...and there you have it Gary. Pretty accurate. However, in my view this is NOT PG's greediness or fault.
The WWBA tournament used to attract mostly the very select teams. At some point, parents got the idea that their kids were getting shafted by not getting to go and area travel coaches saw it as a way to form a team, suck kids in, make money and travel. They sold the families on 'we're going to baseball's Disneyland.' Or maybe they just didn't know better and thought the team they were forming was just better than it was?
Cooperstown is also loaded with these teams every week, all summer...for 11/12 year olds. A right of passage!...sorta. You've lived the youth baseball dream if you a) get on a T-ball travel team, b) work out all winter for baseball, c) travel to Cooperstown (twice if you're really good), d) advance to a so-called elite travel team and e) play in a national WWBA event.
If you did all that - you must be pretty special!
This is not the fault of PG. Are they supposed to pre-select who can play? That, for sure, would result in cries of "FOUL!" "BAD organization!" "ELITISTS!" Instead, they get to wear the label, "MONEY GRUBBERS!"
Its not even really the fault of most travel ball or program coaches. Parents created the demand without understanding the odds. Sometimes a kid gets "discovered" and that only motivates more parents to do all of that above.
I saw this with many parents in our area of CA. Johnny Smith gets a scholly to State U. How did he do it? He played travel ball, went to Cooperstown and then to WWBA. Must be true that if my son does that he will play college ball too!
Not many look for an honest evaluation from an independent source (they're not paying) before jumping in. No, that is not the fault of PG. Not in my book.