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    Costs of GDA/ECNL

    In reading many of the threads on both leagues, often cost is brought up. But then you realize that there is a huge variation in costs across clubs, so one person's response is not necessarily reflective of the entire region.

    It would be really interesting to understand the relative costs of specific clubs in both leagues. If anyone reading this who is part of ECNL/GDA clubs could indicate the club/league and a breakdown of:

    - Club/registration fees
    - Additional required team fees, if not included in above (uniforms, ref fees, tournament fees, coach travel, team travel, winter leagues, etc.)
    - How many practices/week and their length during the fall/spring and winter (if different)

    Of course, on top of that is personal travel like airfare, hotels, etc.

    #2
    Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
    In reading many of the threads on both leagues, often cost is brought up. But then you realize that there is a huge variation in costs across clubs, so one person's response is not necessarily reflective of the entire region.

    It would be really interesting to understand the relative costs of specific clubs in both leagues. If anyone reading this who is part of ECNL/GDA clubs could indicate the club/league and a breakdown of:

    - Club/registration fees
    - Additional required team fees, if not included in above (uniforms, ref fees, tournament fees, coach travel, team travel, winter leagues, etc.)
    - How many practices/week and their length during the fall/spring and winter (if different)

    Of course, on top of that is personal travel like airfare, hotels, etc.
    The biggest cost of ECNL is you miss an entire fall season of competitive soccer every year.

    Comment


      #3
      Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
      In reading many of the threads on both leagues, often cost is brought up. But then you realize that there is a huge variation in costs across clubs, so one person's response is not necessarily reflective of the entire region.

      It would be really interesting to understand the relative costs of specific clubs in both leagues. If anyone reading this who is part of ECNL/GDA clubs could indicate the club/league and a breakdown of:

      - Club/registration fees
      - Additional required team fees, if not included in above (uniforms, ref fees, tournament fees, coach travel, team travel, winter leagues, etc.)
      - How many practices/week and their length during the fall/spring and winter (if different)

      Of course, on top of that is personal travel like airfare, hotels, etc.
      If you want precise numbers contact the clubs yourself. TS is not the place for accurate information. Many poster's have an agenda.

      Comment


        #4
        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
        The biggest cost of ECNL is you miss an entire fall season of competitive soccer every year.
        The thread was not meant to debate the merits of either league...there are plenty of other threads on that.

        It was meant to get a relative sense of costs among clubs and what you get for that.

        Comment


          #5
          WCFC ECNL 5 total tournaments + playoffs in Seattle = 10K

          NYCFC 2 total tournaments + playoffs in San Diego = 7K

          Comment


            #6
            Last year I did an exercise to understand the full cost of one year of soccer for an 8th grader playing town, club, and odp
            https://1drv.ms/x/s!AttZg4zkabWCheR9kspWxT4Mici9Zw

            Comment


              #7
              Interesting...this was playing in what league?

              So, for $3600 in your club fees, how many practices/week did you get? And it looks like you had no winter practices in Jan/Feb?

              It's crazy when you look at the travel costs like that...imagine how much training you could do with the same money? Plus when you think about it in terms of $/game -- say you play 3-4 games at the tournament -- it is costing $600-800 per game!

              Comment


                #8
                Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                Interesting...this was playing in what league?

                So, for $3600 in your club fees, how many practices/week did you get? And it looks like you had no winter practices in Jan/Feb?

                It's crazy when you look at the travel costs like that...imagine how much training you could do with the same money? Plus when you think about it in terms of $/game -- say you play 3-4 games at the tournament -- it is costing $600-800 per game!
                If you're spending $2400 to go to a tournament you're doing it wrong. Only the top leagues require plane travel and events are known well enough in advance to book a good fare. You can even lower your costs splitting some travel with another family. Parent travel is not required and at most only one parent should be counted into the cost.

                Overall when you look at what soccer or most sports will cost you from say 8 years old through HS no rational person would spend the money. But, parents aren't rational always, and they want to support their kids' passions for sports, music.. whatever.

                Comment


                  #9
                  Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                  If you're spending $2400 to go to a tournament you're doing it wrong. Only the top leagues require plane travel and events are known well enough in advance to book a good fare. You can even lower your costs splitting some travel with another family. Parent travel is not required and at most only one parent should be counted into the cost.

                  Overall when you look at what soccer or most sports will cost you from say 8 years old through HS no rational person would spend the money. But, parents aren't rational always, and they want to support their kids' passions for sports, music.. whatever.
                  Each family's travel costs are what they are. We all have our reasons for doing what we do. You can't just ignore that those reasons add up or write off reasons that you don't personally agree with. $2,400 a trip is not all that hard to get to unless your one of those who sand bag other families to take their kid and then pack peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for them to eat while the rest of the team is out for a team dinner. In some families both parents go on the trip and they bring other children. It's part of how they justify the whole thing. Are they actually wrong? Who is anyone else to say.

                  Comment


                    #10
                    Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                    Last year I did an exercise to understand the full cost of one year of soccer for an 8th grader playing town, club, and odp
                    https://1drv.ms/x/s!AttZg4zkabWCheR9kspWxT4Mici9Zw
                    Key point here. This is for one year - the 8th grade year. If you are all in on club soccer that amount of spending just didn't pop up that year nor is it just going to disappear. This family is probably going to spend more than $75,000 on club soccer over the course of their involvement. Wonder if they had done a similar analysis when they first got involved with club soccer if they would have even started with it.

                    Comment


                      #11
                      I have attended Jefferson Cup, Bethesda, PDA and have never spent more than $500-$600 each time. Driving instead of flying... 2 nights hotel, gas, tolls, food. Even spent less than $1000 to spend 4 nights/5 days in Indianapolis (however, to be fair, we did use air miles for the flight). We are not loaded, so we are always looking for ways to keep travel costs down. If you are spending $3200 for a tournament, my guess is that $ is not an issue for you, and you are spending needlessly and actively choosing to spend more than you need to ... ie: flying when driving is an option, not sharing rental cars or hotel rooms, eating out more than needed, or visiting multiple attractions, and shopping. Nothing wrong with that if you can afford it, but a majority of people cannot go that route and try to keep costs down as much as possible. Heck, even a long weekend tourney in FL, that was the priciest one I’ve done so far, cost about $1,100, and that included airfare, car rental and hotel which I did not share, and a trip to Busch Gardens. Not sure how you get up to $3200 without going first class all the way.

                      Comment


                        #12
                        Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                        I have attended Jefferson Cup, Bethesda, PDA and have never spent more than $500-$600 each time. Driving instead of flying... 2 nights hotel, gas, tolls, food. Even spent less than $1000 to spend 4 nights/5 days in Indianapolis (however, to be fair, we did use air miles for the flight). We are not loaded, so we are always looking for ways to keep travel costs down. If you are spending $3200 for a tournament, my guess is that $ is not an issue for you, and you are spending needlessly and actively choosing to spend more than you need to ... ie: flying when driving is an option, not sharing rental cars or hotel rooms, eating out more than needed, or visiting multiple attractions, and shopping. Nothing wrong with that if you can afford it, but a majority of people cannot go that route and try to keep costs down as much as possible. Heck, even a long weekend tourney in FL, that was the priciest one I’ve done so far, cost about $1,100, and that included airfare, car rental and hotel which I did not share, and a trip to Busch Gardens. Not sure how you get up to $3200 without going first class all the way.
                        Ok, I accidentally typed $3200 when I meant to type $2400. Point still stands.... $2400 is a very high projection, Unless you are bringing your entire family and/or going first class and not sharing costs with others at all (hotel/rental cars/gas, etc)

                        Comment


                          #13
                          Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                          I have attended Jefferson Cup, Bethesda, PDA and have never spent more than $500-$600 each time. Driving instead of flying... 2 nights hotel, gas, tolls, food. Even spent less than $1000 to spend 4 nights/5 days in Indianapolis (however, to be fair, we did use air miles for the flight). We are not loaded, so we are always looking for ways to keep travel costs down. If you are spending $3200 for a tournament, my guess is that $ is not an issue for you, and you are spending needlessly and actively choosing to spend more than you need to ... ie: flying when driving is an option, not sharing rental cars or hotel rooms, eating out more than needed, or visiting multiple attractions, and shopping. Nothing wrong with that if you can afford it, but a majority of people cannot go that route and try to keep costs down as much as possible. Heck, even a long weekend tourney in FL, that was the priciest one I’ve done so far, cost about $1,100, and that included airfare, car rental and hotel which I did not share, and a trip to Busch Gardens. Not sure how you get up to $3200 without going first class all the way.
                          So you are at the bargain end of the store. What's your point so when your kid ends up without a scholarship you can claim that you got a bargain?

                          Comment


                            #14
                            Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
                            So you are at the bargain end of the store. What's your point so when your kid ends up without a scholarship you can claim that you got a bargain?
                            Do you know me? I don’t think so. You have no idea whether my kid already has a scholarship or not, or what our situation is at all, other than I mentioned that I was not loaded. But there you go throwing out stupid and typical assumptions so common on this website. I was simply countering the notion that a family must shell out $2400 for every tournament. That is a choice made by some. But not a choice not all of us are willing to make. You can cut costs if you want to. That was my only point, and I did not lay judgment on anyone else, like you clearly have.

                            Comment


                              #15
                              I posted SS link, some thoughts
                              1) That was an excessive year.
                              Town +Club +odp + two extra (expensive) tournaments in CO, and San Diego. It is not the only year of club soccer costs, but it will be most expensive year.

                              2) I knew I was spending a lot - this SS let me know how much.
                              Surprisingly easy to do after downloading transaction details from CC and Debit Card into XL. Hard to swallow tho, and important to inform decisions we made this year.

                              3) There was no "first class".
                              Check details on flight and hotel costs. Airfare is pretty cheap actually. San Diego at $425 was 1 RT to LAX, used mileage for other ticket. Then we drove 3+ hrs to San Diego. Flying into San would have been $600+ each. All hotels are the Team hotels at Tournament rates. We had to stay there for 4+ nights. Note that I left out the MISC for May and June travel... I didn't want to keep going :(

                              4) Good luck saying No when everyone else is Gung Ho
                              The Misc costs for CO and San Diego both >$1K. This was beginning of national travel and included ALL local expenses including meals, team excursions, tournament swag, local shopping, and parent fun. Easy to spend that money over 5 days.

                              I figured this SS would generate some of the comments it has. I didn't share it for a year. I can assure you that while we did pay, we were not really in a position to do so. Per #4 above, we couldn't say "No". Moving forward, D is becoming more familiar with the word.

                              Comment

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