Quote:
Originally Posted by Alan Anderson
I'm pretty sure you're not looking at the same budgets I am. A large part of the funding for most sports programs comes from tickets and concession sales, booster clubs provide another big chunk, and sponsorship is significant. In a few specific cases I know, parents are required to volunteer (yes, it's an oxymoron) for a certain amount of concession duty, or to buy their way out of the obligation. The costs cannot be "absorbed" by the school; they must be covered by income from specific sources.
And in many schools, the students (or their parents) do pay to be part of the football team, sometimes on the order of several hundred dollars a season.
The biggest difference in funding models I see between football and FRC teams is that admission is free to watch FRC competitions. As long as FRC is cheap for the spectators, it will be expensive for the participants.
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This is part of the paradigm that FIRST teams need to change, get FIRST to be accepted into the schools so they too can follow the sports model that exists in schools today. We can only do this be continuing to grow until we cannot be ignored, then no FIRST team at any school will be ignored.