I don’t think price affected tryouts. DD attended extremely expensive clubs in VA and some that were lower cost for U15. All were extremely competitive, like every year. She was shut out of the most expensive clubs that she attended and got offers from less expensive clubs that she hadn’t even attended a clinic, that weren’t as competitive. As usual, there seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the madness and part of it was being at the right place at the right time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: For us it was a low cost holding pattern while the dust settles from all the chaos in the local economy from things happening in the federal government.

How do you see this impacting club volleyball? I am not trying to start something. This is a genuine question because I have never thought about that.

OP here and I had this thought too. With DOGE, shutdown, layoffs, and general fear about the economy, I can certainly believe there were more families than in previous years weighing this decision carefully and deciding to try out for the 3k rather than 7k club.
This could mean more competitive players at the 3k clubs and perhaps fewer trying for the 7k clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: For us it was a low cost holding pattern while the dust settles from all the chaos in the local economy from things happening in the federal government.

How do you see this impacting club volleyball? I am not trying to start something. This is a genuine question because I have never thought about that.

Maybe start a new thread, DP. Tryouts took place during the government shutdown. As a 2-fed family, we were not receiving a paycheck and decided with DD to cut back on pre-tryout clinics and then to pull out of club tryouts to save money. One of the clubs we had signed up for graciously refunded our tryout fee that we had already paid. I'm sure others were in the same boat, especially those in the 17 and 18 age groups, where players tend to drop out of club to focus on school and college applications.