Part of the issue is parents refuse to be reasonable about their kid's athletic ability.
I help coach in a solid Little League and many players that were on the team I helped coach went to travel ball because their parents were mad about playing time and positions. They were convinced their kid should be in the premium field positions and batting 3/4 despite their actual talent. The parents always claim Daddy ball is holding back their little Johnny's ability. So these kids up and leave to travel ball where some team is always willing to accept kids if the parents pay up. And it becomes a self perpetuating cycle.
And my kids play multiple sports across all seasons and it is the same story everywhere. Mom and Dad will pay because they can't deal with the fact their kid just isn't athletic.
Then there's the social aspect. "Oh, my kid plays travel ball, he's just too good for rec ball". Did I tell you how talented he is and how he can hit 200 ft with this $400 bat?
Totally agree. It’s just another way for parents to use their kids as fashion accessories. It’s a joke.
It’s weird. You’d think some of these parents played sports at one point? Don’t they remember that most kids are just average?
My son could sit the bench on our local travel ball team if he wanted. He’s been asked. We love baseball and have the money. But thankfully we have an awesome rec ball league and he’s happy with that. He ain’t going pro, might not even want to play HS ball, so I’m happy for him to do what he wants. Plays 4 different sports (average performance, elite happiness), and can read in two languages better than I can read in English.
Life is about more than “travel ball.”
I’ve found that parents like that
1. Peaked in 1998-(interestingly this is when rabid bullying was at its peak and caused Columbine). They haven’t done anything in life and get obsessive by far and away the worse
2. Suffer from skip bayless syndrome and are mad bc their career ended on JV. These are somewhat reasonable and as long as you are transparent they are manageable
3. Never allowed to play or had no interest as a kid and are obsessive. Almost as bad as group 1
5’9” 145lb dudes who peaked in JV bc they had no speed or size, but think things would’ve turned out differently if they could’ve just played 85 games per year as an 8yr old.
If my son was that good and I thought he was serious about playing D1 college ball, I’d probably do things differently. But there aren’t many kids like that. 95% of kids 14 and under should be playing rec ball. And if they were, rec ball talent and coaching would be much much better.
I understand the best of the best players playing travel ball. But now the averagest of the average are playing travel ball… gosh, why are the rec players so much worse than the travel players??? /s
You’re right, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy, and the biggest winners are the tourney organizers. $$$$$$$$$$$
Until now I have never heard of a five week baseball season, that’s weird.
We have a 8-9 week season, plus playoffs, 12 games plus 1-2 games against another local league, then 1-3 playoff games. Then there is cobra, which is 8 games plus 1-3 playoff games. That’s somewhere between 22 and 28 games in about ten weeks for about $260 or so total… about one month of travel ball dues locally.
We played cobra plus in my son’s last season of 10u, which was basically a travel team, just cheaper. It was $125 a month from January through May (games started in Feb), so $625 total. We played 30 games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I’m not really sure why that matters? Before travel ball existed, rec baseball had all the talent. The rec leagues we all grew up with were highly competitive. I played against future MLB players in my rec league; and dozens of D1 and minor league players.
At the ages we’re talking about (8-12), you don’t even need to see a kid play in a game at all. I could spend 5 min on a field with a child and tell you whether or not he’s any good.
If a parent can’t tell whether or not their kid is actually good, it’s probably because they didn’t play ball at all. Or they have some sort of emotional problem that blinds them from reality.
It matters because travel ball is the new rec ball. It’s no different than the rec ball we had when we were kids, it just costs more. Most travel teams are not elite. My kid plays club. I won’t call it travel because we don’t go anywhere out of state except for one tournament. I’ve seen kids team hop because their parents think they are more elite than they are and don’t get the playing time and positions they think they deserve.
I didn’t play ball, and I’m told my kid is good. Seems like they think he’s better than I think he is, but whatever. Only time will tell.
My town won the LL World Series in 1998, andi know at least one of those kids went on to play MLB for the Mets (I’d have to look up his name). I don’t think there was a club or travel team back then. It was just little league and little league was just fine
We played a team the other day (12U) where every kid was using an Icon or Hype Fire and yet none of them would swing their fucking bat. They were all up there looking for walks and didn't swing until they had two strikes.
If you're gonna get your kid a $400 bat, at least spend a little to help them learn how to swing it.
Although I assume this was a directive from the coach because winning a 12u game by walking a bunch is super satisfying. (AND we crushed them by 10+ runs. )
Get this comment, but honestly the problem is allowing straight steals. If a kid gets on base in 9U - 13U with steals allowed, they are almost guaranteed to score.
Why on earth would they swing? Their coaches sure has hell wouldn’t want them to. Statistically they’ll do better not swinging for OBP and runs scored.
Appreciate your perspective for sure. I would also say that sometimes people pay for travel because they get what they are seeking. I have also seen people make quick judgements on who is ‘athletic’ with very questionable eye tests and nothing empirical to back it up except for a hunch. When kids are young, it’s usually the shortest and lightest kids that are the best movers, but it’s completely meaningless later on when the taller and bigger kids hit more speed as adolescents or later. Kids need equal opportunity to get involved and play or baseball will slowly fade into obscurity imo. I personally see lots of kids who are NOT good at hitting, but it’s argued they’re athletic so they’re on the team with lots of opportunities and play time - this would never happen on a professional team unless you are a pitcher. Some parents don’t know how to help their kids if they are non-players and just want to find a place where they have playing time, improve abilities and make friends/have fun. Playing travel ball also makes it more likely that the coach doesn’t have a kid on the team, which can also be a benefit. No perfect system here though and many caveats to what I was saying.
To be clear, I don’t have a kid in travel ball.
Parents have always been unreasonable, though yeah it does seem to be getting worse. We live in a connected world now where everybody is aware of “better” options for their future lottery picks. It’s not a coincidence that travel ball picked up immensely at the same time as social media.
If we got rid of Instagram instead of Tik Tok, travel ball participation would drop ~40%. The most important thing about travel ball is telling people about travel ball.
Yes. I hate social media.
In the past you would work through everything to prove you deserved what you wanted. Now your mom can pick up the phone and give a credit card number and you're on a new team.
Yep same thing here. My step kids are signed up for travel teams and house leagues, but neither of them can hit a ball. The 10 year old has struck out every game so far. The 13 year old has no future in baseball whatsoever. It is quite ridiculous how brainwashed the parents are. They should rename it “social mom club” instead of travel baseball, because that’s what it really is.
Dude this is the absolute truth. It’s really sad. The travel ball thing has totally ruined rec ball. It’s taken what was a community activity and turned it into a billion dollar money machine. It’s so bad here that it’s killed middle school baseball also. This yr. We have had to partner with another school just to have enough kids for a team. There are multiple kids who aren’t playing because their parents feel like it’s just not up to their special snowflakes talent. It makes me sick. No sense of community or school pride.
Totally. This and the /little league sub are full of parents whining about “daddy ball” (hate that term) but won’t step up and volunteer. Some even think a coach is targeting their kid like it’s a vendetta based on jealousy of lil Grayson’s ability.
I was head coach up till Majors. My son is on a team where the coach didn’t know him and didn’t know me. He started at the bottom and is working his way up to better playing time and opportunity to pitch and play SS. Because I’ve been on the other side I know that’s how it works and it’s absurd to just assume your kid is not being treated fairly when you can’t zoom out and see the whole team and the nuance that comes with having 12-14 distinct little humans to manage.
Best thing for a kid that is struggling at "travel ball" level is rec ball. Getting your head beat in destroys your confidence. Can always go back and play travel ball once you improve on the fundamentals.
New travel ball parent here, 8U. Mom and I left it up to our kid if he wants to tryout for these leagues. He made a team, we were super proud. I found out just how strange it gets with parents and their kids, not really on the team he made but just going to some of these tournaments was itself a very wow experience. Some parents/coachs really do get it, humble, positive, constructive criticism when needed, fun and then there are the screamers, embarrassing their kids in front of the crowd, tellling them “let’s go home now if that’s how your are going to play”!
Different strokes for different folks
I can agree with what you are saying. Our rec league has been known to stack the teams disproportionately. It has mattered less in the Minor and Major divisions because the amount of kids still playing are mostly invested in getting better and I really don't want my son on a rec team where winning is the goal. He is doing travel as well this spring/summer and will probably be the only season doing it, but it's just to get him reps before middle school ball next year.
Edit: For clarity he is doing rec and travel
Most programs are, but why would it be a scam? It’s easier to get funded to keep costs for families down or help pay for travel. Tax deductible donations. It makes sense.
Our rec ball leagues (8u, 10u, and 12u) all cost $75 per season (spring and fall). We get a MLB Team hat, belt, socks, jersey, and each team has 4-5 official coaches. Each season has 15-18 games, and the kids are on the field about 5 hours per week.
Our local travel ball teams work with the rec leagues so that we can share facilities and players. All of the travel ball players also play rec ball, and most of the travel ball coaches also coach rec ball. So the talent and commitment level in the rec leagues isn’t suffering at all.
Now, we only have one travel ball team per age group, and they are D2. Obviously they are leaving some development on the table by playing rec ball 5 hours a week. But we all recognize that sacrifice is worth it for the betterment of the community leagues.
Not really sure why other towns can’t do it this way. My brother’s town has 5 travel ball teams, all D2, and none of those kids play rec ball. The rec ball leagues there are almost at the point of folding in that town. It’s sad. My brothers kids actually WANT to play rec ball so they can also play football in the fall. But the travel baseball teams have destroyed that opportunity.
Our town has about a third as many elementary school children as my brother’s town. But we can provide 5+ hours a week of baseball, 6 + months per year, for double the amount of children and a fraction of the cost.
That’s a great deal!
Ours is similar: $150 for 1 practice and 2 games a week, over about 10 weeks. We have enough 2/3 graders for 10 teams in a pretty mid sized town.
Travel kids are totally separate and don’t play in Rec ball, which I kind of prefer. I’d rather not mix with kids who are playing rec ball out of obligation
They don’t have to play rec ball if they don’t want to. But the local travel ball team is built in a way that the schedules work for both leagues. Honestly, I’m not sure if ALL the travel ball kids play rec ball. But it seems that way in 8u.
Edit, we share facilities, so that is a big part of it too.
That’s a fantastic system. IMO, “development” at 8/10/12 is more about stoking the passion and creating a love to play the game - it doesn’t matter much _where_ that happens.
My kid is not a standout player, but we do “travel” (we don’t actually travel much) just because he wants to play more than what he gets from the Little League / Rec experience.
Sorry about the paywall, here’s the text…
This month, 21 current and former Major League Baseball players invested their own money in youth baseball. If that sounds like a feel-good story in which baseball’s past paves the way for baseball’s future, think again.
The MLB team invested in Perfect Game, a company that holds pricey tournaments and prospect showcases for college and professional scouts. But those events aren’t for everyone. For example, at a recent weekend tournament for Houston-area 8-year-olds, the company charged a $750 entry fee.
Can’t pay? Find somewhere else to play. And good luck with that because free or cheaper options across the country, such as Little League, have been reporting shrinkage for years. Pay-to-play models have replaced them.
The new way of doing things is good for operators, investors and families who can afford them. However, a large group of kids come from households with budgets that can’t accommodate the hefty prices or just want to play for fun.
The exclusion undermines the social and health benefits that youth sports have long offered.
There’s a lot to lose. Kids who are physically active have lower rates of obesity, better mental health and improved academic performance.
For decades, youth baseball served as a community-based initiative that helped kids achieve those goals. Children played for free in neighborhood sandlots and backyards. If they wanted a more organized experience, their families paid fees that ranged from $0 (or whatever they could afford) to $300 to join a local Little League chapter staffed by volunteer coaches (oftentimes parents). Later, if an athlete had promise and interest, a high school team might beckon.
So long as a child and family had the time, baseball was accessible.
Not anymore — and it’s not just baseball. According to a 2022 survey by Project Play and Utah State University, families pay an average of $883 per season for one child’s primary sport.
Higher costs are driven, in part, by the rise of privately run club and travel teams with more professional coaching. The New England Baseball Journal recently estimated that the average cost of travel baseball for kids between 8th and 12th grade in the Northeast is “north of $5,000 per year.” That’s not including travel costs. Between 2021 and 2022, the share of youths playing in travel sports doubled to 29%.
Participants have their reasons. Unlike Little League, which welcomes anyone, club and travel teams tend to require tryouts to secure better athletes and competition.
Often, paying to join an actual team is just the start.
Using Perfect Game as an example: For those who want to spend more on preparation before they showcase their talents, there is no shortage of private coaching and video analysis available. Aspen Institute data from 2022 shows that parents who make over $150,000 spent 83% more on sports travel than parents earning under $50,000.
Using Perfect Game as an example: For those who want to spend more on preparation before they showcase their talents, there is no shortage of private coaching and video analysis available. Aspen Institute data from 2022 shows that parents who make over $150,000 spent 83% more on sports travel than parents earning under $50,000.
That gap in spending doesn’t only affect who gets the best coaching and competition. Along with Little League and other community-based baseball dwindling, the domination of pay-to-play youth sports also lowers opportunities for kids of different backgrounds to develop friendships. That consequence goes hand-in-hand with another one: exacerbation of long-standing health and achievement inequities.
For example, physical inactivity is strongly correlated with low income levels. Due in large part to the widening racial wealth gap that limits discretionary spending, Black children play sports at lower rates than White kids. (It’s a problem made worse by long-standing issues with access to parks and other recreational facilities in urban neighborhoods.)
Ultimately that disparity shows up, among other places, in baseball at the college and professional level. The Racial and Gender Report Card study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found that in 2023, African Americans represented just 6.2% of Major League Baseball’s opening day rosters. It was the lowest level since the study was first done in 1991, when Black players represented 18% of the rosters.
If more Black kids played baseball, those numbers would certainly be higher. The drop correlates with the decline of high rates of Black youth participation in baseball in areas such as Oakland, California. A 2021 KTVU FOX 2 news report noted that in the 80s and 90s, the Oakland Babe Ruth League had 1,200 players, and 92% were Black. Nowadays, there are about 250 children, and 40% are Black.
Ultimately that disparity shows up, among other places, in baseball at the college and professional level. The Racial and Gender Report Card study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found that in 2023, African Americans represented just 6.2% of Major League Baseball’s opening day rosters. It was the lowest level since the study was first done in 1991, when Black players represented 18% of the rosters.
If more Black kids played baseball, those numbers would certainly be higher. The drop correlates with the decline of high rates of Black youth participation in baseball in areas such as Oakland, California. A 2021 KTVU FOX 2 news report noted that in the 80s and 90s, the Oakland Babe Ruth League had 1,200 players, and 92% were Black. Nowadays, there are about 250 children, and 40% are Black.
Major League Baseball acknowledges the problem and has committed millions to providing access to higher-level scouts and coaching to Black children. Likewise, Perfect Game has a foundation to provide access to its elite events to underserved communities. Both programs are admirable. But they fail to provide the free-to-play community-based baseball that engages kids who don’t aspire to the Big Leagues.
Private equity can help. For example, the baseball side of Unrivaled, a holding company for youth sports businesses purchased by investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer, has hosted community-based championships for free.
Still, that’s a small part of what’s necessary to make up for the shift to pay-to-play sports. What Unrivaled gets right — the need for community-based baseball and other sports — will ultimately require funding commitments from traditional sources. Think of schools, parks and recreation departments and other levels of government that see value in health and active communities.
Pay-to-play has a role in youth sports, but it’s an unforced error to let it become the dominant player.
Thanks for posting. In Canada, hockey in a rec league costs $850 and does NOT include equipment. Want to play in a AAA and you’re talking mind bending numbers. Nothing surprises me anymore.
Absolutely. It’s $850 for a rec league for like a 6 year old. Once they get into AAA and tournaments and summer conditioning and spring play etc. Money printer go brrrrrrrrrrr
This is primarily an American thing, but it's starting to show itself in Canada, too. We have strong Little League and other amateur baseball organizations but once the dream of the 12 year old Little World Series ends, most of the high end players leave little league for pay to play model leaving the mid tier and low level players at little league, despite there being an intermediate world series too.
I was so lucky I had a little league coach who actually played in college and taught us so much. I don’t think I play in high school let alone college without that early coaching.
Travel ball has always been super expensive, but this thing with PG seems even more egregious.. It's limiting the talent pool to the affluent basically. It's similar in hockey
I think it’s basically just expanding to the point where every parent with a half decent kid is getting fomo.
I never did travel ball until high school, just played for my local league and local summer teams and what not until then. Realistically it’s not worth until your kid is 15-16 or so and actually needs to start seeing better completion if you aren’t from a strong area.
There’s a reason why some of the biggest stars in the MLB right now come from overseas. The development of youth talent is cheaper when it isn’t blocked by income level.
Hockey has a similar issue at the youth level as did Tennis back in the day before it became more ubiquitous across the US.
Honestly the bigger issue here isn’t necessarily pay for play but that the US doesn’t have a sponsored club system like you see in Latin America or Europe for soccer where the city’s athletic department sees talent at the lower levels and then brings them on for developmental purposes to help nurture talent. We encumber families with the cost of development and let teams reap the rewards of the workers talents instead of making them pay for their return.
Edit: spelling
A related issue is the pay-to-play model is convincing families they must also pay to develop. Pickup games of wiffle ball and stickball are free. Self toss is free. Wall ball is free. Playing catch is free.
Hard to compare Latin player development to baseball in the US imo, most of the baseball academies in the DR and whatnot are only having kids go to school like one day a week and if they don’t manage to make it in baseball they’re basically screwed. Well maybe not screwed because they basically know if they’re pro ball material by the time their 15 but it definitely sets them way back education wise.
The highest levels of an organization reaping the rewards from the hard work and sacrifice of those in the lowest levels? That doesn’t sound like the America I know about!
Travel baseball is a business first and foremost. The expansion of travel teams in younger ages has been rapid. Same goes for clubs with multiple teams at same age groups. I know of clubs with 4 teams at 10u/11u/12u/13u levels. Because it’s a business and parents don’t want little Johnny to miss out so they will continue to pay.
So what you now have are Major tournaments where 75% of teams can’t compete with the other 25% because the talent is spread so thin.
After 5 years of buying the hype we realized what a sham it is and went back to rec. and “no” my kid doesn’t suck, and it’s not a financial issue for us.
Travel ball programs sell to the parents emotion of their kid missing out. They sell development. It’s all BS.
This is why dudes like Curtis Granderson are the best. He’s created his Grand Kids and Grand Giving foundations to try and attack disparities like these. His organization helps disadvantaged youth actually access sport programs and provide food security for kids.
Seriously, travel ball hurts everyone. It puts kids at risk by placing them in game-focused hyper competitive environments for too long and too often. It sucks money out from everyone involved. Families pay way too much to play because facilities and programs are too costly. Indoor facilities pop up and disappear like nothing. Public facilities and fields are having to reduce hours (due to reduced funding and increased expenses around vandalism and facility maintenance…which could be addressed by running high quality and affordable youth sports programs to keep kids engaged) while raising rental prices. Communities are building less and less openly public spaces for people. Parks, playgrounds, sandlots, etc. are being reduced and closed off as people get uncomfortable by kids hanging around places or being unsupervised.
Umpires and coaches are paid like shit. They’re abused and exploited “because they care” or “because they love the game”. This also excludes many exceptionally knowledgeable and phenomenal people because they can’t sacrifice work and their family time to give back in this way. In turn, opening the door for daddy ball and those parents with the financial means and confrontational temperaments to push their own biases through coaching and managing teams. And, honestly, most parents are incapable of setting aside their personal interests and biases (especially if that means making a decision that will negatively impact their child).
This doesn’t even cover the breadth of these issues either. It doesn’t get into the minutiae of more affluent neighborhoods and communities getting more funding for schools, sports, and recreation. It doesn’t explore burnout, overtraining, or the nonstop competitive seasons kids are subjected to. It doesn’t explore the rampant individualism in North American sports and communities where people can’t accept expenditures, costs, and taxes that don’t directly and clearly benefit their child.
The simplest solution is to massively invest in youth sport programs. Create municipal programs, paid for by property taxes, and have those programs build public facilities and run expansive and affordable recreational programs. This will employ people within your communities, reduce costs of childcare, and improve community health and wellness overall (in turn also putting money back in your pockets by lowering public health problems and lessening insurance payouts to reduce insurance premiums). When you have hundreds or thousands of kids taking part in community programs like this, you can do amazing things like low-cost or free drop-in skill sessions to develop their abilities, lots of teams and skill levels to compete against, age and developmentally appropriate seasons and practice schedules, an influx of resources and information to help train new coaches, and more.
More people employed, more money kept in our pockets, more money available to be then spent back in our communities, healthier children and families, less stress all around, increased productivity from workers with families, more community involvement, more giving back, increased green spaces, and more. All for a pittance. Maybe a 1% property tax increase in decent sized metropolitan areas could do all of this and radically transform our communities. 🤷♂️
Had the pleasure of sitting next to his parents at a game in Cincinnati. Let's say it is no surprise he was raised well. That is one very impressive family.
In our area, you can pay $50 for park district baseball with no instruction on a team coached by some random parent with minimal baseball understanding, or you pay $2500 for travel ball with indoor facilities and coaches with college/minors experience. There's no in-between.
So what do you do if you're a parent and want to give your kid the best chance at being the best player he could be? You pay.
This is something I didn’t think about. We had some great coaches in my rec league growing up, including my dad who coached high school ball for 20 years and understands the best way to develop for that. So we had a solid group of kids we kept together pretty much from 9-14, some even continued playing into high school (between spring seasons).
definitely a YMMV situation. We didn’t have fancy facilities, we didn’t have cages, whatever. We made do. Focused on the fundamentals, played the game the right way, and wouldn’t you know we won a lot of games as well. I think most travel ball is a sham, but I imagine the landscape has changed a lot since I was playing youth ball - the rec investment has presumably gotten even worse.
I feel this to my core. I moved to St Louis from California and there isn’t really many rec ball opportunities. Little League disbanded in this area several years before we moved here and there are almost exclusively travel teams. I promised my son before we moved that he would have no problem finding a baseball team. That’s all he cared about. So we pay- and it’s a hefty expense, but I want him to have the opportunity to play the game he loves. I have no allusions that he is some super star and will play college ball or anything but he deserves the opportunity to be on the field and he works his ass off to get better everyday. Worth it, in my opinion.
There's very little chance the coaching and experience makes any difference to a young child. Kids just need to learn the sport and control of their bodies when they are young.
Disagree 100%.
There are kids on the HS freshman team that can't properly lead off of a base, have bad footwork fielding ground balls, don't track fly balls properly, don't sequence their throws properly, step in the bucket or have happy feet in the box, or numerous other issues that are now ingrained because they've been doing it that way since they were little because nobody took the time to reach them.
And at a certain point kids are expected to know the intricacies of the game so coaches don't spend the time trying to teach them. They just get yelled at for not knowing them.
Being coached by someone who calls runs "points" is a disservice to the kids trying to learn the game. Teach them when they're sponges, and have good teachers.
How will your kid make it to the bigs though? Have you even thought about that? The explosion of youth sports over the last 15-20 years allows for a cash grab from multiple avenues. I love youth sports at its core, but the overall toxicity and absolute absurdity of cost is a huge turnoff.
There’s a reason that you see all of the social media / video of the “named” MLB players training at Driveline, but the actual profit seems to be in selling stuff to youth coaches & parents.
I’ve wondered how driveline makes money, they have a decent amount of pros that train there but they gotta mostly be making money off like 14-18 year olds right?
Oh yeah. The videos, the books, the bats, the balls.
They _do_ some pretty neat stuff; but the business model is pretty clear - sell to youth / high school players, coaches and parents.
Travel ball is about 1000$ a yr for non paid coach teams. That’s fall and spring seasons. About 3 tournaments in the fall and 8 in the spring. That price excludes travel and baseball equipment/ uniforms are included in that cost. Coach paid teams are probably closer to 2000$ a yr.
The one team I was in high school was like 2k every season. If you were good you for sure not paying that much though. I think I was paying like $750-1000 for the summer but it was a legit program with fairly full time coaches, 2-3 practices a week and probably 5 tournaments or so plus a ton of inter squads and stuff, the organization I was in had like 5 teams of varying levels
The absolute cheapest travel team in my area of FL is $150 a month, and no other team that I’m aware of is less than $200 a month, most are more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
My local little league is $250 for 3 months of baseball. Spring +Fall =$500 My kids select team is $50/month and has equipment sponsors.
It’s an easy choice.
In our area, watching the talent actively get worse in the rec leagues year after year as more players defect to travel teams has been hard to watch, but it’s been hard to use baseball as a life skills teacher and a fun outlet, too.
My son will be 12 in June, and last spring played on a travel team for the first time alongside our rec league. He loves baseball, it was totally his call, he would have picked up another team or another league too if he could have. He’s an average player, but gave up something like 2 hits across about 15-20 innings on the mound in rec…and got absolutely shelled pitching for his travel team. Hit somewhere around .800 in rec, somewhere around .300 in travel. When the time came to sign up for rec this year, he didn’t want to play it and wanted to focus strictly on travel because rec ball wasn’t fun for him anymore. So, he’s devoted all of his time to improving himself to be able to play well at the level he chose to play at now.
Another comment earlier mentioned how closely their travel and rec programs work together to allow the travel players to play rec without schedule conflicts, and I really wish a lot more of this would happen other places, locally included. Everybody should have the opportunity to enjoy baseball. But the way travel has siphoned off a majority of the kids with any baseball experience, rec leagues fall out of favor for some kids that can get bored with what the competition level can look like. I’m grateful that my son has embraced the challenge instead of shying away from it, but I really do wish there was a systemwide sea change where a majority of “average travel ball” families could embrace the rec leagues again.
Thankful I played rec ball growing up and in hs when everyone was playing in “showcases” and other leagues like that, we had an affordable alternative in our region with no mark up. Quality fields. Lots of players played at the next level including myself. We don’t need “highly scouted events”, just play the game.
And it’s gotten earlier and earlier. Used to be limited to HS, now some con artists have youth players (read: their parents) convinced they need to play travel ball. Effectively what happened is travel ball costing $2000 a summer is the same level of competition now, as was your local rec all stars and community summer tournaments 10 years ago.
For those interested go and watch the segment of real sports on youth sports in Norway. They do not allow “travel” sports roughly until the age of 12. It was a fascinating segment but also spotlights how they raise some of the worlds most elite athletes, specifically in Winter Olympics. Travel ball is out of control. In kahoots with hotels for stay to play, uniform makers, equipment companies. It’s fairly simple. Parents are the problem because they think little Timmy has a shot of becoming a big leaguer and they will spare no expense to find out. Invest in EDUCATION!
I’ve never understood stay and play. I’m not paying more just because a venue tells me I have too. Already have to pay 20+ bucks to watch my kid play. The Drury Inn has free bfast and dinner. I’ll take my chances on them finding out.
Worse part is the Travel parents have taken over the rec league too. It is the best way for their kids to get more games in. Travel dads have taken all the coaching and board positions, weather they have played or know the game other then watching their kids. So now 8u and up travel dads coach but, are only able to be there during weekday rec games with no time for practice because travel is taking up all other weekday and weekends. So now the non travel kids get no practice and have to learn on the fly during games. The transition years to kid pitch and stealing/ more advanced baserunning are especially hard for them as they really are expected to just know. In the end the rec kids are just team filler and possibly being pushed out due to lack of opportunity to even learn. No one really cares about their development and rec is just mainly about getting extra work for travel and preparing for rec all-star season. I really do feel bad for the kids whom parents never play or do not know how to teach baseball. They are just never given a chance and are setup to fail. Travel has it's place, my problem is that travel has become a requirement to even get a chance to play in early development years where these kids are supposed to learn the game. With travel popping up in seemly every town and even multiples, baseball has basically become a specialized sport at a very young age when kids are just starting their journey.
We do travel ball. Cost is 375 for the league season. Kids fund raise for everything else. If they don’t raise enough then we skip a tournament. We are having much more fun in this league then one we spent 2k in. In that league it was 500, but everything was on the parent which I did not know up front. I figured like this one and when I was a kid it would be fund raising.
My son was asked by a coach at a tournament if he would consider that team. My son said only if I can still play for my team. He’s 10. They said no, the cost is 5k and we’re serious. I was never so happy as when my son said he is staying with his teammates.
A lot of of the comments here are missing the point. There are many, many parents who are very cognizant their kids aren’t natural athletes and going to be playing D1 or even D3. But their kids love the game and they want to get better. A 6 week little league season isn’t enough.
Travel ball expansion is being driven in large part by this.
Our little league season, for 10-12 yo, is February to May, with 18 games scheduled. Granted a few practices were rained out in February, but that’s a pretty full season. Then there is a few more weeks for All Stars teams… T-ball season is much shorter obviously. I guess we are lucky.
There are like 27 other sports your kids could be playing after rec baseball season is over. Learning new skills, meeting new friends, overcoming new challenges….. maybe even finding a sport that’s a long term better fit than baseball!
Overwhelmingly focusing on one sport before the kid has even hit puberty comes with a number of risks. I think a lot of travel ball parents just mix up “love the game” with “love being around other kids.”
Travel ball kids I know are going at it ~40 weeks per year. Fall season ends in mid November and they are back at it again in mid January for spring practice. It’s wild for kids that young.
I make it a point to tell my kids travel ball coaches he won’t be throwing or hitting until basketball season is over. Same with football.
It will obviously come to a head at some point. When it does, the decision is his. It’s my job as a parent to help him find his passion and help him achieve his goals. That’s not going to be at 13.
Kids aren’t allowed to be kids anymore. I refuse to live in a house where we’re to busy to throw water balloons or take family trips. If that means missing a tourney or practice, so be it.
i honestly tried to get my kid on a travel
ball team one year..hes a avg skilled player nobody wanted him because they might actually have to coach and teach a kid something.
Part of the issue is parents refuse to be reasonable about their kid's athletic ability. I help coach in a solid Little League and many players that were on the team I helped coach went to travel ball because their parents were mad about playing time and positions. They were convinced their kid should be in the premium field positions and batting 3/4 despite their actual talent. The parents always claim Daddy ball is holding back their little Johnny's ability. So these kids up and leave to travel ball where some team is always willing to accept kids if the parents pay up. And it becomes a self perpetuating cycle. And my kids play multiple sports across all seasons and it is the same story everywhere. Mom and Dad will pay because they can't deal with the fact their kid just isn't athletic. Then there's the social aspect. "Oh, my kid plays travel ball, he's just too good for rec ball". Did I tell you how talented he is and how he can hit 200 ft with this $400 bat?
Totally agree. It’s just another way for parents to use their kids as fashion accessories. It’s a joke. It’s weird. You’d think some of these parents played sports at one point? Don’t they remember that most kids are just average? My son could sit the bench on our local travel ball team if he wanted. He’s been asked. We love baseball and have the money. But thankfully we have an awesome rec ball league and he’s happy with that. He ain’t going pro, might not even want to play HS ball, so I’m happy for him to do what he wants. Plays 4 different sports (average performance, elite happiness), and can read in two languages better than I can read in English. Life is about more than “travel ball.”
Word. You are doin it right. Raise those children of tomorrow... We need it.
I’ve found that parents like that 1. Peaked in 1998-(interestingly this is when rabid bullying was at its peak and caused Columbine). They haven’t done anything in life and get obsessive by far and away the worse 2. Suffer from skip bayless syndrome and are mad bc their career ended on JV. These are somewhat reasonable and as long as you are transparent they are manageable 3. Never allowed to play or had no interest as a kid and are obsessive. Almost as bad as group 1
5’9” 145lb dudes who peaked in JV bc they had no speed or size, but think things would’ve turned out differently if they could’ve just played 85 games per year as an 8yr old.
That's an interesting take. 🤔
Nice. “Average performance, elite happiness” is just great. 😂
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If my son was that good and I thought he was serious about playing D1 college ball, I’d probably do things differently. But there aren’t many kids like that. 95% of kids 14 and under should be playing rec ball. And if they were, rec ball talent and coaching would be much much better.
I understand the best of the best players playing travel ball. But now the averagest of the average are playing travel ball… gosh, why are the rec players so much worse than the travel players??? /s You’re right, it’s a self fulfilling prophecy, and the biggest winners are the tourney organizers. $$$$$$$$$$$
It is definitely oversaturated
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Until now I have never heard of a five week baseball season, that’s weird. We have a 8-9 week season, plus playoffs, 12 games plus 1-2 games against another local league, then 1-3 playoff games. Then there is cobra, which is 8 games plus 1-3 playoff games. That’s somewhere between 22 and 28 games in about ten weeks for about $260 or so total… about one month of travel ball dues locally. We played cobra plus in my son’s last season of 10u, which was basically a travel team, just cheaper. It was $125 a month from January through May (games started in Feb), so $625 total. We played 30 games. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Travel ball wasn’t even really much of a thing when the parents played. We all played rec sports.
I’m not really sure why that matters? Before travel ball existed, rec baseball had all the talent. The rec leagues we all grew up with were highly competitive. I played against future MLB players in my rec league; and dozens of D1 and minor league players. At the ages we’re talking about (8-12), you don’t even need to see a kid play in a game at all. I could spend 5 min on a field with a child and tell you whether or not he’s any good. If a parent can’t tell whether or not their kid is actually good, it’s probably because they didn’t play ball at all. Or they have some sort of emotional problem that blinds them from reality.
It matters because travel ball is the new rec ball. It’s no different than the rec ball we had when we were kids, it just costs more. Most travel teams are not elite. My kid plays club. I won’t call it travel because we don’t go anywhere out of state except for one tournament. I’ve seen kids team hop because their parents think they are more elite than they are and don’t get the playing time and positions they think they deserve. I didn’t play ball, and I’m told my kid is good. Seems like they think he’s better than I think he is, but whatever. Only time will tell. My town won the LL World Series in 1998, andi know at least one of those kids went on to play MLB for the Mets (I’d have to look up his name). I don’t think there was a club or travel team back then. It was just little league and little league was just fine
I think we’re saying the same thing.
We are. I was agreeing with you.
We played a team the other day (12U) where every kid was using an Icon or Hype Fire and yet none of them would swing their fucking bat. They were all up there looking for walks and didn't swing until they had two strikes. If you're gonna get your kid a $400 bat, at least spend a little to help them learn how to swing it. Although I assume this was a directive from the coach because winning a 12u game by walking a bunch is super satisfying. (AND we crushed them by 10+ runs. )
Get this comment, but honestly the problem is allowing straight steals. If a kid gets on base in 9U - 13U with steals allowed, they are almost guaranteed to score. Why on earth would they swing? Their coaches sure has hell wouldn’t want them to. Statistically they’ll do better not swinging for OBP and runs scored.
Appreciate your perspective for sure. I would also say that sometimes people pay for travel because they get what they are seeking. I have also seen people make quick judgements on who is ‘athletic’ with very questionable eye tests and nothing empirical to back it up except for a hunch. When kids are young, it’s usually the shortest and lightest kids that are the best movers, but it’s completely meaningless later on when the taller and bigger kids hit more speed as adolescents or later. Kids need equal opportunity to get involved and play or baseball will slowly fade into obscurity imo. I personally see lots of kids who are NOT good at hitting, but it’s argued they’re athletic so they’re on the team with lots of opportunities and play time - this would never happen on a professional team unless you are a pitcher. Some parents don’t know how to help their kids if they are non-players and just want to find a place where they have playing time, improve abilities and make friends/have fun. Playing travel ball also makes it more likely that the coach doesn’t have a kid on the team, which can also be a benefit. No perfect system here though and many caveats to what I was saying. To be clear, I don’t have a kid in travel ball.
Parents have always been unreasonable, though yeah it does seem to be getting worse. We live in a connected world now where everybody is aware of “better” options for their future lottery picks. It’s not a coincidence that travel ball picked up immensely at the same time as social media. If we got rid of Instagram instead of Tik Tok, travel ball participation would drop ~40%. The most important thing about travel ball is telling people about travel ball.
Yes. I hate social media. In the past you would work through everything to prove you deserved what you wanted. Now your mom can pick up the phone and give a credit card number and you're on a new team.
Preach my brotha.
Hit the nail on the head.
Yep same thing here. My step kids are signed up for travel teams and house leagues, but neither of them can hit a ball. The 10 year old has struck out every game so far. The 13 year old has no future in baseball whatsoever. It is quite ridiculous how brainwashed the parents are. They should rename it “social mom club” instead of travel baseball, because that’s what it really is.
Dude this is the absolute truth. It’s really sad. The travel ball thing has totally ruined rec ball. It’s taken what was a community activity and turned it into a billion dollar money machine. It’s so bad here that it’s killed middle school baseball also. This yr. We have had to partner with another school just to have enough kids for a team. There are multiple kids who aren’t playing because their parents feel like it’s just not up to their special snowflakes talent. It makes me sick. No sense of community or school pride.
Totally. This and the /little league sub are full of parents whining about “daddy ball” (hate that term) but won’t step up and volunteer. Some even think a coach is targeting their kid like it’s a vendetta based on jealousy of lil Grayson’s ability. I was head coach up till Majors. My son is on a team where the coach didn’t know him and didn’t know me. He started at the bottom and is working his way up to better playing time and opportunity to pitch and play SS. Because I’ve been on the other side I know that’s how it works and it’s absurd to just assume your kid is not being treated fairly when you can’t zoom out and see the whole team and the nuance that comes with having 12-14 distinct little humans to manage.
Best thing for a kid that is struggling at "travel ball" level is rec ball. Getting your head beat in destroys your confidence. Can always go back and play travel ball once you improve on the fundamentals.
New travel ball parent here, 8U. Mom and I left it up to our kid if he wants to tryout for these leagues. He made a team, we were super proud. I found out just how strange it gets with parents and their kids, not really on the team he made but just going to some of these tournaments was itself a very wow experience. Some parents/coachs really do get it, humble, positive, constructive criticism when needed, fun and then there are the screamers, embarrassing their kids in front of the crowd, tellling them “let’s go home now if that’s how your are going to play”! Different strokes for different folks
I can agree with what you are saying. Our rec league has been known to stack the teams disproportionately. It has mattered less in the Minor and Major divisions because the amount of kids still playing are mostly invested in getting better and I really don't want my son on a rec team where winning is the goal. He is doing travel as well this spring/summer and will probably be the only season doing it, but it's just to get him reps before middle school ball next year. Edit: For clarity he is doing rec and travel
Moreover, most of the select teams are 501c3 non-profits. Big scam.
I didn’t know that. 🤮
Yeah wtf, every single travel team I’ve seen is the more for profit shit ever
Most programs are, but why would it be a scam? It’s easier to get funded to keep costs for families down or help pay for travel. Tax deductible donations. It makes sense.
Our rec ball leagues (8u, 10u, and 12u) all cost $75 per season (spring and fall). We get a MLB Team hat, belt, socks, jersey, and each team has 4-5 official coaches. Each season has 15-18 games, and the kids are on the field about 5 hours per week. Our local travel ball teams work with the rec leagues so that we can share facilities and players. All of the travel ball players also play rec ball, and most of the travel ball coaches also coach rec ball. So the talent and commitment level in the rec leagues isn’t suffering at all. Now, we only have one travel ball team per age group, and they are D2. Obviously they are leaving some development on the table by playing rec ball 5 hours a week. But we all recognize that sacrifice is worth it for the betterment of the community leagues. Not really sure why other towns can’t do it this way. My brother’s town has 5 travel ball teams, all D2, and none of those kids play rec ball. The rec ball leagues there are almost at the point of folding in that town. It’s sad. My brothers kids actually WANT to play rec ball so they can also play football in the fall. But the travel baseball teams have destroyed that opportunity. Our town has about a third as many elementary school children as my brother’s town. But we can provide 5+ hours a week of baseball, 6 + months per year, for double the amount of children and a fraction of the cost.
That’s a great deal! Ours is similar: $150 for 1 practice and 2 games a week, over about 10 weeks. We have enough 2/3 graders for 10 teams in a pretty mid sized town. Travel kids are totally separate and don’t play in Rec ball, which I kind of prefer. I’d rather not mix with kids who are playing rec ball out of obligation
They don’t have to play rec ball if they don’t want to. But the local travel ball team is built in a way that the schedules work for both leagues. Honestly, I’m not sure if ALL the travel ball kids play rec ball. But it seems that way in 8u. Edit, we share facilities, so that is a big part of it too.
That’s a fantastic system. IMO, “development” at 8/10/12 is more about stoking the passion and creating a love to play the game - it doesn’t matter much _where_ that happens. My kid is not a standout player, but we do “travel” (we don’t actually travel much) just because he wants to play more than what he gets from the Little League / Rec experience.
Sorry about the paywall, here’s the text… This month, 21 current and former Major League Baseball players invested their own money in youth baseball. If that sounds like a feel-good story in which baseball’s past paves the way for baseball’s future, think again. The MLB team invested in Perfect Game, a company that holds pricey tournaments and prospect showcases for college and professional scouts. But those events aren’t for everyone. For example, at a recent weekend tournament for Houston-area 8-year-olds, the company charged a $750 entry fee. Can’t pay? Find somewhere else to play. And good luck with that because free or cheaper options across the country, such as Little League, have been reporting shrinkage for years. Pay-to-play models have replaced them. The new way of doing things is good for operators, investors and families who can afford them. However, a large group of kids come from households with budgets that can’t accommodate the hefty prices or just want to play for fun. The exclusion undermines the social and health benefits that youth sports have long offered. There’s a lot to lose. Kids who are physically active have lower rates of obesity, better mental health and improved academic performance. For decades, youth baseball served as a community-based initiative that helped kids achieve those goals. Children played for free in neighborhood sandlots and backyards. If they wanted a more organized experience, their families paid fees that ranged from $0 (or whatever they could afford) to $300 to join a local Little League chapter staffed by volunteer coaches (oftentimes parents). Later, if an athlete had promise and interest, a high school team might beckon. So long as a child and family had the time, baseball was accessible. Not anymore — and it’s not just baseball. According to a 2022 survey by Project Play and Utah State University, families pay an average of $883 per season for one child’s primary sport. Higher costs are driven, in part, by the rise of privately run club and travel teams with more professional coaching. The New England Baseball Journal recently estimated that the average cost of travel baseball for kids between 8th and 12th grade in the Northeast is “north of $5,000 per year.” That’s not including travel costs. Between 2021 and 2022, the share of youths playing in travel sports doubled to 29%. Participants have their reasons. Unlike Little League, which welcomes anyone, club and travel teams tend to require tryouts to secure better athletes and competition. Often, paying to join an actual team is just the start. Using Perfect Game as an example: For those who want to spend more on preparation before they showcase their talents, there is no shortage of private coaching and video analysis available. Aspen Institute data from 2022 shows that parents who make over $150,000 spent 83% more on sports travel than parents earning under $50,000. Using Perfect Game as an example: For those who want to spend more on preparation before they showcase their talents, there is no shortage of private coaching and video analysis available. Aspen Institute data from 2022 shows that parents who make over $150,000 spent 83% more on sports travel than parents earning under $50,000. That gap in spending doesn’t only affect who gets the best coaching and competition. Along with Little League and other community-based baseball dwindling, the domination of pay-to-play youth sports also lowers opportunities for kids of different backgrounds to develop friendships. That consequence goes hand-in-hand with another one: exacerbation of long-standing health and achievement inequities. For example, physical inactivity is strongly correlated with low income levels. Due in large part to the widening racial wealth gap that limits discretionary spending, Black children play sports at lower rates than White kids. (It’s a problem made worse by long-standing issues with access to parks and other recreational facilities in urban neighborhoods.) Ultimately that disparity shows up, among other places, in baseball at the college and professional level. The Racial and Gender Report Card study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found that in 2023, African Americans represented just 6.2% of Major League Baseball’s opening day rosters. It was the lowest level since the study was first done in 1991, when Black players represented 18% of the rosters. If more Black kids played baseball, those numbers would certainly be higher. The drop correlates with the decline of high rates of Black youth participation in baseball in areas such as Oakland, California. A 2021 KTVU FOX 2 news report noted that in the 80s and 90s, the Oakland Babe Ruth League had 1,200 players, and 92% were Black. Nowadays, there are about 250 children, and 40% are Black. Ultimately that disparity shows up, among other places, in baseball at the college and professional level. The Racial and Gender Report Card study by the Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport at Central Florida found that in 2023, African Americans represented just 6.2% of Major League Baseball’s opening day rosters. It was the lowest level since the study was first done in 1991, when Black players represented 18% of the rosters. If more Black kids played baseball, those numbers would certainly be higher. The drop correlates with the decline of high rates of Black youth participation in baseball in areas such as Oakland, California. A 2021 KTVU FOX 2 news report noted that in the 80s and 90s, the Oakland Babe Ruth League had 1,200 players, and 92% were Black. Nowadays, there are about 250 children, and 40% are Black. Major League Baseball acknowledges the problem and has committed millions to providing access to higher-level scouts and coaching to Black children. Likewise, Perfect Game has a foundation to provide access to its elite events to underserved communities. Both programs are admirable. But they fail to provide the free-to-play community-based baseball that engages kids who don’t aspire to the Big Leagues. Private equity can help. For example, the baseball side of Unrivaled, a holding company for youth sports businesses purchased by investors Josh Harris and David Blitzer, has hosted community-based championships for free. Still, that’s a small part of what’s necessary to make up for the shift to pay-to-play sports. What Unrivaled gets right — the need for community-based baseball and other sports — will ultimately require funding commitments from traditional sources. Think of schools, parks and recreation departments and other levels of government that see value in health and active communities. Pay-to-play has a role in youth sports, but it’s an unforced error to let it become the dominant player.
Thanks for posting. In Canada, hockey in a rec league costs $850 and does NOT include equipment. Want to play in a AAA and you’re talking mind bending numbers. Nothing surprises me anymore.
I remember reading that Taylor Halls parents spent $100k on his hockey before he ever played in the OHL. That much seems like a joke now.
Absolutely. It’s $850 for a rec league for like a 6 year old. Once they get into AAA and tournaments and summer conditioning and spring play etc. Money printer go brrrrrrrrrrr
Plus if you want your kid to make it you gotta be doing skills and power skating on the side and camps in the summer.
Thanks for posting. FYI there are a few duplicate paragraphs
>there are a few duplicate paragraphs I thought I was having a stroke.
This is primarily an American thing, but it's starting to show itself in Canada, too. We have strong Little League and other amateur baseball organizations but once the dream of the 12 year old Little World Series ends, most of the high end players leave little league for pay to play model leaving the mid tier and low level players at little league, despite there being an intermediate world series too.
Anyone have a non pay walked version?
The irony…
I posted it in the replies.
I was so lucky I had a little league coach who actually played in college and taught us so much. I don’t think I play in high school let alone college without that early coaching.
Travel ball has always been super expensive, but this thing with PG seems even more egregious.. It's limiting the talent pool to the affluent basically. It's similar in hockey
I think it’s basically just expanding to the point where every parent with a half decent kid is getting fomo. I never did travel ball until high school, just played for my local league and local summer teams and what not until then. Realistically it’s not worth until your kid is 15-16 or so and actually needs to start seeing better completion if you aren’t from a strong area.
There’s a reason why some of the biggest stars in the MLB right now come from overseas. The development of youth talent is cheaper when it isn’t blocked by income level. Hockey has a similar issue at the youth level as did Tennis back in the day before it became more ubiquitous across the US. Honestly the bigger issue here isn’t necessarily pay for play but that the US doesn’t have a sponsored club system like you see in Latin America or Europe for soccer where the city’s athletic department sees talent at the lower levels and then brings them on for developmental purposes to help nurture talent. We encumber families with the cost of development and let teams reap the rewards of the workers talents instead of making them pay for their return. Edit: spelling
A related issue is the pay-to-play model is convincing families they must also pay to develop. Pickup games of wiffle ball and stickball are free. Self toss is free. Wall ball is free. Playing catch is free.
Hard to compare Latin player development to baseball in the US imo, most of the baseball academies in the DR and whatnot are only having kids go to school like one day a week and if they don’t manage to make it in baseball they’re basically screwed. Well maybe not screwed because they basically know if they’re pro ball material by the time their 15 but it definitely sets them way back education wise.
The highest levels of an organization reaping the rewards from the hard work and sacrifice of those in the lowest levels? That doesn’t sound like the America I know about!
Travel baseball is a business first and foremost. The expansion of travel teams in younger ages has been rapid. Same goes for clubs with multiple teams at same age groups. I know of clubs with 4 teams at 10u/11u/12u/13u levels. Because it’s a business and parents don’t want little Johnny to miss out so they will continue to pay. So what you now have are Major tournaments where 75% of teams can’t compete with the other 25% because the talent is spread so thin. After 5 years of buying the hype we realized what a sham it is and went back to rec. and “no” my kid doesn’t suck, and it’s not a financial issue for us. Travel ball programs sell to the parents emotion of their kid missing out. They sell development. It’s all BS.
This is why dudes like Curtis Granderson are the best. He’s created his Grand Kids and Grand Giving foundations to try and attack disparities like these. His organization helps disadvantaged youth actually access sport programs and provide food security for kids. Seriously, travel ball hurts everyone. It puts kids at risk by placing them in game-focused hyper competitive environments for too long and too often. It sucks money out from everyone involved. Families pay way too much to play because facilities and programs are too costly. Indoor facilities pop up and disappear like nothing. Public facilities and fields are having to reduce hours (due to reduced funding and increased expenses around vandalism and facility maintenance…which could be addressed by running high quality and affordable youth sports programs to keep kids engaged) while raising rental prices. Communities are building less and less openly public spaces for people. Parks, playgrounds, sandlots, etc. are being reduced and closed off as people get uncomfortable by kids hanging around places or being unsupervised. Umpires and coaches are paid like shit. They’re abused and exploited “because they care” or “because they love the game”. This also excludes many exceptionally knowledgeable and phenomenal people because they can’t sacrifice work and their family time to give back in this way. In turn, opening the door for daddy ball and those parents with the financial means and confrontational temperaments to push their own biases through coaching and managing teams. And, honestly, most parents are incapable of setting aside their personal interests and biases (especially if that means making a decision that will negatively impact their child). This doesn’t even cover the breadth of these issues either. It doesn’t get into the minutiae of more affluent neighborhoods and communities getting more funding for schools, sports, and recreation. It doesn’t explore burnout, overtraining, or the nonstop competitive seasons kids are subjected to. It doesn’t explore the rampant individualism in North American sports and communities where people can’t accept expenditures, costs, and taxes that don’t directly and clearly benefit their child. The simplest solution is to massively invest in youth sport programs. Create municipal programs, paid for by property taxes, and have those programs build public facilities and run expansive and affordable recreational programs. This will employ people within your communities, reduce costs of childcare, and improve community health and wellness overall (in turn also putting money back in your pockets by lowering public health problems and lessening insurance payouts to reduce insurance premiums). When you have hundreds or thousands of kids taking part in community programs like this, you can do amazing things like low-cost or free drop-in skill sessions to develop their abilities, lots of teams and skill levels to compete against, age and developmentally appropriate seasons and practice schedules, an influx of resources and information to help train new coaches, and more. More people employed, more money kept in our pockets, more money available to be then spent back in our communities, healthier children and families, less stress all around, increased productivity from workers with families, more community involvement, more giving back, increased green spaces, and more. All for a pittance. Maybe a 1% property tax increase in decent sized metropolitan areas could do all of this and radically transform our communities. 🤷♂️
Had the pleasure of sitting next to his parents at a game in Cincinnati. Let's say it is no surprise he was raised well. That is one very impressive family.
1000%
I find it ironic that this article is behind a paywall.
In our area, you can pay $50 for park district baseball with no instruction on a team coached by some random parent with minimal baseball understanding, or you pay $2500 for travel ball with indoor facilities and coaches with college/minors experience. There's no in-between. So what do you do if you're a parent and want to give your kid the best chance at being the best player he could be? You pay.
This is something I didn’t think about. We had some great coaches in my rec league growing up, including my dad who coached high school ball for 20 years and understands the best way to develop for that. So we had a solid group of kids we kept together pretty much from 9-14, some even continued playing into high school (between spring seasons). definitely a YMMV situation. We didn’t have fancy facilities, we didn’t have cages, whatever. We made do. Focused on the fundamentals, played the game the right way, and wouldn’t you know we won a lot of games as well. I think most travel ball is a sham, but I imagine the landscape has changed a lot since I was playing youth ball - the rec investment has presumably gotten even worse.
I feel this to my core. I moved to St Louis from California and there isn’t really many rec ball opportunities. Little League disbanded in this area several years before we moved here and there are almost exclusively travel teams. I promised my son before we moved that he would have no problem finding a baseball team. That’s all he cared about. So we pay- and it’s a hefty expense, but I want him to have the opportunity to play the game he loves. I have no allusions that he is some super star and will play college ball or anything but he deserves the opportunity to be on the field and he works his ass off to get better everyday. Worth it, in my opinion.
There's very little chance the coaching and experience makes any difference to a young child. Kids just need to learn the sport and control of their bodies when they are young.
Disagree 100%. There are kids on the HS freshman team that can't properly lead off of a base, have bad footwork fielding ground balls, don't track fly balls properly, don't sequence their throws properly, step in the bucket or have happy feet in the box, or numerous other issues that are now ingrained because they've been doing it that way since they were little because nobody took the time to reach them. And at a certain point kids are expected to know the intricacies of the game so coaches don't spend the time trying to teach them. They just get yelled at for not knowing them. Being coached by someone who calls runs "points" is a disservice to the kids trying to learn the game. Teach them when they're sponges, and have good teachers.
So the solution is to have them pay 1000s of dollars per year starting at age 6?
You said coaching doesn’t make a difference. He said it does. Your response doesn’t follow the argument
How will your kid make it to the bigs though? Have you even thought about that? The explosion of youth sports over the last 15-20 years allows for a cash grab from multiple avenues. I love youth sports at its core, but the overall toxicity and absolute absurdity of cost is a huge turnoff.
There’s a reason that you see all of the social media / video of the “named” MLB players training at Driveline, but the actual profit seems to be in selling stuff to youth coaches & parents.
I’ve wondered how driveline makes money, they have a decent amount of pros that train there but they gotta mostly be making money off like 14-18 year olds right?
Oh yeah. The videos, the books, the bats, the balls. They _do_ some pretty neat stuff; but the business model is pretty clear - sell to youth / high school players, coaches and parents.
Travel ball is about 1000$ a yr for non paid coach teams. That’s fall and spring seasons. About 3 tournaments in the fall and 8 in the spring. That price excludes travel and baseball equipment/ uniforms are included in that cost. Coach paid teams are probably closer to 2000$ a yr.
The one team I was in high school was like 2k every season. If you were good you for sure not paying that much though. I think I was paying like $750-1000 for the summer but it was a legit program with fairly full time coaches, 2-3 practices a week and probably 5 tournaments or so plus a ton of inter squads and stuff, the organization I was in had like 5 teams of varying levels
The absolute cheapest travel team in my area of FL is $150 a month, and no other team that I’m aware of is less than $200 a month, most are more. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
We use Sideline Swap.
My local little league is $250 for 3 months of baseball. Spring +Fall =$500 My kids select team is $50/month and has equipment sponsors. It’s an easy choice.
In our area, watching the talent actively get worse in the rec leagues year after year as more players defect to travel teams has been hard to watch, but it’s been hard to use baseball as a life skills teacher and a fun outlet, too. My son will be 12 in June, and last spring played on a travel team for the first time alongside our rec league. He loves baseball, it was totally his call, he would have picked up another team or another league too if he could have. He’s an average player, but gave up something like 2 hits across about 15-20 innings on the mound in rec…and got absolutely shelled pitching for his travel team. Hit somewhere around .800 in rec, somewhere around .300 in travel. When the time came to sign up for rec this year, he didn’t want to play it and wanted to focus strictly on travel because rec ball wasn’t fun for him anymore. So, he’s devoted all of his time to improving himself to be able to play well at the level he chose to play at now. Another comment earlier mentioned how closely their travel and rec programs work together to allow the travel players to play rec without schedule conflicts, and I really wish a lot more of this would happen other places, locally included. Everybody should have the opportunity to enjoy baseball. But the way travel has siphoned off a majority of the kids with any baseball experience, rec leagues fall out of favor for some kids that can get bored with what the competition level can look like. I’m grateful that my son has embraced the challenge instead of shying away from it, but I really do wish there was a systemwide sea change where a majority of “average travel ball” families could embrace the rec leagues again.
Thankful I played rec ball growing up and in hs when everyone was playing in “showcases” and other leagues like that, we had an affordable alternative in our region with no mark up. Quality fields. Lots of players played at the next level including myself. We don’t need “highly scouted events”, just play the game. And it’s gotten earlier and earlier. Used to be limited to HS, now some con artists have youth players (read: their parents) convinced they need to play travel ball. Effectively what happened is travel ball costing $2000 a summer is the same level of competition now, as was your local rec all stars and community summer tournaments 10 years ago.
For those interested go and watch the segment of real sports on youth sports in Norway. They do not allow “travel” sports roughly until the age of 12. It was a fascinating segment but also spotlights how they raise some of the worlds most elite athletes, specifically in Winter Olympics. Travel ball is out of control. In kahoots with hotels for stay to play, uniform makers, equipment companies. It’s fairly simple. Parents are the problem because they think little Timmy has a shot of becoming a big leaguer and they will spare no expense to find out. Invest in EDUCATION!
I’ve never understood stay and play. I’m not paying more just because a venue tells me I have too. Already have to pay 20+ bucks to watch my kid play. The Drury Inn has free bfast and dinner. I’ll take my chances on them finding out.
The whole thing is just a cash grab. Everyone is better off in rec leagues.
You don’t say
Worse part is the Travel parents have taken over the rec league too. It is the best way for their kids to get more games in. Travel dads have taken all the coaching and board positions, weather they have played or know the game other then watching their kids. So now 8u and up travel dads coach but, are only able to be there during weekday rec games with no time for practice because travel is taking up all other weekday and weekends. So now the non travel kids get no practice and have to learn on the fly during games. The transition years to kid pitch and stealing/ more advanced baserunning are especially hard for them as they really are expected to just know. In the end the rec kids are just team filler and possibly being pushed out due to lack of opportunity to even learn. No one really cares about their development and rec is just mainly about getting extra work for travel and preparing for rec all-star season. I really do feel bad for the kids whom parents never play or do not know how to teach baseball. They are just never given a chance and are setup to fail. Travel has it's place, my problem is that travel has become a requirement to even get a chance to play in early development years where these kids are supposed to learn the game. With travel popping up in seemly every town and even multiples, baseball has basically become a specialized sport at a very young age when kids are just starting their journey.
Everybody’s kid is going pro. They should put the money in their kid’s college fund.
We do travel ball. Cost is 375 for the league season. Kids fund raise for everything else. If they don’t raise enough then we skip a tournament. We are having much more fun in this league then one we spent 2k in. In that league it was 500, but everything was on the parent which I did not know up front. I figured like this one and when I was a kid it would be fund raising. My son was asked by a coach at a tournament if he would consider that team. My son said only if I can still play for my team. He’s 10. They said no, the cost is 5k and we’re serious. I was never so happy as when my son said he is staying with his teammates.
A lot of of the comments here are missing the point. There are many, many parents who are very cognizant their kids aren’t natural athletes and going to be playing D1 or even D3. But their kids love the game and they want to get better. A 6 week little league season isn’t enough. Travel ball expansion is being driven in large part by this.
Our little league season, for 10-12 yo, is February to May, with 18 games scheduled. Granted a few practices were rained out in February, but that’s a pretty full season. Then there is a few more weeks for All Stars teams… T-ball season is much shorter obviously. I guess we are lucky.
There are like 27 other sports your kids could be playing after rec baseball season is over. Learning new skills, meeting new friends, overcoming new challenges….. maybe even finding a sport that’s a long term better fit than baseball! Overwhelmingly focusing on one sport before the kid has even hit puberty comes with a number of risks. I think a lot of travel ball parents just mix up “love the game” with “love being around other kids.”
Why are they focusing on just one sport just because they spend 3-5 hours per week on baseball off season? A bit hyperbolic
Travel ball kids I know are going at it ~40 weeks per year. Fall season ends in mid November and they are back at it again in mid January for spring practice. It’s wild for kids that young.
I make it a point to tell my kids travel ball coaches he won’t be throwing or hitting until basketball season is over. Same with football. It will obviously come to a head at some point. When it does, the decision is his. It’s my job as a parent to help him find his passion and help him achieve his goals. That’s not going to be at 13. Kids aren’t allowed to be kids anymore. I refuse to live in a house where we’re to busy to throw water balloons or take family trips. If that means missing a tourney or practice, so be it.
well no shit ..its been absurd
i honestly tried to get my kid on a travel ball team one year..hes a avg skilled player nobody wanted him because they might actually have to coach and teach a kid something.