Should HS Showcases Inflate Prices for Player Address Books

The paper might cost 42 cents, but if the showcase is bringing 50 - 100 kids to one place and saving scouts and college coaches a whole lot of money, then in my opinion, they have a right to charge. All the showcases I've been to only sell them to scouts or recruiters, and to see each kid individually, you're talking tens of thousands of dollars. But 400 dollars sounds pretty high unless it has every prospect in highschool in the book.

It's the old joke,

An old computer was broken and the owner called the repair man. The repair man came is pushed a button and the computer restarted.

He then gave the owner a bill for $400. The owner complained about the cost and demanded an itemized bill.

The Bill read
Pushing reset button $10,
Knowing which button to press $390.

The showcases get the players, accumulate all the data, print the address books etc. It's not a high volume product so all of their production costs have to be split between the few people who buy the book.

We do not believe the coaches should be charged for programs at our showcases--without the coaches we do have a showcase--at our events there is no admission fee nor is their a charge for our porgram which is usually plus or minus 20 pages with a glossy cover and backpage---the players also get a program in their showcase packet

quote:

Originally posted:
...coaches should [not] be charged for programs at our showcases--
....no admission fee nor is their a charge for our porgram
.....the players also get a program in their showcase packet

I had to giggle at both of the above mentioned threads, and put them together and it reads something like:

The bill read
Program in Showcase packet- $0,
Player Registration Fee $250
------------------------------------------

Summary: It's whatever the market will pay for!

The Bear Classic, Maryland HS Showcase for Our National Pastime (and in it's 16th year) has NOT charged the players on the host team since it's inception.

The Program Guide which shows the tourney schedule, teams, coaches and players has a nominal charge between $2.00 to $4.00. However scouts, tournament coaches and colleges are not charged for the Program Guide. Over the past several years, several individuals, not affiliated with the event has requested Program Guides (from which I have recently learned seek information on players for mailing lists, winter camps etc.)

I am aware that the American Legion Regional Tournament charges up to $25.00 for 6 sheets of paper!

OBTW: If Program Guide has color pieces of paper, each page being reproduced in color is 87 cents plus tax at Kinko's. My costs for this years Program Guide (10 double sided pages) was about $1.80 per guide. I ran 100 copies. Gave 60 away at event, sold 20 at event, and have 20 left over. Thus from a business view point, I took a loss of about $100 on materials. However labor wise it's about 100 man-hours to put together over a three month time with 50% of the labor hours the last week prior to the event!

OBTW: $400 for a list of HS players is excessive. However, would you pay $25 for a list of colleges?

Some of these "showcases" are worth paying for the program and some aren't worth anything. It seems that there are more and more "showcases" or showcase teams popping up with minimal talent and or exposure (probably a realtionship to both).

I think I'll start another thread about which showcases are worthwhile ( don't wwant to sidetrack this)

Here is what we do at College Select

No charge for our program for anyone, coaches or parents, which is done in two edition--one edition for the college coaches and scouts which has all the pertinent information that they need and a second edition, with less info, which is given to the players/parents as part of their showcase package.

Our program this year was some 20 pages thick with a glossy front and back page.

Our cost matters not because we do not charge anyone for it. We consider it part of the "showcase package" and doing business as we see fit.

As for charging coaches and scouts we do not believe in it---without them we have no showcase--the coaches are the key in terms of having players register.