the problem is that every sport in this area has become monetized with even "cheap" sports like soccer, basketball and track requiring private coaching, travel to meets, and expensive uniforms or equipment, and parents pay willingly to give their kids an edge.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fencing. DS has been fencing for a few years. He has a couple of practices per week and a few tournaments per season. The gear can get a little expensive. Tae Kwon Do is similar to this, but more expensive. Every belt level and tournament costs money.

I'm surprised you think fencing is affordable. My son's club runs about $500 a month minimum, and that doesn't include equipment, tournament or travel costs and fees.

Fencing is very expensive.

cross country.

I think all this posts really solidify the main point - you can do most sports at a recreation level, just for fun or skills, and often in an affordable way.

But you need to be honest with yourself. If your kid wants to get on a fencing tournament circuit, dance with a professional company, or play with the best lacrosse players with a shot at a D1 scholarship - rec isn't going to cut it, and you will need to pay up.

And often, rec level sports won't even get you onto the middle school team in a competitive sport or district.

Btw this isn't just sports/dance - music and other extracurriculars can be the same way.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fencing. DS has been fencing for a few years. He has a couple of practices per week and a few tournaments per season. The gear can get a little expensive. Tae Kwon Do is similar to this, but more expensive. Every belt level and tournament costs money.

I'm surprised you think fencing is affordable. My son's club runs about $500 a month minimum, and that doesn't include equipment, tournament or travel costs and fees.

Like with anything, it depends on where you are. We attend a club in Chantilly and its $135 monthly, so long as you have an annual commitment. If you really want to go the cheap route, they have all of the equipment that you need their and you can borrow it every practice or bring your own. Its a small club, but the instructors are great.

So you pay $1620 per year. That is way more expensive than rec soccer or rec basketball options in Bethesda.

Basketball and soccer: shoes and a ball (and shinguards for soccer) If you play Recreation level, or MSI Classic for soccer if they get more competitive but don't want to go as far as travel, it won't be ridiculously expensive

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fencing. DS has been fencing for a few years. He has a couple of practices per week and a few tournaments per season. The gear can get a little expensive. Tae Kwon Do is similar to this, but more expensive. Every belt level and tournament costs money.

I'm surprised you think fencing is affordable. My son's club runs about $500 a month minimum, and that doesn't include equipment, tournament or travel costs and fees.

Like with anything, it depends on where you are. We attend a club in Chantilly and its $135 monthly, so long as you have an annual commitment. If you really want to go the cheap route, they have all of the equipment that you need their and you can borrow it every practice or bring your own. Its a small club, but the instructors are great.

Anonymous wrote:Fencing. DS has been fencing for a few years. He has a couple of practices per week and a few tournaments per season. The gear can get a little expensive. Tae Kwon Do is similar to this, but more expensive. Every belt level and tournament costs money.

I'm surprised you think fencing is affordable. My son's club runs about $500 a month minimum, and that doesn't include equipment, tournament or travel costs and fees.

Fencing. DS has been fencing for a few years. He has a couple of practices per week and a few tournaments per season. The gear can get a little expensive. Tae Kwon Do is similar to this, but more expensive. Every belt level and tournament costs money.

Anonymous wrote:Track

I'm not sure what Track you are referring to, but if its Track and Field, then this is a huge time sink. As a person that did track and field for 7 years of their life, I know that no matter what event you do, its a huge time investment and requires a lot of patience. I was an athlete and later a coach. Practices are usually 2 or more hours long, outside, light rain or shine, hot or cold. Track meets last anywhere from 4 hours to all day. There are also multi-day meets. The last meet I was at was 2 years ago in Virginia. It was all day on a military base in the spring. People brought tents, canopies, coolers, camping chairs, etc. to keep the kids safe in the sun all day. While every meet organizer strives to run a smooth and time efficient event, they almost never run like clockwork. You spend a lot of time waiting for your event to take place. It depends on the number of people that show up to participate, how long warm-ups last, how many are in multiple events that overlap, and how many issues crop up. If you try to time so you only show up close to when your event is supposed to start, you risk missing the event because most places won't wait for you beyond last call.

Anonymous wrote:Nothing to do with water, frozen or liquid.

Haha, yes, every frozen water sport is very expensive (hockey, figure skating, skiing/snowboarding). Maybe curling is affordable?!

But liquid water -- aka swimming -- isn't *too* bad. 2-3K for younger kids (12 and under) but that's for an entire 9 month season.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tennis. We do lessons once per week and the occasionally tournament if it is local. You can obviously put a lot more time into it and drive all over the state for different tournaments, but we don't.

Swim. It is through our local gym. They our on the "swim team" but it is all conditioning and practice drills. We don't do meets.

Any sport that doesn't involve a lot of equipment can be made low key if you want it to be- with the option of putting more time and commitment into it later if you want,

how old are your kids? The meets/racing/competition part of sports is the "fun part" for most kids. Mine would mutiny if I put them on a "team" that was all practice/work and no fun.

8 and 10. They are fine with it and have friends that participate too. It is all they know so they don't complain. I have a toddler and my husband works a lot of weekends. I'm not up for meets that run several hrs. But my kids don't ask either. In middle school they can do that if they want.

Anonymous wrote:Rec soccer and basketball are by far the cheapest and least time consuming kid sports in this area. I do not include baseball in this because the games are long, but, if you don't mind a two hour game on saturdays, rec baseball is cheap too. MSI soccer was $80 per season when my kids played rec. Rec basketball through MoCo is less than $100. Games are 1 hour or less, all played within MoCo. Practice is 1x per week. Name me a cheaper, less time consuming sport. If you are catholic, CYO sports are even cheaper less time consuming. Flag football is probably the least time consuming, but is not cheaper in my experience.

The only way little kids (pre-middle school) can do track/cross country is through a year round club, and that gets expensive and time consuming. The meets are all day (like swimming). And the better you are the further you travel. People who say track and cross country are cheap sports have never done them outside of the school environment.

For folks offering up martial arts as a possibility. I won't even go there with you.

Our rec sports organization offers track/cross country starting in first grade in spring and fall I think. Its cheap.

Anonymous wrote:Tennis. We do lessons once per week and the occasionally tournament if it is local. You can obviously put a lot more time into it and drive all over the state for different tournaments, but we don't.

Swim. It is through our local gym. They our on the "swim team" but it is all conditioning and practice drills. We don't do meets.

Any sport that doesn't involve a lot of equipment can be made low key if you want it to be- with the option of putting more time and commitment into it later if you want,

how old are your kids? The meets/racing/competition part of sports is the "fun part" for most kids. Mine would mutiny if I put them on a "team" that was all practice/work and no fun.

Tennis