I have to disagree with you guys about maintaining the status quo. I get what you're saying, and I used to fully believe in the nice, neighborhoody, continuity vibe, but I believe the arguments for a westside merger far outweigh the arguments against.
(Full disclosure, I'm a former SMU parent, now at TFA, and I pay a lot of attention to west side soccer.)
Here's what I see a consolidated westside club would do:
- Consolidate talent. Most westside A teams are lucky to have half of a decent team, and merging would bring all the talent together. Development is more likely to happen the narrower the gap in talent between the top and bottom players. Makes it much easier for the coach to teach. Everyone is happier.
- Recruiting. Right now there are decent players languishing at Chelsea, FC England, Autobahn Athletic FC, etc. This would make one clear destination for those players to end up. Also, some of those local ballers that left in middle school to try their luck in DA eventually decide against DA, and having a top team in the neighborhood would be an obvious destination. I know lots of high school age kids who finish out their years commuting to successful distant teams.
- Maintaining talent. There are TONS of kids who commute out of the west side. SMU B06 alone have 8 players now at Galaxy, TFA, or LAFC. On the girls side, it tends to be even more, as the demographics of girls soccer skews toward affluent suburban areas. It's going to get even worse, in the 7 years that I've been paying attention I've seen younger and younger kids getting very serious about soccer.
- Roster slimming: There's probably 10% of the players on the three clubs that are roster fodder that could be serviced by (what would now be) the lower level clubs. Take a typical boys age group: There's four teams between the two clubs. A consolidated club could cut the roster bloat and have three decent teams. These kids are generally getting ripped off as it is, and would have a better experience at a different club.
- Coaching. Both SMU and FCLA has a lot of questionable coaches running around that were hired by previous DOCs. They're pretty much all overpaid, as the management of the two clubs believed their own hype about how amazing their coaches are, and competed with each other to retain "top talent". A merger will be a great opportunity to trim the excess coaches, and give opportunities to the handful of coaches who actually know what they're doing (and there are some good ones in the lot).
- Curriculum. By having a bigger club, you can actually have a meaningful curriculum and developmental progression. Coaches will be slotted into their strengths. Some of these guys like teaching younger kids ball skills, some of them like getting high school kids recruited. Run the thing as a real academy, with coaches interchanging at practice, learning from each other. Age groups practicing as a unit, olders vs youngers, etc.
- Fend off the even bigger clubs. You can rail about the growth of clubs all you want, but it's the reality of the situation now. The worry is that by resisting becoming a super club, you make yourself vulnerable to take over by mega club. I'm thinking of RSC, Galaxy, LAFC, Legends or someone could come knocking with sweet-talk about a "path to DA", and all it takes is convincing some clueless well-meaning volunteer club president and the next thing you know, you're a total feeder club. I know Surf was sniffing around SMU a few years ago, so this isn't as far-fetched as you might think. By scaling up, you have a better chance to maintain local control.
- Economy of scale. Goalkeeping coach, equipment, skill clinic, futsal nights, college recruiting resources. All of that become cheaper on a per player basis and therefore achievable.
- College recruiting. By becoming bigger, you can get known to college coaches. As it is now, each of those clubs produces a top team maybe once every four years. It's a massive struggle for the team administrator to get noticed by college coaches. A big club would have consistently strong teams and players.
- Apply for DA status. I think the boy's side is saturated, but a girl's DA on the westside makes a lot of sense. Or ECNL. The boys side could ride the coattails, enjoying the benefit of having better coaches and higher standards.
- Professional management. Can pay for administrators, a treasurer, and a field wrangler.
- Funding players. Right now, at least on the boys side, both SMU and FCLA have a big problem funding scholarship players. Many average boys A teams make a faustian bargin: fund a few outside players at unsustainable levels, ride the success for a year or two, and then either crash, use the success to recruit better local players, or find some well-heeled family to fund those kids. It happens at many age groups. It falls on individual parents and TAs to tape the thing together. You bring in some duffers to fill out the roster and hit the coaches salary, we all know the tricks. I've been one of those TAs, so I know what I'm talking about. It sucks to have to tell a family there's no money for your kid this year. It creates horrible team dynamics, as the wealthy parents feel smug, the middle parents resent the loss of playing time, and the funded families feel everyone's resentment. I don't even want to get into the racial elements to this, but we all know it's there. People always figure a westside team should have plenty of money, and it's true you see a lot of kids hopping out of luxury cars. But there are plenty of kids who need scholarship help on the westside. The trouble is that NONE of those clubs have any coherent plan for how to address it. It just falls to team manager and coach to make it work, and it sucks. By consolidating, you could build a plan for this into the charter. Make it part of the club's DNA. Get away from team specific budgets (nice, clean, simple idea, but its time is up) and run the thing as an academy.
- Field space. Obviously, this is a big issue. It'd be more complicated for sure. BUT: a bigger club would have more muscle and could make life hard for the little guys. Also, it could make more efficient use of space. It would also have way more lobbying power. Gain control of the university high field. And what ever happened to that proposed field next to Samohi?
- Shirt sponsorship. Surely with all the media power hitters on the westside, a big club could sell that jersey space?
- Fundraising. A really successful, high-powered, locally-controlled club that does things right would get people excited to open their wallets. Right now, people are afraid to, because they never know if they'll be jumping ship to the other neighborhood club in a year or two. Similarly...
- Cultural capital. Scratch the surface of any westside team, and you'll find parents who are powerful people in LA. Make a club worth believing in, and you can get their help in opening doors and making things happen...
- Long term strategic thinking: At SMU, we talked about raising a few million bucks to turf a field if we ever had a partnership with a park or school. That'd be easier with a big club. The idea would be: the school or park would have the field weekdays from 8am to 5pm, the club would use it from 5-9:30, and could have three 1.5 hour practice sessions. The club would pay for the turf and maintenance. LAUSD is insane to work with, but a big club might be able to make things happen, or could work with other school districts like Culver City. With fields, you can get into the real money makers, which is tournament hosting.
