On Friday morning, MLS will fill a ballroom in Philadelphia for the annual college draft. There will be pounding music and highlight videos on huge screens, general managers with stacks of data mined at the scouting combine, fans in team colors reacting to selections and emotional players on stage thanking coaches, parents, God.
U.S. sports leagues love drafts, and MLS is no different. But as the soccer league has matured, the importance of the draft has waned.
While the NFL and NBA rely heavily on the annual event for an infusion of workers, MLS is now 10 years into allowing teams to groom talent in their youth academies and maintain exclusive rights to those players, even if they do end up playing NCAA soccer.