HS Baseball Program Donations

Our player fees are $350, and then we're asked to sell at least 6, $100 raffle tickets.  HS sports teams receive little to no money from the school / county.  I was on our Football booster club board with our oldest son, and we had a $100K/year  budget.  And we weren't very good.  But understand, that budget covered everything to run the program, including:  field paint, uniform refresh/replacement, helmets, etc.  

I'm surprised they asked for donation.  We certainly do a lot of fundraising and "donate" that way, but never asked for a hand out of cash. 

• We have an annual social, that is combined with our little league.  Tickets, raffles, etc
• Bake sale in front of local grocery store
• Boy coach at little league clinics over the winter
• Car Wash

For my daughter's softball team, we wanted permanent fencing and a trip to FL.  On top of the above we held a couple of golf tournaments and we work concessions at the UCONN Football games. 

These raise a good amount of money, we've contributed nothing close to $700. Sounds like a poorly run team...maybe you should volunteer as the Booster President

We also host a fundraising event, a guest speaker deal which generates a nice chunk of change. Not sure why we don’t do more fundraising, instead of just “the ask.” Perhaps people here would rather just write a check and not be bothered. I know I just completed my income taxes and saw a $2,300 decrease in my “return” which will affect my family’s ability to contribute.

I think $700 is a lot.  It's certainly enough to keep some kids/families from trying out or playing.  In some cases the result will be kids that do nothing but play video games and other sedentary things.  Too bad in my view.

It is very prominently indicated donations are voluntary.

Our program sells subs, Before cuts are made. Each student has a selected number of subs as a target. Some Parents just write a check for that amount. 

How many people can afford submarines?

wow.  We only pay $100 annually to the school for a sports participation fee.  That covers all 3 sports seasons.  There was a small amount of additional fundraising for football (raffle tickets) but that was it.  

At my son's non public school they don't ask for a direct payment, but there are a number of fund raisers that are theoretically optional but not really.  So far its been about $600, and there will probably be a bit more before the season ends.

2022OFDad posted:

How many people can afford submarines?

Well for those on the East Coast, Grinders, Or Hoagies for some in the Midwest and Heroes for others. 

Did I not mention I live a pretty affluent neighborhood. Cars Pi-shah, Such things are for commoners. 

Ours here in So-Cal is $375 per kid (i got two on the Freshman Team, OUCH!) which I thought was tough, until i heard other schools in the area at the $700 mark.  Beyond that we have fundraisers (SNAP!, Selling Angels Tickets, Clothing drive, poker tournament, golf tournament, etc....)  

2022OFDad posted:

How many people can afford submarines?

It’s the nuclear fuel and missiles that make it costly.

Parents were askied to purchase ads in the program from $50 to $200 depending on size. The program was nothing but the schedule, roster and twenty pages of ads or best wishes. We had concession stands at varsity and JV games run by parents.

The big money for the baseball and softball programs came from camps. In the summer there were two week long camps for 7%12yo. In February there were two individual “get ready for the season” week night sessions. Varsity players were obligated to provide slave labor for the night sessions. My kids said it was fun. They could work for minimum wage at the summer camps. These camps and clinics made thousands.

Wondering...is baseball becoming a sport only for kids with financial means (like soccer now where I live?).  How do kids without the money feel about the donation request? Is there pressure to pay it or a stigma among peers for not being able to? 

wildcat posted:

Wondering...is baseball becoming a sport only for kids with financial means (like soccer now where I live?).  How do kids without the money feel about the donation request? Is there pressure to pay it or a stigma among peers for not being able to? 

Paying for sports participation is becoming the norm. Where I live now (MA) in many school districts football and hockey cost up to $750 per player. Sports with less equipment and liability don’t cost as much.

It’s about school budget. This means lower income towns with lower income people pay more unless there’s an ample business tax base. Booster clubs raise as much money as they can from the community. 

Theres a Pop Warner program from a low income community in the county. They are perennial state champions. Every year they have to raise thousands to go to Orlando for the championships. 

How would anyone know who isn’t paying or pays more? 

My yearly  mandatory"contribution" was about $2300 - $2500 which included fees, practice gear, summer programs, weight/conditioning, etc, all through the school.  This doesn't account for 6 - 10 fundraisers, which weren't "mandatory".  I laugh now because if you didn't pull your weight in these fundraisers good luck getting off the bench. 

How would anyone know who isn’t paying or pays more? 

To answer RJM, every fundraiser was a "contest", it was made public how much each kid has brought in (emails to players/parents were 2 -3 times a week).  Person or small group who won the contest received some practice gear, or jacket, or shoes, etc.  Yes I had to donate to these fundraisers just to keep son somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Yearly my baseball expenses excluding showcases and private lessons that was directly tied to the school baseball program was anywhere between $4500 - $7000.  I cringe just thinking about it now

Public high school, Varsity here is $1,000, AND IT IS NOT a recommended donation.   I will say they do get a lot as a Varsity player, lots of gear, several pairs of cleats, all travel and motels paid for, lots of dinners, breakfasts, a paid certified trainer for morning workouts,  etc..... 

wildcat posted:

Wondering...is baseball becoming a sport only for kids with financial means (like soccer now where I live?).  How do kids without the money feel about the donation request? Is there pressure to pay it or a stigma among peers for not being able to? 

Out here in SoCal there is tremendous financial pressure on schools, which have cut many programs such as arts, theater, music, etc, and also have underfunded pension problems.  It is politically very difficult to put more money into athletics, so more of the burden is falling on the parents.  Many schools rely on a few families to make large contributions and carry much of the financial burden, but that's hit and miss.  Many schools now "charge" for summer, fall and winter ball in addition to spring, and some also charge extra for weight lifting, strength and conditioning, and throwing programs.  Add to this the fact that more high schools are traveling for tournaments to add luster to the programs and you've got some real expenses flowing.  It seems to be headed in the direction of travel ball as far as cost.

Approximately $1000 in "required/voluntary" fees. The $1000 buys you your son's gear, cleats, meals on game days, snack on tournament days and pays for the school bus to drive them. $150.00 is the bus fee and it is not voluntary at all.....paid to the school, not the team.  That does not included program ads, senior pictures, or anything extra. 

Agree, Smitty, and slowly become a sport that you could see leaving high school entirely.

Trust In Him posted:

My yearly  mandatory"contribution" was about $2300 - $2500 which included fees, practice gear, summer programs, weight/conditioning, etc, all through the school.  This doesn't account for 6 - 10 fundraisers, which weren't "mandatory".  I laugh now because if you didn't pull your weight in these fundraisers good luck getting off the bench. 

How would anyone know who isn’t paying or pays more? 

To answer RJM, every fundraiser was a "contest", it was made public how much each kid has brought in (emails to players/parents were 2 -3 times a week).  Person or small group who won the contest received some practice gear, or jacket, or shoes, etc.  Yes I had to donate to these fundraisers just to keep son somewhere in the middle of the pack.  Yearly my baseball expenses excluding showcases and private lessons that was directly tied to the school baseball program was anywhere between $4500 - $7000.  I cringe just thinking about it now

If it’s a contest it’s ok. If specific poorer kids are exposed as recipients it’s illegal. It falls under the same laws as the free/reduced lunch program.

Some of those fees are crazy, but then again, they include a lot.  Our team goes to 3rd party locations for offseason training, which costs me $750.  We buy his cleats, clothing, food for the bus, etc.  We pay this directly, not to the team as an up front charge.

So, I guess it's all the same, as long as you're getting those services as part of the donation.

Wait a minute - some of your public high schools charge athletes to play? I think that's ridiculous. Our kids get their uniforms, weight room access, and access to trainers at no cost. I think they pay $20 for their baseball cap. Players purchase their own cleats and other equipment they need to play.

While having matching cleats, team jackets, and equipment bags are nice I don't think they are a necessity. I've seen some travel teams go all out only to get smoked by teams wearing t-shirts and mismatched rec ball pants.

Kids have enough going on with school, sports, and having a normal social life without having to go fundraising. I think some high school kids still even have part time jobs. Parents shouldn't have to foot the bill either. They've done enough already, have their own lives to live, and are probably trying to figure out how to pay for college for their kids as it is.

If a team has to travel for the state championship that should come out of the school and district as well otherwise your penalizing the kids and families for success.

High school teams don't need state of the art facilities, Rapsodo, J-bands, or whatever other speciliazed equipment they think they need. For decades U.S. high schools pumped out millions of quality ballplayers without all the extra gear and equipment.

Schools - like society - get caught up in "keeping up with the Joneses." It's no wonder schools and people are broke.

Sorry for the rant here, but it seems like high school athletics has strayed very, very far from what high school athletics should be about. It's not about "stuff", it's playing the game. Parents and students need to fight back, say "enough is enough" and get back to basics.

mamabb0304 posted:

Approximately $1000 in "required/voluntary" fees. The $1000 buys you your son's gear, cleats, meals on game days, snack on tournament days and pays for the school bus to drive them. $150.00 is the bus fee and it is not voluntary at all.....paid to the school, not the team.  That does not included program ads, senior pictures, or anything extra. 

Paying for bussing sounds insane. Does the school district not have busses? At a certain point if you are paying just to play away games it doesn't seem like you're playing for your HS anymore. 

Coach Koz I absolutely agree with you 100%! In my particular location, my kid goes to a school that has lots of money with kids who have families that are well off and some filthy rich. The baseball program has been declining every year and the school doesn't want to put money into a losing program. I do understand that some programs need help either through fundraising or donations, but my problem is the way it is approached. do you think its fair to ordinary hard working families to ask for large amounts of money donations? And for what? I think its pointless. Again, I understand that money needs to raised somehow, but to demand parents to fork up large donations or to contribute large amounts of their personal time to a program I think is ridiculous. They also are monitoring and keeping close track of how much each family is giving financially and time wise? This is wrong IMO. When you give, you should give out of the kindness of of your heart, not to compare it to other family donations. If they feel your not giving enough they keep track of it and try to make you feel guilty and present it to the coach. Why! And it's always the parents of kids on that team that are warming the bench that are stirring the most crap. LOL.

Son's team took a trip each spring break, one time across the country with flights, etc.  We paid for some gear, socks, belts, hats, and some additional optional swag, and son's own bats, cleats, etc...although there were always bats in the dugout.  One year when both of my sons went on a trip, I figured we had paid over $2500 for a 3 month sport.  Then we added in summer travel ball.  Public school.

For high school fundraising:  Concession stand (think salmon, hamburgers, hot dogs, french fries),  Christmas trees and wreath sales and delivery, 100 inning game donations (we were to ask 20 people for donations to equal $250 or more), golf tournament,  grocery store card kick-back, proceeds from the additional swag, sale of fence banners, casino nights (or other), and more that I can't think of right now.   I was so glad when "it" was over I threw away the folder with a smile.  Miss the baseball part though and son is still good friends with the coaches.

Public school.  History of a winning team, at the time.  

No concession stand here, so I guess I’d rather write that check than deal with salmon. Salmon? Really?

No fee at all.  But you get what you pay for.  We get used uniforms, no cleats (buy your own), no meals, no motels, no tournaments, nothing but play the game and ride the bus which the school pays for.  No fundraisers.  Just work one day in the concession stand which the better parents do on a regular basis. 

When I was in Missouri as HC, we did a couple of fundraisers.  We sold vouchers to Royals games which got us a game at Kauffman which was sweet for players.  We also sold a banner ad deal which I started to put a boundary between dugout and fans during every game.  We hung it up outside dugout so no one could see inside dugout and we made money off it.  Had to at least sell one ad for $25 but we usually made about $2500 off it.  Only had one school that said we could not hang it at their field.  When they came to our place, our AD told them they could not  bring in drinks and had to buy from our concession stand.  Payback? 

We made about $6500 off Royals vouchers.  They dropped it after I left.  Easy money I thought and a great experience.

PABaseball posted:

mamabb0304 posted:

Approximately $1000 in "required/voluntary" fees. The $1000 buys you your son's gear, cleats, meals on game days, snack on tournament days and pays for the school bus to drive them. $150.00 is the bus fee and it is not voluntary at all.....paid to the school, not the team.  That does not included program ads, senior pictures, or anything extra. 

Paying for bussing sounds insane. Does the school district not have busses? At a certain point if you are paying just to play away games it doesn't seem like you're playing for your HS anymore. 

Kick this around for a bit...….I am NOT ADMITTING there is proof  but what if the school gets funding for busses, the team (basketball, baseball, softball, whatever) gets their portion, yet NO busses are provided for any away games?  Funds are used for something else.  It's up to the player to find his way to the game, on time.  I can only ASSUME many parents left work early to take their son to the game, or trusted a fellow teammate (drivers lic for a few months to a couple of years), or another parent to drive 2- 80 miles each way.

Head coach has been a varsity coach for 27 years in the school district.  There are three teams, with roughly 60 kids total.When he started, the district provided  $5000 per season to each school for baseball.  It is now $3700.  And that is for everything, jersey's, field maintenance, facility maintenance, baseballs, field dry, etc.

The "fundraiser" is basically a request for donations.  Completely voluntary.  Funds are turned into a school administrator who makes the deposits.  Coach gets a balance on the account, he doesn't see who donated what.  To spend it, he asks for the admin to write a check for the expenditure.  No fall fundraising.  The donations are not requested until he has made all the cuts in the program.

Coach Koz posted:

Wait a minute - some of your public high schools charge athletes to play?

A few years back our local school board (rural county - only one high school) considered pay-to-play in regards to playing sports, but it was shelved and never came to a vote.   A few of the other neighboring counties have instituted pay-to-play sports to help offset the costs, but the funds do not come close to covering everything.

We do have various booster clubs that have have done all kinds of fund raisers to help cover the costs of extras the school budget does not cover - things like batting cages, etc.  The school budget usually covers busing to away games, field maintenance, new uniforms, helmets, baseballs, etc.

When son played varsity sports we were encouraged to participate in fund raising activities, but it wasn't held against you if you could not or refused to do so.

I think that the increasing cost to play HS ball, even at public schools, is only going to hasten the inevitable encroachment of travel ball into the HS season.

Some of these numbers are high.  Assuming district provides a field, coaches salaries and bus travel for games the cost of baseball should be a few thousand bucks for balls, and equipment for field.  If there is a shed to house hitting screens and netting for hitting off tees it might not even be that much.

So if there are 18 players ponying up $200 plus uniforms it ought to be in the $350 range.  Any real fund raising should cover a good chunk of that.  Uniforms are one of those things a ton of money can disappear fast.  It is easy to create $400 worth of stuff when you start getting multiple colors and practice jerseys etc.

What starts changing things is if you want to take a spring break trip to FL or a few roadies to tournaments.  Now you might have a $10k plus expense.

luv baseball posted:

 Assuming district provides a field, coaches salaries and bus travel for games the cost of baseball should be a few thousand bucks for balls, and equipment for field.  If there is a shed to house hitting screens and netting for hitting off tees it might not even be that much.

 

Man, I have to completely disagree with your estimate there. A few thousand dollars sadly won't get you much of anything these days. And I'm just talking necessities of basic uniforms and equipment to run decent practices. And that's assuming you're satisfied with the maintenance and condition of the field the district has you playing on. 

At least where I am, $10k a year wouldn't get you where you want to be.

I think the costs depend on what is provided.  Our school provides balls, umpires, uniforms, buses, salaries, and field maintenance.  When I was in Missouri, the school provided all the same things.  Both places we used our fundraising money for extras like extra uniforms, practice gear, etc. 

Are the schools not providing anything for the cost to be over $10,000?  That is crazy.  I cannot imagine what would cost that much above what the schools provide.  

PitchingFan posted:

Are the schools not providing anything for the cost to be over $10,000?  That is crazy.  I cannot imagine what would cost that much above what the schools provide.  

Baseball is an expensive sport  in about every aspect. $10k can go quickly. It obviously depends what you're used to, but nothing we do is overly extravagant.

Our district provides about $3k  a year to buy equipment. The maintenance they offer is very subpar so we handle most of it ourselves. Just for a general idea I'll list some costs below.

Annual purchases:

Balls: $1000, Bases: $200, helmets $200, Rye grass $400, Paint $200, Caps, $600, Uniform pants (replacing last years whites usually in bad shape) $300, Tournaments $600, Socks $200, gas for mowers $300. And a whole lot of things I'm forgetting.

Semi-annual purchases - this is where your budget gets eaten up I think. These are things you must buy or maintain to every few years.

Batting cages nets (about $1000 each), batting cage turf (way too expensive), pitching machine ($3000), mower ($4000), screens and more screens ($300-700ish), rolling cage for BP ($5000), pitching rubbers and plates (the better ones aren't cheap), PA speakers, windscreen, edger, rakes, infield conditioner, mound clay, tees, fungoes, hose and nozzle ($200), screen drag ($300), catchers' equipment ($500). And a whole lot of things I'm forgetting.

Point is, while some if the basic stuff seems like it wouldn't be much, I don't think $10k a year is exorbitant. Again it depends what type of playing surface and facilities you're used to and what kind of practices you expect. We actually spend a lot more than $10k, but some of it is on stuff that isn't "necessary," so no point in getting into too much of that stuff.