A few organizations in our area have started creating teams with really large rosters, and I am wondering if anyone has had experiences good or bad with something like this.
Instead of a traditional 11–13 player team, the organization rosters around 20 players as part of one training group. Everyone is technically given the same team designation, “Congratulations, you made Elite National 13U”, but players are then selected individually for each tournament. That means each player participates in roughly 60–80% of the team’s tournaments.
A larger group of similarly skilled players training together could create competition, allow coaches to build different rosters for different events, and potentially give players more opportunities to develop.
But it seems like the development piece would have to be implemented really well for the model to really benefit the players; more coaching, more individualized instruction, enough practice reps, etc. One of the “teams” using this model only practices once a week.
The explanation is that having 20 talented kids together will make them push each other and create competition, but I’m struggling with whether that alone provides enough benefit for it to make sense to do this over playing for a normal team where everyone trains and competes together consistently.
Is this more common as kids get older? We passed for Fall Ball, but I’m wondering if we should have given it a chance.
For coaches who have used this model, what are the developmental advantages?
And for parents whose kids have been part of one, did you feel like being in the larger training pool ultimately helped your player more than being on a traditional roster would have?
These are the top teams in large organizations if that makes a difference.