Overview The Elite Clubs National League is a club-run youth soccer league whose older age groups play national showcases staged for college and pro recruiting, and between 2017 and 2022 about 70 percent of NWSL Draft picks came out of ECNL clubs. It runs separate ECNL Girls and ECNL Boys leagues from U13 to U19, split into regional conferences, and every season ends in a two-stage postseason of Playoffs in June and National Finals in July. The ECNL was founded in 2009 as a girls' league, added boys in 2017 with 57 clubs, and is a nonprofit governed by its member clubs under US Club Soccer's sanction. On site The 2025-26 national calendar listed 45 events. For U16 and younger they are experiential, built to stretch players; for U17 and U18/19 they are recruitable showcases staged for college and professional scouts. The June Playoffs bring more than 300 teams per league: the girls split into Champions League, North American Cup and Showcase Cup tiers, the boys into Champions League and North American Cup. U18/19 champions are crowned there, and the top U13 to U17 teams go on to Finals, which open with a media day for the last four teams in each age group and close on a trophy stage. At national events The Zone holds the league's retail store, the Nike Shoebox, alongside medical tents, sponsor walls and feather flags, and postseason games stream on ECNL TV. Audience The players are 12 to 19 years old and belong to member clubs, and how many national events a team plays depends on its age and results, so teams that keep winning play more of them. Off the field the league reaches its clubs, coaches and families through a monthly newsletter and its Breaking the Line podcast. Track record The league expanded after the U.S. Soccer Development Academy shut down in 2020. By November 2019, more than 60 percent of Power Five NCAA Division I women's soccer players were ECNL alumni. The ECNL Center for Athlete Health and Performance publishes health and training guidance for youth athletes, and each February the ECNL Symposium hands out a Club Community Impact Award to one girls' club and one boys' club for service beyond the pitch. Brand presence Nike began sponsoring the girls' league in 2010, with retail at its events and national training camps at Nike World Headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, and PUMA became the boys' league sponsor in March 2019. Continental Tire powers The Zone at national events, and Soccer.com runs the Nike Shoebox with Nike. The league's partner inventory includes presenting rights on the Playoffs and the Road to Finals, the health and performance content hub, branded player-recovery areas at its six to eight signature showcases, medical tent branding, sampling through the event store, and messaging on the podcast and newsletter.