College Soccer is pointless

[ZooCougar]

Guess who that would exclude? ACC/BC strikes again?

They don't want us.

 

[ZooCougar]

 

[Chuck]

Am I wrong in believing there is a zero chance of this happening? The Big 10 and ACC, who also happen to be the top soccer conferences, need soccer to fill their networks. Even if they keep tv rights for their home games, they'd most likely be giving up a lot of content, and they NEVER give up money for the good of the game.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

It's nice that US soccer is attempting to force collegiate soccer into a promotion/relegation model.

It would be even nicer if they would try to force MLS into a promotion/relegation model as this is among the things holding US soccer back on the world stage.



Note - I am fully aware that it won't happen in MLS as a large part of their business model is collecting expansion fees but until there is a financial reason to be highly competitive the sport won't grow as it should.

 

[pepband99]

Make a niche sport even more niche. Brilliant stuff from the brain trust at US Soccer.

 

[Windham4th]

Simple solution. Be better than the international players. It's US youth soccer infrastructure that is failing.

 

[ZooCougar]

Am I wrong in believing there is a zero chance of this happening? The Big 10 and ACC, who also happen to be the top soccer conferences, need soccer to fill their networks. Even if they keep tv rights for their home games, they'd most likely be giving up a lot of content, and they NEVER give up money for the good of the game.

I didn’t realize there was money in college soccer.

Basically USSF says do this or risk continuing the skid into complete irrelevance.

There are some comments below the Athletic Article from parents that are pretty damning.

 

[ZooCougar]

Simple solution. Be better than the international players. It's US youth soccer infrastructure that is failing.

Nope. The best US players don’t even consider college. Obviously you didn’t read the article.

There should also be cap on internationals. Our scholarships should get used on a French kid that washed out of the pro system overseas Z

 

[ZooCougar]

Make a niche sport even more niche. Brilliant stuff from the brain trust at US Soccer.

College soccer is very niche. Everything else. Get a clue.

 

[CL82]

It can exist and should exist, but not all of them need to be a national scope D1 sport and offer the same level of expenses- scholarships, facilities as the major sports.

The advent of de facto free agency in the revenue sports (football and basketball) and the impact of "separate but equal" Title IX requirements puts tremendous pressure on non-revenue men sports. Because Connecticut has a very good prior history in soccer, and a brand spanking new stadium on campus, that will be the last place to have cuts. But pretty much every other men's non-revenue sport is likely to be relegated to club status or just eliminated. That would have already happened to golf, but for private money coming into support it.

As predictably is the case when organizations seek to correct a perceived injustice by real allocating resources, they look only at the perceived problem they're trying to correct and not the downstream foreseeable consequences of the correction. Thus, in this case, where there is a "defined pie", namely, schools, athletic department budget, they neglect to consider, or blithely ignore, the fact that all allocating more resources to one area means that other areas have to be reduced or eliminated. We can expect continued cuts on the men's side of college athletics. Also, matching the scholarships necessary for college football will eventually cause smaller schools to eliminate it and likely eliminate the offset women's programs eventually.

 

[Purple Stein]

Went to my first UConn soccer game last night with my kid's team. Good time.

Sucks the system is broken.

 

[Waquoit]

Went to my first UConn soccer game last night with my kid's team. Good time.

Sucks the system is broken.

Is the system broken? College soccer thrived when US kids had no other options. Now they do. So what if colleges don't get the best players.