Travel costs for sb now. Flight. Hotel. Car rental....

[LEsoftballdad]

Nope. I gave a 15 minute power point to our school board exactly once. They politely ignored me, despite the reasonableness and logic of the information presented.

They did protect their phoney baloney jobs, I swear I heard the school board president complain "I didn't get a Harumph from that guy" when I was leaving.

" I didn't get a harrumph out of that guy..."

 

[_MIA_]

L u v the dirt!
But No dirt wouldn't stop me from training!

Yeah, like I said we do drill work at home or at the indoor facility but I like to get out and hit fungos sometimes

 

[Imalt]

So I'm the poor parent on my daughter's "elite" team. There's all kinds of different ways to save money and cut some costs. While the rest of the team stays in high priced hotels I will be at a hotel on the opposite side of the road for half the price. I rarely stay at a hotel the night before a tournament. I end up making a lot of middle of the night drives to be at a 7am warmup 5 hours away, but I save somewhere around 10 to 12 nights of hotel stays doing this. I would love to be able to play local but in our general tri-state area there is nothing but low level C ball. If we're going to play good competition it usually involves playing 4-5 hours from home.

 

[joe720]

My DD played on a national team some years back. Probably dropped 25k on it in the summer with airfare, hotels, rental cars, and food. I then came to my senses and decided that was a complete waste of money. She's played on a very competitive team since then and everything we play is within a 4-5 hours drive. Probably spend less than 5k now. She committed to the same school should would have regardless of the club team she played for.

Glad i figured it out early.

 

[DonnyS]

Lastly, you can only do $7,500 per year, and that's if you're over 50, and there's an income phaseout that prevents you from making the contribution, which me and the Mrs. are above.

Backdoor Roth and Backdoor MegaRoth overcome both of these limitations. Though most probably do not have access to the latter and some are not comfortable doing the former.

Hearing what people are paying to go from California to Oregon tournament and California to Colorado tournaments can definitely see a chunky increase in these costs.

What is the dfp softball world experiencing?

Has your team opted out of any venues because of expenses? Basically deciding a different schedule because of it.

General response: I have not, and probably will not add it up, but I would guess this is at least a $10K-$15K summer. That assumes free flights on Southwest due to the ridiculous amount of points I have (travel and CC) and the use of the companion pass (kid flys free). Our team has not changed plans due to increasing costs, though I suspect a few individual players have "conflicts" and are not making some trips because of it.

 

[LEsoftballdad]

Backdoor Roth and Backdoor MegaRoth overcome both of these limitations. Though most probably do not have access to the latter and some are not comfortable doing the former.

Most don't want the enormous tax hit.

 

[lostcreek1]

I never understand spending a ton of money traveling all over 12u and younger.

I know a few 8u teams in my area that traveled 3-4 times last year that require hotel stays for 2-3 days but was within driving distance. A few 10u teams that done the same, one that would have required flying or two day car ride, pretty much the same for 12u. These are mostly all the same organizations at each age level. Some of these teams 10u and 12u have a few kids playing for them that live 4-8 hour drive away from where they practice. For those people almost every tournament is a hotel room stay. It is expensive and a bad ROI if you are doing this for anything other than fun.

 

[Northball]

When reading this
This is exactly what I thought would happen






With school campuses being fenced and locked. The standard practice of needing a permit for fields.
Combined with people that thrash facilities instead of take care of them before they leave. Forced action to kick people off when they randomly would show up to use fields.

It's pretty normal to not have an actual ball field available to go practice on... without a permit.

That said,
It didn't change me finding available public 'park space' to be able to utilize for softball training.
imo Lawn is fine for most uses of a player getting some individual work in.

This is probably unique, I started using this for about 15 years. Keeping it level and weed debris free. Even brought out rechargeable contractor lights when time changed.

View attachment 28300

Did you have a hand in getting that lane built in the park? Or is that originally built for some other use?

 

[RADcatcher]

Did you have a hand in getting that lane built in the park? Or is that originally built for some other use?

No hand in getting it built.
Both hands in keeping it usable!
Maybe built for bocce ball?

I had been doing lessons in a different spot at that park and walked by one day...was like oh my gosh what is that?!! Paid attention to it for a couple months where it was never used. And saw a purpose for it .
Never had conflicts in using it 3/4 times a week. (except rain on rare occasion) Actually wonderful thing happened in the park where a lot of people walking by and the local frisbee golfers would stop and watch and cheer for the students! Pretty neat!

 

[_MIA_]

the local frisbee golfers would stop and watch and cheer for the students! Pretty neat!

Two tournaments ago I was sitting behind the OF fence (it was hot and it was in the shade so it was pretty far back from the fence) and apparently adjacent to a disk golf course and got hit in the back by a frisbee..glad your experience with them has been better than mine