How much do you spend on equipment, fees, exposure tournaments, and camp a year?

[Chezaré Sievers]

Hello Everyone,
I'm doing research to get a clear picture of how much parents are spending on softball related activities and equipment a year. If you don't mind, I would really love to hear from you. As most of you know, as your daughter gets older the expenses tend to go up. If you feel more comfortable Private messaging me, feel free to do that.

I will post the results after I reach 100 responses.

Post your daughter's age and how much you spend roughly in a year on softball.

Thank you!

 

[CoachBroker]

Be sure to look up old threads. I know there was one within the last year that had a lot of response. Many wont post the amounts because they either do not want to spouse to stumble on the thread or they are not willing to admit we all spend that kind of money.
Heck just in the last 5 days I have bought a new Boombah bag for one daughter and new cleats for my other. About $160 just in 5 days. If we are including all travel expenses too, I am only at a few thousand dollars a year and we stay within 2 hrs. for most games and are only needing hotels for about 1/3 of our tournaments.

 

[NVfishing]

Hotels this year about 300$. Two bats $260. Glove 45. Gas, around $300. Two face masks, $90. 700$-800$ so far this year. We have a good organization and if you do the fund raising there are no team fees.

 

[pctrips]

We spent roughly $1200 all said in done. That includes 14 tournaments (1 out of town), bag, bat, shoes, and helmet.

 

[wichita]

Hotels this year about 300$. Two bats $260. Glove 45. Gas, around $300. Two face masks, $90. 700$-800$ so far this year. We have a good organization and if you do the fund raising there are no team fees.

My DD plays Gold level and just Colorado IDT, triple crown world series, and PGF Nats. .. Hotels $650 x 3 Not to mention $ 2500 fee for the year travel to L.A. just about every weekend plus food, gas, etc. I don't want to know.

 

[Lenski]

Team Fees: $1200
Hotel: $1200
Food & Drink: $700
Gas: $400 (Averaging 38mpg)

This is from 6/1 to current date. I did not include equipment cost and the cost of extracurricular activities since that can vary widely. For me, add another $1200. Our tournaments were a mix of PGF and ASA.

 

[Jquick823]

Our season just ended so i'll give a rough estimate.
Team Fee-$1300 (it's only $750 but i gave more as a coach to get some more tournaments)
Equipment-$1400-Bat, Catchers Gear, 2 pairs cleats, socks, 2 new gloves
Hotel-$0
Gas-$900 averaging 5MPG in the camper
RV Parks-$2500
Food-$1100 or so. I'm right about $7K-$8K and that might be low. I didn't factor in camps or gas to and from practice and meetings.

 

[ScottyDont]

Without itemizing, I'm guessing we're at about $7000 for the 18U player and $4000 for the 12U player. That includes team fees, travel expenses (airfare, hotel, food) and personal equipment (catcher's gear, bats, cleats, gloves, etc).

 

[PEPPERS]

Let’s put it this way living arrangements before softball and after!!!!!!!!!!

 

[Comp]

I wouldnt want to sit and add it all up. Nationals in Owensboro Kentucky one year had to be close to $5k alone. 4 airline flights, rental car, hotel, food for 4 for a week etc etc etc. Not to mention the team traveled out of state on average once a month. Team fees were generally $1200 a year and they played 2-3 tournaments a month. The total number would be fairly large over 6 years she played. A friend whos daughter played on the same team for awhile and attended many of the same tournaments tried to tell me once she kept detailed records and only spent $12,000 over 4 years. She had to be doing creative accounting to arrive at that number because she was staying in the same hotels, going to same tournaments, renting same cars and eating at same restaurants as we were.

Early on at a recruiting seminar one of the speakers said flat out, "if you are playing softball to chase a college scholarship, stop now, put the money you are going to spend on softball in the bank and you will have paid for your daughters education." She really was not far from wrong, but, the life experiences my daughter learned and the times the family shared will always be remembered. Not to mention she did ultimately get her scholarship so it all worked out in the end.