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This week's edition of Breaking the Line features a hot topic across the soccer landscape and the sports world as a whole: the economics of sport, and youth sport in particular.

ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken dive into this nuanced topic, discussing the current economic model of youth sports and the reasons behind it, the emerging role of private equity and big business in the youth sport space, and what all this means for clubs, leagues, parents and players.

Throughout this hour-long conversation, the conversation weaves between how these economic factors affect the youth sports experience, where soccer falls in the broader youth sports landscape, and how the ECNL balances soccer and business decisions.

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.

Let us know the topics of interest to you!

The Breaking the Line team has returned for another player-focused episode, this time discussing player development.

ECNL Vice President kicks off the conversation with a thought-provoking question: if you were building an ECNL club from scratch today, where would you start?

With that as the starting point, he and ECNL President Christian Lavers weave their way through all the different aspects of player development: coaching, training, club roles, where does a league fit in to player development, player growth and more.

Throughout the discussion, the pair give advice to all different parties, sharing their dos and don’ts, and define what growth and player development looks like at different age groups.

The episode closes out with the same question posed at the beginning, but does their answers change? Listen to find out.

If YOU were starting an ECNL club from scratch today, what would be your first move? Let us know on social media or in the comments.

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.

Let us know the topics of interest to you!

It's a very special episode of Breaking the Line, as the podcast celebrates its 125th episode!

After an invigorating discussion about navigating birth years and skill levels within youth soccer, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken continue the conversation with a parent email regarding how to properly handle when an athlete has the skill to compete at a higher level, but not necessarily the physical attributes to do so.

This question, paired with some realizations from Ep. 124, leads to the meat of this week's episode: the parent-player-coach dynamic.

The Breaking the Line team dives into the relationship from all three parties, and discusses the roles and responsibilities of each side of the dynamic, and how to ensure everyone is copacetic and have positive relationships and interactions throughout an athlete's journey.

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.