OUCH!...Gouging at the Ball Park

It is never my intent to be negative in my blog posts. Unfortunately, this one may come across as such. 

I highlight the following scenarios not to complain, rather to find a solution to the exorbitant costs of Travel baseball.

Here are just a few items that need to be changed in the way baseball is organized and run in my community.

Let’s start with tryout fees...$25-$100 per player. Of course, there are some organizations that do not have a tryout fee. Kudos to them!

However, it is comical how the park I coach out of calls their tryouts a “clinic”. 

They know it is not a clinic. It is a fundraiser. 

Call it what it is and at least let the parents get a tax right off for contributing to a “non-profit” (it’s hard to type that without laughing) entity.

Other parks charge $ fees $ for their tryouts as well. The real kicker here is that most travel teams are only looking for 3-5 players/team. But of course they need to look at 40-50 players at $50/ea. to find their 3-5 players (and not to mention an additional $2,500 to go into the team budget).

I hear of families taking their kid from one tryout to the next thinking they have a chance to make a team. When in reality the coaches already know what position players they are looking for but they will gladly take everyones tryout fee. 

Second Item: Gate Fees...At a tournament this year tournament organizers charged $7.00 for kids over 3 years old. 

Are you kidding? 

The tournament was for 11u teams. You can go to a top tier college game for less than $7.00.

After tryout fees and gate fees there are th tournament fees for competitive baseball...These team fees start at about $400 and go up from there (for a 3 game minimum tournament). 

I get it. It takes money for fields, umpires, first aid staff (tournaments should be required to have a professional trainer or EMT on site at all times) and insurance. 

Let’s do the math...$400/ team with a $150 gate fee (rather than charging every person $7.00 that comes to the games) times 20 teams. Your total is $11,000 for the weekend. 

My question is this: 

Is this the best we can do? Eleven grand for a weekend of games in which most teams will play 4 games.

Think about how much per at bat it costs a kid...

The team plays 4 games, 3 AB/ game and there are 12 kids on the team.

The team cost for the tournament was $550. If you divide that number by 12 families you come up with $45.83 for the 4 games. 

On average at Bats costs just under $4.00 and go up to about $6.50 EACH!

No wonder their is so much stress on every pitch and every play.

These numbers make Disney Land look like a good deal. 

Two other questions: 

How did we get to where playing baseball at a competitive level got to be this expensive? 

AND MORE IMPORTANTLY...

How can we fix these situations of gouging at the ball park?

Please comment with ideas and discussion points.

Thank you!

Brandon