"Cut the baby in half."

I see all these AP postings, and I'm perplexed at how every Coach/ Club is aiming to double their teams. Am I the only one puzzled by this?

We should get a better feel spring/ summer. I don't see any tment with AP teams yet. Or I am completely blind. There will be mergers between coaches to keep their numbers or half the teams risk folding. Most of these coaches are not worried about loosing teams, they were just worried about loosing "numbers" for their clubs.

Elpistolero wrote: Most of these coaches are not worried about teams.  Just "numbers" from those who approached me to merge.

Recently visited one of the BIG clubs actively pushing the AP thing on here. The above comment is spot on. Pile in the numbers, have a paid babysitter to cover 1/2 the games and training sessions and give the parents a speech about how they're the ONLY club doing things RIGHT!!

And people are actually buying it!!!

How much does that babysitting gig pay?

11v11 typically requires 15/16 on a roster. 9v9, 12/13 is good so it does free up 3/4 spots per team so for every 3 teams traditionally entering U11, it frees up enough players to form another team. The smaller clubs if they have a team split 50:50, 60:40, whatever, will have difficulty finding 7 kids to fill a team if they have no adjacent team in the age group to mix with. Clubs with multiple teams in an age group will absorb the impact by moving kids across the teams to other teams within the club and hence more perceived stability.

Not sure why this thread has gone the conspiracy route. The numbers and logistics explain the only result that could have come from the small-sided and age pure implementation. This was always going to blow up the independents and smaller clubs to an extent.

I'm not agreeing not disagreeing with the observations but it was inevitable.

I think the missing point isn't the numbers it's the money. Lets say you go from 16 paying families to 12. at $3K you are down $12K. Now I am sure lakehighlands will not lower the league fee for the 9v9. The practice field rental remains the same and the coaches time to run the practice is identical. So a 9v9 team cost just as much to run as a 11v11. So do you just ask the remaining parents to pick up the additional cost? Or do you try the unthinkable just make 2 teams with like 24 kids at practice? Sure that's too many kids to develop but actually makes you more money