IS TRAVEL BALL leaving people/players/rec & school behind...OR...

[Vertigo]

It’s as simple as this - at least in my area.

- Jennie signs up for rec ball. Loves playing the sport and is pretty good at it.
- Jennie’s parents look into TB but realize for them, it is too expensive.
- Several of Jennie’s friends from her team who are also pretty good hear about the local TB team and their parents sign them up (no cuts at 10U - they just add on more teams) because they can afford it.
- Jennie’s only option is to stay in rec.
- The next year the fees for rec increase because the registration numbers keep dropping.
- Jennie’s parents can no longer afford to allow Jennie to play the sport.

So sure, it’s easy to see how and why the number of TB teams increase every year. It’s also easy to see why some are forced out of the sport. They typically go hand in hand.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Okay, so it's obvious there are multiple factors at play here. While I agree with @pattar and his inclusion of financial considerations, I don't think that's the only thing impacting people's decisions to play travel or not.

We played LL as long as we could with my two daughters. We did so because we thought it was good to have better players involved to make it more fun and competitive for everyone. After 7th grade, there was no more option for LL near us, so we focused on travel and school ball.

Now, where we live, there are "travel" ball teams that never travel any further than 50 miles and never require a hotel stay. There are plenty of USSSA tournaments every weekend from April through November, with plenty of teams to choose from. Some of those players do go on to play in college, mainly at the CC and D3 levels, but they do continue their careers. The cost for those local "travel" teams is pretty affordable; figure around $1,200 for an entire year. Once you get to the higher levels, you don't have a lot of local options, especially if your daughter has D2 or D1 aspirations. We chose the route of true travel ball for my girls, although my older daughter could have played at her college, sticking to the local travel scene. That was more of choice on her part to stay close to home for college.

My younger daughter plays for a truly national program, and the cost is astronomical. I believe it will cost me over $35,000 this year between team dues, practices, ferry rides, hotels, planes, rental cars, food, and gas. The CFP in me hates the travel ball dad in me, but I have the means to do this for my daughter. Simply put, not everyone is this fortunate, and that's why Rec ball is so important. I believe people need to have options to continue playing the game they love despite the fact their parents might not be wealthy enough to pay for everything that goes with the cost of a travel ball team.

 

[_MIA_]

If you can afford it why would you choose to play competition which is not going to make you better (after a certain age)? The problem involves (or maybe at this point the past tense, involved, should be used in many places where rec is basically dead) parents not realizing that they are making a lateral move which costs 10 times as much..

Yeah TB is "thriving", so is identity theft, and in both cases the "boom" could be partially caused by stupidity/ignorance with another "part" caused by greed...

 

[GKCO]

Late to the party and I'm not going to read 17 pages, but my two cents... There are too many travel ball teams. Too many parents wanting to keep up with the jones' and put their kid on a travel ball team because they have friends that play travel ball when the kid is clearly a rec player. Or, little Jenny doesn't play the prime position so daddy forms his own team and then further waters down the competition. More kids should be playing rec ball.

So, my daughter has a team she guests for 4-5 tournaments a season in addition to her regular team. Great way to play free softball btw lol
Had a tournament this weekend. A few kids from her 8u team are playing on a team that finished 4th in the losers bracket. Their parents of course were on Facebook later that evening bragging like they made it to the semis of the whole tourney. Maybe, I am just brutally honest and don't sugarcoat crap with my kid or when talking about my kid. It helps that my kid is a stud though

 

[Greatdaytobeawildcat]

If you can afford it why would you choose to play competition which is not going to make you better (after a certain age)? The problem involves (or maybe at this point the past tense, involved, should be used in many places where rec is basically dead) parents not realizing that they are making a lateral move which costs 10 times as much..

Yeah TB is thriving, so is identity theft, and in both cases the "boom" could be partially caused by stupidity/ignorance.

Can be framed as a classic prisoner's dilemma.

The dominant strategy is to "defect" to travel ball, even though players would be better off "cooperating" and staying in town.

 

[_MIA_]

Can be framed as a classic prisoner's dilemma.

The dominant strategy is to "defect" to travel ball, even though players would be better off "cooperating" and staying in town.

Very nice..I like the way you think!!

 

[Bullseye]

After signing up for city league and finding people would not make a commitment to showing up to practices but still being able to play made us decide to go to travel ball earlier than we otherwise would have. We found families made a commitment to travel. Was there a more genuine commitment because it cost more, could be. We met others that went to travel ball because they also saw people not showing up for city league practice and still being allowed to play in games.
Our family has always invested time to seek out the right team for our daughters. It started with what we saw in rec ball.

 

[PJR202]

Travel ball is kind-of a fad right now, and people love to get on board with a fad.

I think a lot of people who travel just think their kid is better than they actually are. Plus, they can use it as a brag to other parents. I hear it all the time. A buddy of mine (whose daughter plays travel) and I like to imitate those parents and just randomly say TRAVEL BALL back and forth to each other, and we always capitalize it when typing it in texts.

His daughter is the only travel softball player here, but there are quite a few travel basketball and soccer kids in this tiny town, and most of them aren't very good at their sport. They just like to play, or their friend plays, etc.

 

[GKCO]

Travel ball is kind-of a fad right now, and people love to get on board with a fad.

I think a lot of people who travel just think their kid is better than they actually are. Plus, they can use it as a brag to other parents. I hear it all the time. A buddy of mine (whose daughter plays travel) and I like to imitate those parents and just randomly say TRAVEL BALL back and forth to each other, and we always capitalize it when typing it in texts.

His daughter is the only travel softball player here, but there are quite a few travel basketball and soccer kids in this tiny town, and most of them aren't very good at their sport. They just like to play, or their friend plays, etc.

Where do you live with so few athletes?

 

[CoachJD]

What I have seen happening with the true “C” teams is that the players who do develop and get better move up to B or higher teams and the rest of the team dissolves.

A C level coach around here gets really upset when his players try out for other teams (He has said to me "If they don't want to be here, just go"). He's a nice guy and I think a solid coach, but if you're coaching a C level team, you need to expect you're going to lose players once they develop beyond that level.

The problem is he aspires to be more than a C-level team, which means he's trying to keep the better players from leaving while trying to recruit/develop enough to be a better program, all while stressing "development."

It's an impossible tightrope to walk.