Humor in HS Baseball

I have a sneaking suspicion and after talking to a few well informed folks, that Pay To Play in HS Sports is just around the corner.

Football and basketball will remain "open" sports (school sponsored and underwritten and the 2 theoritical revenue earners because of attendance/gate). All other sports will have an "activity fee" plus "booster club" fees.

For Example: Soccer would carry an activity fee of $200 per player, plus active parents would create a Soccer Booster club outside of the regular Athletic Booster Club to assist in subsidizing costs for their chosen sport. (note: I am just pulling these numbers out of the air. my guess would be the actual cost will be much higher) The school will provide the field and minimal up keep - with unis, eqpt, improvements, travel expense, and all other operational aspects expense falling on the team/parents/boosters.

This does fall in line with a topic that was discussed a short while back about Showcase/Travel options taking over high school sports.

The concept reminds me of Club Sports in College.

Maybe we will be lucky and it won't happen in our lifetimes...

As school monies get tighter, get ready... I can hear the axe getting sharpened as I type this....

 

Several things

Rebel13 - what school is charging $400 for a family pass?? Most I know in northern Wake County charge between $150 and $200 for a family pass (Millbrook is $165). If your family attends most events in fall, winter and spring, you will likely attend over 10 events so you come out ahead.

Not sure how booster clubs operate outside of Wake, but here family pass money goes directly to the booster club while money collected at the gate goes to the school system (and who knows where from there). As far as the student parking pass, that has nothing to do with attending games.

Not sure how it is in other counties, but Wake County School system typically gives a high school around $1000 start up money at the beginning of the school year for all athletics (when school board threatens to delete some of the athletic funding I laugh). Consider that you have to buy uniforms, equipment, balls, activity busses (school system gives you one activity bus when you are a new school and the rest is up to the booster club), security and staff at events and last but definitely not least those umpires and referees. Our booster club also uses some of the money it raises to pay for assistant coaches. You add that up and you typically come up with a $180,000 to $200,000 budget that must be funded from something.

I assume that attendance is referring to baseball games. For football and basketball, attendance from our school and others nearby is good both home and away (they even tailgate before home and away football). This is both students and families of parents with kids not playing.

As far as baseball is concerned I find this frustration ironic. We now advocate baseball players to particpate in travel ball at a young age so they no longer are in the community. For teams that are in a community league, you can go to league games (North Wake or West Raleigh) and see some "old timers" come by to check up on things. We also advocate showcase (or elite travel what ever is the lastest thing) in lieu of legion baseball and further take baseball out of the community. Do any of you remember going through towns in the summer and seeing signs "Legion Ball Tonight" which brought the community out to the team. We have taken youth and most summer baseball out of the community and now you complain that the community does not come out for high school ?? How much of a community comes out for travel and showcase ??

Don't take this as a slam against travel or showcase (My kids have participated in both and I support both). Just believe the lack of interest from those outside of participants will continue since we have taken the game away from community events and community participation to promote "self".

 

I'm

adding in the rest of family, our family price is for a family of four.

 

We've got a deal for you

Rebel

Come on over to Millbrook - our family pass at $165 covers all members of the family. We can use some additional Wildcats.

 

I forgot we are not in Charlotte

Can't simply transfer- just kidding Braves

 

Temporarily Shifting Schools

 

I too never have understood why they make students pay the same amount to enter a game as adults. Getting the community involved is what makes high school great. In charlotte, with the advent of magnet schools, popularity and growth in private schools you might have kids in the same neighborhood or adjacent neighborhoods attending different schools. Neighborhood schools in most of charlotte is just a assumption.

 

at Northwood...

... in Chatham Co., our new AD started a new season pass program that gives students a break. For students, at the school, the cost for a season pass to all athletic events is just $30. For anyone else it's $60. It will be interesting to see how the attendance at "non-revenue" sports is influenced by this, should be positive!

 

Get your booster club to help out

We have a similar arrangement at Millbrook that Gman mentions. The booster club offers family, grandparent, single adult and student memberships.

 

Coach Dave Brown, when he was at Randleman...

it was rumored, would give extra credit to students in his classes, if they came to baseball games and I think he had all the cheerleaders in his classes. Therefore, when a visiting team came into their place, they had to first deal with that weird field with the hill in left and the "little league" fence down the right field line, AND have a bunch of PYT's in the stands. Talk about a home field advantage!