re: How much is too much to spend on your kids sports?

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Hes the most popular. Trampas Parker was from LA and won two world motocross championships overseas. Few other riders have got pro licenses but not as much success as windham.

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Very few riders in the history of the sport has had the same level of success as Kevin.
But no one from LA has made a real career as a pro since Kevin. Matt Lemoine was the only one with real potential but he moved to Texas once his family realized his potential then it never really panned out.

I used to like baseball. Travel ball has ruined that $$$$$$$$

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How much money is there in dirt bike riding at the pro level?

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The top guys are millionaries and the mid-level guys can earn a living.

But the competition is global (even though all the races are here). Top drivers are aussies right now.

ETA: i was also surprised

My daughter is about to be 15 and is a junior tour golfer. She started when she was 13 which is pretty late but was blessed with a natural golf swing. She first swung a club two weeks before middle school tryouts her 7th grade year. Three months later , she was low medalist at the championship match that included 8 middle schools and over 40 players. I registered her for the GSGA Junior Tour later that year and she finished 3rd (out of a field of 58) in the statewide standings for her 13-15 age group. She is a very good but not yet elite golfer. I am not sure she has the passion to put the hours in required to be able to shoot par or under par consistently. She is an 8.7 on GHIN right now and loves to play and compete. She has elite potential but not sure she has elite drive to get in the top 2% and get a major college opportunity. I am pretty sure she is at least on track to play at the DII level. People always say to get your daughters into golf because it is easy to get an athletic scholarship going that route. It is easier than boys but it has become extremely competitive. There are a lot more elite level female junior golfers now than a decade ago.

I will pay about $3000 this year for her to play in tournaments. She has already played 16 since March and has 6 remaining between now and mid November. I have upgraded all of the clubs in her bag as she has grown 5” in 2 years. She carries about $3000 worth of clubs in her bag with the most expensive being a TaylorMade QI35 max lite driver. She has the black Vokey wedges in 52,56, and 60. Next year, if she stays with it, the tournament fees will be higher as she plays in some AJGA events during her freshman year of HS. If something clicks and she becomes obsessed over the next year or two with truly becoming elite and her results are trending that way, I won’t have any reservations about spending a few extra thousand a year.

She loves it but I am still not sure if she loves it enough to put in the hours. She likes to practice an hour 5-6 days a week, not 3-4. She is a rules expert already and loves watching golf on TV. One cool experience she has had is to be a standard bearer at the Tour Championship at East Lake last year. Carried the standard for Burns and Clark one day and Kirk and Horshel another day. She automatically gets invited back every year until she is 18 so she has 4 more years including this year. They have already sent out the schedule and she is walking the Friday and Sunday rounds. She will carry the standard for the 2nd to last group (group 14) on Sunday so it could be very exciting coming down the stretch.

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The problem is there is a whole travelball-industrial complex built to tell parents of average-to-good kids that their kids are potentially elite, in order to milk money out of them.

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It seems like they are taking advantage of the uneducated.

Hey, everyone is free to waste their money as they please.

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On average, I spend around $20k per year on racing and trainers

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That’s reasonable for an upper middle class family. I spent around $20k-30k/yr. on sport karate for my kid during his peak years (mostly travel expenses & and a few grand on a private trainer). It’s not strictly on the sport - if we traveled out of state 10-12x/yr., I’d turn most of those trips into mini-vacations so it was a family event. It paid off with 4 consecutive World Championships, but more so in great family time and memories. Rule #1 was that if it ever stops being fun, we stop. He competed until he started LSU, and now he’s a civil engineer. I feel like the experience was a vital part of his success in life.

My other son is at the motocross crossroads with his 7 yr. old. (still age 6 for AMA purposes). Fell short at regional qualifiers for Loretta’s, but all the kids who qualified in his 4-6 yr. old class live at full time training facilities. To me, that’s insane at that age. I have a decent little half-mile track that I built for him on my land, so he gets to ride for free any weekend they want to ride and gets plenty enough seat time. At that age, that should be enough. In my opinion, the kids with natural talent (i.e., pro potential) in their early teens will show that on a local level, and then it can be taken to a higher level if necessary.

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It depends on your income. That’s the truth.

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Is it, though?

I sold the company I built from scratch at age 54 and retired a millionaire.

You'd never catch me spending that kind of money on something like that, even though I could.

We have 2 boys with a 7yr age gap.
The oldest did MotoX and we competed on a mini-circuit at the time. Did not spend too much because we were able to land a few local sponsors (Cycle Gear being the biggest contributor). Out of pocket we spent maybe 5k max. (Hotel, food).

Youngest did Travel baseball and as he aged went to "Showcase" baseball (same as Travel except for HS age young men). We definitely spent more $$ when he was younger (7-8k yr incl training) and it became cheaper as he grew older. When we started the "showcase" baseball we were given a packet that contained the agenda and 20 $50 gift cards to be used for hotel or whatever.

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And if it's just about "them loving it," then that's even dumber. I would have loved a lot of things that cost $20k or $40k or $80k a year when I was that age. So would any kid. That's no reason to indulge it.

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If everyone had your mindset, professional sports would cease to exist. No kid has a legitimate chance of rising to the top of any sport without indulging into it. It takes years of work to become elite athletes anything, you don’t just wake up one day and you’re suddenly the best.

And if it is just about them loving the sport and you can afford it, then that’s fine too. My kid is going to have some amazing memories and stories to tell his friends and kids later on in life.He will have memories with his dad that I never had.
Your kids won’t have that either. To me, those memories and the lessons taught are the most important aspects of what we do.

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And if it's just about "them loving it," then that's even dumber. I would have loved a lot of things that cost $20k or $40k or $80k a year when I was that age. So would any kid.

That's no reason to indulge it.

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We can flat out disagree here.

That may be the only reason for them indulge it.

If my kid has generational talent at something, and every adult who know their stuff tells me as much, if my kid doesn't like it, they have my blessing to finish out the season, think on if they want to continue, and then either do it or not.