The Homegrown Player Rule - A new visual guide

Major League Soccer isn't known for either the stability or the opacity of its rules. Rules change often and with little warning, and the Homegrown Player Rule is no exception. Since we ran our article in May of 2014 on this subject, there have been some changes to the rule.

The Rules

Since 2008, Major League Soccer has had the Homegrown Player Rule to allow clubs to develop and sign homegrown talent. Calling it a "rule" is actually a misnomer - it's one of MLS' many mechanisms clubs use to acquire players in the single-entity structure under which MLS operates. The official wording of the acquisition mechanism is brief:

A club may sign a player to his first professional contract without subjecting him to the MLS SuperDraft if the player has been a member of a club’s youth academy for at least one year and has met the necessary training and retention requirements. Players joining MLS through this mechanism are known as Homegrown Players.

There is no limit to the number of Homegrown Players a club may sign in a given year. - 2015 MLS Player Rules and Regulations Summary Rule II (G)

The Regulations

What the rules don't  explain is that each MLS club is given a territory in which it may scout. This helps limit instances where clubs within the same structure compete against one another for a signature - that much has not changed. The territories haven't changed - for the most part. Here's a list of each club's current territory:

So what does that look like? Visually, there's less unclaimed space on the map.

2015 US Homegrown Player Territory Map

2015 Canada Homegrown Player Territory Map

It's worth noting that there are some other rules and regulations pertinent to acquiring a Homegrown Player. The New York Red Bulls spell out the requirements on their Academy site:

Players in the New York Red Bulls Academy will be added to the MLS home grown talent identification list.

Players who are on the list will benefit from the opportunity to be signed directly by the New York Red Bulls First Team, as opposed to entering the MLS Draft where they could be selected by any MLS team. Set in place by the MLS in 2006, the rule is designed to provide increased opportunities for local players. In order to be eligible, players must abide by the following guidelines

All players must reside in a team's "Home Territory" for at least one year prior to being added to the team's Home grown Player List.

Players must be added to an MLS team's Home grown Player List prior to entering a four-year college, but can maintain their Home grown Player status during college if registered before entering that institution.

Members of the U17, U20, and U23 U.S. National Teams cannot be added to an MLS team's Home grown Player List, but a player already on a Home grown Player List can maintain that status if selected for a US National team at a later date.

The Red Bulls can sign up to two players each year from its homegrown talent list to either senior or developmental contracts.

From this, we glean a great deal of information. Major League Soccer keeps a list that identifies prospective Homegrown Players, and those are the only ones that can be selected by clubs as Homegrown Players. Also, players who are members of the United States Youth National Teams are ineligible for Homegrown Player status unless they were members of the academy before being called up. It also makes no rulings on players for other national teams - including Canada.

The Exceptions

Teams can sign players outside of their territory through exemptions. Each team is granted a set number of exceptions, however the 2015 numbers are not made public. In 2013 and 2014 numbers were published in an article on mlssoccer.com in May of 2013.

From this, we can see that the clubs with the best local talent pools (centered in the North Jersey/Philadelphia, Chicagoland, and Southern California regions) get the fewest exemptions while clubs with worse local talent pools get more. From this, we can estimate what the clubs will have in 2015.

The Future

With Atlanta United FC set to join MLS in 2017 and LAFC, Minnesota United FC, and Miami all named as MLS Expansion clubs, we can only speculate what their territories would be. An MLS spokesman said that nothing had been determined yet for any expansion clubs with regard to territory or exceptions. It's safe to speculate that LAFC would have a 75 mile radius and two exceptions - the same that Chivas USA had for its famed academy until its dissolution in 2015. Atlanta and Minnesota would probably also have a 75 mile radius and four to six exceptions, since the talent pools in the Atlanta and Minneapolis-St. Paul areas are decent. Miami would most likely have all of Florida south of Orlando City's home stadium, save for a 25- to 75 mile radius around the Citrus Bowl, which is reminiscent of the Florida State-Miami recruiting wars that used Interstate 4 as the dividing line. I would also estimate Miami to be in the four to six exceptions range.

The system isn't perfect. It has areas of overlap, both by necessity (NYCFC and RBNY) and by design (Portland and Colorado in New Mexico). It's also open to exploitation - the Union signed 15 year old Jamaican Justin McMaster to the Academy back in 2014, meaning by the time he turns 18 he'll have met the residency requirements for the Union to sign him as a Homegrown Player, having lived in the territory and attended the Academy for more than a year. But that there is a system at all is indicative of how much stock the league puts into player development.

Special thanks to Susie Rantz with Sounder at Heart for the maps.