MLS NEXT players are 70% more likely to reach Division 1 soccer than ECNL players. The difference comes down to showcase events like MLS NEXT Fest, where college scouts concentrate their recruiting, and being a top player in a smaller competitive pool that gets noticed.
What is better, MLS NEXT or ECNL? The short answer on paper is MLS NEXT will get you more exposure. If you just look at the statistics, you're 70% more likely chance of playing Division 1 soccer if you are playing MLS NEXT. And that data is taken from ChatGPT as well as Gemini in the AI space. Now, is it perfect? No, not necessarily. You can still definitely play Division 1 soccer if you're playing ECNL. But there's really 3 main differences. The first one being MLS NEXT and MLS Fest. This is where the majority of Division 1 schools go to watch games, to scout their players. Now to get invited to MLS Next Fest. This can vary based off your club, how well you perform, playoffs, etc. But when I say invited, getting invited to those tournaments is important, but largely out of your control. Your team needs to play well. You need to be part of a good club. Trying out for better clubs is important. But what's in your control and what I want to help you with is having the college coaches actually come to your games. So if you invite them to ECNL playoffs or MLS Next Fest, most of the time they will pick MLS Next Fest, not because they don't like ECNL, but statistically speaking, on a majority scale, there are more players in one place at a higher level at the FEST or FLEX events. Now, if you're going to the final ECNL playoffs or if you already have an established communication with a coach, they very may well come to you instead of FEST. Now, typically speaking, ECNL playoffs and MLS FEST don't overlap on the exact same day. So typically you are fine and they will still come to your game. I want to be clear that if you're playing ECNL RL or MLS NEXT 2 and you go to playoffs and you go to the finals or close to it, you are what's called the big fish in a small pond, which means that you are likely to get recruited at a high-level school because you're one of the best within your organization. So we can have another video about what's better, being on a really good team in a bigger league or a bad team in a better league. We can talk about that later. But just regards to MLS NEXT and ECNL, I want you to know that even if you're playing ECNL, you could totally still play Division 1 college soccer. But what I want you to keep in mind is if you don't get those coaches to come to your league games— excuse me, your showcase games— then you are in trouble. They will not come to your league games. Now, in the world of MLS NEXT, they might come to your league games, right? If you're playing Red Bulls or the Galaxy, or you are on one of those MLS Pro Academies, the coaches very well may come to a league game because at that one league game there might be 3 or 4 players they can recruit all at once. This is because when college coaches go to watch games, they only have a certain budget, so they cannot go to every game in the country. Hence why they're going to prioritize being in the right place. If you want more help, comment "call" and we schedule a call with you and your parents.
