this article is about boys
MLS NEXT runs no girls league, so the academy system described here exists on the boys' side only. For a daughter, the comparable decision is Girls Academy against ECNL.
"Academy" gets used for two different things in the same conversation, and the difference decides what your family is being offered. One is the youth program an MLS club runs itself. The other is any club playing on the MLS NEXT platform, which is far bigger. Here is what each one is, how many places exist, what a place costs, and what MLS actually publishes about how players get found.
What an MLS club academy is, and where it sits
MLS NEXT is the boys' competition platform MLS launched in 2020 and runs through an MLS entity called PDev. For 2026-27 it announced 318 clubs and more than 53,000 players across 40 states and DC, in two tiers.
The top tier is the Allstate Homegrown Division. Its own page puts it at 152 clubs and over 17,000 players, running U13, U14, U15, U16, U17 and U19 on what MLS calls a 10-month pro-style season, and it holds every MLS club academy. The MLS NEXT membership page breaks that down for 2024-25 as "29 MLS academies, 122 Elite Academies (151 total clubs), 753 teams and over 16,000 players." So most clubs in the top tier are independent clubs, not MLS-run academies. An Elite Academy place and an MLS academy place are both Homegrown Division places, and they are not the same offer.
The second tier is the Academy Division, which launched for 2025-26 at roughly 230 clubs and 25,000 players. There is no such thing as a "pre-academy" or "non-academy" tier in MLS NEXT's own documents. If a club describes itself that way, ask which division it plays in.
What a place costs
You will hear that MLS academies are free. Some are, and it is a per-club fact rather than a league one, so ask the club and get the answer in writing.
What MLS NEXT publishes points the other way. From 2025-26 the league requires every Homegrown Division club to issue at least one full scholarship equivalent per season, and the rulebook defines that as "a financial amount equal to the cost of participating on an MLS NEXT Homegrown Division team, excluding travel (i.e., cost of tuition)." A league only mandates a scholarship where there is a price to waive. The same rulebook charges the club $60 per registered individual and puts travel, coaching, administration, equipment and facility costs on the club, which is why the price is a club-by-club question with no league answer.
Our own catalog agrees with that reading. Of the 211 clubs we place at the top of the ladder that publish a price list, nine state that an academy place costs nothing, in their own words: Red Bull New York ("All teams are fully funded; equipment and travel included"), Atlanta United, Nashville SC, Orlando City, Minnesota United and Atletico Dallas among them. Across the 29 clubs at that level that publish an annual competitive price, the median is $3,200 a year, and that figure is a floor rather than a middle: only 82 of the 226 clubs in MLS NEXT, the Academy Division and the Girls Academy that publish prices at all put a price on the top-league team itself.
How many places there are
The Homegrown Division rulebook caps an age-group roster at 28 players, with a minimum of 14 Primary Players, and 18 on a match-day roster.
Multiply that out and you get the size of the door, which is arithmetic of ours rather than a figure MLS publishes. Twenty-nine MLS academies at the cap is about 810 places per age group nationally. Widen it to the whole Homegrown Division at 152 clubs and it is around 4,250 per age group. Both are ceilings, and real rosters run under them.
Against that, US Youth Soccer registers between 2.5 and 3 million players a year. What that ratio means for one child is worked through in the realistic odds of going pro, and this page does not repeat the arithmetic.
How players actually get found
MLS NEXT publishes one league-wide identification route and no others. Its Talent ID program ran a dedicated weekend on October 11 and 12, 2025, across 13 markets, evaluating U13 and U14 players for MLS clubs and Elite Academies, and the league states that "there is no cost for players to participate in these events."
Everything else is each club's own process. MLS NEXT publishes no league-wide rule on tryouts, invitations or scouting territory, so how a particular academy fills its roster is a question for that academy, and it is a fair one to ask on a first phone call.
One age does appear in the MLS rulebook, and it is about roster accounting rather than talent. Under the Homegrown International Rule, a player counts as domestic rather than taking one of a club's international slots if he joined the academy "no later than the year in which he turned 15 years old." Going pro: the real path sets out what that rule does.
High school soccer
The rule differs by division and by roster category, and getting it wrong in either direction is expensive. The Academy Division permits high school soccer outright. The Homegrown Division restricts it for Primary Players, with a waiver route, while Future Players are permitted to play both. High school soccer against club soccer has the rulebook text, the waiver windows, and the state association rules that usually matter more.
One thing that still circulates and is wrong: the U.S. Soccer Development Academy, which did require players to choose it over high school soccer, was shut down in April 2020. Its rules are not MLS NEXT's rules.
What to ask before you accept a place
This part is advice, not a finding.
Ask which division and which roster category the offer is for. Homegrown Division or Academy Division, Primary or Future, changes the high school answer and the outside-competition answer.
Ask for the full annual cost in writing, including travel, and ask how the club's mandatory scholarship equivalent is awarded. It can be split across several families, so "we give a scholarship" and "we could help you" are different answers.
Ask what the weekly and seasonal calendar looks like in practice. The league sets a 10-month season and leaves training and travel to the club, so only the club can tell you what your Tuesdays look like.
If you want to see how the MLS NEXT clubs near you compare with everything else within driving distance, the club finder lists them by level, and the Pathway Report maps the step from where your kid plays now.
Where these numbers come from
- MLS NEXT announces new clubs and conferences ahead of 2026-27 (March 2026). The 318 clubs, 53,000 players and two divisions.
- Allstate Homegrown Division and What is MLS NEXT?. The 152 clubs and 17,000 players in the top tier, its six age groups and 10-month season, and the 29 MLS academies against 122 Elite Academies.
- MLS NEXT Academy Division. The second tier's size and its high school permission.
- MLS NEXT Homegrown Division Rules and Regulations, 2025-26. The 28-player age-group cap and 14 Primary Player minimum, the scholarship-equivalent definition, and the club financial responsibilities.
- MLS NEXT announces transformative sporting initiatives for the 2025-26 season (August 2025). The one-scholarship-per-club requirement and the Talent ID weekend, including that it costs players nothing.
- MLS Roster Rules and Regulations, 2026. The Homegrown International Rule and its age-15 condition.
- US Youth Soccer, About. The registration figure, which its own page states as both "nearly 2.5 million" and "nearly 3 million."
- ESPN, U.S. Soccer ends Development Academy as MLS announces youth league (April 2020). The closure of the Development Academy.
- Our own catalog of more than 10,000 clubs supplies the fee findings: nine top-level clubs publishing a free academy place, the $3,200 median annual price at that level, and the 82 of 226 top-league clubs that price the top-league team.