Exactly. Lulz. I guess I must have dreamed the sold out amphitheater shows I attended of those bands. And talk about splitting hairs on what constitutes rock.
There are plenty of rock bands in many genres comprised of people in their 20s and 30s who sell out theater/amphitheater tours across the country. They aren't played on the iHeartMedia radio stations that dictate the Hot 100, but there is a vibrant rock music scene that is accessible with very little effort.
The amount of time and money Texas has wasted in producing an unwanted NFL-style gameday experience dominated by laughably cliched corporate schlock is ridiculous. Turn the volume down and replace the corporate bullshit with an authentic experience that effectively utilizes Texas' unique cultural identity. Merely replacing all of the tired classic rock with Texas artists would represent a massive improvement. There are so many legendary musicians from Texas yet we are be assaulted by fucking Journey? There are plenty of Texas rappers, pop stars, and country, blues and rock legends that could form an extensive playlists. They could put a little bio on the video boards regarding each artist to explain their Texas background. Why aren't we playing Going Down by Freddie King after sacks or Mind Playing Tricks on Me by Geto Boys after bad calls or Guess Who's Back by Scarface when we win a big game at home? This shit isn't hard.
I seriously doubt Hitler would have benched Gio in the World Cup, started Jesus against Holland, left Pepi at home and pissed off his new star striker in his first camp in charge.
From wiki:
In 2021, Cody Campbell, a former player, donated $25 million towards the south end zone project. In honor of his donation, the stadium was renamed to Jones AT&T Stadium and Cody Campbell Field.
Agree with the exception that HS soccer no longer plays any role in development in the US. College and pro recruiting/scouting of youth players is almost entirely conducted at ECNL/GA events. D1 coaches have told me that they haven't been to a high school soccer game in over a decade. You aren't allowed to play HS if you play MLS Next and many ECNL clubs discourage it. HS soccer is generally awful.
True. We learned this lesson after our oldest and started our others at the ECNL club at young ages. It's much cheaper than the older ages but not free by any means.
MLS Next is evolving into a true academy system and a handful of USL academies are comparable. The younger age group teams (U-15) generally consist of local/regional talent while the older age groups consist of regional/national teams. Many local player get weeded out as they get older and move back to a local ECNL team to focus on a college scholarship.
BrickHorn is absolutely correct regarding the wildly different financing models in the US and the rest of the world. The academies of small clubs in Europe are funded by the local communities who attend the matches of the senior team. The club invests resources into the academy to produce players for the senior team and hopefully sell some players to bigger clubs. This system (which would involve a self-funded lower level professional team in every suburb of every major city and every small town) will never exist in the U.S. particularly for women. As a result, pay to play will remain the dominant model outside of the academies of the top division clubs (NWSL for women and MLS and potentially USL for men). Parents will remain the primary source of funding for club soccer and clubs will seek to achieve their goals (winning, developing (this is important to parents and clubs) and obtaining college scholarships). Observers who don't understand/won't acknowledge the unique realities of the American system love to preach "invert the pyramid" without offering any path to actually get there. The best path forward is to continue to improve coaching and development at the elite clubs (which is exactly what they are doing) and implement a more comprehensive scholarship program at these clubs.
FC Dallas ECNL is pay to pay. Yes, the best of the best can apply for fee waivers but that is the case for all elite ECNL clubs as mentioned way up thread. There isn't enough money in professional women's soccer in the US to finance girls academies at the level of MLS academies. MLS academy players cost the clubs around $50K a year per player. Half of the NWSL teams can barely make payroll and they don't have an NBA to bail them out.
Elite girls soccer club leadership would love to find this magical pot of gold that you appear to believe exists to eliminate pay to play. Unfortunately, the possibility of one day breaking the world record transfer fee of $500K for a woman soccer player hasn't proven sufficient to drive investment.