Can we discuss the cost of competitive sports?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry, for some reason I thought we were talking just travel costs. That is what the $14K is, including fees for coach travel. We are AAA and adding in actual team fees we are closer to $22K.

That makes more sense. AA is probably $15k all in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to save money on sports is to not let your kid play certain sports from the start.

It’s not like the DMV has organic ways to play hockey. The local pounds don’t freeze over and kids just go out and play. You have to be hauling your kid to an ice rink from the start.

There are dozens of sports you can guide your five year old to play.

Yup and we tried it all until my kid landed on hockey. Believe me, I tried. Doesn't always work out. I'd be happiest if I had a theater kid, but I don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to save money on sports is to not let your kid play certain sports from the start.

It’s not like the DMV has organic ways to play hockey. The local pounds don’t freeze over and kids just go out and play. You have to be hauling your kid to an ice rink from the start.

There are dozens of sports you can guide your five year old to play.

Yup and we tried it all until my kid landed on hockey. Believe me, I tried. Doesn't always work out. I'd be happiest if I had a theater kid, but I don't.

This really doesn’t make any sense to me. My kid never landed on hockey because I would never let them land on it. They can play lax, football, flag football, soccer, baseball, basketball…wait until a little they are a little older and they can run track or cross country…I’m probably leaving out another 6+ sports.

It’s really not hard.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to save money on sports is to not let your kid play certain sports from the start.

It’s not like the DMV has organic ways to play hockey. The local pounds don’t freeze over and kids just go out and play. You have to be hauling your kid to an ice rink from the start.

There are dozens of sports you can guide your five year old to play.

You aren't wrong. But somehow despite steering my kids to every other sport, one of them still fell in love with hockey. I tried to tell him he couldn't play that in this area, but he looked up the little caps programs on his own and badgered his way in. He started a neighborhood street hockey club. I thought for sure when he realized how difficult ice skating was he would give up, but he was a super fast learner. Now all my money (and time) goes to hockey... dont give an inch!! Change the channel when it comes on tv! NEVER travel to Canada! Save yourselves!

The other kid plays travel soccer which I used to think was expensive until I experienced hockey.

[Anonymous]

OP, as someone already mentioned, sports like hockey, skiing, and gymnastics require specialized equipment even for lower-level practice. You can’t really compare to sports like soccer where all you need is a field and a ball.

And no, taxpayers should absolutely not be subsidizing a competitive gymnastics team, even if there aren’t many options locally.

[Anonymous]

Be grateful your kid isn’t into horses?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The easiest way to save money on sports is to not let your kid play certain sports from the start.

It’s not like the DMV has organic ways to play hockey. The local pounds don’t freeze over and kids just go out and play. You have to be hauling your kid to an ice rink from the start.

There are dozens of sports you can guide your five year old to play.

Yup and we tried it all until my kid landed on hockey. Believe me, I tried. Doesn't always work out. I'd be happiest if I had a theater kid, but I don't.

This really doesn’t make any sense to me. My kid never landed on hockey because I would never let them land on it. They can play lax, football, flag football, soccer, baseball, basketball…wait until a little they are a little older and they can run track or cross country…I’m probably leaving out another 6+ sports.

It’s really not hard.

Im the poster who said my son badgered his way in and youre right if you just flat out say "no hockey" and keep saying it they wont have the opportunity to ever land there. For us, I just didnt think it would take, my son played many other more accessible sports, and was quite good at them, and had friends on teams, and we knew NO ONE who played hockey. So when he asked for the 12th time to do the learn to play clinic, i was worn down and said yes thinking it would be a one time thing and he would move on. But once he got a taste he fell in love. He asked to do it instead of other sports. He practiced on his own at home, and read books and watched videos and said "please mom can you sign me up for more lessons".

You are correct we could have said absolutely not and forbid it. But when your kid shows that much interest its not an easy thing to shut down. And I really didnt know or understand how expensive it would turn out to be. If I had known I might have said no longer or louder!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do travel hockey, and it cost about $14,000 last year. This included fees and travel to in-season tournaments. We also do things on the cheap side, so will drive for anything under 8 hours, there are many families that choose to fly more frequently, so could certainly be several $K more if you choose to do that. In addition, this does not include anything extracurricular like occasional clinics/skills sessions, HS hockey, spring/summer tournaments/camps

Is his AAA or AA? My son plays AA. I'm guessing our bill is about the same.

Included in my original statement was summer camps - he did 2 weeks at a sleepaway hockey camp, plus I had to fly him and his friend there but another parent brought them home. Private/small groups were about $5k that year. I did a spreadsheet that year and tracked everything and hockey was $30k that year. I shared it with a couple close mom friends on the team and they thought it tracked their estimates. We could afford it but actually tracking costs, missed school days, missed work days and other things we missed for hockey helped us realize it was time to pull back.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do travel hockey, and it cost about $14,000 last year. This included fees and travel to in-season tournaments. We also do things on the cheap side, so will drive for anything under 8 hours, there are many families that choose to fly more frequently, so could certainly be several $K more if you choose to do that. In addition, this does not include anything extracurricular like occasional clinics/skills sessions, HS hockey, spring/summer tournaments/camps

Is his AAA or AA? My son plays AA. I'm guessing our bill is about the same.

Included in my original statement was summer camps - he did 2 weeks at a sleepaway hockey camp, plus I had to fly him and his friend there but another parent brought them home. Private/small groups were about $5k that year. I did a spreadsheet that year and tracked everything and hockey was $30k that year. I shared it with a couple close mom friends on the team and they thought it tracked their estimates. We could afford it but actually tracking costs, missed school days, missed work days and other things we missed for hockey helped us realize it was time to pull back.

Your kid quit?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do travel hockey, and it cost about $14,000 last year. This included fees and travel to in-season tournaments. We also do things on the cheap side, so will drive for anything under 8 hours, there are many families that choose to fly more frequently, so could certainly be several $K more if you choose to do that. In addition, this does not include anything extracurricular like occasional clinics/skills sessions, HS hockey, spring/summer tournaments/camps

Is his AAA or AA? My son plays AA. I'm guessing our bill is about the same.

Included in my original statement was summer camps - he did 2 weeks at a sleepaway hockey camp, plus I had to fly him and his friend there but another parent brought them home. Private/small groups were about $5k that year. I did a spreadsheet that year and tracked everything and hockey was $30k that year. I shared it with a couple close mom friends on the team and they thought it tracked their estimates. We could afford it but actually tracking costs, missed school days, missed work days and other things we missed for hockey helped us realize it was time to pull back.

We did heartland one summer and others when my kid was younger. Luckily he has outgrown camp.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do travel hockey, and it cost about $14,000 last year. This included fees and travel to in-season tournaments. We also do things on the cheap side, so will drive for anything under 8 hours, there are many families that choose to fly more frequently, so could certainly be several $K more if you choose to do that. In addition, this does not include anything extracurricular like occasional clinics/skills sessions, HS hockey, spring/summer tournaments/camps

Is his AAA or AA? My son plays AA. I'm guessing our bill is about the same.

Included in my original statement was summer camps - he did 2 weeks at a sleepaway hockey camp, plus I had to fly him and his friend there but another parent brought them home. Private/small groups were about $5k that year. I did a spreadsheet that year and tracked everything and hockey was $30k that year. I shared it with a couple close mom friends on the team and they thought it tracked their estimates. We could afford it but actually tracking costs, missed school days, missed work days and other things we missed for hockey helped us realize it was time to pull back.

We did heartland one summer and others when my kid was younger. Luckily he has outgrown camp.

Is Heartland worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do travel hockey, and it cost about $14,000 last year. This included fees and travel to in-season tournaments. We also do things on the cheap side, so will drive for anything under 8 hours, there are many families that choose to fly more frequently, so could certainly be several $K more if you choose to do that. In addition, this does not include anything extracurricular like occasional clinics/skills sessions, HS hockey, spring/summer tournaments/camps

Is his AAA or AA? My son plays AA. I'm guessing our bill is about the same.

Included in my original statement was summer camps - he did 2 weeks at a sleepaway hockey camp, plus I had to fly him and his friend there but another parent brought them home. Private/small groups were about $5k that year. I did a spreadsheet that year and tracked everything and hockey was $30k that year. I shared it with a couple close mom friends on the team and they thought it tracked their estimates. We could afford it but actually tracking costs, missed school days, missed work days and other things we missed for hockey helped us realize it was time to pull back.

We did heartland one summer and others when my kid was younger. Luckily he has outgrown camp.

Is Heartland worth it?

Hmmm, tough one. My kid actually went twice. He went with friends, so he had fun. It's better than York, but it's just so far. The parents split up the travel duties. Also, it doesn't have the amenities we are used to in the dmv area. They are really nice and they try, but it's pretty basic. Food is not great. The lake is simply gorgeous but after the first two days, my kid was too tired from hockey to do any of the lake activities. So I guess in that regard, it's good?...

Folks rave about CanAm in Lake Placid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a gymnastics parent with Arlington. The proposed fee increases will raise rates significantly with some parents paying nearly 12k a year (not including meet fees, uniforms, hotels, plane tickets etc). So easily another 5k in some cases (current rate is over 8k a year)

But it got me thinking what do folks pay for other competitive sports. I know individual.sports tend to be pricy (competitive rock climbing and archery are close to $500 a month/6k a year).

But what are folks paying for team sports. Just wondering what folks really pay out there. Do people regularly pay 10k plus for just the sport (so not including equipment, uniforms, travel)?

We pay about 4k per year for year-round club swim.
We pay about 3k per year for club lacrosse.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend with a kid in formula racing. They are spending over $1 mil a year, perhaps closer to $1.5. This is appalling to me, but also gratifying so that I don’t feel so bad about $15-20k a year for two sectionals/futures level swimmers.

Well, thank goodness my kid never wanted to get into racing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a friend with a kid in formula racing. They are spending over $1 mil a year, perhaps closer to $1.5. This is appalling to me, but also gratifying so that I don’t feel so bad about $15-20k a year for two sectionals/futures level swimmers.

Well, thank goodness my kid never wanted to get into racing

Where are they getting this money from? I find that appalling.