Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Cost of high school sports

I'm interested in how this plays around different parts of the country.

I am floored by the "cost" of participation in high school baseball as some of the my travel ball players have entered high school and play on the various Freshman teams around here.

Too make a long story as short as possible, the Country pays for lights and water for the field, and has a stipend for three coaches. Team raise the rest of the funds to cover uniforms, bus transportation, field upkeep, additional coaches, etc.

Families are expected to come up with about $1000 upfront and then the kids fundraise another $800 each. They play about 18 games so it works out to $100/game.

To make this highway robbery worse, they get as many kids as they can to participate in "Fall "workouts" and raise money, then some of those don't even make the team come January.

To compound that, the locals high schools are taking 20-24 kids on the Freshman team. Half are struggling to get any playing time.

This has become a money scheme to end all money schemes and I've found it pretty shocking and disappointing. I coach Travel baseball, and runs each players about $1500, but they get 60+ games and we have a roster of only 13 and play a higher brand of ball than the high schools do.


So what do you guys that have kids in ball see in your part of the country?

Our school systems around here may charge a small sports fee. In most schools they charge a player a $20.00 sports fee. I can't say about the really big schools how their sports programs are run.

What area of the country are you in?

Back in the day, all we paid for is uniforms, and soldseat cushions and engraved cups for our football booster club. Now, it is the mafia shakedown.

travel teams have been created because they know parents who dream of their kid playing college ball will shell out whatever they have to in order to give their kid an edge

My daughter has been asked to play for a travel team and it includes me covering the cost for her to play on the east coast and in the south. Its ridiculous. Its an $800 starter fee plus who knows how much in travel costs. Easily more than $2000

High School sports around here have gone up dramatically but its due to them eliminating money in the budget.

Right now its $495 to play 1 sport and each additional sport is $300. Parents with more than one child playing get a discount. Then you have to pay a refundable deposit on the uniform, you have to participate in fundraising and you have to work the concession stand and gates depending on the number of kids in the sport.

My daughter plays Lacrosse so we have to work the gate and concession stand twice.

The upside is that 75% of the girls that play on our team go on to play in college.

My daughter said she didn't want to play lacrosse in college

One thing I have noticed is every school around here regardless of size or income has a full time Athletic Director and at least a full time football coach (no doubling down as a gym or history teacher).

They also all play on turf fields.

When I was in high school, the coach would bring the team out to a farm and they cut tobacco and haul hay to pay for the teams uniforms and weight room equipment

Busk AK schools often have traveling budgets you cannot believe for the basketball team. Try a million dollars per year for a small school team!

Mostly paid for with Fed funds, rumored to be BIA, it amounts to a huge chunk of money. It explains how AK spends more per capita than any other state.

SWVA, it cost us maybe $150-200 a year for our son to play HS baseball. We also did fundraising, had the club[I was president one year]. We covered costs for anyone that could prove they didn't have funds[discreetly]. This was from 06-10. It was during the high fuel cost years and I found it rather idiotic for the bus to drive past 3-4 schools that we didn't play to get to one 70-80 miles away.
With travel ball we rarely ever paid upfront over $200 annually[on a nationally ranked team]. Hosting a tourney or two and concessions at those tourneys covered most expenses.

I've no idea what it costs now.

It was the three knee operations my sons had after playing football that drove up the cost of high school sports to me. Two will probably have to have knee replacements later in life.

I've often wondered, when the kids that make it to graduation, can't spell, speak or balance a budget, why are we spending more and more on sports...

Hosting tournaments is quickly becoming a thing of the past, after 12u for sure. There is a whole industry of tournament organizers that lock up the fields and get teams to sign up. We hosted 1 per year at 9-10-11u, then lost field rights as the City changed its policy.

Tournamnets run from $400 (plus a gate fee) to $700 for a 2-3 day event, all the up to $1700 for a week long "national" event.

Play in a dozen tournaments, figure $500 x 12 = $6k

National event = $1500

Uniforms, bags, helmets, bats(!!!!) $500 per player

IF you get a "professional coach", one that does not have a kid on the team (most all of the elite teams after 12U) $5-10k per team!

Throw in a budget for team balls and supplies, and a year end party.

You can see that the budget gets to $15k pretty quickly, and it's a grand or more per player.

I can help you there. If they are playing sports, they are not off smoking weed, vandalizing property, or doing anything else largely counter productive hanging out day after day with their peers. I admit that this doesn't exclude athletes from engaging in such behavior, but there is no doubt that athletes engaged in a major sporting activity get in a lot less trouble that the general population. They don't have time. There are always a few thugs out there.

If you want a rant about the state of education right now, that is the topic for its own looong thread.

Weighed with the benefits to some of the students, it is a bargain. Not all students, of course, benefit as much as some, but it can be a life-shaping experience that can never be repeated at any later time in their lives.

It may be a total waste for some students, and they should not be forced to participate by parents.


edit: If an athlete is acting up in class, the best thing a teacher can do is go talk with the coach. It generally works like charm.

Ok, we got it, you are anti-sport and have vagina envy.

We've all figured that out after your 10,000th 'I hate sports' post and 57,000th 'Anything a man can do a woman can do better' post.

Don't take that the wrong way, I'm not against sports, just the amount we tend to spend on them, and not on education

If the excess comes out of parents or supporters pockets, knock yourself out.

That's how we funded youth shooters... a thing where, like your sports, we know where the kids are, they are not on the streets etc...

Although the overall solution for the country and education is likely long past reality.

Undoubtedly our son played at the end of the 'cheap to play' era. Our team rarely ever played at any complexes, mostly HS fields, coach was a parent but also a local college coach. We made uniforms last at least two seasons.
We would clear $3-4K per hosted tourney with entrance fee's and concessions[which we put great effort into].

See above... and you are right, I don't care for sports much, but I have nothing against their use in schools, standardized sports.

As to the woman thing... you are nuts today, I never said women can do it better, but you are aware of that, I simply said if they can do the same, then why hold em back? Fairly fair, fairly simple. Anything out there should be goal oriented, either you can or can't do it. That's the bottom line.

Something that's evidently foreign to some folks.

I'm still astounded that one local HS took 24 on a Freshman team that plays 15-18 games. I - as well as others - are convinced it is purely to extract $1800 from as many as possible. Extortion that the Gambinos would be proud of.

For the record, my youngest won't be in that situation until next year.

Just consider high school sports as early recruitment. The days of the jock football player strutting around and the head cheerleader dating him are gone with the Muscle Car era.

The whole concept of school athletics has become a showcase for the parents and the community to live vicariously through the kids and catch a glimpse of what they never had themselves.

Uniforms used to be protective gear, but now it is a billboard and competition to have the team look like they are in the NFL. The teams used to travel in a school bus, but now they need a motor coach.

It is too bad it has to be this way, but this is the pulse of America today. If it isn't spectacular, no one is interested and spectacular isn't cheap...

Based on what?

Organized school team sports can be some of the best education a child can get. The lessons earned on a field can be much more significant ad long lasting than an extra class in English literature.

Baseball, in the Southeast is a racket. Soccer is just as bad and basketball is heading that way.

It is not the schools that are pushing this. It is the outside elements that play on parents making them believe that they must participate on these traveling teams year round in order to be successful. We have kids playing baseball and soccer year round getting in close to 200 games a year. The traveling teams stop long enough for the kids to participate during the high school season.

I coached HS football for 30 years and soccer for a few years as well. We have had to ban certain people from the schools who come around and want to act as "agents" for 14-15 year old kids. They promise them and their parents they'll get them a scholarship if they follow their advice and participate on these teams. They are not affiliated with the schools BTW.

It is the parents more than the kids who want to see their kids play at the next level. Every high school coach I know of wants athletes to participate in the high school sports which are basically free in public schools. There are many studies that show that if a kid participates in multiple sports such as football in the fall, wrestling or basketball in winter and track in the spring turn out to be far better athletes in their preferred sport than the kids who play one sport year round.