Here's a question that would have the broadest spectrum of answers to it...
What is the average cost (everything included) spent on a Top 25 D-1 Fastpitch player on anything related to softball before they started playing for a D-1 program?
$50,000 to $100,000 over the course of 4-6 years of travel ball?
What is the lowest amount you guys think was spent on any Top 25 D-1 Fastpitch players out there today over the course of their Travel Ball career?
Is it almost a pre-requisite for any girl who ends up on a Top 25 D-1 team, to spend top dollar and to travel across the country to play ball, just to make it to that level of play? And to be considered good enough to play on a Top 25 D-1 team?
(All skills being equal)
I suppose you could go to the websites for all of the Top 25 D-1 teams and start reading player bio's, to see who was playing for Top Level Gold team. Aptly named ....Team Airline Miles...
Or who was working in a lumber yard the summer before they started playing college ball.
How much you spend on travel ball depends pretty much entirely on your goals for your daughter and your location in the country. If you live in New Jersey and your daughter wants to play at UCLA, be prepared to spend some money. Top level showcase team, camps, recruiting visits, all the big showcases, PGF Nationals, etc. If you live in Atlanta and want to play for Georgia Tech, I imagine it would be a lot easier. I count 10 Georgia residents on their team for this past year.
I live in NJ and my DD wanted to play ball within a couple hours of our house, so there was less need for her to travel. Unfortunately, when you want to play high level ball in college, you have to play high level travel ball. In our area, there are really only 3-4 teams that get it done, so we went with one of those. There's a lot of unnecessary travel for showcases in various parts of the country, but that's part of the cost if you want to get seen as being a top level player.