I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars I’ve already paid’: Dad pays to enter child into sports tournament. Then they charge $40 to watch

What’s the most ridiculous expense you’ve ever encountered as a youth sports parent?

This is the question content creator Brad Roberts (@the_coaching_dad) poses to fellow dad and creator Jordan Rifkin (@brokedadjordan) during a conversation about the costs of competitive youth sports.

“You’re getting a wristband to go. Like, I don’t know how many hundreds of dollars I’ve already paid to get my kid in … I presume [it] goes towards all the expenses,” Rifkin elaborates.

Rifkin estimates that the admission cost was somewhere between $22 and $40 per person during a recent weekend trip. For two adults, that’s up to an additional $80.

“I get it,” he notes, acknowledging that hosting youth sports tournaments is no cheap feat. “These are [decent-sized] operations, and they got to pay people.”

“I would rather it be a sunk cost,” he adds. “Tell me it’s $400 a kid and let me in and go,” Rifkin says, “To me that’s like crazy.”

Roberts simply replies, “100%.”

“Youth sports families are already paying team fees, tournament fees, travel costs, uniforms, hotels, food, equipment, and everything else that somehow ends up in the budget,” Roberts adds in the caption.

‘You aren’t allowed to take in drinks or food’

In the comment section, viewers generally agreed with Roberts and Rifkin’s take.

One parent pointed out how organizations sometimes require families to “use specific hotels” even if they have family to stay with. They added that “tournament parking fees are ridiculous.”

“What’s more ridiculous is when you pay the tournament fee, pay to park, then pay the gate fee … [Then] aren’t allowed to take in drinks or food, even drinks for your play … [The] complex is completely [run] down,” another parent wrote.

One dad wrote that he had “just paid $100 to watch a week at East Cobb.” He says he spent “another $100 for [his] wife and another $100 for [his] daughter.”

Another TikToker brought up the added expense of paying entry for siblings who “cannot drive and have no control over where they are forced to go.”

How much are parents spending on youth sports?

The Aspen Institute’s Project Play estimates that the average American family spent “$1,016 on their child’s primary sport in 2024.” It says that figure is “a 46% increase since 2019.”

If you account for additional sports, that number climbs to $1,500 per year.

“Parents now spend more than $40 billion annually on their children’s sports activities,” the organization writes. It points to registration fees, rising real estate and labor costs, travel, lodging, camps, and private coaches as factors contributing to rising costs.

Admission fees, or gate fees, are separate from the tournament registration fees paid by teams. True Tourney, a data-focused platform that lists “actual entry fees, gate fees, games guaranteed, and live spots remaining,” says that gate fees account for “the single most under-published number in youth tournament sports.”

Entry fees “largely go to umpires, balls, and field rental.” The website adds that “the gate is how many venues and directors cover the rest.”

Eighty-three percent of the 1,013 tournaments it tracked didn’t publish a gate fee at all.

“The effect on families is real,” it writes. “The one cost that scales with how many people love the player is the one cost you can’t see in advance.”

This story is republished with permission. It originally appeared on Subplot News.