The Sad truth

[AcesPease]

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.

In the Northeast many smaller schools do not have football teams and many middle class school systems are going increasingly to "pay to play" funding.

Back to the original topic: Maintaining the health of existing teams should be a part of the overall FIRST Growth plan. Teams need to find long term support from their school or sponsor to pay that difficult initial entry fee so the students only need to raise money for a trip and can focus on science and technology.