How to Get Into ECNL and Grow a Youth Soccer Club

[0:00] And let's say the club communication tool is really difficult to use. It has a lot of bugs in it. Then, you know, the parents don't get mad at the club communication tool to get mad at you. I get that every day. I get it every day. I think I probably deleted seven of those this morning.

[0:20] Welcome back to the podcast, people. This is the Waresport podcast. And again, I'm your host, Devansh, also the founder of Waresport. The next 30, 40 minutes aren't about me or Waresport. So if you want to know more, you can go check us out on the website. But this man, this gentleman right here with me, that's who the focus is going to be on. So I'd love for you guys to get to know about Anthony about his organizations, and we'll have a wonderful conversation.

[0:50] So can you give us a quick introduction, Anthony, who you are, what you do? And yeah, happy to be here. Thank you for asking me to come. My name is Anthony Sardon. I'm the director of coaching at Snohomish United up in northern Washington state, originally from California, how I got up here, recruited to play soccer at Seattle University, got into coaching where I coached collegiately there for six years as an assistant coach, and then transitioned over more to the youth side to take the director of coaching position up here.

[1:24] We are a ECNL club. We have the ECNL for the boys side, ECNL RL. We have many different programs, so about 650 premier level players, about 1,000 recreational level players, we have 100 TOPSoccer players, which is a special needs program. And then we also added the USL League Two and USL W teams so that our players have a pathway to move up and play pre-professional soccer and then eventually go on to become professionals. Amazing. I have a few questions from that, you mentioned Anthony, so you guys obviously have, you know, 1,600, 1,700 athletes and thousands, essentially.

[2:17] So two layered questions. First of all, you mentioned ECNL, right? Yeah, exactly. All the acronyms can be confusing for sure. Exactly. So first of all, can you, in easy words, explain to our audience what that is? Because some of the audience might not be familiar with professional soccer.

[2:41] So what that is? Yeah. So let's get to it. So ECNL is one of the top leagues for youth in the entire country. So there's MLS NEXT Homegrown, which is top. And then there is ECNL. And it kind of depends on where you're located in the country or which league is the best. Now, we love the ECNL.

[3:03] They run a great league. They're very professional, very organized. We've had nothing but a great experience with them. In our region, ECNL is king. All the top clubs are ECNL. There's only one, there's only one MLS NEXT Homegrown program, which is the Seattle Sounders. We have MLS NEXT Academy, but it's not necessarily the top clubs in the state.

[3:28] The top clubs in the state participate in the ECNL in our region. So it's a great league. Full-time U13 through U19. We just added the U11 and U12 platform this year. And then the kids go on, they're going to like showcases and get seen by college coaches. And it's a platform for them to be able to be seen to play in college.

[3:51] And how do you apply to that? Can any club be part of this? Any club can apply. It's not an easy thing to be selected. You have to be a top club to join. And then you have to base it on a bunch of different factors on how good your teams are, the ability to coach, infrastructure, organizational skill, all that stuff.

[4:15] So there's a lot of factors that go into it. It's a pretty intensive process when we got into it. So it's a formal application that you fill out? Yep. If 100% was the total effort to get into it, how much of it is like online versus like they come in person or do something? So like how, what's the application process like?

[4:38] Yeah, and then I'm sure they make phone calls and interview you and see where you're at or they don't. They could look at your observations and say that you don't qualify. So it's a hard league. I mean, we have one of the best conferences in the country. There's always, I think there was two national champions that came out of our conference last year, the year before. I think there was four.

[5:03] And so it's a hard league. It's like the SEC football and soccer form up here. And is it right next to MLS NEXT or is it below MLS Next? How do you compare it to that? It is. So I would say MLS NEXT Homegrown and ECNL, like the national league, ECNL National League are about similar.

[5:28] I would say MLS NEXT Academy and ECNL regional league. So it's like the second division and ECNL are similar. Gotcha. And again, going back to the application side, you guys obviously got and you mentioned, are there any tricks or not tricks, any tips you would give to someone who some club who might be applying or might want to apply or anything they should know before applying? Yeah, I think the best thing is just focus on the quality of your product and know what you are.

[6:06] Like you're a teacher, you provide a service to kids. And if you focus on what other clubs are doing, you're not going to get to where you want to be. You just need to focus on the process of developing kids and just trying to do the best job you can. That's the kind of the way that we try to do.

[6:22] We don't try to worry about what other people are doing. We try to worry about what we're doing and just trying to provide the best service that we can. I love business. I love startups. Is there a whole market out there that helps you fill the application out or helps you get in? Or is that all manual? You have to learn everything, fill out the application yourself. Yeah, the application is not particularly difficult.

[6:51] It's a pretty easy application. Sometimes there's, I'm trying to remember because it was a while ago and we did it. I think we had to do annual training curriculum, coaching methodology and philosophy and those sort of things. And most club directors have to go through that process when they go in to get their US Soccer B or US Soccer national A license anyways, and so they know how to do it.

[7:21] And that's a big part of it too, is you want to have a director that has gone through the process. You want to be able to speak that language and create those documents to be able to qualify for that. Cool. Well, I don't know about others. I learned a lot. This was new for me. But going back to your club as a whole, again, you guys have grown to what?

[7:48] 1,600, 1,700, 1,800 folks. What's the growth recipe? What have you guys done differently that maybe other clubs don't? Or what's your USP? Because again, I've spoken to a lot of club directors who tell me that we started, we stopped, or we failed as a club. How do you grow to where you are? Sales, marketing, or just the problem itself?

[8:15] What have you guys done differently? Well, a couple of years ago, we changed our hiring practices with coaches. So I've been with the club, I think 15 years now. And the kids that we started with are now, they've either graduated from playing in college, they're coming back.

[8:38] So we right now, we have 12 former players that grew up playing in our system that are now coaching. And they're some of our best coaches. I mean, they're young, and they're there, they know what we're looking for. And they're easy to work with, and they want to learn and they want to get better and they're passionate about it.

[8:55] And I think that right there, I think that will attract players. The platforming helps with being an ECNL club of attracting players. But we're also in a unique situation, because we're in a valley that's not necessarily easiest to get to. And so we have, you know, with our other programming, we've been held to rules that limit our ability to market and advertise our product.

[9:24] And so we - Could you go deeper into that? Yeah. So we're also at US Youth Soccer Club, and Washington Youth Soccer has boundaries. And so you're given a certain boundary that you are allowed to market, email marketing or, you know, signage or anything like that. Like geographical boundaries?

[9:47] Yeah, so we're part of what's called Washington Soccer's RCL in the entire state. So I think there's 22 clubs now, changes every year, is one or two clubs either added or subtracted. So this is the total club, is we are the smallest footprint in the entire state, in this league. And so we really kind of hit our head on our ceiling with what we can do, with the percentage that we have of kids that are in our recreational program that are in, you know, the school district, because we're only allowed to advertise to our school district.

[10:24] Well, we have 9,000 kids in our school district. And so, you know, there's some clubs that we compete against that have 9,000 kids in our club. And so we're in a kind of a unique situation too. We're one of the oldest clubs in the state of Washington. We actually don't know, we can't find when the club started.

[10:48] We just keep finding old pictures, you know, that keep going back. And so we know it started sometime in the 70s. And with our unique positioning too with our location is we own our own facility. So we have about 50 acres of fields. We're on the edge of downtown Snohomish. It's a little tiny historical downtown, right?

[11:08] We really matter to the community. A couple of years ago, we have a big tournament. So we get about 10,000 people over two weekends that come to our town. Well, that's the best weekend that our town does the entire year. And so we have an economic impact on the city as well. And so there's a lot of responsibility there to make sure that continues to go.

[11:34] Because I live in Snohomish, so I live like three blocks away from the fields. And so I am part of this community, I live in this community. And so I know like, if we're impacting traffic with our, if we're impacting traffic negatively with our traffic plan with our big tournament, I'm going to hear about it. You know, I can't just go try.

[11:54] I go get a cup of coffee and I'm hearing about it. So that's a cool setup. It's very, it's a little bit more like small town European setup that we have, and especially with the, you know, with the USL teams, so those pre-professional teams, and they're, they're fun to work with.

[12:13] And they're two of the best teams in the country. And so we enjoy having them around. That's incredible. I'm just trying to visualize looks like I can visualize pretty good. So you mentioned a few things. One is coaching, obviously, I guess, even more than I guess, to some degree, getting new people, like retaining people, coaches are the most important, probably part of your system. And the second thing you mentioned is just the community layer of, you know, it's a small community. So everybody, you know, sort of knows each other, you guys are in the heart of the thing, anything unique you guys do in terms of, I guess, again, marketing, like, what channels do you guys market on? How do you market on them?

[13:06] Anything that works versus doesn't any mistakes you guys have made? Oh, there's always you're always going to make mistakes. And a lot of marketing is trial and error, right? And so I think that the art, the best thing that we've done as far as our marketing, so we started the USL program like two years ago.

[13:26] And, you know, the amount of followers that we had previously to what we have now, and the amount of, you know, impressions and eyeballs we've gotten, it's like more nationally now, because the USL team is a nationally recognized team. It's, you know, both teams at one point were ranked in the top 10 in the USL last year. And, you know, we have on the boy side, we have three boys that were drafted in the MLS. And on the girl side, we have three youth national team players and they're fantastic players.

[13:58] And so they bring a certain amount of recognition with them that then filters into the rest of the club, which is great. And so, but our big push now is moving to the future is to be not just the city of Snohomish Club, but the county of Snohomish Club. So we're in Snohomish County, which is a big county, it's roughly the size of Delaware.

[14:23] And so we're working to, you know, potentially maybe be in a different league next year. Not with these, you know, we plan on being in these, you know, but the other teams to where that will allow us to, you know, spread our marketing reach beyond just the city. And so and go, you know, because our kids are not just from our recreational kids are primarily from Snohomish School District, our premier level, ECNL kids are, they come from, you know, all over.

[14:53] So all over Snohomish County. So we want to get the word out to them way earlier. But honestly, the best thing that you can do is understand that you provide a product and service and the better that the product and services and the and that the player experience you're enhancing the player experience.

[15:10] And that's why coaching is so important. Then that's going to naturally build on itself. You know, they're going to, you know, you're going to have kids that have, you know, they have friends on other teams, and they might not be having a positive experience. And they talk to their, you know, their parents like, Oh, we love our coach, we have a great experience at Snohomish.

[15:29] And, you know, why don't you come on over and, you know, so the better job that you do, I think it gets out. We're just we're unique. We're not one of the, we're not a particularly big club in the east, you know, as far as our size, or their smallest club in the division, and maybe on the west coast, possibly on the west coast.

[15:52] But we know who we are. And, you know, we have a very, you know, we have values and a mission and a vision that we want to stick to. And it's one of the reasons I came here. And do you guys have an in house social media team? Or is it something you guys have outsourced? We have one person. One person is the team.

[16:11] Yeah, we're, we're nonprofit, you know, and there's, when you're in a nonprofit, there's going to be things that you have to correct, you know, you either it's just a give and take, like there's sometimes be more, and it's also seasonal. So like in the summertime in Washington state, we have to take advantage of the good weather. And so there's tournament after tournament in the summer. On other states, you like California, for instance, you're doing tournaments throughout the entire year, because the weather's good.

[16:41] Or if you're in Texas, or Virginia, you don't play in the summer, because it's too hot. And so every region has a unique kind of hook, we have to really maximize the time of the summer where the kids with tournaments. And so yeah, so there's some downtime on ability to do social media, it's something that we are always looking to improve, and then it's always changing to what doesn't work. And stay ahead of that.

[17:06] I personally, I don't have social media. So why not? Why not? I peace of mind. So I think that's part of it. You know, I, it can be a common distraction. And I understand the importance of a degree in marketing. So I understand the importance of that the platform and the channels and all that.

[17:30] But I mean, personally, I would rather, you know, do something else. So is that social media person? Do they volunteer? Or there you hired them full time or something? He's a full time employee, but he also coaches two teams. Okay. So he is a coach who does. He's a social coach who does coaches.

[17:49] He, I would say he's a coach who does social media. Okay. Good. He's good at it. He's got a good just needs more help. You know, like, it's like anything like, it's a, you know, we have seven full time employees. And because of the other stuff that we do, as far as USL, and the, you know, the tournaments, and it's a relatively small staff for what we're doing.

[18:15] But you know, you have to be like I said, it's a nonprofit, we, you know, we try to keep the cost reasonable for the parents. The cost of youth soccer just keeps growing and growing. And so the cost of everything is growing. So, you know, especially when you're managing a facility, and there's, you know, the rise of the price of diesel. Well, you know, we need diesel for our tractors to be able to mow the fields. And so there's things like that go that you have to take into consideration to. Yeah, and I believe technology can really help scale the efforts without much hiring or much effort, right?

[18:53] What about that? I think so. I think so. It's just it's a tool. Yeah, it's like, it's a tool and you need to know how the tool works, you know, and, or how to apply it and how it works for you. It's going to work very differently for other people. It's also it's a demographic of what your of what your clientele is.

[19:11] It's, you know, we're about 25 minutes away from a club, one of the best clubs in the country, where they are a lot of people that play in that club or, you know, kids of, you know, Microsoft employees. And so like, that's right. Yeah, they have their headquarters. Yeah, so their headquarters are in Redmond, Washington, and they're 25 minutes, 30 minutes away. And so and there's a lot of there's a lot of tech up here.

[19:41] So there's some clubs that are way ahead of others as far as we're very blue collar. Like there's a farm right next to our field, like we're, we're blue collar, you know, we have farmers, you know, like, so it's still different, you know, with what we can do and what works for our parents or what doesn't work for our parents, like what, like a auction could work really well at one club, whereas ours prefer a brew festival, you know, that we've run before for fundraising or, yeah, or, you know, like our kids aren't going to Europe for vacation and missing a bunch of time in the summer, they're going to, you know, camp, you know, and so it's understanding what your clientele basis and what your demographic, the demographic that you're serving.

[20:31] Yeah. That's so interesting. Are you guys looking for ways to automate social media? Is that something on your radar? We're always looking to improve. And so it's something that, you know, we get so many products thrown at us every day, I open my inbox, I got a different product. And now you got to do your due diligence and see what works and what doesn't work for you. Because we've had times in the past where we've had somebody come in and do marketing and it just not work out.

[21:01] There's been different video programs that work better than others. And you know, and we have to, we have to really evaluate one, how is the product going to work? What's the bandwidth that we have involved of being able to do this? You know, that's the same thing with sponsorships and stuff like that.

[21:16] You know, it's not everything works, not every product works, you know, in the environment or the context of the situation. You got to do your due diligence to see what could work for you and make your life a little easier. I want to spend some time here because you said something interesting that directly applies to me, that, you know, you guys get a ton of mails of different products. So we, obviously, I told you how we have a product. So we do the same. We try to reach out to club directors through email. If you were, I guess, you know, helping my team out, I want to understand from your perspective, what makes, I guess, one cold outreach stand out from the other. Is it something that they say?

[22:03] Is it something that you do to check whether or not to do our, like, what's your, I guess, framework of knowing when to respond, when not to respond. Like if we hadn't met and I had sent you a cold email that Waresport is, you know, the sports level platform, whatever XYZ platform you're using, we are better than them.

[22:25] What do I do to make you respond to that? See your demo. Well, this is, you're differentiating yourself right now by doing a podcast, right? And having guests on the podcast. That's actually, that's a really good move on your part. I think you trying to get in with some of the leagues, like the ECNL or the MLS NEXT or some of the other platforms, league platforms that can help propel you, it will be very helpful. Because what happens too, it's like if you're a club and you're working with either a uniform vendor or club communication tool.

[23:08] And let's say the club communication tool is really difficult to use. It has a lot of bugs in it. Then, you know, the parents don't get mad at the club communication tool to get mad at you. Yeah. So if there's issues with our, you know, with our uniform vendor, it's, it comes back to us. Correct.

[23:30] Yes. Because it's all part of the same experience. And they don't care what you use. They care about if they're getting the communication right or wrong. Correct. Yep. Yep. They don't, the name of it doesn't matter. It's the experience of it. So yeah. That's good to know.

[23:47] But again, I guess going more specifically, like if I am sending you an email, what does that, why would an email make you respond or not respond? You can take 30 seconds to think about it if you like. I'm just curious because I think that happens quite a lot. Yeah. I'm just curious, like, where I can, I guess, tell you what our templates is and you tell me, So again, I'm the founder.

[24:16] So, but my sales team, one email that they might send out is, Hey, Anthony, so you're running XYZ club. And, you know, we recently launched Waresport, which is an all in one platform. It's a modern approach to the same problem that others have been solving. And if you'd be interested in speaking with us, just reply to this email, and we can get a demo set up.

[24:45] I just made that up. But yeah, that's broader. Like that's, that might be what we might be sending out right now. Yeah, I get that every day. I get it every day. I think I probably deleted seven of those this morning. And so it's, it's every day. It's because there's so many different products, you know, and that's probably because of AI and technology being crazy is you're seeing more and more products. So it's getting, there's just more and more chaos and noise.

[25:17] You know, like, for us, we're trying to, when you want to do a podcast, I've done a number of podcasts before. And that's a great way for us to get our name out. And so you're the reciprocal benefits, right? Correct. So that's what delineated you from other people reaching out to us.

[25:38] And I think that's something that if you can, if you can expand that. So in the email, we could, so I guess when we pitch that it might come across as you guys come on us, so that benefits us. But if we switch that perspective into why switching to us is beneficial to you, something along those lines, like what's and I'm assuming have the times people ignore because they already have contracts with their existing vendor. Yep. Yep. That happens.

[26:10] But I also hear a lot of club directors saying they'd always love to see if there is actually something better. They're always like I all the eight other podcasts in the end, I asked them, like, are you guys in the market? And they're like, we're always in the market. If you find something, you are always in the market, but there are always going to be mark market factors, right? So like, yeah, if you have to use a certain registration system that your state association will use, then you have to use that, so that's just because they have a contract with the state association or with the league. And so, and that's just a, you know, that's just a market force that is really hard to overcome. And so, yeah, I think every director's in the market to improve, you know, the quality of their program and improve their communication, because at the end of the day, we're a membership based business, right?

[27:07] So we're going to increase our membership. Right. Well, that's good info. And I guess, giving you more context. So we, I launched five months back. So I spent one year, two years building, then one year just product testing, pilot testing, all of that. And within five months, we have around 40, 40, 50 organizations already.

[27:31] So we're growing pretty fast, like clubs who use us love us. So I guess what I'm trying to ask is, in your opinion, how do we break into the soccer market? You know, that's a big question, but it's a big question because it's really hard. I think that, you know, what you're doing right now and trying to, I mean, best thing I could say, so are you mostly in other sports with the market?

[27:59] Correct. So our highest penetration is in volleyball right now. volleyball is one, then basketball, softball, and soccer are all like little amounts. Volleyball is highest concentration, but soccer is the largest youth club ecosystem in the US, like the most of clubs. And I want to dominate soccer.

[28:24] But again, comes back to the question, even if someone hates using what they're using, like, how do I make them believe? Like, I'm even willing to, you know, say that use us for free for two months, don't give me anything. If you don't like the platform, leave. If you like it, stay.

[28:42] And I am confident because I know they will stay. That's how we built it. So, but how do I go about it? If you were in my place, say, building Waresport, what would you do differently? I would try to go with, I would probably try to go with smaller clubs first and try to group together. I would say, just keep working on the quality of your product, if it makes people's lives easier, and it's that good, then people might switch. And I would try to go smaller first and just say, Hey, we work these clubs, because what will happen to is you'll get, you know, director at a smaller club, they might get a job at a big club.

[29:23] And they might come in and say, Hey, you know, we use this, this great platform, you know, it's better than you have a kid and came with changes. And then that could lead to another one lead to another lead to so that's, I think the best way to do it is go with one who you can reach right now.

[29:43] You know, you're not you're in a great area of the country as far as soccer, you know, Atlanta, right? So I mean, that's, you know, there's you got Concorde Fire, and you've got, you know, some really good GSA, Tophat, you got some really good clubs out there. If you can go meet with them, you know, and or, you know, go to a tournament and, you know, set up a booth and there's that is the easiest way to do it too, is to go to tournaments and get to know directors, you know, and if you can do that, and you put a, you know, your face with a name and in a product, then, you know, it'll be more willing to work with you because, you know, it's like, it's been sometimes it's hit or miss, you know, sometimes you or sometimes a product changes, and you're like, I really don't like that change, you know, and in the thing too, is it always has to be easy, the use has to be, right?

[30:41] So like, when we change from one community club communication tool to another, there's gonna be some angst with parents, there's going to be so there's going to be a learning curve, you know, how quickly you can, you know, change that. And even with coaches are like, I don't like this.

[31:04] And it's like, well, it's actually easier if you spend the time, but coaches also sometimes don't necessarily have the time. It's like, I have some coaches that they're full time coaches, that's what their profession is. And I have a lot of coaches, a majority of our coaches have full time jobs. And they can't be spending all this time trying to learn a new in a new club communication tool. And so the ease of it makes it a lot, you know, it bridges that gap, right?

[31:33] I mean, that's the main thing is just making sure that your product is really easy to use. You know, so yeah, we've really built it backwards. So first, I wanted to solve the parent athlete experience. Because it's, I think a lot of the industry sees this as B2B, I see it as B2B to C.

[31:58] Ultimately, I'm not directly but indirectly impacting the parents and the athletes and the members that are going to be using the app. And if I can make the them happy, you guys are going to be happy, and then we're going to be happy. So we've sort of built everything backwards. And but yeah, no, that's good to know.

[32:19] That's what I've been trying to do, I think, shift the perspective. Again, podcast is, you know, one aspect of that, how can I build relationships? How can I learn? Because these conversations teach more than anything else, or AI, or, you know, so-called things. But other than this, what gaps, Anthony, do you see right now in the whole market, that are, you know, ABC, DEF, like all these different players, like what gaps do you see? And if there was, I guess, no limit on time, money, expertise, what is something that you'd add that doesn't exist right now to these platforms?

[33:04] Oh, geez. What would be nice if the problem is that when you're part of leagues, you have to use their registration tools, you have to use, you know, Ease of use. For me, it's like if everything was just in one spot, like if you had a really great club communication tool, a really great registration tool, it makes a really easy tournament registration and tournament scheduling tool, where it's all in one place. And that makes it real.

[33:44] But the problem with that is where the leagues come in, where they make you use. So it doesn't do you any good to, unless you can opt out and there's pricing that is involved to where it's like, you know, okay, the price has changed because we're not we don't use the that particular registration, right, because they're in this other league.

[34:10] So that but that's where the market is a problem. It's like you have your part of these big leagues, or even the local leagues, and they have a very specific registration platform they have to use. Any specific gaps in like communication side payment side on the club management side? Uh, not really, you know, a lot of it has to do with the percentage that's taken or how the gateway is, you know, when somebody pays, and how you receive the money.

[34:37] So you think it's 10 out of 10? What's there in the market? I don't think it's ever 10 out of 10. I think it's, I just think that it's, it just kind of, it just, like I said, it depends like, there's like, we have a turn, like, we've done multiple different tournament softwares, and there's positives and negatives of both, right? So like, we've had one where the payment receiving of the payment was at a lower rate, but the scheduling part created problems. Well, what opportunity, what's worth more to you, how you receive the payment or that you made it more difficult for, you know, the teams to be able to read, you know, and potentially hurt their experience at here, you know, so it's, it just, there's, like I said, there's going to be positives and negatives of whatever it is you do, like we've had this with uniform suppliers, it's like, you know, we've had, I think, three different ones, and there's, you know, there's always going to be issues, you know, because that's just the nature of the beast with it is there's always going to be something that comes, but I don't, but that, I think that's the problem.

[35:51] It's not a 10 out of 10, it's, we're forced to use different ones. And, because what happens is you can't switch over, it's like, if you do want your own registration system, but the league does it this way, and then you have to pay this here and there, this party. And so that's where it's like, well, we can't afford that, like we can't afford to play, you know, because like a big thing right now is the youth soccer landscape is going to dramatically be changing with US Youth Soccer and US Club Soccer and US Soccer, saying that US Club Soccer is now their operator, but also has, you know, it's folded, it looks like it's folding US Youth Soccer, it's, it's crazy with how much is changing, right? And so, but now US Soccer wants to get into the registration business. And that's where a lot of that comes into is you have to register through US Soccer. And so what's the fees that are going to be associated with that? Is it going to make it, you know, cheaper?

[36:54] Is it going to make it more expensive? You're allowed to have other registrations. So I don't know where a lot of that's going to go. Because the landscape of what we're doing has changed, is changing so dramatically. Like we just had a major change this year that we're dealing with but is the birth year change. So changing from you're playing on the age of your birth to now your school year. And so that's a change that was made. And that effectively changes every team in the entire country.

[37:30] And so think about how to deal with parents with that, you know, like, you know, so it's, there's a lot of, there's a lot of changes going on to US Soccer. I think it's mainly just trying to try to stay current with it. And then try to figure out where you can kind of fit in.

[37:46] Like I said, I don't know. It's a hard, that's a hard question to answer, just because there's so many different variables that are involved. How many unique platforms do you use right now to run your club? No, just a number. A number. Well, we have a, we play in two different leagues that have two different registration systems.

[38:13] And then we have two different, we have a club communication tool that we use that is outside of those things. And yeah, the communication tool. And they've been, they've treated us well. We've enjoyed that, you know. But the, yeah, the different registration systems and like the, like our tournament registration system is different than the registration system that we're forced to use internally.

[38:49] Yeah. With the ECNL or with the ECNL because they have their own that they've developed, which is different than our state one, which is like our second teams or really young teams. And then we have a different one with the recreational program because they're in a different association.

[39:09] And so they're different governing body. And so you have all these different governing bodies. And then we use the different, a different tournament registration because we don't like, we haven't, we've tested it out. We don't like the tournament registration part of one of the platforms that we use for the register. Because it also has that.

[39:31] So it's like you have to test out what the tournament registration is, what the player registration is, what the communication is, and to see if, okay, can we get rid of this or do we keep this, you know? And so like, that's why I said, it's like, it's, it's all unique, like, and also one organization might have a different opinion than another one. And that also comes down to people's skill sets on the ability to use it.

[40:02] So there's a bunch of registration platforms. Then you guys use one for communication payments. I'm assuming is it the same, like you collect all the payments during registration of a recurring membership system separate? Yeah. So we have, well, that's where it comes into, right?

[40:24] So like, that's where the gateway, the payment gateway is different. So like there's a different payment gateway then from each league. Correct. And that's where, you know, you, that's where it's, it gets a little tricky, you know, in some percentages are more kind than others.

[40:43] So, and also it's like, it's the registration per player is, has a different price too, depending on what the platform is and what the governing body is. And so, and necessary because of the insurance. What about player development, attendance, real lesson making? Do you guys have any of those?

[41:07] So we have the communication tool also can track attendance. Okay. As far as player development and in like curriculum type of stuff. We don't use the platform for that. Everything is, you know, the way our philosophy is like, I have very general principles and very general, what I'm looking for from our teams.

[41:34] But we hired you to be a coach and we want you to be a coach. And I've been at a club before where it's so top heavy of you're taking the creativity away from the coaches. And so a lot of it is like, I want the coaches to have self exploration. And so we'll, we have no, what we do is any coach that wants to go through the coaching education system for US Soccer, we pay for 100%.

[41:58] So, and it gets very pricey, but that's, it's a good way for them to get educated and to learn on their own. And then I, what I'll do is I'll work with the coaches individually. You know, a lot of it is, you know, the context of that particular team. You don't have a professional team to where we could say, you have to play a four, three. Yeah. You have to do this. You have to do this.

[42:23] You know, we have a pre-professional team of college kids that come here in the summer that we have for two and a half months. And that team could look very differently from year to year. And so you basically have to, you know, each team is its own team within the club. And the group of players are very different from team to team and ranges from ability level. Right. And so the coach's job is to figure out what formation, what systems, what, you know, we have a, you know, a quick, you know, methodology as far as like, this is what we do at stage one training.

[42:59] This is what we do at stage two in trainings, stage three, stage four. You can pick what the exercises are at the end of the month. This is what I'm looking for as far as the proficiency for the players and the teams. And so it allows them a lot more creativity to do it. And then they also learn more with that. And so, because it's not fun for a coach to have a director saying, you got to do it this way, you got to do it this way, you got to do it where there's no, so, but there's a line to where I have to step in and I have to say, Hey, you know, like, that's not a good idea.

[43:38] Let's do it this way. So, but yeah, it, cause then you'll lose coaches, you lose good people and you want them to be them and you want them to be able to explore on their own and each coach likes different, you know, like, I like a different, you know, drill software versus another coach. And I just think whatever works for you know.

[44:04] Cool. This has been a good, almost one hour, Anthony, I've learned quite a lot from you. And I think this is a good point of, I had a bunch of other questions that are coming to me, but then I want to save them for next time because I want to invite you again sometime. I was thinking about, you know, going deep into business model, pricing, all of that, but I think we could have another episode specifically focused on that.

[44:37] If like a new soccer club was starting, we break it down into, you know, like how one, two, three, four, like what are the steps you take? How do you build? So like break it down to the very barebone level. So I'll send you an email. We will schedule something again. But any last thoughts, anything before we wrap up this session?

[45:01] Oh, it's a, it's a, it's not an easy business to get into. But it's one of those things to where just keep grinding, you know, just keep protecting your product and, you know, do the best job you can marketing. I think this is a great way to do that. This is a creative way to do it, which is great.

[45:23] So this will help you out in this way, you know, brand awareness about what you're doing and, and also getting feedback at the same time so that you're that's, it's very efficient with your time. So good for you. Appreciate it. Thank you so much for your time, Anthony.

[45:43] Again, I think everybody's going to learn quite a lot when they hear this conversation. We'll put it on YouTube. We'll put some clips on Instagram, Facebook. Any, if people wanted to find you were obviously not on social media, you mentioned, but if people want to find your club, you guys, I'm assuming you guys are on Facebook, Instagram website. Yeah. That's Snohomish United.

[46:04] Yes. Or Snohomish United or Snohomish U Soccer. The editor can put it in the description. People can find you. Cool. Thank you so much.