PROBEAGLE posted:Hello All,
I'm looking for some feedback regarding this event. My 13U son's coach handed out 3 of these "Golden Tickets" this past weekend at the DFW USSSA Select 30 Super NIT. I realize 13 YOs are a few years away from a meaningful scouting experience and our expectations should be aligned. Other than experiencing his first combine national event such as this, here are few questions I have:
1. How many invitations are given out? Are these tickets given to mostly competitive teams? Potentially, how many kids actually make this trip?
2. How well is it organized, instructed and the overall experience?
3. I suppose the $295 is reasonable, but I want to be sure this isn't a money grab event where people were disappointed.
Thanks!
Hey Probeagle... you said " I realize 13 YOs are a few years away from a meaningful scouting experience and our expectations should be aligned." Read that back to yourself three times. 
Look, as you are probably aware, U-trip is well established for running youth tournaments and usually pretty well organized. A quick google search shows that they now have these "select30" events all over the country and have established a separate website just for this arm of their operations. My experience with U-trip and Triple Crown are that they do a good job running youth tourneys and a very good job of marketing, pushing for the better teams and players to participate in "bigger, bettter events far, far away". Nothing wrong with that if your expectations are kept in check.
The good - likely that your son will have the opportunity to face better competition than the local events, although certainly not guaranteed. At the end of the day, there are typically spots to be filled and anyone with $$ can fill them.
The bad - at 13u, very few will benefit directly from the type of pro-style combine event that is described. And, if there is an organization that is more likely to connect the dots from 13u's and still follow when they are 15, 16u's, it will be PG, not U-trip or Triple Crown. If your son stays on track toward baseball aspirations beyond HS, there will be far more meaningful events down the road when his body has come closer to maturation and college coaches want to see him. If you have the travel money to blow and it looks like a fun, competitive event, knock yourself out. But this is NOT where the rubber meets the road. At the end of the day, it will be how much talent, how much work he puts in and what his recruiting efforts are when the key years come around, not how many big youth tourneys/showcases he attends.
That is not to say that there is no advantage to participating in travel events against good competition under a brighter spotlight. There is. But it sounds like he is already doing that.