Travel Ball is Killing Rec Ball

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Oct 29, 2018
28
3
Cougars, agree. Around here it is close to $150-$200 for each of fall and spring rec. Then another $250-$300 for "all stars." On the high end you are looking at $700 if you did fall, spring, and all stars. Our TB team is only around $1000 and we do optional fundraising which could gets the cost down several hundred. We do pay our own jerseys and a handful of fairly local travel, but it's not much more pricey.
Appreciate the discussion here, it is interesting to read the perspectives.
 
May 6, 2015
2,397
113
I think the comments about travel killing rec is that anyone and their cousin can start a travel team...

-convinced your DD got screwed at the 6 tryouts she went to . . . start your own team, with DD (probably a marginal TB player), 3 or 4 more girls like her from your rec league, and then a few more roster fillers . . . next year, dad of a girl with talent roughly that of the previous dads roster fillers says "well if they are TB, so is DD", so another new team, again, 4-6 girls on level of roster fillers on the last new TB team, and 4-6 more roster fillers.. and the cycle continues. weakens TB and rec at the same time.

I feel the main issue is anyone who can raise enough $$ can start a TB team. need some type of relegation, but it is hard with so many different orgs.
 
May 2, 2019
13
3
Where I'm from Rec ball is different than what I grew up with. It's amazing how many kids in recreational leagues can't catch, throw, or hit a ball. My daughter plays travel ball because there is a vast difference between the two.

While the hardcore parents are going above and beyond for their children in terms of reps, there are many many many kids who only pick up their glove and a ball at their "structured" practices/games.

Kids aren't in the backyard regularly with dad (or mom), they aren't at the park or in the street throwing back and forth to each other, etc.

The top kids are amazing but the average kids are light years behind the above average kids and I think this is why the non elite (B and C level players) are leaving rec.
 
Mar 21, 2019
137
28
Wow so ours is cheap and that $70 included my buying my way out if Manning snack bar lol all stars is paid by the organization. All the new uniforms and tourney costs are paid by the league.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

J.Galt

Banned
Feb 8, 2019
135
28
The rec league my DD played in is currently charging $175-$225 (depending on age group) for the spring season,
225 for park and rec here, plus 15 a week for the batting facility.
The first travel team my DD was on was 115 a month and included EM Speed and Power 3 times a week and indoor hitting once a week. Uniforms were 250.
 
May 2, 2019
13
3
Wow so ours is cheap and that $70 included my buying my way out if Manning snack bar lol all stars is paid by the organization. All the new uniforms and tourney costs are paid by the league.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Our local rec fees are also pretty cheap. It's $60, you get a jersey, belt, socks, a facemask to turn back in (although most of us buy them for our kids) and 10-14 games depending on how many teams per division.

Most of our teams do team hoodies, bows, stirrups, and pants. That ranges an extra $100 but that's all optional and there is no travel involved.

There are 3 practices a week (all teams practice together, long story) until the games begin, then it goes down to 1 practice per week. Once the season is over if you make "all stars" you get 2-5 tournaments depending on a number of factors.

The all star fees are separate. My oldest played all stars (boy/baseball) up until 9u, then there was too much conflict with TB & hoop. None of the younger 4 played rec all stars. The all star expenses 10 years ago were about an extra $100.

Our baseball and softball rec is run under the same organization and the fees are the same.
 

J.Galt

Banned
Feb 8, 2019
135
28
Yep. but I can get $20 back if I man the snack shack for an afternoon. We have a 14 game schedule. If you get rained out you most likely lose the game. I've lost 2 games (I was able to reschedule 3). I know other teams have not been as lucky as my team.

Playoffs is another 1-3 games and the all star team will get another 6 to 8 games depending on how well we do in our tournaments. So at max my daughter is getting 23 games.

Last year I paid 175 a month for 9 months (no dues in August, September or December) of travel ball, her team played in 198 games by the end of PGF. That's about 8 dollars a game plus 200 for uniforms and then hotels in Vegas and Colorado. Not bad.
Park and rec would have been 225 plus 180 for batting so 405 dollars. The teams played 20 reg season games 3 more if you went to the championship finals, over 17.50 per game for park and rec
 
Jul 16, 2013
4,659
113
Pennsylvania
Interesting read going through all these pages. I'm more of a lurker than a poster, so hopefully I don't offend too many here with this, but the amount of "travel snob" in this thread is a little crazy. Yes, there are high level teams, full of future college stars. However, that doesn't mean that the far greater number of "B" and "C" teams are watering down the prestige of "A" teams. The 2 aren't related.

Without any pride or shame, I'll say my daughters team is a "C" team. It's 12 girls that love playing softball and wanted to play/practice more than what "rec" offers. Nobody on the team, or their parents, are looking at this as some path to a college scholarship. The girls just want to play, and the parents have the ability to pay a little more than "rec" for a lot more softball. Team fees are about $900 for some amount of softball about 9 months of the year. Local "rec" league is about $200 for about 2 months.

Specific to travel killing rec, yes, the level of play in our rec league is very poor, and if some the local talent in the lower level travel teams were in it, the play would improve a little. However, I think the desire to want to play more is the biggest reason for leaving rec. Even if you could magically fill our rec league with 120 of the best softball players ever created, they are still only playing 15 or so games.

You may be just a lurker, but this is an excellent post with a lot of good points. I love the idea of getting more girls involved in the sport. Growing the sport is nothing but a positive in my opinion. If the girls want to play, let them. That said, my biggest issue with travel ball has been teams playing at the wrong level.

-- Trophy hunters. High caliber teams that intentionally play down in order to beat up on the less talented teams and walk away with a trophy. I like winning trophies, too. But winning like that doesn't really feel like winning to me.

-- Playing up too soon. Over the years we have played against some teams that were very inexperienced. In some cases I was worried about players on the other team getting injured. I do not like being in that type of position.

We always reviewed our status on a yearly basis, and either moved up in age or tournament difficulty based on how talented we thought our group was. Our unofficial goal was to finish each year by winning 60% or more of our overall games. If we won more than 70%, we needed to push ourselves more. There were times that we would adjust our schedule mid-season in order to add a more difficult tournament in place of one we thought may be weaker. I don't want to be one of those "travel snobs", but playing against the weaker teams really didn't do us any good and by the looks on the other team's faces, didn't really do them any good either. We also typically tried to select a tournament that was over our heads as well. We used those tournaments as a measuring stick to see what we needed to work on. But also to stress to our team what they were capable of if they continued to work. We would often say "that team could by you".
 
Oct 4, 2018
4,611
113
That is pretty much what we pay here.
If my DD could actually make a TB team, I'd be more than willing to shell out the fees! The journey continues I guess..

As I'm sure you know, it's really 98% up to them.

My daughter didn't like soccer. She was pretty inept and indifferent to basketball. So we tried softball. Whoa!

So she loves the sport, which warmed my heart. But she sucked. A year later she's doing great on her 10U B travel team.

It just took playing catch daily and lessons. Hmmm... ok, maybe it's 97% up to her. :D
 

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