Economics of club volleyball

[Anonymous]

I am trying to figure out the financial incentives of club volleyball. As club owner, you can't avoid spending some money (for example: rent gyms, register for tournaments). I do understand that good clubs would spend more money to attract better coaches, so they might charge the players more. There are pretty good non-profit clubs where the coaches volunteer, so the player fees are much smaller. Something that I don't understand is why some of the lower tier clubs charge so much money, despite not having good coaches. At what level does this business become just a money grab?

[Anonymous]

Because it’s lucrative. We feel for the marketing for one local club team and realized it was all a money grab. This wasn’t one of the good established clubs, so we didn’t do our research.

[Anonymous]

Michael Lewis explains a bit of it in his book Playing to Win. It’s just capitalism. People want the service, so they pay for it. Even bad teams can make money as long as people keep signing up their kids. A related question is why does every youth sport now run year round? Because it’s hard for an organization to make money off a seasonal sport. He talks about how girls’ volleyball is a particular overachiever when it comes to making money from tournaments.

https://www.amazon.com/Playing-to-Win/dp/B08DL7ZJDX

[Anonymous]

Does anyone know how much a decent coach makes when coaching a club team? I do understand that some coaches volunteer, but those are the exception rather than the norm. I assume that they are paid hourly, but I don't have any idea how much they make. They also have some perks, like travel and lodging during tournaments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to figure out the financial incentives of club volleyball. As club owner, you can't avoid spending some money (for example: rent gyms, register for tournaments). I do understand that good clubs would spend more money to attract better coaches, so they might charge the players more. There are pretty good non-profit clubs where the coaches volunteer, so the player fees are much smaller. Something that I don't understand is why some of the lower tier clubs charge so much money, despite not having good coaches. At what level does this business become just a money grab?

It's all a money grab. That parents like me willingly pay for, for a variety of reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to figure out the financial incentives of club volleyball. As club owner, you can't avoid spending some money (for example: rent gyms, register for tournaments). I do understand that good clubs would spend more money to attract better coaches, so they might charge the players more. There are pretty good non-profit clubs where the coaches volunteer, so the player fees are much smaller. Something that I don't understand is why some of the lower tier clubs charge so much money, despite not having good coaches. At what level does this business become just a money grab?

It's all a money grab. That parents like me willingly pay for, for a variety of reasons.

I can agree with you in most cases. However you have the non-profit model that MVSA works with, that reduces the club fees. This is practically a bottom line and I consider their club fees reasonable for what they offer to their players. Everything that other clubs charge is profit (after they pay the coaches). I understand why most clubs pay their coaches: not all coaches are willing to volunteer their time. What would be a reasonable club fee versus an unreasonable club fee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am trying to figure out the financial incentives of club volleyball. As club owner, you can't avoid spending some money (for example: rent gyms, register for tournaments). I do understand that good clubs would spend more money to attract better coaches, so they might charge the players more. There are pretty good non-profit clubs where the coaches volunteer, so the player fees are much smaller. Something that I don't understand is why some of the lower tier clubs charge so much money, despite not having good coaches. At what level does this business become just a money grab?

It's all a money grab. That parents like me willingly pay for, for a variety of reasons.

Let me rephrase the above:

I can agree with you in most cases. However you have the non-profit model that MVSA works with, that reduces the club fees. This is practically a bottom line and I consider their club fees reasonable for what they offer to their players. Everything extra that other clubs charge is profit (after they pay the coaches). I understand why most clubs pay their coaches: not all coaches are willing to volunteer their time. What would be a reasonable club fee versus an unreasonable club fee?

[Anonymous]

This may seem as advertisement for MVSA, so I will start by saying that I am not an MVSA parent (we tried out, but my DD didn't make any of their teams). I compared the club fees for a bunch of MD clubs and MVSA seems to be the most reasonable. What is reasonable for parents may be less reasonable for coaches: not many coaches like the model where they volunteer their time and don't get paid. Most of the other clubs charge 1.5x-2x higher club fees (some of which also produce decent results). We also have some clubs that charge higher fees than MVSA by a factor of almost 3x (without being able to show much in return).

From a parent's perspective, it is nice to have a club that puts pressure down on the prices. I think MVSA is the main reason why the prices have not ballooned in MD the same way as they did in VA.

[Anonymous]

The MVSA model is definitely parent friendly price wise and the ROI is great, especially in 13u-15u for the top teams.

I just don’t know how much longer they will be able to attract coaches when nearby clubs, like MEVC, Platform, MOCO (who are not as strong but are growing) pay their coaches. I don’t think their coaching model is sustainable.
Full disclosure, I am a MVSA parent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The MVSA model is definitely parent friendly price wise and the ROI is great, especially in 13u-15u for the top teams.

I just don’t know how much longer they will be able to attract coaches when nearby clubs, like MEVC, Platform, MOCO (who are not as strong but are growing) pay their coaches. I don’t think their coaching model is sustainable.
Full disclosure, I am a MVSA parent.

Assuming that MVSA moves away from their model, what would be a cost increase that you would consider reasonable? MEVC, Platform, and MOCO charge about 1.5x - 1.8x higher club fees.

[FPYCparent]

I'm going to guess that facilities are among the most expensive costs borne by clubs. As an owner, you are either renting space or you own your own space (perhaps with a mortgage or something). Might explain why many clubs call space in an industrial park "home." It may also explain why Metro may have lower costs by using gyms at schools, which I'll guess are a bit cheaper to rent that owning their own or renting non-school space.

Not sure if I could begin to break down the costs for a club like The St. James, where my kid played last year. The facility is flat out amazing, but it also offers so much more than just volleyball. You certainly got offers to join as a member or to take advantage of other amenities, but we were never forced to pick up a membership. If the level of play was on a trajectory to compete with top CHRVA clubs, I'd give it strong consideration as a parent given that the travel logistics worked for us.

From the consumer side, VA Elite tries to breakdown costs, particularly in comparison to other clubs. As far as I know, VAE is the only club that includes player travel into their costs.

https://www.vaelite.com/club-fees

[Anonymous]

FPYCparent wrote:I'm going to guess that facilities are among the most expensive costs borne by clubs. As an owner, you are either renting space or you own your own space (perhaps with a mortgage or something). Might explain why many clubs call space in an industrial park "home." It may also explain why Metro may have lower costs by using gyms at schools, which I'll guess are a bit cheaper to rent that owning their own or renting non-school space.

Not sure if I could begin to break down the costs for a club like The St. James, where my kid played last year. The facility is flat out amazing, but it also offers so much more than just volleyball. You certainly got offers to join as a member or to take advantage of other amenities, but we were never forced to pick up a membership. If the level of play was on a trajectory to compete with top CHRVA clubs, I'd give it strong consideration as a parent given that the travel logistics worked for us.

From the consumer side, VA Elite tries to breakdown costs, particularly in comparison to other clubs. As far as I know, VAE is the only club that includes player travel into their costs.

https://www.vaelite.com/club-fees

Looking at the VA club fees makes me grateful about living in MD. How do they even justify the $6k+ club fees?

[FPYCparent]

Bear in mind that VA Elite includes everything for the player's travel to all non-local events in the stated fee. By the time you add up costs for most other clubs that participate in the same tournaments, VA Elite may prove to be comparable. Yes, their numbers can be shocking at a glance, but that may be the going rate for many high-performing clubs within CHRVA.

[Anonymous]

FPYCparent wrote:Bear in mind that VA Elite includes everything for the player's travel to all non-local events in the stated fee. By the time you add up costs for most other clubs that participate in the same tournaments, VA Elite may prove to be comparable. Yes, their numbers can be shocking at a glance, but that may be the going rate for many high-performing clubs within CHRVA.

Providing an all-inclusive cost simply makes it harder to compare fees. MD clubs offer a similar experience for far less money. Take a MD club fee and add a few overnight tournaments (about $2-300/player for hotel accommodation, which includes a room for the coach). Then add airfare for the few tournaments that require air travel. I have serious doubts that you will get anywhere close to $7.5k / player. This is just the clubs being greedy.

[Anonymous]

FPYCparent wrote:Bear in mind that VA Elite includes everything for the player's travel to all non-local events in the stated fee. By the time you add up costs for most other clubs that participate in the same tournaments, VA Elite may prove to be comparable. Yes, their numbers can be shocking at a glance, but that may be the going rate for many high-performing clubs within CHRVA.

I've always thought the argument that VA Elite is just including costs that you would otherwise be paying on your own so therefore it really works out to be the same as other clubs to be ridiculous. Most parents of girls playing club volleyball actually want to go see their DD play and travel to tournaments to go and watch so any real savings on the travel costs for the players is minimal, particularly since post-pandemic, most clubs just have the players stay with their parents. So if I am traveling to the tournament anyway, having my DD stay in another room with teammates is just an additional cost I would not have had to otherwise incur. Similarly, most parents simply take their kids along with them when they drive to tournaments within a few hours drive. The VA Elite model of getting a charter bus for the girls to travel together is an additional expense that other clubs don't have.

If the argument is that having the team travel (whether on a bus or flight) and stay in hotel rooms together apart from their parents are valuable experiences that are worth paying more for, then that's fine and something I understand. But the idea that the crazy fees that VA Elite charges versus other clubs is an apples to apples comparison is just wrong.