Why travel sports when there are tons of competitors in the immediate area?

[Anonymous]

I'm so confused why there are travel sports that have families driving 3-10 hours and staying in hotels overnight to compete with other travel teams who are also travelling...but why? When there are clearly plenty of kids and teams in the immediate DC metro area who could provide adequate competition. I would understand if you came from a small town where one soccer team is truly stronger than the rest and has no competition in their immediate area, but...in DC? I truly don't understand. There is so much benefit already to kids playing on team sports--how does travelling add to that? Doesn't it tax the rest of the family somehow? Is it just for the experience of traveling with others?

[Anonymous]

There are a lot of reasons why families participate, and mainly one reason why organizers hold them. Imagine a girls’ volleyball tournament with 600 teams attending. Each team pays $800 in registration fees. They also need a place to stay, and let’s say there are 13 girls on a team, plus coaches, chaperones, parents, etc. Everyone also needs to eat, buy souvenirs, T shirts etc. This becomes an event that brings in more than $1 million to a city. Everyone wins! Except if you are a family that is taking out a second mortgage in order to pay for youth sports.

[Anonymous]

One way to look at is is if you look at examples of youth sports with less travel. My kid swims, and swimming is a sport that traditionally has very few travel meets. My kid has gone to 3 out of state meets in 3 years of swimming, but they were zones, or multi state meets that he had to qualify for. Most of his teammates have never been to a meet more than an hour away. There are plenty of kids to swim against locally until you achieve very fast times, and then you might go to one or two higher level meets a year. The very elite swimmers are the exception.

My other kid plays soccer and in three years, he has already been to 5-6 out of state tournaments, all normal ones that you just have to pay the registration fee. Some of them are stay to play, so we had to book a partner hotel. I’ve never seen a stay to play swim meet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some out there.

Some swim teams are going to travel meets that are not very selective, so that the team can travel together and bond, but this is newer trend and it only happens maybe once or twice a year for them. A lot of teams will go to a meet in florida so they can get some Disney time or beach time, for example. Personally, I think it’s a money grab, but I know there are benefits to traveling as a swim team.

So yes- the 9U soccer team traveling to Pennsylvania, the 12U baseball team traveling to Virginia Beach, the 14U hockey team going to a tournament in upstate ny. They are mostly to generate money for the hosting club and the community.

Our soccer club has a soccer tournament every year with 500 teams and each team pays between $500-700. It’s also run off the backs of volunteers, so I think the club probably nets about half of the fees after paying for refs, fields, etc. Volunteers run the concessions, t shirt stands, help register, set up fields, pretty much all of it. Without the tournament, the club would rely on more fundraising.

[Anonymous]

Exposure and networking

[Anonymous]

NP here. So why do families agree to travel, if they know they're being fleeced?

For example: my kid is not athletic, but she's an advanced violin player. She's often invited to compete in regional, national or international competitions. Most of them are purely commercial enterprises for the organizers, and after doing one which landed her at Carnegie Hall, we're not going out of our way to travel to and fro and spend our hard-earned money on many more. She'll do some in high school, for college apps, but the bulk of her playing time is already well spent in private lessons and local performances. There is no reason to get sucked into more stuff.

[Anonymous]

Bragging.

[Anonymous]

It’s so very stupid. If all of the cities and towns had one all star/travel team per sport - the competition level would be high enough to compete with the best travel teams.

[Anonymous]

Agree it's dumb and this is one of many reasons we will never do travel sports. It's a scam. If you child is very talented and hard working, they can get scouted without doing travel sports, and if they are not, they can get all the benefit necessary out of local leagues. There is no compelling reason for travel sports in a place like the DMV.

[Anonymous]

It is such a relief to hear all this. We're just 2 years into the whole regional club sports thing, and from the start we took one look at travel team schedules and said "Oh HELL no." But for us that was because of our own sense of sanity, trying to preserve some quality of life and also work demands. All that meant being away most weekends or even being local but competing most weekends, plus THREE or more practices a week, was out of the question.

Now understanding what a scam it mostly is anyway, and how it's mostly a money grab for those who host them, I'm that much more comfy in the decision to forgo travel teams. I don't even know how families with multiple kids in different travel sports at same time do it, or single parents with multiple kids in any competitive sports, do it.

Happy to stay regional!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agree it's dumb and this is one of many reasons we will never do travel sports. It's a scam. If you child is very talented and hard working, they can get scouted without doing travel sports, and if they are not, they can get all the benefit necessary out of local leagues. There is no compelling reason for travel sports in a place like the DMV.

Speaking of scams, is it me or is this whole "Signing up for college coach representation and networking" not also a major scam? Our oldest started club sports at 11 yrs old and they were trying to get us to pay for representation through high school??? Insane. We have ignored it now for 2 more years, but is there anything truly worthwhile about those agents or is it a scam until you're actually in a high ranking travel team?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:NP here. So why do families agree to travel, if they know they're being fleeced?

For example: my kid is not athletic, but she's an advanced violin player. She's often invited to compete in regional, national or international competitions. Most of them are purely commercial enterprises for the organizers, and after doing one which landed her at Carnegie Hall, we're not going out of our way to travel to and fro and spend our hard-earned money on many more. She'll do some in high school, for college apps, but the bulk of her playing time is already well spent in private lessons and local performances. There is no reason to get sucked into more stuff.

Well, I think some families do know, but others either don’t know or go along because they see benefits for their child/family. And thanks for pointing out that it exists in music. I think dance competitions are a particularly egregious example of a cash grab. Some families enjoy the weekend traveling (and then complaining about the travel), spending time with their kids, watching them compete, etc. I know it’s a commercial enterprise, but taking a kid to an away soccer tournament is fun for the team, gives either myself or my husband one on one time with the kid, and fits within our budget. So we fall into the group of families who do it for the benefits to our family. We would let our kid join a team with a crazy amount of travel -2 out of state soccer tournaments is the upper limit. I do think some families are spending way to much money on travel sports at the expense of saving for retirement/college, which is a whole other discussion.

[Anonymous]

PP here *would not let*

[Anonymous]

My son has been on a travel baseball team (3 different team, actually) for 5 years and is now in high school. The farthest we’ve traveled is a few hours for a tournament, and only stayed in hotels a few times. There is plenty of competition locally, and we’ve stuck with teams that valued family’s sanity.

We did have kid go to Cooperstown when he was 12, but any team can do that, travel or little league, and kids have an absolute ball.

[Anonymous]

Because they are pretending to do important things

[Anonymous]

My kid is on a "travel" team but it's local travel. They do go to a tournament every year though but it's been places like Philly or Pittsburgh. We have always had fun at the tournaments.