Beyond this specific issue with ice hockey, participation in youth sports in general has become an escalating financial arms race affordable only to more affluent families. Any parent who wants their child to develop sufficient mastery to maybe have a shot at a college athletic scholarship — or the remote chance of a career as an Olympic or professional athlete — is pretty much forced to pay for travel club teams plus extra private coaching. Sometimes low-income families can get reduced fees but still it's tough to make the logistics work.
I didn't state that it was reasonable but a lot of parents do care. Something on the order of 2% of entering US college freshmen receive at least a partial athletic scholarship at NCAA D1/D2 schools. This can be a major cost savings, plus it allows them to bypass the normal application process. We can argue about whether colleges should give athletic scholarships at all but that's how the system works.
I agree that sports should be accessible to kids of all income levels. And that's true to an extent for certain sports. But the cheaper options of playing on public school or community center teams will only take you so far. The better coaches and higher levels of competition necessary to develop real mastery are often only available in expensive private clubs and academies.
Sorry I guess what I'm getting at is more specifically: why should anyone care if people are priced out of the absolute upper echelons of sports?
I actually think it's probably better that tier of athletics is predominantly (and obviously) a bunch of trust fund babies. It's immensely high risk and low utility (both internally and externally to the athlete themselves) for anyone else to be pursuing those ambitions.
Because when people sign up kids for sports, the thing they want them to learn the most is competitiveness and hard training. Everything else is basically perceived as being lazy. As a culture, we tend to turn evrything into grand moralization and duty.
So, consequently, sports club that is not trying to win is seen as lazy and bunch of loosers. And quite openly.
There's a huge range depending on the sport and level of commitment. At the top level of youth tennis some families spend $100K per year for coaching, travel, equipment, etc. For rowing we paid something like $13K per year, including trips to National level regattas. Other sports could be cheaper.
> In 2015, the Maryland-based Black Bear Sports entered the scene. The company, owned by the private equity firm Blackstreet Capital, began buying up struggling ice rinks, some of which were on the verge of closing.
This is the basic strategy of private equity. Find a sector of businesses that is doing poorly, buy them up (they're motivated to sell), run them poorly for several years while collecting money, file for bankruptcy and find a new sector to take on.
If running an ice rink was good business, PE would have a hard time finding rinks to buy for prices they're willing to pay.
Beyond this specific issue with ice hockey, participation in youth sports in general has become an escalating financial arms race affordable only to more affluent families. Any parent who wants their child to develop sufficient mastery to maybe have a shot at a college athletic scholarship — or the remote chance of a career as an Olympic or professional athlete — is pretty much forced to pay for travel club teams plus extra private coaching. Sometimes low-income families can get reduced fees but still it's tough to make the logistics work.
… why would college athletic scholarship or Olympic/pro athlete be a reasonable bar or something anyone would care about?
Sports should be accessible to kids of all income levels for the sake of playing sports while they’re kids.
I didn't state that it was reasonable but a lot of parents do care. Something on the order of 2% of entering US college freshmen receive at least a partial athletic scholarship at NCAA D1/D2 schools. This can be a major cost savings, plus it allows them to bypass the normal application process. We can argue about whether colleges should give athletic scholarships at all but that's how the system works.
I agree that sports should be accessible to kids of all income levels. And that's true to an extent for certain sports. But the cheaper options of playing on public school or community center teams will only take you so far. The better coaches and higher levels of competition necessary to develop real mastery are often only available in expensive private clubs and academies.
Sorry I guess what I'm getting at is more specifically: why should anyone care if people are priced out of the absolute upper echelons of sports?
I actually think it's probably better that tier of athletics is predominantly (and obviously) a bunch of trust fund babies. It's immensely high risk and low utility (both internally and externally to the athlete themselves) for anyone else to be pursuing those ambitions.
Because when people sign up kids for sports, the thing they want them to learn the most is competitiveness and hard training. Everything else is basically perceived as being lazy. As a culture, we tend to turn evrything into grand moralization and duty.
So, consequently, sports club that is not trying to win is seen as lazy and bunch of loosers. And quite openly.
I think there's a big gap between "trying to win" and aspirations to be an actual professional or Olympian.
As someone who was quite competitive in several sports growing up, I don't think "not aspiring to be professional/Olympian" was frowned upon at all.
If it is today, that is extremely pathological.
Like how much does this actually cost a year?
There's a huge range depending on the sport and level of commitment. At the top level of youth tennis some families spend $100K per year for coaching, travel, equipment, etc. For rowing we paid something like $13K per year, including trips to National level regattas. Other sports could be cheaper.
Seems like redirecting the incentive of athletic scholarships to merit or needs based academic scholarships would solve the problem.
> In 2015, the Maryland-based Black Bear Sports entered the scene. The company, owned by the private equity firm Blackstreet Capital, began buying up struggling ice rinks, some of which were on the verge of closing.
This is the basic strategy of private equity. Find a sector of businesses that is doing poorly, buy them up (they're motivated to sell), run them poorly for several years while collecting money, file for bankruptcy and find a new sector to take on.
If running an ice rink was good business, PE would have a hard time finding rinks to buy for prices they're willing to pay.
Similar previous discussion:
Private Equity's New Venture: Youth Sports (80 comments)
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46006183
https://archive.is/8liIR
Ironic that the article is paywalled
Utterly superficial analogy, eh wot.