What's the benefit of Metro volleyball travel team?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
They divide the actual cost of coach travel by the number of players on the team - this includes the coaches' transportation to and from the tournament (mileage or flight, transportation from hotel to venue), lodging, and a per diem. For my DD's team this past season the total for the year was just over $2k per player for 8 tournaments requiring travel (including 4 3-day qualifiers and 4-days at GJNC). They bill you at the beginning of each month where there are tournaments requiring travel so it's higher for a month with more travel tournaments - usually March and April have most of the qualifiers but there isn't much travel in February or May. So around $250 per player, per tournament. They don't charge travel fees for Cap Hill, Charm City, regionals, or anything local. |
Anonymous
There are some really great academic schools with solid D3 volleyball. This week's D3 top 25 includes: Johns Hopkins Emory MIT Washington-St. Louis Claremont-Mudd-Scripps NYU Case Western And some of the teams that didn't quite make the top 25 include Wesleyan, Chicago, and Colby The top tier of D3 plays some high-level volleyball, although it can also be a little like high school with some conference matches being really lopsided. |
Anonymous
I think your estimate about it only coming out to $250 per tournament is low (just based on what I've heard), but let's just stick with that number for now. If you play for Metro Travel, you're also going to have to pay for the uniforms and gear, (especially if you're a new player) which is going to run you an additional $700-$1,000. Metro's base fee before all these additional expenses is typically around $4,400 for their travel teams. $4,400 (base dues)+$2,000 (coaches fees)+ $1,000= $7,400. Correct me if I'm wrong, but that number is higher than any other CHRVA club besides VA Elite. I normally wouldn't complain about this, but I think Metro acts slyly by trying to convey that they are cheaper than other clubs when in reality they are arguably the most expensive besides VAE. Plus, there aren't any other perks that are included in their fees (e.g., HUDL, additional training sessions, etc.). In fact, I've heard that if you really want to get playing time on one of Metro's Travel teams, you have to commit to doing weekly lessons with their club director (which aren't cheap). |
Anonymous
PP here. The travel fees were calculated from what we actually paid - the exact total was $2,068.25 for 8 tournaments so a few dollars more than $250 per tournament. Tournaments that don't require flights (or that have cheaper flights like Orlando) were less while some of the further or more expensive cities to fly to were more. You are correct about the uniforms - they are updated on a 3 year cycle so if you play for multiple seasons you don't have that expense every year, but they just finished a cycle so everyone will need to buy uniforms and gear this season. The last time we paid for uniforms it was around $750. They do have other merch for sale when you order the uniforms so it would be easy to spend a few hundred more if you're not careful. Last year the club dues for the older teams were $4250 - they haven't posted this season's fees but it won't be surprising if they go up a little bit. It's true there are optional weekly lessons with the club director for travel players but the cost is very reasonable compared to what we've paid for lessons elsewhere. It's definitely not true that if you don't go to lessons that you can't be a starter. In fact, from what I have seen a majority of the starters don't go. For players that aren't getting as much playing time as they'd like, going to lessons can be a way to both get more touches and demonstrate they are working hard to get better which might help in getting on the court more, but in general, our experience over the past few years is the optional lessons have little bearing on playing time. Hudl is not included but the parents on a few teams did work with the club to get it separately and it ended up being about $70 per player for the whole season. Metro doesn't have a separate recruiting coordinator, but the club director and individual coaches do provide recruiting advice and support. Your estimate of over $7k in a year in which you have to pay for uniforms is accurate, although that does include all costs through nationals which a lot of clubs don't include in their fees. Paramount's fees from last year are still posted and the top teams from 15s, 16s, and 17s were $6850. VA Juniors fees for the upcoming season are posted and they top out at $6790. Both Paramount and VA Juniors do not include coaching stipend, practice space, and other expenses through Nationals. Perhaps someone knows how much the extra month of practice and other fees actually costs. My sense is that the overall cost for Metro Travel, Paramount, and VA Juniors is pretty similar. I agree it would be nice if it were easier to compare prices between different clubs. VA Elite markets their all-inclusive pricing as equivalent to other clubs, but it doesn't really seem like it to me. VA Elite's base fees from last year ranged from $6,025-$7,490, but they have a unique model which requires you to pay for a mandatory player travel package directly to the club (over $4k for teams older than 14) that includes shared hotel rooms for players, group flights, ground transportation, costs for chaperone lodging/transportation, buses to some closer tournaments, etc. While obviously if you play at a club that doesn't include player travel you will have to pay separately for travel expenses, it's hard to do an apples to apples comparison because most parents go to tournaments anyway, so a lot of those costs that would be shared in the parents' travel end up being extra with VA Elite's model. Having players stay and travel together is probably fun for them so I assume that many VA Elite families think the extra cost is worth it. |
Anonymous
While I know they are somewhat local, 540 is not a CHRVA club. They are part of the Old Dominion region. |
Anonymous
You are right---I was looking at the VA list. Also realized we all missed Baltimore Elite, which is in CHRVA and typically has at least 5 players commit each year. Not sure what their 2025 commit total is though. |
Anonymous
What age group was this estimate of Metro's total fees for? Trying to see how it varies from the younger age groups to the older age groups. |
Anonymous
I did not see any evidence that playing for Metro can increase the chance to play in D1. Depends on your own athletic ability and height, the college you want to go, your current volleyball skill level, playing for Metro may not make any difference for your future. But, if you want to play for umd and gwu or au, Metro may help because ...... Or Metro practice location is good for you. |
Anonymous
You probably didn't see the list of college commits with the percentage of Metro players who make it on college teams. If you did look that up and you are still unconvinced, what evidence would convince you? |
Anonymous
Any answer to this? Very curious |
Anonymous
Not the PP, but they mentioned playing in 4 qualifiers which likely means 16s or 17s. |
Anonymous
| Metro doesn't go to Triple Crown bc it's the same weekend as Cap Classic- Metro's tournament. Which... They also cheat to be in the best pool play options, it's such a joke. |
Anonymous
Good story, bro. |
Anonymous
So let me get this straight. Your hypothesis is that in the Open divisions with as many as 64 teams, that Metro (who doesn't actually run the tournament), seeds each of these divisions so their teams have an easy pool on day 1 of a 3 day tournament and predicts the results of each of the pools to set themselves up for the easiest pools/bracket on day 2 and day 3? Sounds really plausible. They're probably paying hundreds of refs a few extra bucks to make calls in favor of Metro? Maybe they have special coins that allows Metro to win all the coin tosses? While seeding can definitely be helpful for a team to win a tournament, in most 3-day tournaments barring some egregious mistake that puts some of the top teams in the same pool on day 1, most of the best teams will not see each other until the gold bracket on day 3. And if you look at the CHC results in the open division for the past few years that's how it has played out. Of course there is an occasional upset or a team does better or worse than expected, but for the most part the best teams rise to the top, and that usually includes the Metro Travel teams. The reality is that in the Open divisions, CHC is not a very strong tournament. The best Open level teams in the country are almost all at Triple Crown meaning that the Metro Travel teams are generally among the strongest teams attending CHC. It would probably for Metro to be attending Triple Crown to get ready for qualifiers in March. |
Anonymous
Metro conspiracy theories aside, it is true that hosts sometimes seed tournaments in ways that help their club. It’s not a Metro thing, it’s a general club issue that happens everywhere. Seeding is subjective, and everyone has biases-implicit or explicit. It’s easy to move a team up or down a couple of spots and still have it sound ok. Setting up brackets so your teams don’t play each other is definitely done at Capitol Hill, and Metro does benefit from it because they send the most teams in every division. When you set up tournaments so club teams don’t play each other, you have to move those teams above or below their standard seeding and this means pools will be unequal. There are several other CHRVA clubs that do the same thing for tournaments they host, and it helps them as well. If you really want to start wearing a tinfoil hat, check out the CHRVA regional tournament seedings. There are times when a club has two teams—one that should be seeded first and another that should be seeded fourth or fifth, and play each other in the pool round. Because they don’t want that (which is fine) they switch the lower seed team into the other pool and take the higher seed out of that pool. |