Basketball summer leagues-county level travel

[Anonymous]

It may be too early, but does anyone know of quality summer leagues in the Northern VA area? The Fairfax Stars summer league that our org has traditionally signed up for was circling the drain last year. There were only a few teams per age and they didn't seprate AAU teams from county teams. Meaning half the time, we would be driving all the way across the county for a game where the clock started running in q2. Precovid that league had multiple divisions per age group which made it more competitive.

The St James/shots up summer league was OK but the games were very short, shorter wuarters than the stars--it seemed like the referees had been told to not stop the clock if at all possible to keep the game trains running on time--and they also ran the clock. And our families disliked having to pay a $10 entrance fee to attend every game.

Are there any other options? Willing to go outside of Fairfax if thats the best option-- to close-in Loudoun or Gainesville, maybe. We have a summer and winter fcybl team but not a year round program so our teams just cant compete with the year round teams.

[Anonymous]

Stars League really sucked for 5th gr last summer. I am also interested in what else is out there. Our families are price-sensitive and will not want to pay admission every game at the Shots Up league.

[Anonymous]

Would love to find an alternative to the stars league. They told us they were putting AAU teams in a separate division, and even had that in the flier for the league, but they didn't. (Pre-covid, they had 20+ teams per age group so there were always multiple divisions per grade.)

When I complained, the owner was super rude to me and said our team shouldn't be playing travel if we couldn't compete. It's a community org team that doesn't play year round. WE have a summer season and a winter FCYBL season. That used to be a lot of their customer base. Then our kids lost every game and they ran the clock at half of them for most of the game because the year-round teams, surprisingly, were a lot better. Driving all the way to some far flung HS to play half a basketball game was very unenjoyable for our kids. Also two of our games had no refs show up. For one of them, a "ref" showed up about 20 minutes late and I think it was the owner or a family member, didn't have a shirt or a whistle!

[Anonymous]

We noticed last year at the St James that the refs barely called anything, even blatant fouls. We did double games because the games were so short.
Makes sense that they are trying to churn the fee-paying people in and out.

[Anonymous]

I would be surprised if the Stars was doing their league again this summer. I don't think they had enough teams last year for it to be profitable.

[Anonymous]

The woman who runs the Stars, Aggie, is a real peace of work. I'm not familiar with their Summer league, but when everything was closing up in the beginning of covid, she was harassing people hard core for their spring AAU team fees.....giving us sob stories about coaches needing to support their families...knowing she was totally going to cancel the season and she did not give refunds.

[Anonymous]

Our team is doing the Shots Up this summer. The Stars league was the worst-run league of any sport any of my kids have ever participated in.

We had refs not show up for our Stars game once. When we called the admin, she told us to have a parent do it.

We also had TWO games where the other teams didn't show up. When I contacted the org for one of the coaches, he forwarded me an email he had sent the Stars a week ago explaining his team wouldn't be at the game and to please let me know (obviously, they couldn't be bothered).

Once we showed up for a game and the gym was being used for a practice for another league. The POC wouldn't respond to calls or texts. We had driven 45 minutes to get to this gym and just had to turn around and leave.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would be surprised if the Stars was doing their league again this summer. I don't think they had enough teams last year for it to be profitable.

Gym space through FCPS is pretty cheap. I don't understand how they charged $800 for 10 games at school gyms and Shots Up charged $700 for ten games at the St James. Shouldn't it cost more to play at the St James? They are hiring out of the same pool of refs through Cardinal so that cost should be the same for both leagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be surprised if the Stars was doing their league again this summer. I don't think they had enough teams last year for it to be profitable.

Gym space through FCPS is pretty cheap. I don't understand how they charged $800 for 10 games at school gyms and Shots Up charged $700 for ten games at the St James. Shouldn't it cost more to play at the St James? They are hiring out of the same pool of refs through Cardinal so that cost should be the same for both leagues.

economics 101. they undercut the competition (the stars league) and got almost all their customers. then, they surprised everyone with the $10 a pop admission fee. think how much money they made off the admission fees! three games going at the same time, for several hours each night. If a team has 8 players, and they had 10 games, and each player had one parent take them to the game, then the team actually ended up spending like $1500 to the STJ over the season. $$$ *That's why most of the teams played double-headers as pp mentioned*.

[Anonymous]

Loudoun does a league for rising 8th grade, there is Virginia Hokies, but they are charging at the door too. You will probably find some leagues in Maryland, but lately the best competition has been on Shotsup.
I really don’t like the way Shotsup is ran, but if you want player development, thanks the best option in Virginia right now, probably the whole DMV since the best Maryland and DC teams compete it it as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loudoun does a league for rising 8th grade, there is Virginia Hokies, but they are charging at the door too. You will probably find some leagues in Maryland, but lately the best competition has been on Shotsup.
I really don’t like the way Shotsup is ran, but if you want player development, thanks the best option in Virginia right now, probably the whole DMV since the best Maryland and DC teams compete it it as well.

But would Shots Up be a good league for a low-level county team? Or would the teams be too good? Stars used to be the option for the summer/winter only type local teams, because they had different divisions.

[Anonymous]

We had referees not show up for 2 out of out 10 Stars games! The league wouldn't reschedule them either. Once they told us to have a parent do it, once they just didn't reply to our call/texts. The fact that both times, both refs didn't show, means it was the Stars fault and they didn't schedule anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Loudoun does a league for rising 8th grade, there is Virginia Hokies, but they are charging at the door too. You will probably find some leagues in Maryland, but lately the best competition has been on Shotsup.
I really don’t like the way Shotsup is ran, but if you want player development, thanks the best option in Virginia right now, probably the whole DMV since the best Maryland and DC teams compete it it as well.

Specifics? I posted on here last year about the FoF coach who abused his players, was ejected from the game, but still allowed to hang out in the st james gym. He should have been made to leave the building and not allowed back in the rest of the season. His behavior was revolting.

[Anonymous]

convo from last summer on STJ
https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/1064673.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would be surprised if the Stars was doing their league again this summer. I don't think they had enough teams last year for it to be profitable.

Gym space through FCPS is pretty cheap. I don't understand how they charged $800 for 10 games at school gyms and Shots Up charged $700 for ten games at the St James. Shouldn't it cost more to play at the St James? They are hiring out of the same pool of refs through Cardinal so that cost should be the same for both leagues.

economics 101. they undercut the competition (the stars league) and got almost all their customers. then, they surprised everyone with the $10 a pop admission fee. think how much money they made off the admission fees! three games going at the same time, for several hours each night. If a team has 8 players, and they had 10 games, and each player had one parent take them to the game, then the team actually ended up spending like $1500 to the STJ over the season. $$$ *That's why most of the teams played double-headers as pp mentioned*.

The admissions fee is standard for AAU tournaments. I think the parents used to county were caught off guard. Shots up runs regular tournaments, and they always charge admission. I think the problem is that there just isn't enough interest in basketball at the above rec but below aau level to really have a competitive league. Even fielding county teams is hard if most of the players stick with their AAU teams later into the summer now