Does a market exist for a "travel-lite" club? (I'll describe my idea in this post)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to revive this post because are doing something like this...

The primary premise is a bunch of Rec kids who could have made a variety of levels of Travel, but didn't want to for a variety of reasons (cost, commitment, etc.). Maybe two 1st team kids, two lower team kids and everyone else in the middle somewhere based on what we've seen and offers made.

We got the blessing of our club to basically create a Rec tourney team (just kids from 3 of 10 teams in total), practice 1x/week and attend a few tournaments. The tourneys have all been great and allowed us to enter in the lowest division.

The cost has been at a non-profit level with simple kits at $40/set and actual cost of each event. Overall cost should be under $300 per player (3 tourneys/kit) plus travel but only one may require and overnight stay.

Parents are coaches but all licensed and growing with the kids and all are improving and having fun.

No idea where this will go but YES, there is a market. I too am a big believer in NOT playing one sport year-round (although I do admit that it is prevalent in many sports).

Soccer is a very different world than many other sports...

Update…

We did it and competed in our first travel tourney with all Rec players. Finished 2-1 and missed the final by 2 goals. Kids were super excited, had fun and the great weather helped!

Overall a great experience and a total outlay of $115 so far for first tourney and kit. The event was close enough that overnight was not needed.

One tourney remaining for us in November and then a winter indoor league and futsal tourney.

With 2-3 additional tourneys in the spring, about $500 total for 5 tourneys, indoor league and futsal tourney and most importantly, the flexibility to step away to play another sport if needed.

[Anonymous]

Look at small 'travel' clubs who play in NCSL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I wanted to revive this post because are doing something like this...

The primary premise is a bunch of Rec kids who could have made a variety of levels of Travel, but didn't want to for a variety of reasons (cost, commitment, etc.). Maybe two 1st team kids, two lower team kids and everyone else in the middle somewhere based on what we've seen and offers made.

We got the blessing of our club to basically create a Rec tourney team (just kids from 3 of 10 teams in total), practice 1x/week and attend a few tournaments. The tourneys have all been great and allowed us to enter in the lowest division.

The cost has been at a non-profit level with simple kits at $40/set and actual cost of each event. Overall cost should be under $300 per player (3 tourneys/kit) plus travel but only one may require and overnight stay.

Parents are coaches but all licensed and growing with the kids and all are improving and having fun.

No idea where this will go but YES, there is a market. I too am a big believer in NOT playing one sport year-round (although I do admit that it is prevalent in many sports).

Soccer is a very different world than many other sports...

Update…

We did it and competed in our first travel tourney with all Rec players. Finished 2-1 and missed the final by 2 goals. Kids were super excited, had fun and the great weather helped!

Overall a great experience and a total outlay of $115 so far for first tourney and kit. The event was close enough that overnight was not needed.

One tourney remaining for us in November and then a winter indoor league and futsal tourney.

With 2-3 additional tourneys in the spring, about $500 total for 5 tourneys, indoor league and futsal tourney and most importantly, the flexibility to step away to play another sport if needed.

Good luck in November. Hopefully you are bracketed at the bottom and the kids get medals this time around for travel lite effort! Nothing wrong with the business model; but stay at low as possible for maximum wins/medals. Parents and kids love wins

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Update…

We did it and competed in our first travel tourney with all Rec players. Finished 2-1 and missed the final by 2 goals. Kids were super excited, had fun and the great weather helped!

Overall a great experience and a total outlay of $115 so far for first tourney and kit. The event was close enough that overnight was not needed.

One tourney remaining for us in November and then a winter indoor league and futsal tourney.

With 2-3 additional tourneys in the spring, about $500 total for 5 tourneys, indoor league and futsal tourney and most importantly, the flexibility to step away to play another sport if needed.

How are you able to enter travel tourneys without official USYS or US Club cards and rosters? Curious bc our “travel-lite” team is limited to tourneys accepting rec/classic teams since our players are not rostered through GotSport and have official cards.

[Anonymous]

My kid plays ADP and it’s great. But 2 points to your idea.
1. ADP uses volunteer coaches 1 day per week and “pool” practices the other day - so there are fewer pro coaches needed.
2. Perhaps it’s easy to say this because my kid isn’t “travel material” but after 4 years of ADP the kid has either put in the effort to develop enough to make it to a travel team - and care enough to make the commitment- or they don’t.

[Anonymous]

We’re in Florida and would be interested in this. My kid is too good for rec and isn’t developing at all but we have other things going on and can’t commit to 5 days a week for travel.