It may seem like every time you open your email or scroll through social media, you are bombarded with another fundraiser for a local team, and even the most diehard fan might wonder where all that money goes. Inflation hasn’t just hit individuals and families; it’s costing schools and sports teams more.
An obvious expenditure is outfitting student-athletes. While some sports can get away with a single uniform for each participant, others require home and away sets. Football uniforms alone can easily cost well over $100 per athlete, and extra sets are needed to account for damage, loss and late additions to the roster. Less expensive materials tend to require more frequent replacement, and even the best-made uniforms eventually wear out.
Multiply those costs by an entire roster and the numbers climb quickly.
At Key West, Monroe County’s largest high school, athletic director Andrew Freeman said the Conchs spent about $27,000 this year to outfit the football team with two jerseys and one pair of pants per player.
“And that was our cheaper brand option,” Freeman said.
The uniform is only the beginning.
A single football player’s helmet, shoulder pads, practice pants, girdle and assorted pads and accessories can easily represent another $600 or more in equipment. Helmets, among the most important pieces of protective equipment in football and lacrosse, are unsurprisingly among the most expensive. And the expense does not end with the initial purchase. Helmets must be regularly inspected, reconditioned and recertified when required, with replacements purchased as needed.
Baseball and softball batting helmets may be considerably less expensive, but a standard set of catcher’s gear can run $500 to $600, according to Marathon baseball coach Joey Gonzalez.
Yet it wasn’t the catcher’s gear that Gonzalez identified as one of his team’s sneakiest budget-busters. It was something far more mundane.
“Game balls are literally $12 a ball,” he said.
Those baseballs have a short life expectancy. Between games and practices, Gonzalez said the program goes through $3,000 to $4,000 worth of balls each year.
Also eating into athletic budgets are the people tasked with keeping those games fair.
“A three-man crew is near $500 for the evening,” Gonzalez said.
That equates to a whole lot of hot dogs and hamburgers sold at the concession stand to help alleviate the sting.
The FHSAA establishes the number of officials required for varsity contests as well as their game fees. A wrestling dual meet may require a single mat official, while tournaments need more. Other sports require anywhere from two to six officials for a contest, with individual fees varying by sport and additional compensation for travel.
For some sports, hosting a game can actually cost more than going on the road.
“Referees are our biggest expense at the end of the year,” Marathon basketball coach Jim Murphy said. “It’s cheaper to hop in a van, drive six hours to a game, spend the night and drive home or play again the next day than to host a JV, girls and boys varsity game at home.”
Cross country spends very little on protective equipment, with athletes doing their best to pare down the weight they carry. A case of tape, prewrap and a few muscle rollers can last the team for a season, but even the local harriers are not without significant expenses.
“It’s actually getting a lot more expensive these days,” Key West cross country coach Keara McGraw said. “Meet entries for large meets run about $300 a team now when they used to be half that.”
Then there is the unavoidable reality of competing from a string of islands at the southernmost end of the state; you have to get there. Travel costs are a major budget item, McGraw said.
Success can make the bill even larger. When a Keys athlete qualifies for the big show, the entire island chain tends to know about it. What fans might not realize is that flying a single athlete to the state cross country meet in Tallahassee can take a $1,200 bite out of a team’s budget, even before hotels and meals are added.
Schools pick up the tab for facility maintenance, administrative costs and some travel expenses, and they often partner with other county agencies to provide physicals and other health-related services. Countless volunteers take tickets, grill burgers and freely give their time in other ways to make local athletics possible.
Still, individual programs must find creative ways to pay for many of the expenses that aren’t obvious from the bleachers.
And the modern athletic budget contains expenses that barely existed a decade ago.
Technology has advanced rapidly, and teams hoping to remain competitive increasingly find themselves needing to keep pace. Ten years ago, filming a game on an iPad might have seemed cutting edge. Today, many programs record their contests and upload the footage to video analysis platforms such as Hudl, where software and professional analysis services can break down game film, compile statistics and create team and individual highlight reels.
What may sound a little Orwellian to some has rapidly become commonplace in high school athletics, and like nearly everything else associated with playing the game, it comes with a price.
