The money side of playing travel ball

[LEsoftballdad]

Knowing what CFPs make, I'm guessing you can afford it. But $30,000 per year for softball is getting close to what it cost me to send my kid to a private college.

I wouldn't do it if I couldn't afford it, but it is still a lot of money every year. I am fortunate enough that my wife also has a good job. The main thing is that I am my own boss and have a flexible schedule to get my daughters everywhere they need to be. I couldn't imagine doing this if I had a 9-5 type of job.

 

[_MIA_]

What is the $$$$$$ aspect of travel ball
in your softball journey?

I have holes in all of my pants (which is ironic as 3/4 of them I got because I kept sitting on a chair when throwing BP to DD at the Org's hitting facility that would snag my pants and create a hole..)...Luckily my DW loves me for my winning personality and not my fashion sense..

 

[Tengauge]

I look at it as we are just pre-paying for college. But we would not trade the experiences for us and DD for anything. Seen a lot of different states and met a ton of people. Its also cool seeing kids on TV that we played against, with or were part of the organization we are playing for. Let alone the bond DD and I have from spending countless hour catching and pitching to her

 

[radness]

RAD, tell us a little about your TB path to D1 college. Recruited?
Has the cost of TB gone up? Did you travel across the country at 10 or 12U? 14u?
Was softball year around?
Was it possible for a lower middle class family to play TB?
Did teams/orgs have scholarship?

yes the cost of everything has gone up!!!

Started playing softball in Bobby Socks when I was six.
I was 11, 12 years old when I first heard about college scholarships. That was right around when travel ball as we know it today started here in Southern California and some other places in other states. I played on the original BatBusters team with Coach Joe Grubbs.
Who started the organization. For the most part had to be very talented to play travel ball. There were teams in our local area we played against but almost every time we played in a tournament it was traveling to the tournament. We stayed in a hotel overnight and most of the time everybody on the team room together so we would only have like three rooms for the players.
( we did not have parents going to every tournament..
think that in itself cost a lot of money because parents will miss work to go to tournaments and then they take their whole family to pay to go to tournaments.) Individual rooms Obviously cost a lot more than just group girls together in a few rooms.
( more expensive decisions for everybody to have their own room now a days)

Not Everybody had their own bat.
Not necessarily because that was a choice or not, it's just we shared what we had. Like teams used to share catching equipment.

Yes I played in 14 different states when I was in travel ball under the age of 18.

I would consider our family a middle-income family. we lived on a budget and there certainly wasn't getting new cleats or equipment anytime I needed it I had to repair my glove and take care of things. I remember getting a pair of cleats at the sporting goods store that were two sizes too big just because they were on sale. And there was no growing into them.
* maybe I learn to pick my feet up quickly because of that LOL

I worked at our team's snack bar all the time to help pay for my spot on the team.

There are parents who would help other families that may have needed some assistance by donating to the team. But we also had a couple of business type sponsors that were behind the scenes that donated a little money.

Pretty much softball was year round here in Southern California we had more what was considered winter season and Summer Ball. But we really didn't stop except for when it came to high school then we had dark.

The biggest difference was that people did not team hop. You were loyal to your team and you worked out your differences with your teammates. And families just had to grit their teeth and bear it I guess LOL. But team hopping was extremely rare and if you left a team to go to play on another team ...definitely became the enemy and Vengeance would occur LOL.
On the field that is!!!
So I played on the batbusters team for about five years straight through with many of the same teammates. Really develop powerful dynamic and working together.

As for recruitment I had colleges contact me that saw us play in tournaments. And I played at Edison High School Division 1 and at that time sunset League was incredibly powerful and every pitcher went to a top D1 college.
Notoriety came in the form of newspaper articles. That seemed to reach far enough that college coaches read them. And state and Nationals were a really big deal because there weren't 20 to 30 different Nationals there was pretty much the top tournaments where all the teams played and that was it.

Ohhhh and
WE DIDN'T PLAY FRIENDLIES,
WE PLAYED DOUBLE HEADERS TO WIN!!!!
Yep Full length 7 or more innings if needed. Usually 2 hours per game was normal.

 

[_MIA_]

Yes I played in 14 different states when I was in travel ball under the age of 18.

Wow..That is a lot of miles on the family Model T…

 

[radness]

Wow..That is a lot of miles on the family Model T…

We did have a Dodge Dart when I was a little kid.

Airbag wasn't necessary because we had the parents arm sling across our chest at stops...

 

[Vertigo]

2) Pitching lessons for younger daughter are $120 per hour approximately 38 times per year for $4,560.

Sorry - but this jumped out at me!! $120 per hour for pitching lessons??!! I need to quit saving lives for a living and teach pitching!

On a serious note - that seems pretty high to me. We’ve been lucky that DD’s PC charges $50/HR and produces numerous D1-D3 pitchers, plus has 2 recent back-to-back Gatorade POY for our state (most likely will have 3 after this HS season is over).

May I ask why so much? Does your PC rent space at a facility for lessons or own their own place? Is that the norm for your area?

 

[radness]

Here is a grateful Financial story.

This was when I was seventeen and playing my last 18u Nationals tournament in another state Colorado. Parents did not have the funds to send me.

A couple who were parents on the younger team below ours ended up donating financial assistance to help me attend Nationals.

It wasn't untill maybe a year later or so that I found out the family who did that was
'The Allard family'

Over the years I always wanted to extend my thankful appreciation of their assistance as it was very special to me.

About 5 years ago while speaking with the Harvard head coach who was looking at one of my students for recruitment. Amongst a crowd of about 10 other D1 coaches. I finally got the opportunity to say thank you to the daughter of the parents who financially assisted me.
Over 30 years later...
I got to tell
The Head Coach of Havard Jenny Allard
how appreciative and thankful i am of her family helping me and our team. Shared a hug and brought tears to the eyes of other D1 coaches that heard the story.
Thank you again Coach Allard to you and your wonderful family!
~Turbo

 

[Rick M]

I try not to think about it too much, but we’re usually at about $12K for a year of softball. Hitting and pitching lessons are about $5K, team is $3K, travel is going to add up to $4K after a week at Nationals.

@Vertigo our lessons are pretty close to that, between $90 and $110 depending on whether it’s a private or semi-private lesson. We typically go on hiatus from lessons during the school season, and take two six-week breaks in August and December. So that’s for 26 weeks of lessons.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[YOCOACH]

You want to know how the TD's make money? They post a 5gg then tell you since it's a college showcase, if you lose 2 games, you are relegated to a losers single elimination bracket. If you lose 3 in a row, you're done after 3 games. If you win 1 then lose the next, that's 4 game. No refunds BTW. So much for the 5gg. Who do you think keeps the extra money? Yeah, there's a money side to TB. It's advertised that way from 10U through 18U and the same rules hold true for all age brackets. Some would say, 'Why would 10's, 12's and 14's play that particular tourney?' Some others would say it's the coach's job to pick particular tournaments that their team could compete in. The simple truth is this. Sometimes you have to test your team and see what level they can compete with.. A little better than a .500 season means that the coach has done their job. A much better season means they are doing nothing more than trophy hunting and many players, due to the lack of competition, most likely won't improve. Much less than .500 means that they are playing way above their level. Getting their a$$es kicked week in and week out does nothing for them or the teams they play against and most likely the team will disband by years end if not sooner.