SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP U13G CHALLENGE PREDICTIONS

CHT,

Do you want competition within the state, or competition within the region? If you want our teams to be competitive within the region, yes consolidation is the answer. We builde Bridge's and CESA's that are competitive in R3PL.

If you want competition within the state then restrict or prohibit consolidation (Chico is cringing right now). Use the Williamsport Little League philosophy of adhering to geographical boundaries. This may lead to more competitive balance.....but of course, the cream always rises to the top. If you restrict player movement, good luck at the R3PL level.

CHT: I was trying to answer SIL's "what do we do with U13/U14 SCSCL play starting in two month's question". My answer was simply 'very little can be done by SCYSA' -- certainly not in 2 months and from my perspective very little they could do without opening pandora's box. On the other hand there are things a particular team can to to mitigate their situation for one season. Hurst was correct to point that there are quality tournaments that they can get into rather than playing up, but I wouldn't rule playing up either.

How to raise the playing level across SC, that's probably the subject of a different thread.

Here's an interesting article in today's Raleigh newspaper regarding the impact that Triangle-Area (particularly CASL) soccer is having on the local collegiate level.

http://www.newsobserver.com/122/story/512063.html

Below you will find a table of the Region III states , their population and their R3 championships. In reviewing the data you will note that there is a correlation between population and championships with the odd point here and there (i.e. Fla has as many R3 championships as SC)

When we speak of competition we have to be careful to define against what... It would seem that Texas and specifically NT is the beacon. On the other hand we have to realistically understand the consequences... It would make perfect sense to take all the best players in SC and make one team, that basically attends top level tournaments and is defacto state champ. This will bring higher capability in competion, but at what cost...If you do not make this team, do you keep on playing???....

			Region III Championships
State	US population 2005 (millions)	2006 Registered youth players (thousands)	2006	2005	2004	2003	2002	2001	2000
Texas	23		8	6		5	6	5	7
Florida	18	100	1						1
Georgia	9	70	1	1		3	5	4
NC	9	64		3		2		2	3
Tennessee	6	37
Alabama	5	18
Louisiana	5
SC	4						1	1
Oklahoma	4	37	2	2		2
Mississippi	3								1
Arkansas	3

by the way.... icould not find 2004 data

futbol: interesting stuff. i've seen some argue that we need to consolidate more teams, reach out more and get more players involved, etc. I looked at your population vs championship model. I pulled up census data for children aged 5-17 from the 2000 census, the number of soccer players that you reported and computed a simple percentage.

TX 4,262,131
FL 2,700,517 100,000 3.7%
GA 1,574,084 70,000 4.4%
NC 1,424,538 64,000 4.5%
TN 1,023,641 37,000 3.6%
AL 827,430 18,000 2.2%
LA 902,407
SC 744,962
OK 656,007 37,000 5.6%
MS 570,823
AR 498,784

I thought it was interesting that market penetration ranged from 2.2 to 5.6 percent of youth.

I recall some statistice for SCYSA at ~19,000 giving SC roughly 2.6%. (I know that we have a good number of YMCA and city recreation programs that are non-affiliated in my neighborhood and would assume that might be true through out the state. So SC youth playing soccer exceeds 2.6% [I hope]).

To me, I see two things in the numbers: 1) FL doesn't seem to get their share of championships based on population, and 2) I want to know Oklahoma's secret for having the highest market penetration.

This is my third year on the board and it's amazing that the same topics, and the same information, continue to be revisited. I think it speaks well for different people who are analyzing and understanding the problems South Carolina faces.

With respect to consolidation, limited geographies, etc. -- here's what's changed in the last three years. Three clubs have stepped up to attempt to compete at a higher level (note: clubs, not teams.) The SCYSA has stepped in and created a new rule to address intra-state competition. And we've had the defection of one club to North Carolina.

At some point, it appears to me that your choices become simple. You can either (a) help an existing "super-club" become more successful, (b) try to create a new "super-club" in your particular area, or (c) try to create new rules to limit the success of "super-clubs."

CESA and Bridge appear focused on (a). CUFC, with its focus on "one community", focuses on (a) and (c).

The interesting clubs to me are LCSC and MPSC. Both are large clubs that have not yet chosen to do anything. The choices that they make in the next few years will be the most important with respect to increased competitiveness in South Carolina.

Chico: how many super clubs can SC support? If you use gotsoccer as a measure of success (let's use the top 200 clubs as a measure of success), then Tennessee has 7 clubs, Georgia and Oklahoma have 6 clubs each, North Texas and North Carolina have 5 clubs each, Alabama has 3, Florida and South Texas have 2 clubs each, and South Carolina has 2 (although bridge falls just outside my top 200 criteria).

Oklahoma is an interesting case study because they have about the same population but spread over a bigger area so consolidation is not a terribly likely option for them, I'm guessing they're more likely a one town/one club state for the most part, and the concept of riding 80 miles on the school bus is common. Yet, they're carrying 6 'successful' clubs but also have twice as many registered soccer players.

So on one hand, I agree that should LCSC and/or MPSC choose to align themselves with CUFC or Bridge would certainly change the playing field in SC (for the better), and might even begin to justify a regular 3rd spot in RIII play. And this will certainly be the stuff for great forum material for the next 2-4 years. (I think we're just starting to see the fruits of CESA merger, and that in another 3-4 years, the full impact will be seen more clearly. And Bridge will be following suit in time. Admitedly, the jury is still out for CUFC, but I wish them well also.)

As a state we're still competing with just ~19,000 kids. Assuming CUFC comes along, then we'll have 3 successful super clubs ... about one half of OK's program (in terms of players and successful super clubs) ... but with about the same population. It's taken OK 6 successful clubs to get 2 regional championships in each of the last two years.

We need another 10K-20K kids playing soccer to begin to have the same pool of players to work with. How do we attract an extra 1,000 players per age group in the state?

I did not mean to change the direction of this thread..The point I was trying to make is how do we make age divisions more competitive so that the stronger teams are not forced to play up..Playing up does not mean you are playing better competition..They are just bigger and faster because of age difference.What we could end up with is younger talented kids getting whacked by a larger kid who has no skill.
I agree that these talented kids should look for competition in their age groups outside of South Carolina.

>>[greengrass] Chico: how many super clubs can SC support?<<

Direct evidence: 2. Hopefully 3. No more.

>>As a state we're still competing with just ~19,000 kids. [...] We need another 10K-20K kids playing soccer to begin to have the same pool of players to work with. How do we attract an extra 1,000 players per age group in the state?<<

If you look at what CESA has done, or what Bridge is doing, you'll see that they don't limit themselves to South Carolina players. That seems pretty important in the short-term. I don't see how CUFC is going to become regionally competitive with their community-focused approach that seems to be almost exclusively Columbia oriented since they are limited in this not just to the 19K SC kids but the many fewer than that kids that happen to live in the Columbia area.

In the longer-term, the way to increase the penetration of youth soccer is to go after underserved markets starting at the recreation level. Everyone wants to complain about costs -- but I highly doubt that there are many kids not playing recreation soccer because of cost. The truth is that our clubs, and the SCYSA, don't typically give a rat's behind about doing much more than serving the existing status quo.

So how do we increase the number of kids playing soccer? The most direct way is to support those clubs trying to make a difference and grow their younger recreation programs.