The answer to your question is actually in your post. The title of the league isn't "Second-Team Feeder League." The fact that the name of the league is specifically designed to obfuscate the reality of the competition is why we say "sucker's play." You already understand where the league is and what its actual value is, which makes you one of the minority in youth sports. Your club isn't advertising the EA league to you, because you're already a customer. The EA hook is for all the other parents (the majority, btw) who think their kid is "elite" and is being under served in their current Silver Elite, Gold, Flight 2, Flight 1 etc., league and club-hopping to find the one where they can brag about their kid being an "Academy" or "Elite" player.
The other reason I personally feel like these second level leagues are sucker plays is that (in my experience) these clubs have zero intention of using their second teams as feeders for their top teams. In pro sports, that is a workable, functioning model. In youth sports, that model is an illusion, a fallacy, a fantasy, a lie. I wish it were not so. It's not that the second tier kids can't make the transition, it's that the clubs are not structured to transition them. Each team is run individually by their very territorial coaches, their players are their paychecks, and they all resist giving or taking players to and from each other. Plus, the clubs have no intra-club scouting and development and programming. The clubs know this, yet the clubs can't resist marketing the professional model of promotion to upper levels because it appeals to the ambition of every parent who dares dream their kid can play in college or professionally. I wish it were so. I know there are plenty of B-team kids and late bloomers who catch and surpass the supposedly "elite" players as they age. But those kids almost invariably do so on their own drive and talent and because of individual coaches, NOT because of clubs and DEFINITELY NOT because of "leagues." So anytime clubs gather together and create a new and improved "elite" league, it's automatically a sucker play because they do not have any intention of honestly describing their business model.