The cost of youth athletics

CPT Neuron

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Dec 4, 2001
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Biddeford, ME
So I had the pleasure of experiencing organized youth sports in 3 different states, Texas, Ohio, and in Maine. The majority of my experience is in Maine. In Texas my sisters were involved in "elite" level gymnastics in San Antonio and spent literally 3 to 4 hours at night 5 days out of the week in the gym. They traveled all throughout Texas during this time. They were in late elementary and middle school at the time. They all competed on their high school teams, even after moving to Maryland from Texas (we were Air Force brats). When I went back to Texas for residency, my youngest son, much to my dismay, went to the same gym that my sisters went to. My wife at the time was a gymnast when she was a kid and thought it would be "a really good idea" to get my son into. Needless to say we were spending for $500 a month, and this was in the mid 90s, for him to be on a traveling gymnastics team at the age of 6! It was ridiculous but, as a resident, I did not have the energy to fight that battle. When we move to Ohio, he got out of gymnastics and began to play year-round soccer. He played for his middle school. He played for the town team. He played for a "select" team in the Miami Valley area. It was about $1000 annually for this, the select team, and somewhere between $150 and $200 apiece for the town travel and middle school teams. My 2 younger children were doing gymnastics at the same time, but not anything of consequence, more of a "mommy and me" kind of thing. When he moved to Maine, it was a completely different story. My daughter was involved in high-level gymnastics on a team and we were right back at the $500 a month plus a $3000 a week long camp in the woods of Canada every summer, plus meet fees, easily dropping $7000 or $8000 a year on gymnastics. This was in addition to her playing town travel soccer and me organizing a hybrid sort of "Premier team" through the club my son was playing for and coaching that team with one of the British guys who was associated with the club so that kids doing other sports but wanted to play soccer at a higher level could do so. For her, at least, there was some return on investment as after turning one of her sesamoid bones into pixie dust from gymnastics, and then turning her focus to soccer, she was able to play at the collegiate level, D3, but was able to secure an academic scholarship well beyond her actual academic performance level. She played with a premier club and for her high school team and was quite accomplished, for Maine at least, in soccer. During these years, it was $3000 or more for registration and uniforms for her Premier team, and this does not count any of the money spent on tournament travel and the like. We would travel routinely in the Northeast region, all over New England and into New York and New Jersey as well. Then there were out of pocket costs for ID camps, usually run at specific schools, but also a few "clearing house" locations where a number of schools would attend a camp at some site to scout kids. Never a cheap endeavor. My middle son played premier soccer as well, again about $3000 a year. His team was quite good and represented Maine in the USYS D1 regional tournament several years running. This included trips to West Virginia and Rhode Island for the regional tournaments. He had a chance to play in college, the college coach at Bentley was quite close with his last premier coach, they both played on the same team when they were in college, and he was offered a position after the usual recruiting timeframe based on the recommendation of his coach. He never really took the recruiting process seriously as he was not sure if he wanted to play in college or not. Ultimately, he decided against that and took to beer drinking as a sport. He is probably a better person for it! All told, I cringe at the amount of money that we spent on youth sports for the kids, but I think they got something good out of it. There are a number of life lessons that they would not have gotten in any other arena, it just cost quite a bit of money for that to occur. Ultimately, I think it is money well spent as it kept them from getting involved, to a potentially hazardous degree, with other, less productive habits during high school ("falling in with the wrong crowd" if you will), and this is a good thing.

edited for talk-to-text errors
 
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tonyandpals

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Mar 18, 2004
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Burlington
This thread is depressing.

11yo who plays hockey on the town travel team @ $2200, 6yo on the in the same program at $1800, and another 6yo in the learn to play program at $600. I don't think we really have much a a "house/town" no travel option for hockey around here, unless I am missing it. I feel like 2k for something that runs 3-4 times a week from Sept - early April is decent. Maybe I am crazy. I'm interested to hear what others pay for town travel, or club hockey. I feel like a lot of our kids leave the town travel program for club teams and I wonder if it's because the pricing is somewhat close or easy to 'justify' the extra 10% to play under a club/select banner.

Town baseball is a couple hundred bucks for each of them. My oldest hasn't shown the skillset to even entertain looking into travel options and the other two have a ways to go before crossing that bridge. One of the 6yos wants to do soccer this spring. Was thinking of introducing him to lacrosse as well to see if he likes it. Like many have said, just getting them exposed to as many things as possible at an early age.

I am constantly flooded with emails and targeted ads to sign-up for this camp/tryout. The marketing behind the for profit piece of this is strong. I plan on taking my 6yo to a few tryouts for 'club' hockey teams this spring for the simple fact that it's free ice (typically the tryout for 8u is free). No intention of paying for any of those programs, especially at this age.
 

Humphrey

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Aug 3, 2010
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Growing up in Framingham, we had a very good Little League (Actually, Little Big League? We never could compete for the LL WS). Every level had double digit teams (and even American and National Leagues). There was T-ball, peanut (coaches pitch), minor (players pitch), major and Babe Ruth. I was in those leagues from K-9th grades (my dad fudged some paperwork to get me in a year early...so the normal route was grades 1-9). It was so much fun. And it was developmental. There were no "records" until Majors (6th and 7th grades, usually). And developed! My first game in T-Ball, I hit the ball...and ran thru the pitcher's mound to 2nd base. By the last game (or maybe 2nd to last, whatever...) I distinctly remember fielding a ground ball, knowing the bases were loaded and ran home to tag the plate to get the out.

Everyone played in these leagues. Once you moved up to the Majors, there were tryouts and a draft. It wasn't until summer leagues that they had travel teams. These leagues prepared me so much for HS baseball. I can't imagine doing the travel route for all those childhood years.

Hockey and Basketball were roughly the same, but hockey had much more specialized teams, I think? I was just as content playing on the "house" teams. But those teams had enough talent to produce top high school level (and some college) level athletes who didn't go the Junior route.
I played in that baseball league (not well!). Not sure how old you are but it started in the 50s when there were 16 teams in the major leagues. So that the Big League (equivalent of Babe Ruth) and the Little League teams wouldn't have the same names; they also had teams w/minor league nicknames; hence the Seals, Royals (Montreal), Colonels and Marlins were names that for someone like me, starting playing around 1962; had no clue where they came from.
The only thing I remember negative was that the fields were horrible, relatively speaking. They didn't start building the complex near the skating rink until the mid to late 60s. Kids have no clue what facilities they have compared to then.
 

simplyeric

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Feb 14, 2006
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Richmond, VA
I'm not super familiar with how it works in other countries. I imagine in baseball hotbeds like the DR and Cuba, you have an insane level of investment from professional organizations and clubs that are always looking for talent, because they know you can find it. Scouts know they can scout the backlots of Santo Domingo or Havana and legitimately find major league prospects.

Other posters will know more about it the specifics of it, but the American youth sports model is very different than most countries in Europe. My limited understanding is that there is much more of an investment in youth development by professional clubs (in England for example, they have competitive teams for children under the age of 10, so an 8 year old can "play" for Arsenal, or Manchester United, etc.) and that parents are not expected to foot the bill to the degree that they do in America. I'm not sure the European model could work as well in America, given the size and sprawling nature of the population. They also don't have high school and college sports in anywhere near the capacity that America does.

In soccer, my experience is that the challenging nature of talent development comes from how the elite coaching and competition is kept separate from the cheaper options. In soccer, you can play youth/travel soccer in most Massachusetts communities for very little money, I think it was like $100 a season when I played for Waltham in the 2000s/2010s. You can also play at the high school level, which was free. However, if you are a soccer player with collegiate/professional aspirations, you basically can't play travel soccer or high school soccer. You have to play "club soccer" which is very expensive and requires exorbitant travel costs; but gives you the best coaching and the best competition. If you looked at MLS players, I would bet there isn't a single American player that did not play club soccer. I imagine for truly incredible talents, there are scholarships and ways to get them onto competitive club teams if they don't have the means, but it has been cited as a critical stumbling block when it comes to the US developing soccer talent at the international level.
Re; the bolded: that doesn't really track. While the US overall is much larger and less dense than Europe (the EU, for arguments sake, in order to avoid Russia), if you look at the US you could capture the vast majority of the population in a mere fraction of the land mass. We're talking about improving access to youth sports, not "the last mile" of the USPS, so I think it really is ok to focus on high density and high return areas.

39253

The top 60% density areas are what, 1/3 the area of the US? 1/4? Which means that you're getting like 90% of the population in very focused and "dense" areas, in terms of youth/community sports. Yeah, North Dakota and Wyoming get left behind...maybe that's the price they pay for the extra representation in the electoral congress and senate.

The real answer is:

The profit motive has slowly been destroying youth sports for decades. I think we've discussed this in the coaching forum before.
...
Honestly, youth sports are like a Betsy DeVos fever dream.
 

Kliq

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Mar 31, 2013
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Re; the bolded: that doesn't really track. While the US overall is much larger and less dense than Europe (the EU, for arguments sake, in order to avoid Russia), if you look at the US you could capture the vast majority of the population in a mere fraction of the land mass. We're talking about improving access to youth sports, not "the last mile" of the USPS, so I think it really is ok to focus on high density and high return areas.

View attachment 39253

The top 60% density areas are what, 1/3 the area of the US? 1/4? Which means that you're getting like 90% of the population in very focused and "dense" areas, in terms of youth/community sports. Yeah, North Dakota and Wyoming get left behind...maybe that's the price they pay for the extra representation in the electoral congress and senate.

The real answer is:
Just going by the content in my post (which I admit to perhaps not being entirely accurate) but if going by the idea that professional clubs can sponsor youth sports at a higher level, like they do for English soccer teams, than it is very, very different in the US. With the exception of some pockets of people in Cornwall, pretty much everybody in England lives within a hour or so of a major club that will have a robust training academy. In the US, it would not just be Wyoming that would be shut out, it would be anyone that does not live within close proximity to a major metro that has a professional team.

You would also run into the issue of one or two teams being responsible for gigantic populations of people, denying equal opportunity to people who live in big cities. The Knicks and the Nets could set up very large youth sport programs, but they would still be tasked with serving 20+ million people. In London, they have 6 teams in the Premier League and an additional six teams within the EFL system.

I know that there are things that the European sports system does that could be done better in the United States when it comes to youth participation in sports, but leaning on professional teams to run academies probably isn't one of them.
 

DJnVa

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Dec 16, 2010
53,838
Another issue with youth sports these days is every parent and coach seems to be obsessed with winning and losing and not as concerned with skill development. The amount of games played at the pre-teen level is insane.
The kids lose interest if there are no games or tournaments. The kids see the game on Saturday/Sunday as the reward for the practice on Tuesday and Thursday.

To be clear, I am not saying you're wrong in any way.
 

simplyeric

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Feb 14, 2006
14,037
Richmond, VA
Just going by the content in my post (which I admit to perhaps not being entirely accurate) but if going by the idea that professional clubs can sponsor youth sports at a higher level, like they do for English soccer teams, than it is very, very different in the US. With the exception of some pockets of people in Cornwall, pretty much everybody in England lives within a hour or so of a major club that will have a robust training academy. In the US, it would not just be Wyoming that would be shut out, it would be anyone that does not live within close proximity to a major metro that has a professional team.

You would also run into the issue of one or two teams being responsible for gigantic populations of people, denying equal opportunity to people who live in big cities. The Knicks and the Nets could set up very large youth sport programs, but they would still be tasked with serving 20+ million people. In London, they have 6 teams in the Premier League and an additional six teams within the EFL system.

I know that there are things that the European sports system does that could be done better in the United States when it comes to youth participation in sports, but leaning on professional teams to run academies probably isn't one of them.
If you adjust the drive times to account for a more American type of driving, I'd guess that most of the people in the US live within, say, 1-1/2 hours of a major team or a major affiliate (AAA Baseball). If you take all the major NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, and USL, you'd have a huge percentage of the population. And, yknow how folks in Texas and the southwest are downright proud of the idea that an hour drive in MA is like a four hour drive in TX, well, you get a pretty big population watershed.
I think even if you just took the soccer teams (I was working with the idea of all sports), they are, predictably, in higher-population areas. Just with soccer, at 1-1/2 hours drive time, I'd guess you get at least 75% of the population?

I just don't think geography and demographics are that much of an impediment. We don't do it because...we don't. We have well-established entitlement ("I deserve to have the means to promote my child's athletic career"), selfishness ("and why would I contribute to someone else's potential success?"), jealousy/racism ("especially if they are black"), and greed ("well friend, come this way, and for a fee we'll get your child into these exclusive programs!"). I mean, it could be as simple as "hey look, it's just not our job to figure out this professional athlete feeder program...what we have works for us...and for the colleges!".

Let's not forget the other professional leagues: the colleges. When you add in the college programs...man like 98% of the population is within an hour or two of a major city and/or college with a high-level athletics program, no?
 

tonyandpals

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Mar 18, 2004
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In the thick of hockey tryout season here in MA. Our town travel team at the peewee level is in 'danger' of not having a team next year due to lack of players. They're trying to convince families to stay, or play on two teams and just come to games.

My youngest skater (2014, will be a 2nd year mite) just went to a club tryout (my neighbor runs the program). He's come a long way this year, but I (thought I) knew going into the tryout we wouldn't do it, even if he made it. The money(3200 vs likely 2000 for town travel...been a tough year too) and travel at this age is crazy. Games in Springfield, south shore, and up to Concord, NH. I mean, he could handle it, but me and his mom are probably the ones not ready. But I'll be damned if it's not tempting when you think of it. I mean, I'm his coach now in mites. I didn't even play through HS and was at best a beer league top 3 forward. Getting coached up by a guy who played at BC High and through HS, into minor league hockey with the Kings. Coached at many levels since. I get caught up thinking about how much they have to offer than I do. Then I say, well maybe one more year of town travel where he would be on the top mite team and challenged a bit more this year. Maybe we jump ship the last year of mites...or squirts. Then it's tougher to break in against kids in that system for 3 years.

So yeah, I get it...all of it.

edit to add some math to complicate the decision:
3200 for club - approx 125 hours on ice = 25.6hr
2000 for town travel - 82 hours on ice = 24.40hr
 
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