Volleyball club- recap and thoughts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, the MOCO fees across all age groups vary between 132% and 263% of MVSA fees, with an average of 188%. I agree that I should have said "almost twice" instead of "at least twice." But there's no doubt that the prices do not resemble MVSA, as suggested earlier. For some reason I expected the "market" to come back in the reply. None of the parents I know try to find excuses for clubs to charge them as much as they possibly can. It appears that there are a lot of them on this forum, unless there is another explanation. For example, club representatives who cultivate the feeling that they should be allowed to charge as much as they want because of the demand.

Not a club representative, nor a parent of a player at either club. I agree with your premise that club volleyball is expensive and we'd like it to cost less. But since we don't set the prices, every year before tryouts we sit down with our DD to compare club costs. Its an exercise we use to make sure she understands how much we are spending and what she will be getting in return for a lot of money. I posted a portion of that analysis in the Volleyball Action thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/150/1219014.page

IMHO, arguing that MOCO is too expensive compared to other clubs is the wrong argument to make. MVSA and MOCO are bargains compared to many others clubs and attacking them for unreasonable prices probably won't do anything except make them wonder why they even try to keep prices low when all their competitors are much higher. If anything my "market" concern is what happens if they raise prices? It feels like MVSA, MOCO, MEVC, etc. are the only thing stopping the other MD clubs from raising prices to match the VA prices.

For comparison, here are the base prices of the top teams in the DMV at U14 last year, by regional rank and price. Some of them have add-ons like uniform purchases to actually play, including Metro & MD Juniors, and I believe MVSA has fewer practices and doesn't include nationals costs.
1. Metro Travel - ~$5,000 (not online anymore)
2. MDJrs - $4,850
3. Paramount - $6,400
4. MOCO - $3,600
5. VA Juniors - $5,990
6. MVSA - $2,050

FYI: We also compared tryout fees. MVSA was ~60, MOCO was ~72, MDJrs was around $65. Could be off a bit but I don't have the spreadsheet handy.

Whoa!

Why do girls cost so much more than boys?

Supply and demand - there are more girls wanting to play club volleyball than there are girls teams. I imagine if boys volleyball grows in popularity, the prices will go up too.

There are a lot more girls teams than boys teams.

Maybe 60 boys trying out for what was probably a total of less than 12 spots on the navy and white teams combined.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

If you want to get into the nitty-gritty, the MOCO fees across all age groups vary between 132% and 263% of MVSA fees, with an average of 188%. I agree that I should have said "almost twice" instead of "at least twice." But there's no doubt that the prices do not resemble MVSA, as suggested earlier. For some reason I expected the "market" to come back in the reply. None of the parents I know try to find excuses for clubs to charge them as much as they possibly can. It appears that there are a lot of them on this forum, unless there is another explanation. For example, club representatives who cultivate the feeling that they should be allowed to charge as much as they want because of the demand.

Not a club representative, nor a parent of a player at either club. I agree with your premise that club volleyball is expensive and we'd like it to cost less. But since we don't set the prices, every year before tryouts we sit down with our DD to compare club costs. Its an exercise we use to make sure she understands how much we are spending and what she will be getting in return for a lot of money. I posted a portion of that analysis in the Volleyball Action thread: https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/150/1219014.page

IMHO, arguing that MOCO is too expensive compared to other clubs is the wrong argument to make. MVSA and MOCO are bargains compared to many others clubs and attacking them for unreasonable prices probably won't do anything except make them wonder why they even try to keep prices low when all their competitors are much higher. If anything my "market" concern is what happens if they raise prices? It feels like MVSA, MOCO, MEVC, etc. are the only thing stopping the other MD clubs from raising prices to match the VA prices.

For comparison, here are the base prices of the top teams in the DMV at U14 last year, by regional rank and price. Some of them have add-ons like uniform purchases to actually play, including Metro & MD Juniors, and I believe MVSA has fewer practices and doesn't include nationals costs.
1. Metro Travel - ~$5,000 (not online anymore)
2. MDJrs - $4,850
3. Paramount - $6,400
4. MOCO - $3,600
5. VA Juniors - $5,990
6. MVSA - $2,050

FYI: We also compared tryout fees. MVSA was ~60, MOCO was ~72, MDJrs was around $65. Could be off a bit but I don't have the spreadsheet handy.

Whoa!

Why do girls cost so much more than boys?

Supply and demand - there are more girls wanting to play club volleyball than there are girls teams. I imagine if boys volleyball grows in popularity, the prices will go up too.

There are a lot more girls teams than boys teams.

Maybe 60 boys trying out for what was probably a total of less than 12 spots on the navy and white teams combined.

You’re right that there are more girls clubs/teams, but the demand is crazy for the more reputable/competitive clubs. Some clubs will sell out their tryouts weeks in advance because they can’t accommodate more people in the gym. My DD has been to tryouts with more than 100 girls trying out for maybe 2 teams.

When you say less than 12 spots do you mean spots that you believe are actually up for grabs because returning players are likely getting the other roster spots? If that’s what you mean, presumably the 60 players trying out include those returners so the actual number of players without a spot is somewhat less.