Field Space, And the Cost

[Blue_F150]

There is a situation brewing in our community that if it goes unchecked, could set youth sports back many years, make them available for only the well off, or just flat out eliminate them.
The situation is field space, and the cost to use such facilities. The two local high school districts have implemented field usage fees. These fees range from $66-$71 per hour for a softball, or soccer, field. For a summer travel team that practices 2-3 times a week could add $200-$500 per player in fees. A Spring rec league team that practices twice a week, and plays two games a week, the costs per player could be as high as $600. The City we live in has been discussing field usage fees for many years, a few local Cities have already gone there. Where will it end?

[wadeintothem]

Sounds like people in your city need to kick some but at city council meetings or school board meetings or wherever. That is a bunch of crap. Drag your whole team into the meeting.

[Coach11]

There is a situation brewing in our community that if it goes unchecked, could set youth sports back many years, make them available for only the well off, or just flat out eliminate them.
The situation is field space, and the cost to use such facilities. The two local high school districts have implemented field usage fees. These fees range from $66-$71 per hour for a softball, or soccer, field. For a summer travel team that practices 2-3 times a week could add $200-$500 per player in fees. A Spring rec league team that practices twice a week, and plays two games a week, the costs per player could be as high as $600. The City we live in has been discussing field usage fees for many years, a few local Cities have already gone there. Where will it end?

While it may have been a topic of discussion for years, it's the current economic situaion that's making it more of a reality now.

Schools are looking for ways to cut costs and increase funding.....anyway they can.

I am unaware of any talks of field usage fees in my area, but it has all but been decided that our school district will start charging for using the lights.

In a small town such as this.....with so many sporting programs....that will lead to more programs being crammed into the daylight hours. We're already short on field space.

So either, registration fees are about to go up....or certain programs will be forced to shut down.

It aint pretty out there.

[dittoz]

In our town, they get about $40/hr for a city-owned field and $20/hr for lights.
The local school charges about $50/hr for the varsity field...

The local rec league pays nothing for the city owned facilites - 5 fields, since the city decided to recognize the 200-player league as representing the largest interest of resident girls and thus it was deemed a "City League". (Note the change of tone)

There are far more travel players in the town, but the city made the choice a long time ago and refuses to event discuss it. Our local travel team that was once made up of entirely resident girls had to pay and schedule use through the rec league who harbored a lot of bad feelings against our travel org for having taken all the "good" players. As a result, we rarely got much in the way of use of the facilites since the rec league had a noticeable increase in the number of maintenance days, projects, etc...