https://www.yahoo.com/sports/articles/parents-decry-5-000-costs-195506427.html
This is a problem with baseball and softball too. Not sure about other sports, wrestling has been able to avoid it for the most part.
When my daughter played volleyball in the early 2010’s, the cost for being on a “competitive” team were between $1200 and $1500 in membership dues. We would usually play 3 national qualifiers…the cities we traveled to were any of these cities - Dallas, Minneapolis, Denver, Omaha, or Indianapolis. We tried to stay in the midwest to allow us to drive rather than fly. But there was the cost of lodging and food on the road. If you qualified for nationals, which we did twice, we traveled to Miami and Atlanta, so you had to add in airfare along with the lodging and food. So it could get pretty pricey. But those were some of the most memorable times of our lives.
There are some costs associated with youth sports and a lot of that can be offset with fundraising.
But I do know that soccer, baseball, and volleyball have gotten completely out of control.
Not sure if volleyball has blown up since your kid was competing.
We used to “volunteer” at Arrowhead and Kaufman to help offset some of the cost for our kids and we never got into the super competitive baseball and soccer programs ( I am so thankful that my son quit baseball at 12)
Oh, it’s blowing up still…it was blowing up then. One of our qualifiers was the Show Me Qualifier - Imagine 70 volleyball courts set up in Bartle Hall with games going on with most of them. And KC was one of the smaller venues.
We were riding downtown one Sunday last April. We were stopped at a light on 12th St by the Marriott and there were a lot of tall younger girls walking. I asked one of the girls it they were playing volleyball. Yep.
When my kid played, one of the families had a bus RV that they used to go to the tournaments. They looked like rock stars when it rolled up and they got out
Most club/travel youth sports are expensive, but there are cheap alternatives like park district leagues. My neighbor’s daughters are in softball and gymnastics, they probably pay over $10,000 a year for dues and travel, but they have the money and it’s important to them. Unlike a lot of parents with kids in sports clubs, they know their kids aren’t going to go pro or get a D1 scholarship, but it’s a great character builder. My kid played USTA tennis, with that you’re pretty much 100% on your own, you find tournaments and pay the entry fee.
I imagine football is far more expensive. There are camps everywhere, costly ones. Look at the NFL QBs; a lot went to these camps as kids. It gives them a big advantage, but poor kids can’t afford them.
I would actually love to watch that.
But as a dude in his mid 50’s I would look like a creepy old guy.
But I think volleyball is an awesome sport to watch.
To be honest, it isn’t.
I am not really sure why, but for some reason it is one sport that a poor kid can get involved in and make it.