Considering the costs of youth sports

There is no copy and paste solution for social differences.

It has been a while since I coached in or attended an AAU tournament. However, people bemoan the expense weekly on social media, despite club directors, coaches, and parents showing no trepidation to continue playing in the tournaments. In the early ’00s, I argued parent’s purchasing power was the key to changing and improving youth basketball, and nothing has changed. Organizers will line up to host expensive tournaments as long as parents pay for them rather than embracing more cost-effective, developmentally-oriented alternatives such as Playmakers Leagues.

A recent tweet criticized players for not playing hard and described the costs of a weekend tournament:

$300 for team fees

$800 for hotels and food per weekend

$100 weekend pass to watch games

$100 in gas

$200 shoes and jersey

I cannot vouch for the accuracy, but the accuracy and actual costs are beside the point. People constantly argue for the United States to be more like Europe, without supporting these arguments with exact ideas and plans, but the overall society, structure, and systems are too different too compare. The United States cannot copy and paste a European system because socio-cultural constraints shape behavior in complexifying ways, as soccer coach and researcher Mark O’Sullivan wrote.

Each player paid roughly 100 Euros for the weekend when my Estonian youth team traveled. This covered all meals, transportation, the hotel, five games, and coaching expenses. We traveled from Estonia to Riga, Latvia, roughly three hours by bus, and Klaipėda and Vilnius in Lithuania, 10-hour trips. Rarely did parents travel, but when they did, inside or outside of Estonia, there was no admission fee.

Our van was a 16-passenger minibus for 12 players and one coach. Nobody complained about the lack of space compared to a school or charter bus used in the States. Players played their video games, watched movies, or slept. We stopped once or twice, usually just at a gas station, as European gas stations offer slightly better food alternatives than USA gas stations. Even my pro team in Czech stopped at gas stations for pre and post-game meals for our two to three-hour drives.

The bus drove to Riga on Thursday, left us at the hotel, and returned on Sunday to pick up the team at the gym after our last game. We walked from the hotel to our meals and the gym. We played in February with a few feet of snow on the ground. Walking to the games was normal. We stayed roughly a mile from the gym on one trip and slightly closer on the other.

We ate our meals at a cafe next to the gym. Every team had a scheduled meal time, as the cafe barely fit our entire team at once. There was a set menu. There was soup followed by a main course. Every player on every team ate the same meal. No allergies, no gluten free, no vegetarians. Food was served and players ate. We ate three meals per day.

Local hotels in European cities tend to be less expensive than American brand hotels because they lack the amenities. They are a small room in which to sleep with even smaller private bathrooms. No HBO. No pools. Single beds. Players stayed two, three, or four to a room, depending on what the hotel offered and had available. The lack of frills, however, cuts costs.

We drove Thursday after school, played two games on Friday, two on Saturday, and one on Sunday before driving home. Each team played a morning game and an afternoon game. A 10:00 AM game meant breakfast at 7:30 AM; we met at 7:00 to walk to the cafe. Rather than walk back to the hotel, players usually preferred to go directly to the gym and watch other games. The 10:00 AM game ended by 11:15 AM, which meant a 12:00 PM lunch. Players showered, then we walked to the cafe as a team. After lunch, around 12:30, we walked back to the hotel. Players had an hour or two until it was time to meet to walk back to the gym for the afternoon game, followed by dinner, and the walk back to the hotel. There was not much down time to fill; mostly, guys played video games on their phones between games.

At night, several walked to a nearby store for candy. No chaperone needed. No concern they would get in or cause trouble. The hotel was located downtown in a city center, so there were plenty of stores and restaurants nearby.

These differences are largely culture and beyond basketball. We want youth basketball to be less expensive, but these are some reasons basketball is less expensive. Teams drive buses rather than fly. Teams eat at small cafes with pre-set meals rather than going to various chain restaurants or catering meals. Parents rarely attend games despite free admission. Gyms are affiliated with competing clubs and are charged at the normal rate, whatever the university or local government charges the sports club to use the facilities.

In Klaipeda, our tournament was in a professional team’s practice gym. There was one row of metal chairs opposite the benches for fans, parents, and others attending the games. Nobody rents out convention centers or football stadiums to put down dozens of new courts. The purpose is the competition, not to put on a show for parents or college coaches.

Example of an U20 EYBL game (We’re in white vs a very good Finnish team in blue) we hosted.

AAU grew largely as a way to showcase players to college coaches. Consequently, it developed as a business to serve the college coaches and other scouts, not the players and parents. Youth (pre-high school) tournaments should differ, as there are no college coaches to serve, but these events tend to mimic the high-school events rather than attempting to provide the best possible service for the players and parents.

Our players did not spend a lot of money because costs were relatively low, but everyone made some money. The restaurant was paid, the hotel was paid, the organizer was paid, the referees were paid. One difference was the operators did not try to make their entire annual income through a single event. Like most youth coaches, they had other jobs and operated the tournament as a side business or hobby.

When our club hosted, the youth director planned and directed the event as part of his full-time job with the club. He was not paid extra, nor did he receive a bonus if the event increased revenue. The goal was to provide a good event for all the clubs, not to maximize profit or fund our club by hosting events. The events rotated amongst participating clubs because, while it was nice to host and have home-court advantage, it was extra work to organize the event, the meals, the hotels, and more, not to mention re-scheduling the normal weekend activities in the gym. The events were for the players, not for the revenue or the exposure (although most games were streamed on youtube for free).

We do not need to play tournaments in NFL stadiums or convention centers. We do not need to center the college coaches who spend tens of thousands of dollars attending various showcase tournaments. We can use local recreation centers and high schools. We can cut costs and work with the other clubs to rotate hosting rather than embarking on entrepreneurial dreams to create entire careers out of running youth tournaments.

But, ultimately these decisions are driven by the parents who pay for the tournaments one way or another. When parents decide they do not need to travel or play in the newest, fanciest gyms or play in weekly tournaments, changes will occur. Currently, people just want to complain about costs, but not change their behaviors. Flying across the country, staying in large name-brand hotels, and eating at fast casual restaurants is expensive. We can change some behaviors to reduce costs, but we lack the simple hotels, pre-fixed meals, simple facility rates, club cooperation, and more that keep costs down throughout most of Europe. The cost of youth sports is problematic, but much is a by-product of our society and culture, not unique to sports.