AAU Basketball orgs and team costs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You said your son has played on two different teams, would you mind sharing the cost for the other one he played on? There are only a few teams around here. We have ruled out Swarm and Nova94 based on the cost, and another team for being too sketchy. CYA AAU is being evasive in team costs.

OP again. Maryland team headed by volunteer coaches. Team is now either defunct or on hold to reform. Team practiced outdoors or in borrowed gyms where coaches worked or had connections, costing us $0 for practices. Parents split cost of tournaments so we spent $30-50 each. Bump games cost us $10-15. Most Team members played on other AAU teams simultaneously. For DS, this pick-up team (for lack of better term) was fun and good for extra practice with more aggressive players. For the parents, we enjoyed watching our sons play hard, minimal team politics with no dad or friend favorites. Players earned their play time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You said your son has played on two different teams, would you mind sharing the cost for the other one he played on? There are only a few teams around here. We have ruled out Swarm and Nova94 based on the cost, and another team for being too sketchy. CYA AAU is being evasive in team costs.

OP again. Maryland team headed by volunteer coaches. Team is now either defunct or on hold to reform. Team practiced outdoors or in borrowed gyms where coaches worked or had connections, costing us $0 for practices. Parents split cost of tournaments so we spent $30-50 each. Bump games cost us $10-15. Most Team members played on other AAU teams simultaneously. For DS, this pick-up team (for lack of better term) was fun and good for extra practice with more aggressive players. For the parents, we enjoyed watching our sons play hard, minimal team politics with no dad or friend favorites. Players earned their play time.

I have noticed that some of the smaller AAU teams to seem to "cheat" for practice space by using connections (like a friend who is an assistant high school coach lets them in to use high school gym space when it is not being used) rather than get county permits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you post what you paid and list the names of the teams? You are more likely to get useful info if you give up useful info. What teams has your son played for and what did they charge? “Below 700” is not that helpful without even the name of the team.

OP again. Team is NOVA94 Feet. We paid a few installments, cannot locate all receipts, but about $700 plus uniform fees. Likely more this year as covid restrictions easing and more tournaments scheduled.

in FAQs - Costs for Nova 94 Feet elementary and middle school age teams are about $850 for Orange teams and $700 for Blue Teams, though these costs may vary a bit by team, and from year to year. High School age teams may have higher costs since they play in exposure events that have a higher entry fee. Total costs for HS teams can range from $800-$1300. However, some HS teams will receive free gear and cost reduction under our sponsorship with Adidas. We generally allow fees to be paid in installments, however, once a player accepts a spot on a team they commit to paying all fees for the team even if they leave the team prior to the fee being due.

https://nova94feet.com/faq/#1545051187217-d86ab2ff-7557

We appreciated the upfront estimates from NOVA94. Fairfax Stars did not disclose except to say we would pay a base cost and the rest would depend on local and out of town tournaments decided upon by coach with input from team.

We will make a best fit decision for DS but for summer family budgeting (vacations, camps) we need to know how much to set aside.

You said your son has played on two different teams, would you mind sharing the cost for the other one he played on? There are only a few teams around here. We have ruled out Swarm and Nova94 based on the cost, and another team for being too sketchy. CYA AAU is being evasive in team costs.

They're being evasive because they don't know. $700/season is about the cost.

Wow, that is really expensive for a local league that has access to cheap county gym space. We played in a nearby league for winter FCYBL and it was only $300 and the uniforms were free. I would have never guessed $700+ for spring/summer (the Fairfax Stars league is cheap to play in)....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

A coach from this org was hanging around our winter rec skill evaluations trying to drum up business. Concur, kind of weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why don’t you post what you paid and list the names of the teams? You are more likely to get useful info if you give up useful info. What teams has your son played for and what did they charge? “Below 700” is not that helpful without even the name of the team.

OP again. Team is NOVA94 Feet. We paid a few installments, cannot locate all receipts, but about $700 plus uniform fees. Likely more this year as covid restrictions easing and more tournaments scheduled.

in FAQs - Costs for Nova 94 Feet elementary and middle school age teams are about $850 for Orange teams and $700 for Blue Teams, though these costs may vary a bit by team, and from year to year. High School age teams may have higher costs since they play in exposure events that have a higher entry fee. Total costs for HS teams can range from $800-$1300. However, some HS teams will receive free gear and cost reduction under our sponsorship with Adidas. We generally allow fees to be paid in installments, however, once a player accepts a spot on a team they commit to paying all fees for the team even if they leave the team prior to the fee being due.

https://nova94feet.com/faq/#1545051187217-d86ab2ff-7557

We appreciated the upfront estimates from NOVA94. Fairfax Stars did not disclose except to say we would pay a base cost and the rest would depend on local and out of town tournaments decided upon by coach with input from team.

We will make a best fit decision for DS but for summer family budgeting (vacations, camps) we need to know how much to set aside.

You said your son has played on two different teams, would you mind sharing the cost for the other one he played on? There are only a few teams around here. We have ruled out Swarm and Nova94 based on the cost, and another team for being too sketchy. CYA AAU is being evasive in team costs.

They're being evasive because they don't know. $700/season is about the cost.

Wow, that is really expensive for a local league that has access to cheap county gym space. We played in a nearby league for winter FCYBL and it was only $300 and the uniforms were free. I would have never guessed $700+ for spring/summer (the Fairfax Stars league is cheap to play in)....

$700 to play for spring CYA! We are nearby and our winter travel fee was something like $150 for fcybl. Uniforms were free. Wow. I wonder if they use the fieldhouse courts for all their practices or something.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

A coach from this org was hanging around our winter rec skill evaluations trying to drum up business. Concur, kind of weird.

Well the political statements on the insta are...different.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS is trying out to move to a new year-round AAU team, 11-12U. He's only played for large and small non-profits/501(c)3s. For larger team, we paid a spring fee (under $700) for practice space and tournaments; dad coaches. On smaller team parents split costs of tournaments and low-cost, community-subsidized practice space. Both teams didn't play or practice much in fall or winter so cost-sharing fees off season were low. Coaches were volunteers.

We are trying to get a handle on HOW MUCH to budget if he switches teams and to understand the different cost models. We assume the for-profits use "professional" paid coaches and we would pay a monthly fee, varied based on other services (extra training, conditioning, dedicated gym space) provided. But we are also considering 2 teams run by trainer coaches, so we assume we would share costs and split fee for coaches' services.

Can anyone share the costs of their AAU basketball teams, either annually or by season? What other financial questions should we ask? We assume some for-profits require a signed annual contract vs current team only requires seasonal commitment to pay full fee. Our friends' son played with a Mom & Pop team last year but the team struggled due to some parents inability to pay therefore the burden fell on several other parents to pay for the tournaments and practice space in order to keep the team going for the season. We don't have deep pockets and don't qualify for financial aid.

Thanks for any info and insight you can share!! We don't feel comfortable asking financial questions until after tryouts and no info on websites.

For reference:
Non-profit / 501(c)3: Fairfax Stars, NOVA Suns. NOVA 94 Feet, DC Premier, CYA

For Profit / Training & Development: NOVA Cavaliers, Virginia Elite, Virginia Swarm, VA Playmakers? Bowie Falcons?

Nova94 nonprofit? I don’t think so

https://www.open990.org/org/300713021/nova-94-feet-inc/

Yeah well they are making plenty of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

That’s a decent club to play with. Would choose them over most of the teams in that area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

That’s a decent club to play with. Would choose them over most of the teams in that area.

I’d like to know more… coaching? Team size? Is practice in Manassas?
And stability (because we don’t want a team to cease mid season)?

[Anonymous]

Look at their social media. Whoever posts on it is unhinged.

It looks like their 12u? 11u? team that they post a lot of videos about have two absolutely very old looking “5th:
/6th” graders.

[Anonymous]

Our girls team was around $600 for the fall winter season, plus $100 uniform plus parent admission to games every other weekend (about $10 to $20 per weekend). After March tryouts, I expect we will have to pay again. The cost actually seemed low to me relative to the amount of professional coaching time. The amount of tournament fees your team pays tends to account for cost variations, from what I can tell. So if you join a team that plans to do only one tournament a month, it will be cheaper than an every weekend one.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

That’s a decent club to play with. Would choose them over most of the teams in that area.

I’d like to know more… coaching? Team size? Is practice in Manassas?
And stability (because we don’t want a team to cease mid season)?

They are stable. The teams I’ve seen fold mid season are teams like Takeover, Durant, etc. So many kids think they are superstars and the minute something goes wrong the whole team quits.

What age group are you looking at for the Rauch Lions?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Look at their social media. Whoever posts on it is unhinged.

It looks like their 12u? 11u? team that they post a lot of videos about have two absolutely very old looking “5th:
/6th” graders.

Yeah those are two big boys and they usually dominate the post, but from what I hear they are legitimate 6th graders. My sons team has played against them a few times. That 6th grade team is competitive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Which team was sketchy? Just curious.

It was called the Ruach Lions.

That’s a decent club to play with. Would choose them over most of the teams in that area.

I’d like to know more… coaching? Team size? Is practice in Manassas?
And stability (because we don’t want a team to cease mid season)?

They are stable. The teams I’ve seen fold mid season are teams like Takeover, Durant, etc. So many kids think they are superstars and the minute something goes wrong the whole team quits.

What age group are you looking at for the Rauch Lions?

The 6th grade team might be stable but whoever posts on their instagram is a little unhinged.
And it seems a little desperate to be scrounging for paying customers at a rec league try out.

I'm always skeptical when coaches seem to find more than one one-in-a-million sized 6th grader for the same team. Is it technically possible that the coach of that team found the only two basketball-playing 6 foot tall 200 pound 11 year olds on the east coast? Sure, anything is *possible*....