I just want to comment about being a parent who formed my own team. It’s not necessarily always about wanting to do it for your kid because they couldn’t make other teams.
Dd’s first travel team was a team I put together after she was done with Little League at age 13. Myself and 3 dad’s who coached together since 8U and really enjoyed it had a nice core group that wanted to stick together and try out travel ball. We started out as C level and quickly moved up to B. We joined a very small local org which had a 16U and 18U team. It enabled us to get fields and an indoor facility for extremely cheap. We were extremely transparent with our parents telling them what our goals were and that we wanted to develop the kids to be good enough to make their high school teams. Nothing more.
Are there a lot of teams out there that start up for “daddy ball” reasons - yes. However, I’m sure there are a few out there like us who wanted to be that bridge for the gap between rec and higher level travel ball, especially for the late-bloomers who didn’t know how good they actually were going to be.
Had a similar experience years ago. I was a Rec ball AC for 2 years under a great HC. We hit it off immediately and got along great. At that point (2nd year 12U) his DD tried out for a TB org and made the team. My DD continued to play rec ball by choice and I took over as Rec ball HC. I learned alot under the former HC and even more as my own HC. The next year my DD aged out of the Rec program so she tried out for the same TB team and made the squad. I got to spend the summer attending games with my buddy. His comments to me regarding the TB HC style. "You will see things that you never will believe". Well without citing specific instances (though I could) he was right.
There was a certain amount of "unrest" so at the end of that season the TB HC resigned and my buddy took over as HC and brought me on as AC. We coached that team through 2nd year 18U which included some 1st year college players. A great experience. 2 years later he approached me about being an AC under him with a startup TB 10U team (this was before U8). I jumped at the chance and we had a great time teaching these kids fundamentals, and had some local tournament success. We started year 2 with me being invited to coach the local HS JV team so I was excited that I would be working with 2 age groups. Once again good local success.
It was late summer just before fall ball when I got a call from my friend. He was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer. He was gone after a 6 month battle. That was tough to see.
After that I decided to concentrate on the HS coaching and just be an instructor for the TB org.