Travel Requirements by League

S

SDMama

SILVER ELITE
What are the travel requirements/commitments out of Southern California for each league (for olders)? ECNL, GA, ECRL, DPL, NPL, Socal, E64, EA, MLS Next… (any others?)

- Out-of-state league games? (How many?)
- How many trips outside Southern California for showcases?
- How many trips for playoffs/finals?
- How many days per trip?
- How many missed school days?

I know a lot of info is online, but do any experts on here care to make an easy to read table with all the info?
 
Flew to PHX Friday afternoon for an 8am game on Sat…flew back at 2:30pm Sat in and out of Burbank…lots of $$$ and time for 1 game, but worth it right???? Less than 24 hours in PHX…ECNL….or we could have driven 7+ hours. Around $650-$700.
 
Costs vary Club to Club + just be thankful you dont live in a place like Denver where every game requires travel + you pretty much have to fly because it's to far to drive for competition.

GA and ECNL are pretty similar when it comes to the general costs + league structure. For Socal every week or so you have a game somewhere around LA/SD and probably around 2x (maybe 3x) a year you'll need to play against AZ teams. When you go out to AZ, on Saturday you'll play one team and on Sunday you'll play a different team.

There will probably be one showcase in the fall and another showcase in the spring. These will be at destination locations.

Above is just the basics. Some Clubs like to do tournamants, some do international tournamants, and if your team is good you get invited to super club leagues which requires travel.

The number of school days missed varies depending on how much the team wins. (Often finals for tournaments are on Monday or even Tuesday as they get older)

Accommodation varies club to club / team to team. I've seen entire teams in a VBRO, parents each in a hotel room with their kid, and Ive also seen 4 players to a hotel room + a parent monitoring 2-3 rooms. It all depends on what parents feel comfortable with + how much they want to spend.

As you can see theres a general outline for how things will go during the season. However the amout you pay + number of school days missed varies depending on if you're winning + how the club / parents want to do things.

This is all on top of the 3 day a week practices + futsal + private trainers + etc etc etc.
 
Carlsbad7 said:
Costs vary Club to Club + just be thankful you dont live in a place like Denver where every game requires travel + you pretty much have to fly because it's to far to drive for competition.

GA and ECNL are pretty similar when it comes to the general costs + league structure. For Socal every week or so you have a game somewhere around LA/SD and probably around 2x (maybe 3x) a year you'll need to play against AZ teams. When you go out to AZ, on Saturday you'll play one team and on Sunday you'll play a different team.

There will probably be one showcase in the fall and another showcase in the spring. These will be at destination locations.

Above is just the basics. Some Clubs like to do tournamants, some do international tournamants, and if your team is good you get invited to super club leagues which requires travel.

The number of school days missed varies depending on how much the team wins. (Often finals for tournaments are on Monday or even Tuesday as they get older)

Accommodation varies club to club / team to team. I've seen entire teams in a VBRO, parents each in a hotel room with their kid, and Ive also seen 4 players to a hotel room + a parent monitoring 2-3 rooms. It all depends on what parents feel comfortable with + how much they want to spend.

As you can see theres a general outline for how things will go during the season. However the amout you pay + number of school days missed varies depending on if you're winning + how the club / parents want to do things.

This is all on top of the 3 day a week practices + futsal + private trainers + etc etc etc.
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Deleted my post. I misunderstood the OP Q and told my dd story again for 1000 time. Sorry
 
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Carlsbad7 said:
Costs vary Club to Club + just be thankful you dont live in a place like Denver where every game requires travel + you pretty much have to fly because it's to far to drive for competition.

GA and ECNL are pretty similar when it comes to the general costs + league structure. For Socal every week or so you have a game somewhere around LA/SD and probably around 2x (maybe 3x) a year you'll need to play against AZ teams. When you go out to AZ, on Saturday you'll play one team and on Sunday you'll play a different team.

There will probably be one showcase in the fall and another showcase in the spring. These will be at destination locations.

Above is just the basics. Some Clubs like to do tournamants, some do international tournamants, and if your team is good you get invited to super club leagues which requires travel.

The number of school days missed varies depending on how much the team wins. (Often finals for tournaments are on Monday or even Tuesday as they get older)

Accommodation varies club to club / team to team. I've seen entire teams in a VBRO, parents each in a hotel room with their kid, and Ive also seen 4 players to a hotel room + a parent monitoring 2-3 rooms. It all depends on what parents feel comfortable with + how much they want to spend.

As you can see theres a general outline for how things will go during the season. However the amout you pay + number of school days missed varies depending on if you're winning + how the club / parents want to do things.

This is all on top of the 3 day a week practices + futsal + private trainers + etc etc etc.
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Mls next and ea works somewhat similarly. Two factors are how much the team wins (more invitational showcases and league playoffs) and how older (olders have more). The academies are a different beast since in addition to local teams they are flying to play the other academies.
 
crush said:
Carlsbad, you have become an expert witness. You covered much of it. We actually had 3 showcases and one of them was in New Jersey (we skipped that because my dd was a no way for East Coast soccer. I got my chops busted for saying no from coach and few rich parents). I would also add the per diem for coach for on the road. Airfare, Room, car rental, food & drinks. That can vary, depending on how coach likes to roll. Each team can vary as well. I was a part of one of the richest teams ever put together. Not only did we have to pay to play, they mandated "Stay & Play" at a 5 star hotel in Scottsdale. Coach got himself a penthouse. I was so poor I tried to sneak into a Air B N B for $50 a night. I got busted (someone snitched on me, go figure) and lit up for not obeying the rules. I told TM, "sorry, I just can't afford the 5 star." I had to have a payment plan to pay the per diems through out the year. To the OP, I would also say have a little extra cash for privates with coach. That will guarantee play time. I watched it unfold from my very eyes and I can say based on pay to play, pay & stay and pay for privates has a direct affect on playing time, 100%. Good luck you guys.
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I'm no expert. But my kid as been into soccer since age 2 or 3. After a while you start to catch on to how things work.

I remember the things you've described reguarding ECNL (6+ years ago), DA (before it blew up), no high school soccer, fully funded, age banding (or whatever they called it) vs birth year + how it all caused so many problems. Fortunately we dont have to go through all that.

Reguarding paying the coach for privates. I think that type of action is BS on both the parent doing it and coach accepting the $$$. I've seen what it does to teams. An undeserving player might get more minutes but over time people figure out what's happening + everyone gets mad at each other and the team blows up.
 
crush said:
Carlsbad, you have become an expert witness. You covered much of it. We actually had 3 showcases and one of them was in New Jersey (we skipped that because my dd was a no way for East Coast soccer. I got my chops busted for saying no from coach and few rich parents). I would also add the per diem for coach for on the road. Airfare, Room, car rental, food & drinks. That can vary, depending on how coach likes to roll. Each team can vary as well. I was a part of one of the richest teams ever put together. Not only did we have to pay to play, they mandated "Stay & Play" at a 5 star hotel in Scottsdale. Coach got himself a penthouse. I was so poor I tried to sneak into a Air B N B for $50 a night. I got busted (someone snitched on me, go figure) and lit up for not obeying the rules. I told TM, "sorry, I just can't afford the 5 star." I had to have a payment plan to pay the per diems through out the year. To the OP, I would also say have a little extra cash for privates with coach. That will guarantee play time. I watched it unfold from my very eyes and I can say based on pay to play, pay & stay and pay for privates has a direct affect on playing time, 100%. Good luck you guys.
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your story has been told a thousand times just stop already. your DD has aged out and we all know club soccer is not fair!!!!
 
Carlsbad7 said:
Costs vary Club to Club + just be thankful you dont live in a place like Denver where every game requires travel + you pretty much have to fly because it's to far to drive for competition.

GA and ECNL are pretty similar when it comes to the general costs + league structure. For Socal every week or so you have a game somewhere around LA/SD and probably around 2x (maybe 3x) a year you'll need to play against AZ teams. When you go out to AZ, on Saturday you'll play one team and on Sunday you'll play a different team.

There will probably be one showcase in the fall and another showcase in the spring. These will be at destination locations.

Above is just the basics. Some Clubs like to do tournamants, some do international tournamants, and if your team is good you get invited to super club leagues which requires travel.

The number of school days missed varies depending on how much the team wins. (Often finals for tournaments are on Monday or even Tuesday as they get older)

Accommodation varies club to club / team to team. I've seen entire teams in a VBRO, parents each in a hotel room with their kid, and Ive also seen 4 players to a hotel room + a parent monitoring 2-3 rooms. It all depends on what parents feel comfortable with + how much they want to spend.

As you can see theres a general outline for how things will go during the season. However the amout you pay + number of school days missed varies depending on if you're winning + how the club / parents want to do things.

This is all on top of the 3 day a week practices + futsal + private trainers + etc etc etc.
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I’m sorry if my post was unclear. I was asking about travel requirements per league, not costs per team/club in those leagues. How many trips are required + how many additional trips if you are a good enough team to advance to additional trips. I understand teams may choose to do additional tournaments that require travel, but I’m interested in travel requirements per league.
 
Travel requirements can vary in each league and each team. WE did ECNL with three different clubs and it was all over the place. It's almost impossible to do a table because it's impossible to know what each team and coach require to be on the team. I deleted my other posts. Seriously got another DM telling me to take that stuff down or else. I will not post anymore on this thread. Good luck to you player.
 
SDMama said:
I’m sorry if my post was unclear. I was asking about travel requirements per league, not costs per team/club in those leagues. How many trips are required + how many additional trips if you are a good enough team to advance to additional trips. I understand teams may choose to do additional tournaments that require travel, but I’m interested in travel requirements per league.
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If you look at the structure of all the national leagues (not just GA or ECNL) they're all set up similar. You have a local league component and a national league component. Generally if you win in the local league you get invited to play in the "best of the best" national league. What this means is the more you win the more you travel. Also the more you travel the more your kid gets recruited. This is why someone said the top teams from each league tend to get over exposed.

Both ECNL and GA also try to do showcases for the teams that arent winning all the time. In these type of showcases you play other national teams that arent winning all the time either. The difference between this type of showcase and the winners showcases is that nobody cares about the results.

So dont think not winning will mean no travel. ;-)

Something else worth mentioning about winning that makes travel even harder is that often the finals at tournamants or showcases or super leagues are late Sunday or even Monday or Tuesday. This means you often have to take crap flights home and extend hotel stays at the last minute which just makes things even more expensive.
 
Boys ECNL southwest conference is just one league game outside of SoCal (Vegas), two showcases over long weekends, then potentially playoffs and finals if the team qualifies. Playoffs are a week and finals are a long weekend. Playoffs were in San Diego last year and finals are at Silverlakes this year.

Only missed school has been a day or two for each showcase.
 
Carlsbad7 said:
It all depends on what parents feel comfortable with + how much they want to spend.
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how does it work for.... when different families want to spend different amounts on an out of town tournament/travel/etc...?

my kid is on a team and coach was taking an older team on a tournament to TX so wanted to see if my kid's team wanted to as well but because they're younger, he just left it up to the parents and TM asked us... about half wanted to go... about half wanted nothing to do with it haha...

because it was "optional", since it was not unanimous, we didn't go.

but wondering if for olders, if they'll "make you go"
 
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Socal-Soccer-Dad said:
how does it work for.... when different families want to spend different amounts on an out of town tournament/travel/etc...?

my kid is on a team and coach was taking an older team on a tournament to TX so wanted to see if my kid's team wanted to as well but because they're younger, he just left it up to the parents and TM asked us... about half wanted to go... about half wanted nothing to do with it haha...

because it was "optional", since it was unanimous, we didn't go.

but wondering if for olders, if they'll "make you go"
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Usually decision is made by TM + majority of parents. This is assuming all players on the team are roughly the same skill level + the coach can move players around if someone cant attend.

If theres a superstar + their parents cant pay everyone groups together for $$$ and the player gets "adopted" by a different parent for the tournament + taken care of.

Once they get to 14 expectation usually is that players stay together 4 to a room + 1-3 parents chaparone the players making sure they do their homework + get to sleep at a normal hour + etc (laundry, driving to fields, etc)

Nobody is ever forced to go.
 
Woobie06 said:
Flew to PHX Friday afternoon for an 8am game on Sat…flew back at 2:30pm Sat in and out of Burbank…lots of $$$ and time for 1 game, but worth it right???? Less than 24 hours in PHX…ECNL….or we could have driven 7+ hours. Around $650-$700.
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We did that this weekend too for MLS Next, but drove. Some families decided not to pay for the hotel room and drove early Saturday and back after the game on Saturday.

And we had to do this twice this year (because, god forbid, they figure out how to schedule the two games at the same complex on the same weekend).

So just this season in MLS Next olders:

* One trip to Phoenix for 2 games.
* Two trips to Casa Grande for one game each.
* One 4 day event in Indio
* One trip to Las Vegas for 2 games.
* Various games in San Diego
* One game in Santa Barbra
* One 4 day event in Maryland
* One 4 day event in Dallas
 
Yak said:
Boys ECNL southwest conference is just one league game outside of SoCal (Vegas), two showcases over long weekends, then potentially playoffs and finals if the team qualifies. Playoffs are a week and finals are a long weekend. Playoffs were in San Diego last year and finals are at Silverlakes this year.

Only missed school has been a day or two for each showcase.
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Thanks. This is the type of info I was hoping people would share.
 
focomoso said:
So just this season in MLS Next olders:

* One trip to Phoenix for 2 games.
* Two trips to Casa Grande for one game each.
* One 4 day event in Indio
* One trip to Las Vegas for 2 games.
* Various games in San Diego
* One game in Santa Barbra
* One 4 day event in Maryland
* One 4 day event in Dallas
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Thanks. This bullet list is exactly what I was hoping to see. It definitely makes it easier to compare leagues.

(Side note - It sucks that the league didn’t have their act together to combine the Casa Grande games into one weekend. It does reflect on the league that they would handle it that way instead of trying to decrease travel for your team. It doesn’t seem that any of these leagues take player/family travel costs, financial and otherwise, into account when setting up their structures. And I say -player/family- travel costs because coach travel costs usually get pushed onto families in team fees, at least in our experience.)
 
SDMama said:
Thanks. This bullet list is exactly what I was hoping to see. It definitely makes it easier to compare leagues.

(Side note - It sucks that the league didn’t have their act together to combine the Casa Grande games into one weekend. It does reflect on the league that they would handle it that way instead of trying to decrease travel for your team. It doesn’t seem that any of these leagues take player/family travel costs, financial and otherwise, into account when setting up their structures. And I say -player/family- travel costs because coach travel costs usually get pushed onto families in team fees, at least in our experience.)
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We've been in MLS Next since the beginning and I don't think we've ever had to go to AZ for just one game. MLS Next gives scheduling control for league games to the local division (Southwest) and those divisions are run by the directors of the academies, so there's lot of ability for clubs to move things around to fit schedules. I wouldn't be surprised if it was the away team's coach or academy director who requested to play just one game in AZ those times. Sometimes it's about fitting the trip around the coach's schedule. It also may be that Barca Academy couldn't play the weekend they were supposed to also play SC Del Sol (because Barca does a lot of extra travel to non-MLS Next stuff with their residency players) and the away team just decides to play SC Del Sol and defer the Barca game to another solo weekend rather than skip a weekend altogether.
 
SDMama said:
Thanks. This is the type of info I was hoping people would share.
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Are you looking for info on boys, girls or both? For Girls ECNL/ECRL generally looking at over the course of a season one away trip to AZ, one away trip to Vegas, showcase in SD and possible out of state travel for playoffs (last year in Seattle, this year in SD) or additional showcases (depending on age).
 
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