Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
The Elite Clubs National League was founded in 2009 and continues to lead by daring to do things differently, embedded with grit, collaboration and tenacity – all things learned from the beautiful game. The ECNL protects and propels the integrity of the game and everyone it impacts by facilitating the perfect symmetry of excellence and humility, exclusivity and accessibility, freedom and community. We believe that challenging everyone to rise to their best creates game-changers that live well, long after cleats are unlaced. Born out of the belief in a better way. Continued in the ever-evolving pursuit of excellence.
Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Understanding Youth Soccer's New Pyramid | Ep. 132
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Breaking the Line returns to the airwaves with more news regarding youth soccer's newest pyramid: a collaboration between US Club Soccer, ECNL, NPL and now USYS.
Building off of Episode 131, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken expand further on the youth soccer landscape with the additional news that USYS will be joining NPL, and that US Soccer bought the managing contract for US Club Soccer.
Soccer's landscape has dramatically changed in a month's time, and the Breaking the Line team chat about what does this all mean for ECNL players, parents and coaches, why is this a good thing for soccer players around the country, and what does the future hold with this new structure.
Make sure to tune in and get the inside scoop for what is going to be an exciting shift in youth soccer at the beginning of the 2026-2027 season.
As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels.
Opening And Event Recaps
Speaker 2This is breaking the line, the ETNL podcast between ETNL President and CEO Christian Labers and ETNL Vice President and Chief of Staff Doug Bracken. A lot has been happening. Of course, the United Soccer Coach Convention is complete. Christian was there. Doug Bracken was down in Florida for some of the regional collection games and national collection games. Great to see him there as well. So with a lot to talk about, I turn it over to the president and CEO of the East NL, Mr. Christian Labor.
Speaker 3Thank you very much, Dean.
Speaker 4Doug, how are you? Good, man. I got to spend some good quality time with Dane Lanke down in Florida at our Florida event. That was great. Had a little chat at halftime with the uh RL NSG. That was pretty good.
Speaker 2Yeah, let me jump in too, Christian, on that and just say that having Doug right there and being involved and helping me track down the players and everything else. Doug, I'm glad that you played such a big role in that. So thanks for that.
Speaker 4Yeah, absolutely, man. It was great. Great to be there. And uh and the weather was nice, which is always nice. I saw Christian for like five minutes, even though we were in Lakewood Ranch together.
Speaker 3You went from Orlando, Seminole County, to be specific, where the RL Girls event was one week after the RL Boys event, jumped on over to Lakewood Ranch near Tampa, Sarasota, Bradenton, where the ECNL girls were one week after ECNL boys. And we did we were like ships in the night to a degree. Yeah. A lot going on over the past several weeks.
Speaker 4Do you want to give a shout out to Meg and her team at Seminole County? Did a great, great job hosting. And Danny Trossett, who is uh with Seminole County, also uh big partners, helped us run a great event, and then to go over to Lakewood Ranch. And I know you know those guys are great, also great partners of ours.
Speaker 3Premier Sports Complex.
Speaker 4Premier Sports Complex saw some good games and caught up with uh a lot of the staff, all good things.
Speaker 3This week was also the long-established tradition of the United Soccer Coaches Convention in Philadelphia, where that's that's where I ran into Dean because I did not see him in Florida. I got my Dean Linke time in in Philadelphia.
Speaker 4I did uh resign from going to the coaches convention a few years ago, unless you absolutely, you know, say I need to go. I avoid it. Tell me everything that happened, lots of track suits, lots of meetings.
Speaker 3Uh you know what? It was uh there's a a lot of people there, as always, had lots of interesting, good discussions with people, a variety of present uh presenters. I did a presentation, sat on a panel. Um, I think Dean, the one of the highlights of Dean Linke's life was uh interviewing or moderating some questions with Roberto Martinez, I believe. Hugh Dean Linke stepping in.
Speaker 2As I've told you before, I've been lucky to do a lot of great things, but that interview was amazing and smooth flowing, and he was like you guys, ready to answer any question that I threw at him. It was really well received. That room was packed, Christian.
Speaker 3I I'm sure he answers that question of like, how do you how do you feel about interviews? And he says, Well, I feel like I just try and prepare like Doug and Christian on breaking the line.
Speaker 4That's right. Just lock in. What's your biggest takeaway from the coaches convention, Christian?
Speaker 3It continues to be a great event, I think, particularly because it's really the only time of the year that there are representatives from just about every part of soccer that come together. And so I'm there's a value to that from just a relationship, you know, building, but also meeting new people. But uh, there's a lot of value that comes out of just connecting and talking uh about opportunities to work together, things that we can do together. So it was a good event, you know, tiring, as you as you would imagine. But with all the things that are going on in soccer, that was the buzz at the convention, right? All the recent uh uh announcements that have gone out, many of them involving ECNL and US Club, not all of them, of course. Uh, and you combine that with you know just the changing nature of youth sport and the economics involved and the consolidation going on. I mean, it was really kind of felt like you're in the middle of a boiling pot of water.
Speaker 4Well, I'm sorry if you got too hot. See what I did there?
Speaker 3Yeah, well played.
Three Big Announcements Explained
Speaker 4Yeah. Well, I think in this podcast, we want to kind of revisit the last podcast. We had Mike Cullen on, CEO of US Club Soccer, a great partner, and always a good uh good person to have on. I think we probably talked high-level about the recent release about the US Club Soccer Pyramid, of which obviously ECNL is a big part of. We thought this this time, let's let's like dig into this from strictly from the ECNL perspective and what this means and and that kind of thing. But before we do that, I think we do need to to acknowledge that there was an addition uh kind of to the pyramid. Chris, do you want to bring us kind of up to date on that front?
Why US Soccer’s Involvement Matters
Speaker 3Yeah, so I think there were three kind of announcements over the past month that have had a market impact in in our space, in our little corner of the world, as we say. Number one was the announcement of the of the US Club Soccer Competition Pathway, right? Which the pyramid, for lack of a better word, which recognizes ECNL, ECNL Regional League, NPL, and localized competition as the general tiers of competition with NPL as the top of the team-based competition and ECNL Regional League and ECNL above that in the club-based pathway. So that release was generally designed to create some transparency and clarity on what a lot of people already knew or at least believed, and and to formalize that so that you eliminate confusion. And confusion is never a good thing in sport or in business or anything like that. So that was announcement one number one. Announcement number two, if I get these in order a little bit off, that's fine, was that uh U.S. Youth Soccer's National League competition framework will become a part of that competition pathway. So in that tier that includes NPL, which is U.S. Club Soccer's team-based competition, now you're going to add U.S. Youth Soccer's National League teams. So those teams will now all be in one competition for a postseason advancement and championship. That postseason will be operated by the ECNL. So that really brings in a little bit from all of the all of these organizations, ECNL, U.S. Club, and U.S. Youth. What's the impact of that? Well, number one, there's estimates that the NPL plus the US YS National League is going to be somewhere around 10,000 teams playing in that level of the pyramid. And that is a gigantic number. The value to that is obviously you're going to get the ability to have Apples versus Apples competition because they're good uh whether you play in a US club league or a US youth league, you're advancing to the same postseason. That over time is going to create some consolidation between these leagues of where leagues will maybe combine, where they will remain separate, where there will be some sort of adjustment. And right now, Alex Revan from US Club and Mark Franklin from US Youth are doing that very important, detailed work of what is that regular season framework look like. And I think the number of leagues that are involved in that is going to be 30 something between the number of NPLs and the number of National League conferences and divisions. You're talking about 30 different, currently somewhat independent regular season competition structures that are going to look different in some way beginning August of this year. Then those teams are going to matriculate, if we're going to use a fancy word, into a postseason that will include those teams and ECNL Regional League teams. And then announcement number three was the announcement that U.S. soccer is now in a direct relationship with U.S. club soccer with respect to the management of U.S. club soccer's business, which was previously done by another company. But now U.S. club and U.S. youth in a very hand-in-glove relationship. That really what that will do is bring U.S. soccer closer to U.S. club and US club closer to U.S. soccer. And it's probably important to note that other federation national associations are in similar discussions with U.S. soccer about coming together in a way that is about creating more alignment in the sport. That's a lot.
Speaker 4Yeah, that's a lot. That's a lot. Okay, so I'm going to unpack that. Um let's start with what I would say is the top of that, or the you know, the bigger picture thing, and that is US soccer's direct involvement now in the youth landscape and what you think that means or says, or how does that help the landscape, hurt it? What are the negatives, positives? I don't know. What were your thoughts on that?
Competition, Federalism, And Innovation
Speaker 3Yeah, I don't I don't think there's really any negatives in that. I mean, the main impact of that, as I said before, is that there is going to be a lot more conversation and discussion and involvement of U.S. soccer now in things that directly impact the youth leagues. I mean, U.S. soccer is the national governing body, and that's a fancy way of saying they operate the national teams. They set high-level policy for the sport, and then they manage the variety of organizations that are members of U.S. soccer, like U.S. Club Soccer, the 54 state associations, AYSO, MLS, the Federation by its nature as the governing body appointed by FIFA, um, and confirmed, you know, with the uh the Olympic Act here in the United States. Uh, they have certain rights, certain responsibilities. Over time, a lot of the operating of the grassroots of the sport has been basically outsourced, for lack of a better word, to these other organizations. U.S. club soccer and U.S. soccer engaging in this transaction brings U.S. soccer into a discussion of operating in a way that they haven't been in before. And I think that's a real positive thing because it's it's intended to try and create more alignment, more collaboration between all of youth soccer in alignment with other organizations like US soccer, ideally down the road, like an MLS and WSL, USL, other national associations, so that soccer in America maximizes the opportunity to be efficient, maximizes transparency and clarity in terms of what the levels of competition are, and therefore, how does a player, coach, team, referee, how do they move up or down those levels to find the appropriate level of competition and know how to get wherever they're trying to get to in terms of what they want from the sport. And then ultimately, as you would say, probably in any industry, when there's less friction or less conflict between organizations, there's opportunities to save money. There's opportunities to create additional value in terms of efficiency and in terms of the ability to execute things more successfully. The short answer, Doug, is there's a lot still to be seen in how this unfolds, but there's other organizations that are looking at coming into a similar structure in relationship with U.S. soccer. The more that do that, the more opportunity there is for further collaboration in the sport. Does that answer that or is that still too vague?
Speaker 4Well, I think that's a good kind of overview of it.
Speaker 3So it's important to state in that, you know, U.S. club soccer still has a board of directors that will still make decisions about what happens within U.S. club soccer. That autonomy is preserved. There's just going to be additional people in the conversation. That I think is a positive.
Speaker 4Would you liken that to the relationship between ECNL and U.S. club soccer? Would you say it's similar?
Speaker 3It's similar. It's similar. Um, it's not exactly the same, but it's similar in the sense that the, you know, the ECNL has its autonomy in making dis decisions about league structure, league operations. There's certain things that we have to comply with, which we generally want to comply with with respect to federation policy or US club policy on things like safeguarding and risk management and that type of stuff. And then there's a lot of conversations where there is a discussion where US club's perspective on something is helpful to us because they have a different point of view, they have a different perspective on the landscape. And so we are in those conversations obviously all the time, whether it's you and me with US Club or the commissioners or event staff, whatever it may be, League Services. And I think you know that there's an extra degree of formality to that now with respect to the US soccer-US club relationship. But if you believe that more soccer people in a room trying to make soccer decisions is a good thing, then I think this is a good thing.
Speaker 4How do you preserve innovation as competition goes away or changes or comes together? How do you and you know, like I I think about my concern, I and again I'm trying to think about this, and I think US soccer's involvement is positive. But my question would be you know, one of the things I think that's really driven innovation and thought and trying to do things certain ways is just the competition of the current landscape, right? You kind of forced a build the best mouse trap, if you will. How do you preserve that while bringing these entities together?
Speaker 3Well, I think first your starting point of competition creating innovation is just a fact, no matter what industry you're in. It's ultimately one of the distinguishing um characteristics, I think, if we can take it even more philosophically, between socialism and capitalism. You know, at the end of the day, the the incentive and need to be better, do something better, do something different to drive value is a powerful part. I don't want to say the only part, but a powerful part of creating change. And so, I mean, that's why competition is one of the core values of our league, right? We feel that competition needs to be embedded in everything that we do. So when you look at, if you take that now to these relationships, and people have heard me speak and uh on topics in the past, and certainly at the convention, I did a presentation where I referenced this. Um, I am an adamant believer in in federalism, which is the separation, let's take a more generic definition, but the separation of powers between various levels of government. So in our American system, that is the federal government and the state governments most predominantly. But I think when you have a group of independent organizations that have autonomy, but also have the desire and in some cases need to work together to achieve their mission, you have a very powerful structure because it empowers more people to be a part of the governance. The fact that there are somewhat independent organizations allows each one to develop unique strengths and unique comp competitive advantages, if we're really going to go Michael Porter economics here, um, but competitive advantages unique to their organization to address the needs that are unique to their constituency or to the people that they serve, but also the need to collaborate to achieve big things is really important. Because what I think you end up in a properly functioning federalism structure is that you have the resources of multiple organizations combining to achieve big things that are agreed upon with the protections that each organization can address the specific needs, concerns, and problems that they have in their area of the world, whether that is clubs, teams, leagues, locations, whatever it may be. And that does preserve something very similar to competition, if not outright competition. Um, but it preserves something like that in terms of the ability to iterate and innovate, that does get lost if there is just one gigantic monolithic structure that becomes monopolistic.
Speaker 4And you would agree that that in 2009, that's the reason. I mean, that's what it was, right? The US structure was that.
Speaker 3It was that. I steal this quote from David Senra and the founders podcast. Here's a plug of that podcast. It's an unbelievable podcast. But I think I'll steal a quote from him of history, history doesn't repeat at rhymes. And you know, I think if you look back at 09 and before, 07 and before, what you did have is a monopoly in one youth competition structure and sanctioning body that ultimately, as tends to happen with monopolies, lost the drive, incentive, and need to innovate.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Linking Tiers And Real Pathways Up
Speaker 3And that for a long time, it's sort of like you can hold down the pressure, but the pressure just keeps building, building, building, and it looks for uh an avenue of escape. And the, as we've said many times on this podcast, the development academy was the pinprick that then blew up the structure and all the pressure came out. And the result of that has been, you know, a cascade of competition. You know, and and there are people that feel like there's too much competition in the league space, and they'd rather that it wasn't there. And I, you know, to those people, I always say, be careful what you wish for, because this is the truth in in every in every industry. I mean, you can look back that you know, a classic case of that is probably the automotive industry and what happened when there were restrictions on competition and what that does to the the desire and need to improve. So I think you're right. And that's an area that you know we should never overlook. The the we always try to be what I would call intellectually honest and that sort of stuff, is stopping the ability of a new and better mousetrap being created is not a good thing.
Speaker 4Yeah, you and I have talked about this before, maybe not here, but about how important competition is.
Speaker 3Yeah, that pinprick to your well, and listen, we've talked about that in our own history. You know, 2016, the creation of the Girls Development Academy, as you you and I know better than anybody, at least from an internal perspective, forced us to really look deeply inside, you know, ourselves and our organization. And so we got pissed first. Well, we did get angry, which is by the way, you know, that's part of what happens. Yeah, uh, somewhere on the stage of grief. Or I think it's the stages of grief, right? But that forced us to be better. It forced us to change a lot of things to that we didn't even know were, you know, probably stagnating, you know, because before that there was very little competition. And so again. Again, our goal is to win the competition, or, you know, put it a more polite way, our goal is to be the best at serving our members and accomplishing our mission. Having some incentives and spurs to that helps make sure that we are properly motivated to do so.
Speaker 4And so how does this pyramid do that for us?
Speaker 3Part of the outcome of the pyramid is a more clear connection from one level to another. And again, going back to the value of competition, our core value of competition, that means there needs to be a way for a club to demonstrate competitive success that allows them to move to higher levels of competition. If there's not a way to do that, if that is just a glass ceiling or a block, then you are in a somewhat uncompetitive environment, which means those incentives for the people at the top to get better tend to get dulled. I won't say they totally go away. That is a recognition that progress demands innovators. And so the pyramid linking that and making that more visible to people, I think is a good thing. It also works the other way. That if if an organization is really struggling, that there's a better level of competition for them. Then it becomes incumbent upon all the operators, of which we are a big one in that pyramid. But there's other operators in that pyramid, club operators, league operators, regional league operators, NPL operators, US youth operators, of making sure that we all reward the teams that demonstrate value in competition. People who don't do that, it's similar to what we said when we started the regional league. If we start the regional league and we don't recognize performance in the regional league, we will not have an ECNL Regional League long term. And if you look and we, you know, the numbers are in the press release, there's there's 50-something clubs that have been promoted in the last four cycles from the regional league into the ECNL.
USYS Integration And Scale
Speaker 4But I would add to that, you also have to make that thing, the regional league, stand on its own as well, right? I mean, I think it can serve both purposes. It's the you know proving ground, if you will, but also in and of itself a very stable and a platform that gives uh clubs and teams what they need.
Speaker 3If we, as the operators of most of the regional leagues, if we don't do a good job operating that and other leagues do a better job operating that, then the pyramid doesn't work so well. Right. So there's competition built in within that as well. And and really this pyramid that was uh announced is really the result of the market. The market tells people what it is, right? And this, I think there just got to a point where there was enough universal understanding that this is what the competition structure is, that it became clear that we should put that out and and we finally just said it, right?
Speaker 4It was kind of understood the function. Usy us coming in to it. What does that bring to the equation, other than the whatever thousand teams, thousands of teams that come into it as well?
Speaker 3Tom Condone, who's the CEO of USYS, has been really, really great in these discussions. Obviously, Tina Rick Rincone, the chairman of their board, supportive of this, and there's political pieces to moving all these things. There's business and technical, all of them have to move forward, right? Have to check boxes to go forward. So kudos to all those guys. USYS has gosh, you'd have to ask them the exact numbers, but I think they would say somewhere between two and a half to three million soccer players that are playing within their 54 state organizations or state associations and the National League. And so them coming in and fitting into this pyramid is a huge number of moms, dads, and players, coaches, clubs that are now directly connected and reinforcing this structure. And I I think that is a tremendous thing. U.S. club is about 800,000 players now. So if you put those together, I don't nobody can probably answer directly how many of those are double counted. Yeah. But I think the answer is a lot less are double counted than used to be. So if we go 2.5 plus 800, you know, you're really talking about more than 3 million easily of America's youth soccer families and players that are in this structure who now understand the pathway, the level that they're playing at, what to expect from that level. And that's an important part to this uh as well. So I think they add a tremendous boost to it, you know, and it becomes really the aspirational point for the people who want to compete at the highest level, which is all it's not not everybody, right? That's the great part about soccer. And I think, as we've said, love the uh I love the statement that all soccer is good soccer, right? Not everybody has to want to be a pro or go to college or you know, play at the highest level. Soccer soccer can provide a great activity for anybody, you know, at any level. But to bring, I think the the majority of that 2.5 million in USYS, you would say is probably in that community-based recreation. So some of that is by age and sort of you know, you 12 and under, some of that is just stage. But bringing them in, because as they say, every player starts as a community-based recreational player, no matter who they end up being at what level they end up playing at. So I think that brings a lot. And then, you know, there's a lot of people that for years have talked about this division between US youth soccer that results in clubs that drive by each other and don't play each other, and that adds costs of travel, and then that adds confusion, which can be exploited by people in terms of where to play and why. That starts to be, I don't want to say go away because there's always going to be challenges, but it starts to be better when everybody starts working at making what they're doing better together. I think we're gonna find a really good outcome.
Postseason Structure And Experience
Speaker 4Yeah, we talk about the playoff portion of that tier, the NPL USYS National League tier going into a playoff that is run, operated by ECNL, and then also uh ECNL RL teams will participate in. Tell me about that and what that looks like.
Speaker 3Yeah, so I mean, I think we've said before ACNL teams will continue to go to the ECNL playoffs. The ECNL Regional League top teams, the top teams in each regional league will go to the ECNL Regional League playoffs. And then what you will have is the top teams from the NPL and US Youth National Leagues and the next teams in the ECNL Regional League will meet in this tier of playoff competition that will look structurally very similar to the ECNL Regional League playoffs. Regionalized first stage with a finals second stage. This coming summer, so summer of 26, we have five ECNL Regional League playoffs, correct?
Speaker 4That's correct.
Speaker 3And we are looking at six ECNL Regional League playoffs in the summer of 2027. Um, in 2027, we will have four playoffs in this collective competition between NL National League and NPL and uh looking to move to six in 2028. So you're gonna look at a structure that is very similar in terms of multiple leagues feeding into a regionalized postseason and then the winners from those regionalized postseason events moving into a finals. The good part about that is when you have regionalized uh competition like that, you got more people to drive to it, which makes it less expensive. You can have more people participate in it when you have multiple regionalized uh playoff events compared to just one uh national event. So you get more people extending their season, more people able to drive to it, a fantastic event, you know, and uh and all our events, we want the look and feel to be ECNL. And that's what will be the case in this playoff as well, is that when you when you arrive, you will know that this is the this is an ECNL operated event. It'll be high, high class, great atmosphere, premium in all sorts of ways in terms of the experience for the player and the family. We hope, and we've operated under this belief since our creation, and you you were a big part of of this statement that if you have a fantastic postseason event, it drives change and improvement after the event because players want to get back to it. Players see other teams going through it and want to get there themselves. And so we feel like this will have a uh you know, sort of a spreading effect uh across that landscape.
Speaker 4When you have experienced going deep into the the playoffs, if you will, whatever that may mean for you, it's had like a profound effect on your team and your players and all that. So it's always been our thought that having more of those opportunities is a good thing. So that's what this does. Because I think people could look at this from the outside and go, oh, well, you know, why would you have three tiers or three, the I don't even know if you call them tiers, but three different types of playoffs or whatever. And I think the reason is because that, like we said, that extra month of that you're training for the for that event, those high-level games that you're playing it at that event, that's good for player development. I always say this to my to to my kids uh when we're talking about college, and you know, inevitably not everybody's a division one player. And you know, I always say, uh, and I played division two, so I always say that the trophies are just as shiny at division two as they are at division one. And so I think just giving people the opportunity to go win something and experience that and be part of that, you know, is whatever a force multiplier, if you want to, if you if you want to say it like that. So providing more of those, I think, is is a good thing.
Speaker 3Absolutely. I mean, at the at the end of the day, emotion is a big part of sport. I mean, part of the reason people love sport is the emotion it generates. There's no better emotion than competitive desire and excitement. And so creating that experience and that opportunity, I mean, we've all, and it's it is tiers. It's fine to call it tiers because it's not a tiered experience, it's tiered competition. The experience is going to be fantastic. And again, players who are identified as stars, whether that star is a potential pro or a national team player at 13, 14, hardly ever end up being that player.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Coalition Of The Willing
Speaker 3Right? They end up being passed. And there's all sorts of reasons by that. The general statement is that it's pretty darn factual that if you're the top player at U13 or U14, you're probably not the player who's made it at age 20, 22, whatever it may be. There's just too much turnover from then. So who cares about the tiers? What we're providing is a great experience because teams are going to move, players are going to move, clubs are going to move. What do you want? No matter where you are, you want a great experience.
Speaker 4Yeah, no question about it. That's the coolest part. I think, you know, just having experienced the previous way we did it, where only four teams kind of made it that far. And now the way we've done it in the past several years is it's been a big, it's been a big difference uh in it. Any more you think you see you foresee anybody, you know, anybody else coming into this, what I would call our pyramid, our ecosystem, our collective competition structure. Yeah. Is that what was that what we're gonna call it?
Speaker 3Well, I think it's accurate.
Speaker 4It's a lot of words. You're a lawyer, you know, you use a lot of words.
Speaker 3So as we've said before, it's a coalition of the willing. These are people that have uh come together under certain agreed upon vision. And there's no before somebody asks, there's no like secret document somewhere, but this is just a group that said, you know what, let's work together. We like what is happening, we agree with the direction that things are moving, or we like what uh is being uh offered and provided here. And we're trying to make this an inviting platform. And when I say we, that we as ECNL, US Club Soccer, US Youth Soccer, saying, hey, we have agreed that this is a good thing to do. Creating clarity in the environment, good thing to do. Bringing teams from a variety of right now different competition pathways, good thing to do. Yeah, sharing postseason experiences by allowing uh uh the same operator to do that across all levels, good thing to do. And other people who agree with those types of things and want to be a part of it, there's always a discussion for that, of course.
ECNL Symposium Preview
Speaker 4Yeah. All right, I'm gonna pivot just a little bit as we get towards the end here. This podcast will come out and and and then uh before you hear from our next podcast, we will have the ECNL Symposium, our coaching uh development program where we've got some really cool things. So let's talk over, you want to talk a little bit about what's on tap at the symposium and what people have to look forward to, what you're looking forward to. Good topic.
Speaker 3We feel like we've said this now multiple years in a row, but we'll be the biggest symposium we've ever had. So it's north of a thousand people. North of a thousand people on site. So that's probably a 15% growth from last year. Yep. Um, why is that important? Because this is a it's first of all, it's an unbelievable opportunity to meet people, build relationships, learn peer-to-peer, you know, about what one club does that you can make uh make uh work or uh put into your environment, how how they solve problems, how they structure programs and services. So there's like a huge informal piece to that on top of just relationships and reconnecting with people. What's unique about our event is it's all about youth club soccer. So in the in the way that the United Soccer Coaches event is unique because it's got pro soccer, high school soccer, club soccer, youth soccer, adult soccer, everybody. Our event is unique because it's just it's just youth club soccer. Those a thousand people probably getting close to representing somewhere between, I would say, 500 and a million players within the clubs of the people represented, which is really cool when you think about the sort of ability to impact uh what goes on. Obviously, we have our AGM on site where we go through our view uh in much more detail, probably than we've gone in here, but our view of what's what what we're gonna do in the league in the next year, what we see in the in the general youth soccer space, uh, where we share information about the league and and every aspect. And then, you know, I think we have unbelievable presenters. I mean, every year there's new people that bring really, really interesting perspective and background and expertise uh that'll be on site. And uh I think I think people will come and find it to be a very, very special event and a great opportunity to to learn, network, build relationship, and grow.
Speaker 4Any uh of the presenters, I know you're obviously looking forward to all of them because you're that you're kind of that coaching nerd who likes to learn all these things. That's that's a compliment. Anybody you're looking forward to, especially?
Speaker 3You know, the only way to answer that is to basically name them all, you know, otherwise I get in I get in trouble. What I what I guess I would say is is the you know, what we try and do here is provide a wide range of perspectives and expertise. So we have people who speak from the perspective of leadership, from teaching, from culture building to you know technical design or program design in a soccer club. And so we both feel this way, but we've always felt that just having X's and O's hour after hour is not that, you know, at some point it's diminishing returns.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3But when you can bring people that have maybe different ways of doing the X's and O's, that's interesting. But then you got to have other things to it. Just like, you know, as we've said, if if you're gonna be successful in youth soccer moving forward, there's uh so many different career paths, and some of them are on the field only, some of them are off the field only in terms of like business and management. But if you can have both, if you can have the skills to do a little bit of both, I think that it's a very, very bright career path for people who have some technical expertise, but also some uh business chops, for lack of a better word. And most of what we talk about at the at the uh symposium is in the technical area, some of it very hands-on on the field, but some of it also managing a club or managing an environment. But there are there are topics that are very relevant in terms of the business side and how do you just run a good organization? And and then we're trying to we're trying to check all those boxes.
Speaker 4Yeah, so February 3rd and 4th, right? Circa resort and casino. Circa resort and casino lawsuit. Before you ask, sold out, sold out, been there now. This is our fourth year running or third year. I think it's our fourth year.
Speaker 3I think it's the fourth at Circa, yeah.
Speaker 4Yeah, yeah. Shout out to um our internal team that's uh put this all together, uh, led by Laura Hubbard. Um, Kristen Brunner has been a big part of that. Meredith Pardue and uh Katie Tritt have kind of been the main team planning that the other thing is huge amount of work. Yeah, huge amount of work. Jeez. Another thing I will shout out, which I think is really cool, is the ECNL has 43 full-time employees, and 35 of them will be on site, which is the biggest number we've ever had. So that's a cool thing uh as well. So look forward to connecting with all those guys a couple weeks away. Looking forward to it.
SpeakerDid you know ECNL provides free recovery sessions? ECNL has partnered with Mark Pro, a staple for recovery in professional sports. Mark Pro is the unique, safe, affordable eSTEM device that feeds sore muscles, and removes metabolic waste. Stopped by the recovery zone during your next event. Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL. Nothing can stop what we do together to bring positive change to our communities. You can't stop sport because hashtag you can't stop our voices. Follow Nike on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
Bracken Brain Buster: Title Picks
Speaker 4Score big with Continental Tire. Prioritize your safety on the road with our thoroughly tested tires for top-notch traction handling and durability. Drive with confidence, find your dealer, continentaltire.com, Continental Tire. The smart choice in tires. Time for the bracken brain buster. What will it be? I'm gonna go simple. I'm gonna go simple today. No, Christian has a heart out tonight. Unpredicted, nobody would have predicted Indiana, Miami in the uh football national championship. Nobody would have predicted that, I mean, well, you wouldn't have. And you're the voice of our generation. So your winner and why?
Speaker 2Indiana all the way. Everybody thinks I went to Indiana anyway. I swear to God, I've gotten 15 texts saying, good luck to you, Hoosiers. So I'm not going to sway from Indiana. It's the most remarkable story, really, that I think I've ever seen in college football in short order. So I'm going Indiana, go Hoosiers. Lunate.
Speaker 3Christian Lamers. I gotta echo what Dean says. It's an incredible story. I don't think Indiana fans can believe it. You know, if you see them in the airport, which I was traveling through Atlanta uh when uh the night that they played in the semifinal, and I just think the Indiana fans were happy to be there. Uh but uh because when's the last time Indiana's been in a bowl game, much less a good bowl game, much less a playoff. And you know, how do you not like the way that Mendoza talks and the general selfless, humble, glory to God perspective that he brings? So it's awesome to see if you're gonna go all this way, you might as well take it home. You know, today everybody today everybody's a Hoosier.
Speaker 4Yeah, you're born Hoosiers.
Speaker 1Okay, all right. Jacob Bourne. I think it's a great story because you've got Miami, who's won a lot of national championships uh in recent memory, and everybody recognizes the U. And then Indiana is historically the losingest college football program. Literally. And these two teams are battling it out. Um, I'm going with Indiana. I think it's a great story, like everybody's echoed. I just think that it's gonna be really fun and good for them for making it this far. And I think it's really cool to see the NIL and how that has completely shaped their program and how they basically said, we're not gonna recruit, we're just gonna bring everybody in for transfers. Um, so it's a different it's a definitely a different way of roster building. Um, but they've they've shown that there's different ways to win and there's different ways to build winners, and so I'm really excited to see how they do.
Closing And Next Episode Tease
Speaker 4Well, I grew up in Indiana and uh was a huge uh Indiana basketball fan. Easy to be a fan of the Hoosiers in basketball. I was a huge fan of the men's soccer team at Indiana under Jerry Yagley national championships, Bob Knight national championships. Man, the football team's dunk. And it was painful, and my heart always wanted them to be good, they never were. And so I'm pretty happy. I mean, I'm pretty happy to say I'm I'm I want the Indiana Hoosers to win. Love Signati and what he says. Like if you listen to what he says and how he builds and what he's I love somebody who like has the way they do things, he speaks the same language, he says the same things over and over again, and uh I just win. Google me. You know, that's what he said at his press conference when they introduced him. I win, Google me. Um, so I uh I hope the Hoosers win. They look pretty unstoppable, but we'll see. You never know. You never know. So, all right, so that's it for uh another episode of Breaking the Line. Want to thank everybody for joining us. Of course, want to thank Dean, Voice of our Generation, Jacob for his uh producing chops to get us going. And uh next time we talk to you, we will be live at the ECNL coaching symposium and annual general meeting. Can't wait for that. And until then, uh, we'll see you uh see you next time.
Speaker 2Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line, the ETNL podcast. And remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line, the ETNL podcast, email us at info at the ectnl.com.