prepsoccer.com
- Thread starter NorCalDad
- Start date
Familiar with prep dig for volleyball. At the bottom left of their website, they list affiliations with other sports, but I never heard of the soccer version. Looks like a lesser "Soccer Wire" to me.
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
J.R. Eskilson, who was a long time writer for TopDrawer is one of the main writers. He's been in the mix for 15 or so years.
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
I think the buisness model is to sell a subscription first which gives access to content and resources. I think there are extra services like the ID camps. Some people prefer to attend camps where several colleges attend vs. going to one school at at time so thats valuable option to some.
I don't know how or who they choose who write about. There are two dual nationals I watch in California that have had a handful of articles written about them and they have never attended a camp so i don't think those are tied.
Top Drawer, PrepSoccer, etc to some degree are an online version of the paper magazines Soccer America, Soccer Monthly Magazine, and I think Soccer Digest from the 80s/90s. All of those had some form of game coverages (pro, HS, college, international), some player articles, general camp related info. I recall seeing advertisements for ODP trials, college camps, soccer camps, etc.
The newer online versions have the same premise, but some added features, or tools.
I think for kids the big draw tends to be the rankings, its emotional for the subscriber.
I don't know how or who they choose who write about. There are two dual nationals I watch in California that have had a handful of articles written about them and they have never attended a camp so i don't think those are tied.
Top Drawer, PrepSoccer, etc to some degree are an online version of the paper magazines Soccer America, Soccer Monthly Magazine, and I think Soccer Digest from the 80s/90s. All of those had some form of game coverages (pro, HS, college, international), some player articles, general camp related info. I recall seeing advertisements for ODP trials, college camps, soccer camps, etc.
The newer online versions have the same premise, but some added features, or tools.
I think for kids the big draw tends to be the rankings, its emotional for the subscriber.
Do any college coaches attend these Prepsoccer college ID camps? They don't mention it so I am assuming not especially since they do such a big marketing push to announce when a player signs up to their camp. Sounds more and more like pay to play or in this case pay to be written a nice glowing review on prep soccer.com.
JustaSpectator
SILVER
If you click on "register today" on that particular event day, it gives you an event overview. It does say prep soccer scouts, college coaches and other media outlets will be there as these are Freshman-Senior events.
Yeah this was my take as well. I just don't get it. Especially their rankings (pay to rank). I'm just trying figure out if there's any validity of what they're trying to do or if it's another money grab.
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
PrepSoccer - Basically Eskilson writing a lot of articles and watches a number of games. Subscription model so seems like paying customers do get more coverage.
SoccerWire - These guys will straight up just repost writeups submitted by parents. Subscription model
TopDrawer - Less coverage on individual players, they'll just lazily take YNT lists to come up with their rankings. But I don't think parents are writing articles here.
Moral of the story - Take all these articles and rankings with a grain of salt
SoccerWire - These guys will straight up just repost writeups submitted by parents. Subscription model
TopDrawer - Less coverage on individual players, they'll just lazily take YNT lists to come up with their rankings. But I don't think parents are writing articles here.
Moral of the story - Take all these articles and rankings with a grain of salt
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
I've seen kids out with ACL tears, so 9-12mo, who have moved up in rankings while out injured.
As for the YNT. There are a handful of kids who get invited to a YNT and all of a sudden jump 50-80 spots. Then a kids gets left off a roster and drop 20 spots. a grain of salt may not be enough
I don't know why they would. What are the qualifications of people doing the rankings?
I know a few kids going to tomorrow’s camp in Glendale. There’s some good talent that I saw on their list of players going. Camp runs from 9:30a-1:30p.
I’ll take the camp for what it’s worth, an opportunity for the kids to play with other kids from different age groups, cities, clubs to train with and against each other. Camp is about $140, divided by 4 hours is $35 an hour. I’ve spent more on other trainings and camps.
I don’t think it’s a bad deal to get that with someone writing something nice about your kid and making some highlights of your player at the training to use later to provide to scouts. Add a couple college scouts in there that’s a bonus imo.
I’ll take the camp for what it’s worth, an opportunity for the kids to play with other kids from different age groups, cities, clubs to train with and against each other. Camp is about $140, divided by 4 hours is $35 an hour. I’ve spent more on other trainings and camps.
I don’t think it’s a bad deal to get that with someone writing something nice about your kid and making some highlights of your player at the training to use later to provide to scouts. Add a couple college scouts in there that’s a bonus imo.
I think the part that feels scammy is the "someone writing something nice about your kid". It feels like parents are just paying for them to market their kid. Not knowing who the coaches/evaluators are is a bit odd as well. It feels like a money grab.
If PrepSoccer writes something about your kid, it probably just means Eskilon watched part of the game and wrote about it. It's always positive, because these are just kids and it's going up on the internet.
Top Drawer's "players to watch" is different. That's just republishing things parents send in. It's no secret; the link to submit your own blurb is right there.
I was surprised to see something being written on my kid from prep soccer. I never paid for anything and they described the game and her play as it happend so it means they must have been watching during playoffs. However Top drawersoccer I hear it’s more about submitting and paying by parents to get something written. They’ll take the 80 kids that went to USA national camp like in 2010 group and those are your top 80… of course with the exception of #1 ranked 2010 girl player who just went pro. Overall the ranking is all a marketing hype. Take it with a grain of salt cause you are just drinking kool aid…
The GDA league did something similar. Player of week was written by daddy or mama bear.
Smart move by JR. Charge for an ID camp. Send out a picture that the kids/parents can post saying they are going to the camp. Attend the camp and then have something nice written about them that the kid/parent can post on socials. Given how socials are now I would expect more of these ID camps and attendance to start to grow. I wonder if anyone performed poorly at this camp. I'm thinking no
Smart move by JR. Charge for an ID camp. Send out a picture that the kids/parents can post saying they are going to the camp. Attend the camp and then have something nice written about them that the kid/parent can post on socials. Given how socials are now I would expect more of these ID camps and attendance to start to grow. I wonder if anyone performed poorly at this camp. I'm thinking no
I went to the camp. There were about 45 kids out there broken into 4 groups and 4 college coaches working with each group that rotated about every 45 min or so.
Most kids were ECNL, GA, RL and a few NPL sprinkled in. Maybe 3 kids if I recall on national teams (1 Dominica republic, 2 Philippines) and I’m sure there were a few more that I’m missing.
One group did some technical passing drills, another did rondo drill and a 3rd did some shooting. Keepers were in their own group.
Afterwards the teams broke off into small sided games and everyone scrimmaged each other. There was a 30 min rest / break and kids went and got in their cars in the AC and some had some light snacks.
Then 2 full fields were used for scrimmages between all the players. Some players had left early due to injury or over exertion at that point and didn’t participate.
The scrimmage was pretty competitive. There were maybe less than 5 girls that looked at a lower level but for the most part the playing field was pretty competitive.
There seemed to be a bias as to who the top performers were as there were 3 defenders who stood out that weren’t made mention and a midfielder that went unnoticed. There was keeper that looked like a total standout as well too that I didn’t see mentioned too.
Given the write ups in the 2010s that were mentioned and at check in the coaches knew them by their names prior to check in, I’m pretty sure that the writers knew ahead of time who they were going to write about. Needless to say, I don’t think they wrote anything inaccurate about those players either, rather, those players were noticed and others were not given much attention.
I thought the camp was well ran and had a great group of players out there. Given that part of the camp, I felt it was a great opportunity to attend the camp but felt they should have taken an better look at and acknowledged some of the players that performed well that were unknown to the writers prior to that camp.
After the camp, the players got 50% off a subscription to their website and articles. It was also free to claim your player profile and put in pertinent information and a personal statement field about the player.
What colleges were there? I've always wondered why Prep Soccer never lists the colleges attending. Glad to hear it went well and was a good camp.