Travel sports?
Posted by WryAnthology@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 98 comments
I hear Americans talking about travel sports and wonder if it's a different name for what we do in Australia, or something completely different.
In a lot of Australian schools it's very common for many (most?) kids to play sports. They train during the week and then play against other schools on a Saturday. Those games are a mix of home and away games and we'll drive up to about 1 hr 15 for our furthest away game.
In addition, kids can try out for district and regional sports, and if they get in then they can play off to be in a state team, which might mean catching a plane for state (and then national) teams.
Is that similar to what travel sports are in the US?
Thank you 🙂
deebville00@reddit
Travel sports here are equivalent to what you guys would probably know as “club teams” or “select teams” they travel much farther than 1 hr 15. What you are describing would be called “varsity” and “junior varsity” here, which means athletics secondary-school.
mattcmoore@reddit
Travel is like "club" sports, separate from school sports. It's like being on the regional or state team or whatever but imagine if there were like dozens of state and regional teams in each stage or region. Parents are paying a fortune to have their kids play in these leagues.
blipsman@reddit
At younger ages, kids sports are typically run by towns' park district/parks and recreation department. They organize leagues that play at set parks on set days in town. So Anytown Park District has Kindergarten soccer at Smith Park on Saturdays with games at 9am or 10 am, 1st grade soccer at 11am or noon. 2nd graders play at Jones Park at 9am or 10am.
As kids get older, the better players may try out for travel sports, which are where a team from a town plays against other towns' teams or even meets up in regional tournaments. These leagues are often private businesses and cost a lot to participate in, as well as cost associated with travel to out of town tournaments and such.
These are different from school-affiliated sports, which typically start in middle school with a couple sports and then high school often offer a whole slate of athletic teams that athletes try out for.
TheMusicCrusader@reddit
As a side note OP, 1hr 15 min would be our closest away game where I grew up in Northern California, other than 1 game a year against the only other team in the city
Equivalent-Cicada165@reddit
Im from LA county so 1 hour and 15 minutes is further than any game I've played  I don't think we were ever in the bus for more than 30 minutes
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Ah this might be another difference. You guys have a bus to take everyone? For us, parents have to transport kids to all the games.
Equivalent-Cicada165@reddit
Oh, and another difference!
You mentioned Saturdays. For us, games were on a weekday, unless it was a big tournament. The same weekday each week. Il
In my area at least, I do not know if it changes in other parts of the countryÂ
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Oh okay! So they miss school? Does that cause any conflict with the schools?
ToastMate2000@reddit
Where I went to school, the games were in the evening. Our closest competitor schools were over an hour drive away, so typically the bus would leave right after school. If the games were further away, the team might have to miss the last class period in order to leave early enough. They would just get their assignments to do on their own. A lot of athletes tried to schedule an easier or less attendance-dependent class for the last period so missing it didn't cause difficulties. This was especially true for skiers. Those were private club sports, not school teams, but they had to leave early a lot because outdoor winter sports happened earlier in the day while it was still light out.
Equivalent-Cicada165@reddit
Yes, the last period/hour! You'd have to make up any work missed. Kind of crazy to think aboutÂ
I made sure to have electives my last period so none of my core classes were affected (for me that that was math and science). My first year I missed PE, my second I had to go to a lot of plays to make up missing my drama class during tennis season. That annoyed me for some reason. When I look back I think that was pretty generous of my drama teacher
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
yea, all of our schools have buses
TheMusicCrusader@reddit
Yeah, 2 sides of California - everyone thinks SoCal, but we’re up here too!
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
What would be the furthest?
KatanaCW@reddit
Our local travel soccer team would go to other countries twice a year. The year my kids were the age to participate, they went to Germany and Spain. We chose not to participate and did a local club team instead. We still went to a tournaments up to 3 hours away. That was enough. Local LAX club team one kid was in did tournaments up to 4-5 hours away.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Wow that would be an exciting opportunity, but no doubt an expensive one too!
TheMusicCrusader@reddit
For us? Around 3-4 hours; further if we were good and qualified for the next region up
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Wow hence why you'd want the school bus!
TeamTurnus@reddit
For school games (played baseball in Flordia) I think we went 2.5-3 hours by bus for a game once,unusual was significantly shorter
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Right, okay. So that's quite the commitment on a weekly basis.
rockninja2@reddit
For an actual "travel team?" Could be on the other side of the country. Not every time, but certainly possible for tournament(s).
Masty1992@reddit
Why are there so few teams? Surely there’s many young people? Where I grew up we could travel 20 minutes in different directions to play like 12 different teams
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
Do you understand not everyone lives in a major metropolitan area?
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
I'm laughing at the fool who claimed 90k was small.Â
Honey I'm talking towns of 1500.Â
Masty1992@reddit
Yes. I lived in a small city of 90k people
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Where I live in Australia, it takes me 30mins to drive the kids to school. There are closer schools, but the nearest would take 15mins, and is not as good a school, so I don't mind the extra drive. Then we drive 1hr15 for our furthest school because there are only so many schools registered in the particular league in which we play. It's definitely annoying as I don't know why we don't play against some of the closer schools, but some of them are not in a league or are in a different one.
(Over here you have different comps for Catholic schools, Anglican schools, etc.)
cans-of-swine@reddit
I had to drive 20 minutes to get to my high-school. It was another 30 minutes to the next closest school.Â
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
That definitely wasn't our shortest but it definitely wasn't uncommon either. We had one other public high school across town in our smallish city so that was the shortest, and then the rest were in other smaller towns nearby that could be 30 or 40 minutes away or maybe even an hour. This was in farm country that didn't have a lot of large cities. The other teams probably tended to be the only high school in those towns (my memory is a little fuzzy).
ToadShakespeare@reddit
Travel teams (sometimes called club teams) typically refer to private sports programs, completely separate from schools, that are paid for by parents. Many of these start when kids are fairly young (10 or younger isn't unusual).
They almost always require special tryouts and there are often different levels of teams at each age group. The "travel" part refers to the expectation that the teams will frequently go on road trips for tournaments that may last several days. Sometimes these are in different states.
For example, our son played on a travel soccer club and he moved into travel at age 9. We would travel to tournaments every few weeks in different states in addition to playing a regular schedule of soccer around our hometown.
dbdiver@reddit
Your Travel Sports sounds just like our “InterScholastic Sports”. You wear school team uniforms. Where I went to school only about 2 team sport games travelled more than half an hour. In Athletics (fka Track and Field) there were State and Regional and National Championships. Some athletes could travel from NYC area to San Diego CA for national meets. Travel teams here are primarily Team Sports for all stars and are organized separately from school sports, e.g. AAU (Amateur Athletic Union) Basketball.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Yes okay that makes sense
Groundbreaking_War52@reddit
Rapidly growing industry - it's a common way for parents to pursue their unrealized dreams of sporting success.
Many try to tell themselves that it will help get their kid an athletic scholarship to a great university but the total cost for 5-10 years of travel sports is often more than what you'd pay in tuition.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Oh that's a good point
DonkeyHotay_@reddit
No, "travel ball" is more like a private club, and they usually are more skilled athletes. Travel teams are not affiliated with a school, and require money to participate.
It sounds more like your definition of district and regional clubs, except they arent affiliated with schools.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Districts and regionals here aren't affiliated with schools really. The schools encourage kids who are good at those sports to try out, but they're run externally. These are the teams that put kids into state and national teams, so there's no cost to play. You just have to get through the try outs and be good.
gottarun215@reddit
Our travel teams are similar to this except we don't really have a state team for most youth sports. (You can be named all-state as an honor, but we don't typically have a top team from each state competing nationally against other states.) The top travel teams or athletes from individual sports can qualify from travel league regional tournaments to nationals, but in most sporrs, nationals won't necessarily have an equal number of teams from each state.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Right that makes sense. We tend to have our state teams and then the kids from those teams are picked for nationals. The states play off against each other too, but maybe it's easier for us as we have less states than you guys!
DonkeyHotay_@reddit
In that case, then travel ball would be analogous to district and regional teams in Australia, except travel teams are private and require payment to be able to play.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
That makes sense, thanks
_Barbaric_yawp@reddit
Ugh, my son is on a travel team. It’s absolutely awful. We’re in Columbus, OH, we’re Los Angeles, we’re in some random town Alabama. There’s an important event in New Jersey, but because I waited two weeks, it’s full and now we’re on the waitlist. My son hates me for that. I wish we never did this — it’sruined my life
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Oh no, that sounds super stressful. Definitely a big commitment for the whole family.
professor-ks@reddit
If anyone wants an eye opening read, this article takes an investors perspective doing an analysis of the $40 billion dollar youth sports industry
https://www.whitecase.com/insight-alert/private-equitys-expanding-role-youth-sports
The end of the article is a perfect tldr: "For private equity firms with the operational expertise to consolidate fragmented markets and the patience to build durable platforms, youth sports offers secular growth, defensible demand, and multiple paths to value realization."
Combat__Crayon@reddit
As others have pointed they're private. We have rec leagues through park districts, or like my town has a non-profit that runs the leagues using school or park district facilities. School sports don't really start, in my area I'm sure its different by school district almost, until Jr high. At that level they typically stop calling the private leagues travel and start calling them club.
Now 35 years ago when I was playing sports, everyone played in the rec league and there was A travel team, that kids would try out for, they would practice and play their games on different days than the rec league so they could play both. Now the rec leagues are short on players and all these kids that really should be in rec are in travel because they pay for it.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Yeah gotcha. So it's not just on talent, but paying to be a part of it.
Alert-Painting1164@reddit
It’s not talent based really. It’s a money making exercise. I’ve watched various travel teams in various sports and most of the kids were not talented. They were, considering the time and money invested, not good. A lot of parents here think their kids are going to get sports scholarships when in reality there are far more academic scholarships but people don’t invest in the time into getting those. The number of 5 foot nothing tall dads I see paying for specialized basketball training for a kid that won’t top 6 foot is insane.
OptimisticPlatypus@reddit
Travel sports are typically private teams separate from school or public recreation districts.
They are usually pay for play where the parents pay fees and the coach is paid for their time. Games may be local but also may involve substantial travel.
Honestly, it’s a pretty toxic culture.
AliMcGraw@reddit
SO TOXIC
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Gotcha. So it sounds similar to the Aussie school sport system, except it's private/ you pay.
(And to be fair the Aussie school sport system is usually within private schools, so I guess we are still paying in that regard, but the sport is free in and of itself.)
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
Public school sports in the US are free. Private school sports are mostly included in the tuition cost of the school.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Public school sports are free here on Australia too, but they tend not to do the same amount / intensity as private schools and often aren't offered the games against other schools at weekends/ training.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
Many public schools charge an activity fee for sports.Â
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
I thought that was illegal.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
Not at all. We have to pay a fee for band and several other things if they involve a use of the facilities outside of normal hours. Clubs meeting in classrooms are the exception.Â
manicpixidreamgirl04@reddit
Oh I just looked it up. It's illegal in some states but not all.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
Yep. Varies wildly across the country.Â
husky_whisperer@reddit
It wasn’t in the 90s.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
Bless your heart.Â
dr_stre@reddit
The 90s were nominally 30 years ago.
No-Conversation1940@reddit
Branson is leaning hard into youth travel sports as a way to diversify tourist income. They have this outdoor complex for baseball, softball, etc.
Meowmeowmeow31@reddit
The people I know whose kids do it, the entire family’s free time basically revolves around the travel team. It’s fine if everyone genuinely enjoys it, but I couldn’t do it.
Iwoulddiefcftbatk@reddit
My nephew is in U9 baseball and the fee is $1200USD per kid for the season. They did fundraising so it ultimately cost less, but it’s a travel team for 4th graders that travels around the area playing each other. Older teams cost more, and I can’t imagine what the teams that are high school/college pipeline cost.
ZetaWMo4@reddit
My son is playing in college now but I was paying about $3k a season for him at the high school level plus hired a personal infield coach on top of that. And he played on his high school team and they had their own fees as well. He was my only child by the time he got to high school so I was able to afford it but it’s definitely crazy expensive. Some areas probably charge even more.
Frosty-Solid5460@reddit
Yeah it is.
gottarun215@reddit
Often only middle school and high school levels have school teams that travel to play against neighboring schools. Any lower level schools with teams more typically are intramural sports. For elementary age or less competitive options for MS/HS, you have non-travel sports sponsored by the local city/county/park district etc where games are mostly or entirely against other teams in the same city league. Travel sports consist of club teams that play against other teams around the region or even further away for tournaments or nationals. For some sports, club teams are more competitive than the HS sponsored varsity league, but others, HS varsity state tournament is gonna be the highest level within the state.
rawbface@reddit
The alternative (or predecessor) to travel sports is rec league. They form teams out of all the players in town and they all play each other at the same place. It's how "little league" and "peewee" teams work.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
School teams are not travel leagues. They rarely involve overnight stays and the school provides transporting and coaching.Â
rawbface@reddit
If you take bus to another school, you have traveled. Overnight stays are not a requirement.
Proof-Emergency-5441@reddit
That is not a travel league. Knock it off.Â
SabresBills69@reddit
travel leagues tend to be around specific sports like soccer and ice hockey. you generally don’t have them in other sports.
some small high schools create pooled hockey/ soccer/ football teams
GOTaSMALL1@reddit
Back when I was a pup and played sports there were three designations we used.
"School", "Club" and "Travel".
School was your basic team at school.
Club is not affiliated with a school but still local-ish.
Travel was a team that would travel long distances for tournaments/games.
Club/Travel share a lot on the Venn Diagram but some differences.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Yeah okay. We have club, same as you.
School tends not to be that basic, but it does depend on the school. A sporty school (which is most of the private ones, and private schools here are not necessarily super expensive - they can be cheaper or more expensive private schools) might have 4 or 5 teams within one age grade, and they get in external coaches/ excellence academies, etc. The A team plays the other schools' A teams, and then there's a B, C, and so forth.
Those school teams travel within a limit (our furthest is 1hr 15 drive). And the people in the school teams tend to be the ones who try out for the district, regional, state, and then national teams. So they travel a bit more. But it's not something you pay to do beyond travel expenses - it's how good you are.
GOTaSMALL1@reddit
It’s similar for sure. But there is some huge variations.
We also have different levels in schools more based on year/age. “Junior Varsity” and “Varsity” are the common delineators… but HS sports is pretty much about the Varsity teams.
Also… important to remember there is huge variety. In some instances the “school” team is not really for super high competition and kids that want to learn/compete at higher levels aspire to play “Travel” sports.
In the same instance… we have private High School Football teams that literally fly across time zones to play regular season games. If you care… look up IMG Academy in Florida.
In short… somewhat similar but with a huge country and lots of people there’s a huge variety.
bananajr6000@reddit
The first thing you described is a school team in the U.S.
Where I grew up, the Junior Varsity games/matches were on Thursday nights and the Varsity games were on Friday nights. Most track meets were on Saturdays, especially cross country running. The top teams may go to the state tournament for the opportunity to become state champions. The states here are U.S. states like Florida or Massachusetts
Then there is a Rec (Recreational) league usually run by the county. It is a paid league but typically not very expensive. Kids still have to try out, but acceptance is pretty easy with any real skill, and the games are pretty local. There is a championship tournament
From Rec league, Travel Teams will scout and recruit kids. There are much more intensive tryouts, and the expenses are a lot higher than Rec. These teams tend to travel short distances, a little farther than school leagues. Each team plays each other team home and away to determine seeding for a state championship tournament. Travel team championships are much more prestigious than Rec., although school league championships are usually seen as better
Travel teams are much more regulated by age. A “U15” team means all kids on the team must be under 15 when the season starts. A 13 year old that is good enough may play on a U15 team
Using soccer/footy as an example, my kid played Rec for a season, went to a travel team, played on an indoor team in the spring including futsal, then played on regional teams in the summer that played all up and down the Eastern United States seaboard, Delaware to Georgia
Coaches vary greatly. My kid was basically a 5 minute a half player on a U15 team, quit, and became a starter on a U16 team as a 14 year old. That team was runner up in the state championship on a very, very bad call. It should have gone to penalties
Above travel teams, the U.S. has an Olympic Development Program (which I think is a complete joke) That U15 coach put their not-skilled kid on it, and my kid schooled them daily
The main goal for all this is to try to get scholarships for college teams so school is cheaper/free. College in the U.S. typically starts at age 18 right out of high school
Note: as good as my kid was, they couldn’t even make the practice squad at the Division 1 (top division in U.S. college) university they attended. My kid could have gotten a full scholarship at many other schools, but opted to go to a top state university in our state because of the academics and reputation
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
That makes perfect sense - thanks so much for explaining it so fully.
Uni is the same here, starting at 18, but I think our fees for uni aren't as prohibitive as what I understand them to be for you guys. Students don't have to pay their college fees until after they've graduated and are earning a minimum salary. They're then deducted like a tax over approximately a million years in small increments. So it's not such a pressure to get a scholarship, nor are there as many offered to my knowledge.
TeamTurnus@reddit
Thats what we'd call school sports, which sounds similiar. School teams do travel like what you've described.
Travel teams are a differnt thing, usually private leagues unaffiliated with a specific school where folks play often in addition to their school teams. They'll (for example in baseball where they play while school is out for the summer or during fall) often play during different seasons than the core sport so the kids can play both.
ExternalTelevision75@reddit
Travel ball would be a group of kids from the same general area are on a team that travels to another area to play against the local team. It nothing to do with school
Tommy_Wisseau_burner@reddit
They’re teams not through school or the town.
Alert-Painting1164@reddit
Travel sports are a way to separate parents from money while convincing them that they are doing it for the benefit of their children. The parents then have to spend their entire social lives in the bar of various Hampton inns and Hilton Gardens around the country.
WryAnthology@reddit (OP)
Haha I mean that has a certain appeal...
Tigerzombie@reddit
I know someone who has 3 kids in travel volleyball. The team they play on is in a bigger city, so they have to drive 1.5 hours each way, 3 times a week for practice. They travel more for tournaments, sometimes all the way to California when we live in NY. Their oldest got a scholarship to play at a D1 college next year so I guess it’s worth it for them.
macrocosm93@reddit
Sport in America can be broken down like this
School athletics. Official school teams that play other schools in their area, sometimes travelling within the region. The better teams go on to play in the state championships. And then at the University level it gets serious due to a lot of money involved and players aspiring to professional teams.
University intramural leagues. These are leagues hosted by a University for the students at the university, separate from the main athletic teams. They only play within the university itself and don't play other schools. Usually pretty casual and just for fun.
Local leagues for kids, for elementary to middle school age kids. Usually called "little league". Very casual and mostly played for fun. Usually sponsored by local small businesses and just play other teams in their town or area.
Casual adult leagues. Just groups of people in clubs who play each other for fun. Sometimes they organize tournaments. Usually not sponsored. Sometimes there are corporate/business leagues where employees from one company will play employees from another company, also just for fun.
Travel teams. These are private teams that play other private teams in formal games and tournaments, often travelling some distances. They typically take the game a lot more seriously than little league or the casual adult clubs, as many of the players aspire to joining a University or professional team. They cost money to join and often require a lot of ongoing expenses from the player or parents. Mainly just for high school and young adult players.
Professional teams, which can include the big leagues like the NFL and the MLB, but can also include minor leagues, and local "farm leagues" where the players actually do make money but not enough to make it a career.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
As others have said, they are not school leagues but that doesn't mean that teams don't travel fairly far even for school sports, too. I lived in a smaller city growing up and the nearest big city was 90 minutes away by car (or in this case, bus). For away games, teams would routinely go up there to play other high schools. I think maybe we even sometimes played teams past there in smaller cities. That was probably only for the playoffs, though, if your team made it that far. The closest high school we played against was across town about 5 miles, but lots of them were 30 to 40 minutes to an hour away. I have a feeling people in the bigger western states would routinely go farther than that. I have a feeling you'll find some people with those stories on here in other comments.
Eat_Locals@reddit
Ages 5-11 or so are unlikely to have school teams, 12-14 might, but only in one or two sports, 14-18 there are school teams in a variety of sports. Private schools are an exception—this isn’t universal, but I had to play two sports each year.Â
Ok-Walk-8040@reddit
In the US we have sports sponsored by the school and also sports that are independently-funded. A child will often play both.
For example, a talented basketball player will play for his high school team in the winter. He will also play summer ball on his AAU team.
Both kinds of teams may travel from state to state to play in tournaments but generally the non-school teams that are privately-funded will play in traveling tournaments a lot more.
Eat_Locals@reddit
Soccer is an interesting outlier, where being a top collegiate player <> being a top professional prospect.Â
Ok-Walk-8040@reddit
Yeah, it’s just the way professional soccer works around the world. You can be 16 and be ready for professional soccer. They get kids in at 9 and train them and provide them with proper education and tutoring. It’s practically a vocational school but you go and train with the best coaches in the world when you aren’t at school.
Crayshack@reddit
Travel teams aren't related to school sports teams. They are similar to general rec leagues, except instead of just being all of the local kids playing against each other, it's a smaller group of kids at a higher skill level playing against teams from further away (hence the "travel" aspect).
BullsOnParadeFloats@reddit
Two of my cousins (theyre brothers) played travel hockey while they were in high school, and both went to Notre Dame on athletic scholarships.
The older one almost went to the show, but dropped out due to getting too many concussions.
DrBlankslate@reddit
School sports games are generally local. If you win the local league, you might travel to play in bigger playoff competitions, but generally games at the high school level happen within driving distance and don't require overnights during travel for them.
OldRaj@reddit
Travel sport parent, hockey. Highly competitive.
dangleicious13@reddit
We do the same thing in our schools, but when someone refers to “travel ball” or “travel sports”, they are talking about things outside of school. They are also likely traveling far greater distances to play in regional/national tournaments.
I played soccer in high school. We would play other teams throughout the state and an occasional out of state team if they came over for a tournament. I could have played for a club team in the nearby city, but they did a lot of traveling to other states.
zylpher@reddit
I played travel league soccer in highschool, mainly because my school team sucked and I was also in Marching Band. So I couldn't play their normal fall season due to football.
My team was done through the local YMCA. And we went around the region playing. Up to about an hour or two away. It was mostly a spring/summer league. There were a few highschools that had a spring team that played the local traveling teams. And the one year I played for my school, we played a lot of traveling teams, due to us being private.
There was an all girls team we played twice a year or so. They were aggressive as shit. Girls soccer scares me with how aggressive it is.
Lzinger@reddit
Travel leagues are private usually off season leagues.
School soccer season is in the fall, and kids can sign up for (usually paying money) for a spring league. You usually end up traveling further because there are less teams, but the competition is tougher as the kids are more serious about it
Combat__Crayon@reddit
Out by me they pretty much replace the rec league. Like my kids are in rec soccer its fall and spring. Travel soccer pretty much runs year round and goes indoor to train in the offseason, even for 8 year olds.
HankyPanky80@reddit
We have the same for school sports. But ''travel' teams are usually separate from that. In some areas of the country these teams might travel 5 hours away or even fly to big tournaments across the country. These teams are typically expensive to participate in and participants are either invited to a team or try out. These leagues usually have different seasons than the school season.
CHICAG0AT@reddit
Travel leagues are separate from school based leagues or park district / county based leagues.
Paid_Babysitter@reddit
Yep, the same. It is called travel mainly to differentiate from local public parks and recreation or school teams and private teams. Typically when people refer to travel sports these are private organizations or companies that put together teams and tournaments.
gator_mckluskie@reddit
nah travel leagues are separate from school sports
pudding7@reddit
Yes basically the same. Â