AYSO UNITED

[Grace T.]

Depends on what you are working on. Have tried Latino league, you don’t really have the freedom to mess around/ they actually want to win. Futsal is great but AYSO core is on real grass and full size goal. Again you have to handicap them to equal the playing field.

This is just human cones with extra steps. Might be unfair to the cones too depending on how it is executed.

This I don't understand (and maybe you can expand). As far as I thought, each league is an independent business entity, and could pick and choose whoever they wanted to include. I know leagues take applications, have a review process, and are admittedly biased about their selections, based on whatever criteria they choose. I'm unclear on why you think this would be legally questionable.

As a related aside, to the other point above, there would be some regional overlap if Culver City was admitted (although perhaps not true for many parents in practice, since both other clubs are 40+ minutes away from Culver City during practice times, with traffic). But if there are any legitimate legal concerns about "picking and choosing winners", in terms of accepted teams within regions, wouldn't admitting somewhat overlapping teams pretty much negate that argument? It seems to undermine that criticism, to me at least.

I was responding to which version is insane. The insane version is if the leagues are screening for competition and particular clubs are objecting on the grounds it might hurt their $$$. I agree if they admit overlapping teams it vitiates the insane version somewhat but then the question is what standards are they looking at. The bauble would just point to cronyism which is < insane than illegality (and if they get it the Pulisic connection seems to be to be a big factor, which also explained why Juventus or Bulls). But as zags has pointed out that area is pretty saturated. From a competition point of view its not just Juventus and Bulls but also Breakers, Santa Monica EA and Laufa (as well as others like Steel United in the past struggled in that area). Look at the draw: south there's the desert that is Inglewood and the airport...not a lot of money there...until you break into the beach regions north and south and Marina del Rey. As to traffic and 40 minutes, I don't think thats a legit rejoinder: we know how far people drive for letter league soccer....my son's girlfriend bestie drives 2 hours to her ECNL practice, and I remember talking to one parent whose kid was driving from San Gabriel to Oxnard for MLS.

 

[chipmonk]

Below you will find position of the current table for MLS. These Mickey Mouse clubs like LA Bulls and Juventus/LA Youth have no business being in MLS. At some point someone has to take note and how many years has LA Bulls now had MLS. SMH....good old boys club for sure....

I will add if Culver gets added to MLS2, they hands down would have access to the best resources amongst the 2 below. Grace is also right, the area will be saturated, something has to give.

MLS NEXT
LA BULLS 2013 - 20/23
LA BULLS 2012 - 9/22
LA BULLS 2011 - 20/20
LA BULLS 2010 - 6/20
LA BULLS 2009 - 16/20
LA BULLS 2007 - 20/20

MLS 2
LA BULLS 2013 - 17/18
LA BULLS 2012 - 18/18
LA BULLS 2011 - 12/18
LA BULLS 2010 - 14/18
LA BULLS 2009 - 16/20
LA BULLS 2007 - 14/20

MLS 2
JUVENTUS 2013 - 3/18
JUVENTUS 2012 - 16/18
JUVENTUS 2011 - 15/18
JUVENTUS 2010 - 13/18
JUVENTUS 2009 - 18/18
JUVENTUS 2007 - 15/18

The Bulls aren't really in the same area any more. Their fields are in the valley, but they still pull kids from West LA as the closest HG option. We'll see if Albion Santa Monica gets more of their MLS teams or not.

 

[zags77]

LA Bulls fund their business with all their younger teams that are set up in the Palisades (Paul Revere Middle School)

The field is horrible and they use it to train their So Cal teams and DPL teams. From my understanding they could not put the MLS or MLS2 teams there so they are now finding field in Hollywood and the Valley.

The hub and cash cow remains in the Santa Monica area. Story goes they are messaging to their girls teams they are getting GA Aspire.....

 

[Grace T.]

LA Bulls fund their business with all their younger teams that are set up in the Palisades (Paul Revere Middle School)

The field is horrible and they use it to train their So Cal teams and DPL teams. From my understanding they could not put the MLS or MLS2 teams there so they are now finding field in Hollywood and the Valley.

The hub and cash cow remains in the Santa Monica area. Story goes they are messaging to their girls teams they are getting GA Aspire.....

Hollywood is a bit of a dessert when it comes to facilities. Laufa back in the day used Sonia Sotomayor and John Marshall high schools (with the club house near Griffith) and drifted to Downey then to Long Beach and now northward again. One of the selling points for Bulls was the Valley needed a team and the Gols complex was expanding. Similarly LASC used to be based at Cathedral High School in downtown but has drifted into the San Gabriel Valley. With the Bulls still drawing from the West Side, Breakers ECNL, Juventus, Santa Monica EA (with some MLSN teams from Albion LA) and Laufa/Albion LA that area is really really saturated. What you really need is a team in the West Valley or Simi but either option will gut Oaks. It's also no surprise as a result why so many teams from the aforementioned clubs struggle to get traction. There's also the fact that once you leave Culver City and Marina del Rey, there's a huge desert where families aren't exactly beating down for club soccer around the airport.

 

[sigmabody]

There's also the fact that once you leave Culver City and Marina del Rey, there's a huge desert where families aren't exactly beating down for club soccer around the airport.

This ties into the other topic on the thread too, re AYSO. I don't think there are necessarily a huge number of families even in the Culver City area who are beating down the door for more high-end club soccer options (there are a number of other area clubs, and the top-tier players go to Galaxy or LAFC anyway). But with AYSO dropping the ball so badly during and after Covid, there were a significant number of middle-class parents with enough money to try to find some way to keep their kids involved in soccer, that the local clubs were able to thrive on that demand, particularly since their prices at the time were not as high as they are now (CCFC has gone from ~$2800/yr then to ~$4500/yr now, plus kit costs, plus travel costs, and pay-as-you-go for teams which play in more than 3 tournaments annually).

Speaking for myself, it's not like I'm chasing D1 scholarship and academy births for my kid (as I've stated before); I'm mainly just trying to keep him active and competing enough to play in HS. We have a local AYSO United team; their players did not make any of the 3x HS teams. I'd love to be paying less, but local clubs seem like the effective baseline now, to be at the level to play in HS (at least where I am).

 

[Grace T.]

This ties into the other topic on the thread too, re AYSO. I don't think there are necessarily a huge number of families even in the Culver City area who are beating down the door for more high-end club soccer options (there are a number of other area clubs, and the top-tier players go to Galaxy or LAFC anyway). But with AYSO dropping the ball so badly during and after Covid, there were a significant number of middle-class parents with enough money to try to find some way to keep their kids involved in soccer, that the local clubs were able to thrive on that demand, particularly since their prices at the time were not as high as they are now (CCFC has gone from ~$2800/yr then to ~$4500/yr now, plus kit costs, plus travel costs, and pay-as-you-go for teams which play in more than 3 tournaments annually).

Speaking for myself, it's not like I'm chasing D1 scholarship and academy births for my kid (as I've stated before); I'm mainly just trying to keep him active and competing enough to play in HS. We have a local AYSO United team; their players did not make any of the 3x HS teams. I'd love to be paying less, but local clubs seem like the effective baseline now, to be at the level to play in HS (at least where I am).

Oooof. We at the point where United regular club players can’t make high school teams without letter league or is it just an unusually high flight high school? . My kids high school has some flight 1 and former letter leaguers that don’t do club anymore in it but they are div 6 and those are all juniors/seniors. His close friend made varsity out of a local flight 1 club at a not nothing div 3 public school but had to wait senior year.