 France

[Unregistered]

Here is where you may be missing the point. You are not comparing apples to apples. OL is a publicly traded company in the business of producing soccer players in the same sense that Microsoft makes software and Boeing creates Airplanes. This is not the same thing as your local business leader owning Seattles first NWSL team.

Not quite. OL is a soccer club, it's PRIMARY business is running and operating a professional soccer team (and a men's team at that). It's primary revenue streams derive from its first team--ticket sales, merchandise, TV contracts (through Ligue 1). Transfer fees from players developed in its academy and sold elsewhere are certainly a revenue stream, but not the primary one.

You are correct in that it is a business; the principal shareholder in OL is often criticized for running it too much like a business and less like a community-focused sports club.

If you think your run of the mill ECNL or watered down GDA equates to a professional pipeline academy you are woefully misinformed.

I never suggested such a thing, and in fact I agree with you. Reign, being an operation that runs on a tight budget, hasn't operated anything remotely like a professional pipeline academy. The Sounders come closest of any club in the northwestern United States; the Timbers/Thorns are presently too cheap in their operations to really be considered a good academy. Right now, both NWSL girls' academies are more like glorified youth clubs.

But here's the problem, for girls. There really isn't a robust transfer market for female players. Unlike the men's side, it's strictly a buyer's market for women--there's no viable business, at the present time, in training girls in anticipation of a transfer fee. Don't believe me? Go to transfermarkt, and enter "Rapinoe, M." into the search box. "No results found". While I'm sure the Reign could get a nice transfer fee if they did sell her, the marketplace for such transactions is sufficiently small that there's no way of estimating her value on the market.

Soccer development depends on the commitment of clubs especially when it comes to the youth system. European teams are the best in the world at nurturing and creating top soccer players.

You've probably heard of talent factories in Europe. The best players in the world came out of Santos FC Academy- Brazil, Sao Paulo academy – Brazil, RSC Anderlecht Youth Academy-Belgium, Academia Sporting- Portugal, La Masia- Barcelona (Spain) ... the list goes on.

Agreed.

You could tie your horse to your local club that produced one pro in ten years Jordan Morris if you want. And it's okay to feel great about what you are getting from Bernies coaches.

But are you seriously expecting EFC or Crossfire to have a curriculum, coaching and resources on par with OL?

No. I'm now re-reading my post, wondering why you seem to think that I consider youth clubs to be the equivalent of a serious pro academy. I guess my comparing Thorns/Reign to these youth clubs confused you--my comments should be understood of criticism of these academy teams (i.e. despite their connections to a pro team, they still conduct themselves as pay-to-play teams for the most part), not as an elevation of Crossfire or OPFC (or CU down here in Oregon) as equivalents of a fully pro academy.

Lots of these rich-girl clubs like to promote themselves as elite academies. To the extent that they can get away with it, it's because the local youth academies aren't offering a significantly better product. Pointing this out doesn't mean that the P2P clubs' pretense is correct.

Washington Post "reports Lyon will also assume control of Reign Academy as part of the deal." It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

If they make it free, or at least substantially reduce the cost, it could be a game changer. And I hope they do, as it might force Thorns to up their game. Don't get me wrong--the staff at Westside does a great job, and Cony (Westside's director, and Oregon's version of Bernie James, more or less) has produced more professionals than probably any other youth coach in the Northwest, but the fact that the Thorns have outsourced their academy to a youth club, one that trains in public parks and on school grounds rather than at the Timbers' training facility or at Providence Park, is not a good thing.

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Valid arguments, I agree with most. BTW, who is this wonderful coach in PDX and who has he coached into stardum?

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Valid arguments, I agree with most. BTW, who is this wonderful coach in PDX and who has he coached into stardum?

Cony Konstin. A rather colorful character, he. While "stardom" is too strong a word--no men's player from Oregon's youth system (I'm excluding Oregon collegiate stars like Kasey Keller who didn't grow up here) is someone I would consider a "star" (no local players have had the same career success as DeAndre Yedlin, and Jordan Morris is likely to eclipse any Oregon players as well, especially if he goes to Europe), his club has "produced" (another word I actually dislike in this context, as it gives too much credit to the coach and not enough to the player), among others, Rubio Rubin, Chad Barrett, Erik Hurtado and Danny Mwanga. (Actually, much of Barrett's youth career precedes Konstin's tenure with the club). As well as many collegiate players and lower-division pros.

The interesting thing is that the club had a bit of a "golden age" in the late aughts and early teens, that dried up when the Timbers Academy started up and became the preferred destination for top male talent. Since then, only two TA alums (Farfan and Langsdorf) have gotten first-team contracts with the Timbers, and neither has set the world on fire since. Why this is is an interesting question.

Of course, the point of this thread isn't to talk about any particular Oregon youth coach, but to point out that a professional academy worth its salt wouldn't subcontract its operations to a youth club. That said--are there really any "true" professional academies for girls in the US? By which I mean an academy program that is a) free, or close to it, and b) attached to a professional franchise? Given the small number of functioning pro women's teams in the country, and the economics of women's soccer, I doubt it.

(Actually, it should be pointed out that the Thorns have TWO academies, both associated with a youth club. The one in Oregon, which is run by Westside, and one in Northern California, which is run by De Anza Force. Neither, to my knowledge, is free; and the CA club is located a good 600 miles or so from the associated pro team).

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Neither, to my knowledge, is free; and the CA club is located a good 600 miles or so from the associated pro team).

I guess it makes sense to locate a Thorns academy 10 hours away in another state. ( ***?)

Maybe the owner is simply lending out the thorns name and earning revenue from it which goes back to my point about a mega club like o l as opposed to the local big fish business person in town.

600 miles away? You must be leaving out the part of the story that makes this not sound ludacris.

[Unregistered]

I guess it makes sense to locate a Thorns academy 10 hours away in another state. ( ***?)

Maybe the owner is simply lending out the thorns name and earning revenue from it which goes back to my point about a mega club like o l as opposed to the local big fish business person in town.

600 miles away? You must be leaving out the part of the story that makes this not sound ludacris.

Well, if you're a professional team, you generally don't want to limit yourself to the players in your immediate vicinity, especially if that vicinity is Portland. Many clubs operate academies at a distance from their home grounds. Northern California has a far deeper talent pool than anywhere in the Pacific Northwest.

That said, youth clubs trading on the names of pro teams (or other youth clubs!) has long been old hat. There are about nine clubs now (6 in Oregon, 2 in Idaho, and 1 in Washington) that have "Timbers" in the name, as members of the so-called Timbers Alliance. The coupling is loose, though--the exact terms of the deal aren't public, but it appears to be a) a lot of marketing and b) an agreement that the youth clubs will refer talented players to the Timbers, and fully cooperate with Timbers scouting activities. (Many other local clubs are hostile to the MLS team, for reasons both fair and foul). Many European teams have youth clubs in the US wearing their kit--such arrangements can range from entirely marketing arrangements (youth club pays pro team for kit, name, and some curricula, and occasionally someone from the pro club will show up once a year), to actual subsidiary academies, operated by the pro club. Most are closer to the former than the latter, and the few actual honest-to-goodness Euro academies here in the US tend to be found in soccer-rich locals.

So, the existence of a GDA team called the "California Thorns" isn't ludicrous, especially as the CA version frequently beats the OR version in head-to-head competition. Whether it's a wise use of club resources is another question. I do think it's more than a simple marketing exercise--De Anza Force doesn't need to trade on the Thorns name; though the Thorns academy operation doesn't appear to be sufficiently skilled to manage a tightly-coupled subsidiary that's 600 miles away. Plus, CA Thorns is still a pay-to-play club

[Unregistered]

Wait... Are you talking about Crossfire Alaska?
Or Crossfire Oregon
LOL

I guess it makes sense to locate a Thorns academy 10 hours away in another state. ( ***?)

600 miles away? You must be leaving out the part of the story that makes this not sound ludacris.

[Unregistered]

Wait... Are you talking about Crossfire Alaska?
Or Crossfire Oregon
LOL

Crossfire Oregon is no longer called that, it's now Oregon Premier FC. Don't know about the other baby Crossfire's out there.

(The Oregon based ECNL club "Crossfire United" still has Crossfire in the name.)

Why using the name of a Seattle youth club was considered to be a marketing advantage, I don't know. But I've seen stranger things....

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Crossfire Oregon is no longer called that, it's now Oregon Premier FC. Don't know about the other baby Crossfire's out there.

(The Oregon based ECNL club "Crossfire United" still has Crossfire in the name.)

Why using the name of a Seattle youth club was considered to be a marketing advantage, I don't know. But I've seen stranger things....

It’s just frickin’ laziness and lack of imagination. Think of all the “Surf” clubs in WA, including PSPL Surf Academy. In terms of describing a discrete or unique identity, philosophy or values the name “Surf” means nothing now.

Same goes for Pateadores in Bellevue. Too hard for those guys to develop their own brand based on their own philosophy, values and identity, so the bought one.

If you go deeper, you need answers to important questions like:

What kind of control does the master Surf or Pateadores entity have?

What kind of fees or royalties are being paid?

Is it just a trademark license? If it’s more than a trademark license is it a franchise? Selling franchises in Washington is illegal unless they are registered. Is it an inadvertent franchise?

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...able-risk/amp/

In the end, it’s always better to be original, develop your own brand and infuse it with your own values and identity. Differentiation in soccer is a good thing.

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It’s just frickin’ laziness and lack of imagination. Think of all the “Surf” clubs in WA, including PSPL Surf Academy.

PSPL Surf Academy is not a club. To my understanding there is one Surf club (Spokane) in WA. Way more “Sounders” clubs...

Same questions you asked.

[Unregistered]

If OL buys Reign, no more excuses for Reign not investing in the academy and using it as a source of revenue for their pro team. The RA needs to become free. (BTW, a rich owner doesn't inherently mean an improved or free academy, just look at Portland Thorns - one of the worst academies in the country despite having the backing of a wealthy owner, the Portland Timbers and probably the highest revenue stream of any NWSL club.) At its best, OL will hopefully bring an improved level of coaching to the region for girls development, and hopefully an influx of French coaching rather than just an over infatuation with British coaching. At its worst, the OL ownership means the Reign Academy just elevates the pay-to-play status quo and becomes a place for rich kids to go to France in the summer to train in OL kits.

Academy will move to subsidized. The reserves will still be pay to play, but will expand with more teams. Possibly also trips to play and train in France as well, and the is all happening this year. This deal gets closed Jan 1 2020, and the Predmores still run the Reign. But this is already having far reaching positive effects on the club. More players have just moved into DA from other ENCL teams and other clubs as well the last few weeks.

The reign already has good coaching in DA and now they are getting more. They picked up a coach from Crossfire and more are coming in. Spring 2020 should be interesting, since Reign will be taking advantage of all these changes, but the expanded ECNL clubs in the state will be going at each other as well. Lots of opportunity for everyone.