The Major League Soccer draft will look different from most other amateur-player drafts in American sports Thursday with its importance continuing to diminish.

The 2020 SuperDraft begins with the first and second rounds Thursday, followed by rounds three and four on Monday. The draft will be livestreamed on Twitter and produced by MLS and ESPN.

The event will be streamed live on the ESPN app, YouTube and Facebook and show reaction from players and club decision-makers, as well as live look-ins to club draft rooms. Fans can also engage with the broadcast in the first round.

The Crew owns the seventh, 47th, 49th, 59th and 85th overall picks. Expansion teams Inter Miami and Nashville SC own the first three picks.

With teams like the Crew paying a transfer fee worth more than $7 million for an attacking midfielder this offseason, it's no wonder the draft is becoming less and less significant.

High-spending teams like Atlanta United and Los Angeles FC have forced other clubs to spend money and dip into the international pool of players to compete for a championship, instead of injecting their rosters with youth from American colleges and universities.

"Before, obviously the last five years, it used to be that you'd build your roster from the draft,” Crew coach Caleb Porter said earlier this offseason. “Now we're seeing that less and less of those guys are hitting, making the team, playing minutes.”

There is still quality in the draft, and clubs can pick players who become consistent starters. But with the amount of money clubs are putting into rosters, into their youth academies, and with fewer players spending four years in college, there seems to be an expiration date on the draft at some point if the league continues on this trajectory.

“There probably won't be a draft at some point because you're seeing more and more people are passing in the second and third rounds,” Porter said. “Maybe you get something first round. Not to say there aren't good players though. You can find them.”

With depth needed at winger, the Crew should be able to find a player with the seventh overall pick who can play minutes when needed in 2020 and possibly develop into a solid second option, like Luis Argudo did in 2019 after being a third-round pick in 2018.

The Crew signed just one of its three drafted players in 2019. Forward JJ Williams was the 18th overall pick and played seven games before being sent on loan. That has become more of the trend for first-round picks.

When Porter coached his first year in the league in 2013, three of the 19 first-round picks didn't play in their rookie year. Just half of the 24 first-round picks in 2019 made a single MLS appearance.

Of those 12 first-round picks in 2019 who played this past season, they amassed 137 total games and 7,269 minutes. In 2013, the 16 first-round picks who played their rookie seasons made 236 total appearances and played 13,504 minutes.

There's more of a barrier for college players getting to MLS, but Williams said it's what the player makes of the situation.

"You can't control what is out of your element to control,” Williams said. “I think that I've developed a lot since I've been here, I've learned a lot and I'm just going to keep trying to go in that direction.”

jmyers@dispatch.com

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