The Most Infuriating Money Grab in Youth Sports is...

It all comes down to three little words that thrown together should be banned.

Until recently, I could never quite pinpoint the most maddening act of preying on our wallets in youth sports. The contenders are endless. Charging gate or parking fees on top of hefty tournament fees? Gross. $6 for a bottle of Kirkland brand water? Puh-lease. Clubs with regular (mandatory) uniform updates that are strikingly similar to the previous design? Annoying.

But there is one money grab so egregious that it deserves its own throne on the mantle of greed. Three little words that sound innocent enough. Three little words with a cute enough phraseology that you may overlook their meaning if you’re not paying close enough attention.

Stay-To-Play.

Not Stay-to-Play as in you need to stay in any form of lodging. Oh no, you MUST stay in the hotel or hotels contracted by the tournament, typically booked through a third-party sports travel company’s portal. The general process of State to Play is the travel company guarantees the hotel x number of bookings and in exchange receives a commission - Sports Business Journal reports this commission to be around 10% - which it then shares with the tournament organizer and perhaps the local sports commission.

This would be palatable if the rooms were provided at a discount or the coaches could stay for free…Save-and-Play has a much nicer ring. Unfortunately, more often than not, there is no value to be had.

To participate in next March’s Jefferson Cup in Richmond, VA, one of the largest soccer tournaments in the country, participants must book their rooms through an outfit called Anthony Travel.

There are several hotel options. One is the Comfort Inn Fredricksburg South which is $162 on the Comfort Inn website and $164 via Anthony Travel. That’s a minimal difference but a difference none the less and is likely to become more drastic as the event approaches. There were a couple of Marriott Bonvoy options that were the same rate but required only 19,000 points per night. Except you are not allowed to use points or cash and points. Or stay at a timeshare, a relative’s house, or a cheaper hotel. Or have the contracted hotel offer to match a lower rate if one is found. Those would all be logical but logic has long been buried within the big business of youth sports. Typically, the only way to partake in any of those “cheaper” options is for a team to pay an opt-out fee, sometimes in the ballpark of $1000 or $1500. (And yes, my blood is boiling just from typing this out.)

Tournament goers are forced to book through the travel company. Look at this verbiage on Anthony Travel’s website:

All teams are mandated to book any hotel reservations through Anthony Travel to insure their place in the 2023 Jefferson Cup – teams found to be in violation of this requirement are subject to disqualification without refund of their entry fee, and will jeopardize their participation in future Richmond Strikers tournaments.

Mandate? Requirement? Violation? We’re taking about kids traveling to play sports, not some secret CIA mission.

Again, no big deal, if the contracted block of rooms were one of many options. Say there’s a major event in the town your team is participating and this at least guarantees rooms. But to be handcuffed to the block of rooms, knowing some mysterious youth sports entities are getting kickbacks, is absurd.

For Super Bowl week, thousands of media travel to cover the nonstop array of on site events. The NFL sets up three-to-four "media hotels with rates I believe are slightly discounted. These hotels are in the most convenient location by the media center, and offer free transportation to/from any further away team availabilities. When I’ve covered the Super Bowl as an employee of major media companies, we’ve stayed at the official NFL media hotels. It’s easy when traveling with a large group as there’s so much coordinating on tap. But when I’ve gone to Super Bowl week as a freelancer, I don’t book my hotel until a week or two before and often find good last minute options using points. I’m allowed to cover the event no matter where I stay.

Imagine telling your wedding guests they aren’t allowed to attend the ceremony unless they stay at the hotel you’ve chosen. This is literally what is happening in the youth sports world.

The Jefferson Cup example above is minor compared to some of the other Stay-to-Play shenanigans out there. I did some digging in various groups and found out that practically no sport is immune. A few of the many disheartening anecdotes:

Soccer: Last December, while at my kid's previous club, I worked really hard to ensure our team secured a block of discounted rooms for the "2019 Savannah United Elite Cup". Just before the manager at the Hampton Inn & Suites Savannah Midtown was to email me the agreement... I was asked, "Hey, this isn't for a soccer tournament - is it?" Turns out, he wasn't allowed to offer me anything. I HAD to go through a 3rd party company that did nothing except: raise the rates for families, include a 100% non-refundable deposit, and ensure that any bonus/points we got went directly to the 3rd party company. I reached out the that "business" to voice my concerns... but the owner was away in Australia. (Probably easy to do when you get to collect everyone else's frequent traveler perks!) When he finally replied to me I emailed back: " I learned that we could not make our own lodging arrangements for that tournament - and therefore every family on our team has to spend just over $96 extra. Enjoy Australia." What a scam!

Cheer: One competition we were charged $250 a night for a crappy hotel. My parents decided to come since we were close to them and they booked the same hotel for a $100 LESS!!!!

Softball: Our team has always paid the buyout for softball tournaments. In our experience it has always saved money by paying the buyout and then booking where you wish. The buyouts can be anywhere from $500-$2000 per team depending on the tournament.

Hockey: Hockey tournaments in which the assigned hotel is 45 minutes from your 7:00 am game and you play in two different rinks that are also 45 minutes away from each other.

Baseball: Tournament nightmare of stay to play...pool play was delayed due to rain and we didn't get finished until after 10pm. Took us 45 minutes to get to hotel. It was a flea bag spider hole. Smelled gross and was like $200/night. Usual cost for normal decent hotel would have been $120/night. The next morning cops were at the lobby due to a domestic issue, but worst part was our bracket games were over an hour away from the spider hole hotel. And games started at 7 and we needed to be there an hour before so we had like 6 hours there. And this field was an hour further from home. It was an exhausting weekend. I wrote to our league president asking them to send it to tournament directors. Never did that before and never had to again.

Perhaps Stay-to-Play was born with the right intentions but it has evolved into a dictatorship. Many parents may not even be aware (built into club fees) or care (just add it it to the list of expenditures). But if you spend five seconds thinking about Stay-To-Play it’s hard not to feel like a sucker.

What can we do about it? Oh, I thought you’d never ask…

Question. I wrote to an outfit called Athletx earlier this week inquiring about their Stay-To-Play policy in association with the Youth Baseball Nationals, a week-long baseball tourney and event run throughout the country. My email asking about pricing, specific hotels, whether lower prices would be matched, and opt out policy has yet to be answered. But I let them know we were considering and their answers would determine our participation. The more we question these policies the better.

Boycott. Luckily, there are many many quality options to play both locally and nationally that do not operate with a mandatory Stay to Play. Choose those events and let the Stay-to-Play tournament directors know exactly why you are avoiding them.

This is a strength in numbers situation. Parents fund these leagues and events and therefore we have more power than we may think. There are many aspects of youth sports that are annoying but aren’t worth the time and effort to rabble-rouse. Stay-To-Play, on the other hand, needs to be burned down.

Have you been sucked into Stay-to-Play? Let us know. We’re in this together!

(Coming next week: A much happier piece.)