Can we discuss the cost of competitive sports?
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Anonymous
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AAA hockey is over $30k per season - breakdown from highest to lowest cost:
- Travel: some years, over $20k. Every tournament that requires flying costs at least $2k between flights, a rental car, a pay-to-play hotel, and meals out. Some tournaments are $3k if flights are expensive and 4 nights of hotel are required. - Team Dues - Equipment ($300 per stick, and you go through 2-3 per season, $1k for skates with blades, plus the rest) - Summer camps (they all do them) - Clinics - Privates (1 or more a week for power skating and stick handling) - Team swag - Skate sharpenings - Live Barn account - Stick and Puck sessions |
Anonymous
I do find it interesting. Obviously only a certain amount of families can do this, even less when it comes to prices sports. Gymnastics is tough because the cost comes from the insane hours too. But even with 20 hours a week its only $11 and hour to participate, which is a good deal. Just adds up in hour 20. |
Anonymous
Agree 100%. But some of this is what parents are demanding. Everyone has dreams of D1 scholarships and helping Young Junior maximize their potential. And there are so many businesses now ready to just take that money. As the parent of an above-average athlete, it takes everything in my power to resist the temptation to go all in and simply let him have fun in whatever he wants to try, and take his lead on where he wants to spend more time and focus in a given season. |
Anonymous
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My gymnast is 9 hours/week and we pay about $4000 (not counting meet fees/leo etc).
Swim for 4.5 hours/week is about the same price Dance is $6000 I think? That’s for 10 hours/week and doesn’t include competition or costume fees, but those are cheaper than the feea for gymnastics Travel sport for my youngest is per season so harder to compare, but it adds to $2500 for the three season (6 hours/week). That doesn’t include summer, and there are month long breaks between seasons Dance is definitely the most expensive for us, but swim seemed to be the most insane, since they have a lot of kids in the pool and few coaches! |
Anonymous
It's really hard not to get sucked in, especially once your kid makes a great team and they are competing for playing time. You may know your kid will never get a D1 scholarship, but you still want to help them succeed. I think the best way to avoid getting sucked in is probably to avoid trying out for competitive sports. |
Anonymous
Yes dumb dumb |
Anonymous
Is this competition dance team? My kid is a classical ballet dancer (takes multiple styles but ballet is her focus) and we've never spent that much. I know cost will go up when she begins pointe work, but we currently pay around 3k all in for class (3x per week plus summer intensives), recital fees and costumes, shoes and other dance gear. This number also starts much lower -- you start in once a week creative ballet classes with one recital a year and maybe one or two weeks of summer camp -- we were spending only around 1500 for all that. But as it became something she actively wanted to pursue instead of just a way to keep her occupied, we were more willing to invest money. But we don't do dance team of competitions. There is zero travel involved. TBH she wasn't that interested in that anyway -- doesn't love the style of dance and while she enjoys performing, she loves class/training more. I feel like we lucked out that our kid has a physical activity that she is good at and really enjoys but is really not that expensive compared to other options and requires so little of us as parents (carpools to class and I usually help out with the year end recital for a couple days, that's it). That's one of the things that is crazy to me about a lot of sports -- you are paying thousands but then you also have all these volunteer duties and extra commitments for the team booster club. You'd think it would be one or the other -- you pay a lot but everything is taken care of, or you get a bargain because parents are doing a lot of the heavy lifting. What is the point of activities that are both expensive and labor intensive for families? I don't get it. |
Anonymous
| Add on top of the normal fees- PT with a sports therapist at $400 per week. |
Anonymous
| Field hockey here. Year around club fee $2700, camp $1200, game travel $4k, private lesson $1600. |
Anonymous
More or less off the rails than spending 50k per year for your kid to attend an elite elementary school, like so many on this board champion. Just curious. |
Anonymous
Parent coaches are in rec leagues. No, travel soccer and travel baseball generally don't have parent coaches. Travel soccer is around $3000 a year. |
Anonymous
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Anonymous
| We have one in volleyball and one in soccer. Volleyball club fee is $4,000 plus travel expenses. They have three tournaments this year that require flights + hotel, so about $1,500 for each of those. Another few tournaments that are hotel only, so about $1,000 there. Other kid is in travel soccer, but the club isn’t outrageous with the travel demands or cost. It’s just $2,300 for the year. |
Anonymous
Thankfully we still have some decent rec leagues here. But I assume that will peter out as the kids get older, the serious ones move to travel, the multisport athletes begin to specialize, and the kids who are playing just for fun give up. |
Anonymous
| And this is part of why I am against college sports recruiting. It’s a backdoor entry for rich kids. |