I'm considering investing in the youth academy mainly because of the comments in the FAQ about the higher starting skills available to players from this facility.

Just wondering if this has been evidenced by anyone and what the magnitude of increase, if any, is.

main use of the YA is it increases your chance of pulling a 16yr old

you can see their starting physical skills, but that's about it.

it's something to waste your money on once you've got nothering else to buy.

it's become even more useless now we have height and weight in the mix.
these are randomly assigned on drafting

you've no way of knowing the player's size till ou actually draft him, so the 15 str - 9spd guy you choose, more often than not turns out to be 5'10" and 150lbs

another thing that needs to be fixed....sigh

I don't have one yet, since my stadium is only at about 14000, but it doesn't seem as bad as people make it out to be.

From my math, the most points a 16 year old can gain in a career is about 140. When you subtract for specific training at 90% and then subtract another 25% for points wasted on unneeded skills, it is closer to 90. So if you can start with just 10 extra useful points, it raises the career ceiling for him substantially.

viktor wrote: but a high speed/str guy might very well be a 1* guy ready to join your track and field team

Surely it's not just the physicals that can start higher though. Doesn't it allow for all skills to be higher?

I've seen people selling that weeks youth pulls with higher skills than any I've ever had. I put that down to the team having a youth centre. Is this not the case?

jespernohr wrote: I have never ever had a Youth Academy (and plan to, unless they change the usefulness of it) and that haven't prevented me from gathering a young team of 3.5+ talents with high physicals. In my opinion the Youth Academy is completely useless.