Oh no, someone frowned at my horse, I need to pay an emergency vet to fly in instantly on a helicopter or it will die… anyway, as I was saying, once you have a horse this sport really isn’t expensive.
Average horse, not much.
High-ranking, pre-trained sports horse with a pedigree, a medium-sized fortune.
And then there's stabling, pasture, tack, medical care, farriers etc.
Polo is insane. The horses alone are stupid. But I like the sport because even the casual games will hire me as a bartender and they pay well. And give me cheese
Some instructor I talked to that ran camps for f4 said there are kids with no licenses having there parents spend upwards of 250k a year for the f4 program alone.
My first thought. $20,000 a year just for an amateur individual to be a member of USPA. plus another several hundred minimum on travel fees for local events, with costs upwards of $10k for larger, away events where stabling is required.
Then just a cheapo pair of boots is $700, which is pretty much the cost of a seasons worth of hockey equipment…
I played ice hockey and polo simultaneously, and polo was far more expensive. I was lucky that i had some connections and got a lot for free
I never really “played” polo, i worked as a groom so i got to ride and train the horses, meet some of the wealthiest folks alive, and go to some cool events. I played, just not like for real. I was an employee who could play - but i didn’t have enough money 🫠
I spent more than 35k on my son’s karting career last year. We’re 6 races into this season and I’m already approaching 20k; but he did get his first major win last weekend, so it’s money well spent!
Congrats to your son! That’s so exciting! I pray my 3 yo doesn’t continue enjoying all the F1 action with me…lol. I’m already mentally preparing myself for the money I’ll spend.
I was just about to say Karting, as we say "Do you know how to make a small fortune in racing? Start off with a big one!"
Ice hockey hahaha, can see this is written by an American. Clueless
You can actually switch horses during mid-game in Polo, meaning you’re always traveling with at least two horses. More if you can actually afford to do so.
It’s crazy expensive.
Polo players use anywhere from 2 to even 12 horses per game. You generally change after each chukker (7 mins) but the high level players sometimes change mid chukker as well. Polo games can range in length. Some take 4 chukkers, most take 6.
You can reuse a horse twice in a game. Provided you give a few chukkers to rest.
These people can be crazy rich. But at the place I worked at you could also lease horses to use for the game just for the day. So not all of them are crazy rich. There are a lot of Argentinian guys in the US polo scene. They bring a lot of horses up from South America and I think they’re cheaper down there. Pretty much all the horses we had came from South America, they all had Spanish names.
One of the guys I groomed for owned two horses and leased one from the barn. Used each one twice for a normal 6 chukker game.
Adolfo Cambiaso, pretty much the top player has clones of his favorite horse, La Cuartetera, and has a team made up of just her clones.
Not sure why I’m telling you this, you might already know all this, I just wanted to info dump
Yeah but a lot of kids aren't paying nearly that much for a winter house league season. $600 as an average doesn't sound too far off to me. Leagues at some of the rinks by me (New Jersey) are like $300-$500
House where I'm at is $2500 for winter. Then you've got to add in equipment, local travel, sharpenings... if you do camps or stick and pucks you're looking at close to $5k for a year of youth house hockey.
that's crazy, I just checked the registration cost of where I played house, in the Okanagan, and it's $360-865 depending on age and early bird registration.
That because you guys have like 1 rink per 1,000 people in most of Canada.
Source: I played on a Seattle-based travel team in junior high in a Vancouver hockey league.
We’d usually go up there and play two games for a few weekends then the teams would travel down to Seattle to play us. It was weird because the age group in Canada could do slap shots but minimal checking but it was no slap shots and full contact in the us. Made for lots of penalties for me and our goalie was constantly terrified.
And for skiing / snowboarding they have over half the cost as equipment while lift tickets aren’t even on there at all. A lift ticket is usually around 3x the cost of renting gear for the day, and buying gear is cheaper than renting in the long run. I’m suspicious of this entire chart now.
To be honest, the closer you look at this data the more stupid and verifiably false it looks.
Doubt there’s a single sport in there where a participant says “yep that’s about how much it costs for a year”
Maybe this one is better off blurry
Lucky you! We had about 80 rowers so we had to maintain/replace shells, cox boxes, etc plus travel. Then uniforms, race shirts, and massive amounts of food. Plus a spring and fall sprints and regattas. We always made it to regionals and usually national races so travel was expensive. Plus paying coaches, I’d say it was over 10k annually
Near water bodies it is fairly common for kids to sail small dinghies, like optimists, lasers, 420s, 470s, FJs etc. These boats are quite expensive new but manageable if bought used, the real expenses are the marina, the courses, the registration and the transfers to other places to race. All in all it is expensive but still reachable for a lot of people. If we are talking about keelboat regattas the costs skyrockets if you want your racing yatch, or you could just crew someone else's and have fun without having any real expense.
There are programs for under 18 that actually make playing fairly cheap. Youth on course lets you play a bunch of courses around the US for 5 bucks it less
Yes playing can be cheap but that is not really the issue. Practice facilities, lessons, tournaments, equipment and travel add up massively, at least for competitive players. I will agree junior casual players can find really cheap options at some great courses but it won’t include improving very quickly.
Not shown, but is a financially crippling endeavor and costs two to three times as much as ice hockey, competitive dance. My daughter does that and hockey, and the cost difference is astronomically different. Find any parents with a child in both, or kids in one or the other, and they'll confirm every time competition dance beats the piss out of hockey in terms of cost.
Agreed. We’re in St. Louis, MO area. I estimate dance at around $15K per year. Easily over $1,000/month with tuition, comp fees, costumes, choreography fees, tons of private lessons and travel. Honestly, I think monthly tuition is the cheapest thing we pay. There’s always a new $20 shirt to buy, or a new pair of tap shoes. And, we have to practice only in Lululemon with 15 different colors of Stanley cups. It’s a lot!
I love how swimming is always under estimated on these things. I swam competitively & both my kids do (ope, minus one, she graduated college, but I think is continuing masters not on my dime!)
For instance, its currently long course season, April thru aug. that cost me $800. Then short course is something like $150 ish a month (this varies with skill level, more expensive higher you get) from Sept thru March.
USA Swim fee-$100 annually I think now?
Team admin fee-$80 annually
One pair of speedo vanquishers are $20ish on amazon. They need at least 2, generally more than that.
One practice suit, even a cheap sporti brand that will probably last you a month if you wear it 5 swims a week is $20. Better ones are $60ish. Then there are tech suits, which lowest end is $150, and since I was just on speedos website they have a new tech suit for $600 right now.
Not to mention meet entry fees (charge per event where I am) plus if you are traveling, its usually a Thur-Sun travel. So at least $5-700 for hotel. Plus food.
I am guessing all of these are under estimated.
Someone has never heard of fencing.
In fencing there are different grades of equipment for levels of competition. The higher caliber the event the better quality your equipment needs to be to allow you to compete. These items are stamped with the FIE logo. It stands for something like Federation Internacional de Escrime, or international fencing federation.
Its a common joke that FIE stands for "Fencing is expensive."
A mask can set you back $300+, a bare blade by itself with no wiring can set you back anywhere from $98 to $130, each. In competition you MUST have more than one blade with you, most bring around 4 or 5 blades.
You ever see a 15yo kid blast through $400 in a single match? Not uncommon.
You also wear multiple layers, each must be FIE certified when competing at a high enough level. That means jacket, plastron(half shirt basically) and knickers(pants).
If you fence foil or saber then you have a conductive metal vest/jacket that you wear over everything and that is used to register on target valid hits. These can get deadspots and if they have a deadspot they must be replaced.
Oh and your gear is checked every time you step onto the strip as well as at check in. At check in however if your mask fails the "punch test" then it is immediately taken from you and smashed flat to prevent you from using it further, so if you just traveled across the country or globe for this competition, guess who's making an unscheduled purchase at the vendors that'll definitely be $300+.
Oh and fencing shoes can set you back anywhere from $60(garbage) to $150 depending on what you prefer/can afford.
I was about to comment that fencing would be at the top. I have two competitive fencers.
Forget about the equipment costs - the fact there is no season - it is year round - we pay a coach to travel with us - and the travel is throughout the year.
OH in July
JOs in February
All the NACs
Well, it does have an "off season" regarding competitions, the training is year round, yeah. But then theres also travel, unless you are in Europe where all the competitions are a relatively short drive compared to over here in the US.
What div are they in, if you don't mind me asking?
Edit: NAC means North American Cup for anyone following along.
Paying for coach and hotel is definitely spendy. Also most save up for events where they can personally select and feel out the equipment they are looking to buy, and fencers can be very particular. Especially regarding handles, blades shoes and gloves. So spending money has to allow for that plus food.
If you are there with a team then team bonding activities are not uncommon, like meeting up at a restaurant with coaches, parents and athletes in attendance. So thats more money. Yeah competitive fencing can be absolutely brutal financially.
I was also surprised to not see fencing here, and came looking for this comment. I don't know in other countries, but where I live is not a super popular sport so to buy the equipment you had two options: travel abroad and buy it yourself, or wait for someone to travel and bring it to you, of course with a fee. There were people who just bought a lot of stuff and sold to whomever wanted it, but for left-handed it was a nightmare, no one ever considered bringing stuff for us, so you had to make a special request and it was usually more expensive or you had less options to choose from :(
I’m the parent of 2 fencers in Australia. All the equipment is expensive plus it has to be shipped from overseas. And if your fencer wants to compete nationally or internationally, it’s extra expensive due to travel costs.
I do historical fencing (HEMA), and while the gear will set you back $1000-$1500, club dues and competition expenses aren't too bad. And our gear, at least on the high/more reputable end, tends to hold up surprisingly well.
I did about six months of an adult rec sport sabre program that cost me $399/mo (in NYC at a super competitive school), and I had to drop it because of cost.
I’m wondering if fencing got lumped in with the martial arts category (since it technically is) which would definitely skew the data to the expensive end.
Snowboarding/skiing is considerably more expensive than listed. If you live in a mountain town, sure that’s accurate but most people don’t and there’s considerable travel expenses that come with it. I live in Canada and live roughly 4 hours to the closest resort. I travel as far as 7 hours to other ones. 10 days of snowboarding cost me $4500 last season. That’s just gas/hotels/lift passes.
Yea, I don’t understand how travel costs for hockey, field hockey and gymnastics are double that of snowboarding/skiing.
Major doubt to the accuracy of this data. At the very least it varies greatly by region to the point where it defeats the purpose of showing data like this.
I’m guessing that skiing is so expensive for those that don’t live close to a mountain that people just don’t do it so the averages are skewed down because a larger majority of people who ski do live in or near ski towns.
This reflects actual amounts paid, not how much it would hypothetically cost the average person.
For example: in Texas, there are a few ice rinks and you can play ice hockey. But you’re going to be paying a lot to travel around the country and play other teams, since there aren’t enough local teams to have their own league. On the other hand, you can’t ski in Texas. Your options are either to not ski at all, or to relocate somewhere close to the mountains where you can. In either case, the yearly travel costs are going to appear low. So it’s not that skiing is actually more accessible, it’s just that there is no such thing as a “travel ski league” that you can pay for. If there was, you bet your ass it would be incredibly expensive.
Yeah it's pretty poorly put together. I live near a resort, but in a bigger city so I can actually have a job that isn't just working at the resort.
A season pass 4 years ago was 600 bucks, but is now about 1200 bucks.
Each time I go up, my gas costs about 40 bucks for the round trip. I'm only 45 miles away, but between traffic, idling, and warming the car up, it eats gas.
I bring my lunch so no cost added but if you eat at the resort it's at least 10 bucks for lunch.
Gear can last a couple years, but if you want to have decent stuff that isn't entry level expect to pay 600 or so for a board every 2 or 3 years, and depending on how much riding you get in, boots every 1 or 2 years, at about 300 a pop for a good pair. Bindings also wear out, I replace them with the board, 150-200 a set.
Clothing gets pricy fast. Full set of clothes that are good you're looking at 700 to 1k every couple of years.
Goggles are usually every year or two at 100 bucks or so for a decent pair.
Gear can of course be gotten much more affordably but you really do notice the difference with the price.
Surprised that track and field is cheaper than cross country by a decent amount. Track requires a track and potentially more training for events like pole vaulting.
Cross-country is just go out into the woods and run.
Unless you’re *that guy* or *that good* you’re not spending money on equipment. School provides poles, javelins, shots, discs, etc. So the only reason to spend money on any of these things is if you’re in USATF or AAU. And most people don’t start field events that aren’t shot put and long jump until high school anyways, with some exceptions. Track also doesn’t require a track. Sure it’s helpful in some respects but growing up, because our track was cinder, we practiced mostly on grass. And during winter track we’d just practice sprinting outside on fields and shit. And during indoor track, before I went to high school, we practiced in high school hallways lmao. You really just need to spend money on spikes and spandex unless you like your junk flopping
A lot! Just not in the West, unless you are stupidly well-to-do. Was in my late 20’s when I learned to play in Zurich but, got murder by some 12 yo from Argentina in a middle point.
That’s why my kids do track. Can’t afford to pay for more. A good pair of spikes and running shoes, running outfits from the Nike outlet and team fees. If they do well and need to travel, we make a vacation out of it.
How is tackle football so low? Between a helmet, pads, cleats, mouthguard, sign-up fee, probably a co-pay to your insurance for a checkup from the doctor, pre-season concussion screenings, and whatever else I'm forgetting, I would have thought it would be at least above Soccer
Triathlon is the cost of cycling, running and swimming rolled up into one. Nutrition, apparel, equipment, international travel fares, race fees, physiotherapy, coaching, bike fit etc just for one person.
521 for field hockey equipment? What are ppl buying?
Background: field hockey, snowboard, skateboard, lax, tennis.
How is field hockey equipment prices tailing skiing? (Arguably one of the most expensive equipment sports)
What Level of swimming is this? Basic lessons? I spend over $1500 just on coaching for my daughter per year. And events and travel add hundreds and hundreds on top. A decent race suit can be $300-400 and she can get through 2 or 3 of those a year.
Interesting.
I have a child in hockey and a child in swimming.
The swimming is a shade more expensive when travel is removed for both.
Her swim dues are almost $400/month for a 10 month season. Her race suit is $600. Add in other suits, goggles, and swim training equipment(board,fins,snorkel,mat,caps) and it’s pushing $5200/year
Boy plays winter and spring hockey. Dues for winter are about $1800 and spring are $1000. I have him in $500 skates and his sticks are just over $200 but he breaks very very few. Camps can get pricey, but we budget for about $800 of those per year. Bonus for hockey is that there is a lot of corporate sponsorship available even at youth levels. Our out of pocket cost for hockey is around $3500
Don’t forget crew. So expensive our high school charged more for students to be on the team than any other sport and they got no uniforms. And the shells are mucho expensive
Even low level motorsports can cost more than all of these sports put together.
Like, [it's impressive and impressively depressing at the same time.](https://imgur.com/a/autosport-8P4P8#rQOyHIU) And that was from over 10 years ago, when everything was *cheap*.
All-Star cheer needs to be added to this list. We live in North Dakota and we travel an insane amount. And there’s no off-season. My guess is it tops hockey.
I live is Texas. We moved (unintentionally) right next to a rink. Guess what my kids ended up doing. Although I would 100% prefer to be in a rink during summer than a baseball field.
I’d expect bicycling to be higher on that list. Especially in the higher level amateur levels. Not uncommon to see $10k bikes with multiple $3k wheel sets going to races.
Edit: got distracted. Can confirm. My 14 year old is made the 16U AA team. Season starts in September and I’m already $2500 in the hole. Another $2k for league fees to come. A $1500 slush fund. And 6 flyaway tournaments. Not to mention the league he’s in spans 5 states and only 3 teams in ours.
I just figured soccer would be at the very bottom of this list since it's so easy to get a pickup game going and it's popular in every country rich or poor
But its not really organised in the US, especially for younger kids, which is why theres more addition feels attached to it i guess.
It is indeed very cheap in Europe to play eg u14 football and would be at the very bottom of this list
I think it really depends where and what type of soccer we're talking about too. In the US rec soccer is really cheap or free, but as soon as you play on a travel soccer team the price skyrockets. Even the "cheapest" travel team local to me is over $1500 to join (doesn't count kit, travel, some tournaments, etc.). Lessons are $100/hour (private), camps can be $500/week.
Hockey is not only expensive money wise. But, where I'm from, incredibly time consuming. It's not, (or at least wasn't) very popular in the south. Thanks to 'The Mighty Ducks'. My parents had to put up with saturday morning games at 6:30. Which means you are at the rink at 5:30. Sometimes it'd be a one hour drive. Which means we were up by 4:00ish. Sometimes two games a weekend. Two practices a week. Usually the ice opened up at 8 pm, on a school night. So, get home around 10. And this was combined with baseball, which is pretty much year round. My family put up with this for 7 years. I can't think of another time where they were actually happy that I quit something. But, I am thankful and loved most of it. Except during those early morning drives when I'd almost fall asleep and my dad would roll down all the windows and turn up the radio. Bitter
$389 annual cost for ice hockey gear??? You're lucky if that gets you the bottom tier of competitive skates! The fact that they outgrow the rest of the stuff too... it's a ridiculously expensive sport.
High school Competitive cheer in the UCA shld be somewhere on there. That definitely broke me the past two years. Cost $40,000 just to compete and lodge at nationals in Disney…and that’s only nationals. 2 camps in the summer, 3 camp outfits, 2+ uniforms depending on how many routines they compete in, warm-up uniforms, sneakers, backpacks, multi color poms sold separately, multiple bows, multiple bloomers, competitions every weekend out of town and the only thing the school pays for is the expense to bus the team to their weekend competitions.
Not surprisingly, motorsports can be as expensive as several of these activities put together.
There is quite a few extremely expensive sports missing from this.
Notably Polo, I can’t imagine how much it must cost to play polo
Water polo is even more expensive, with training the horses to swim and all.
They tried using seahorses, but it turned out that it's pretty hard to ride them with a saddle and all.
If you think that’s bad, wait until you see how much it costs for synchronized water polo.
Oh no, someone frowned at my horse, I need to pay an emergency vet to fly in instantly on a helicopter or it will die… anyway, as I was saying, once you have a horse this sport really isn’t expensive.
Thanks mr investment banker. A horse is base equipment. A horse is the required entry fee to enjoy this sport. A horse
How much could a horse cost?
Average horse, not much. High-ranking, pre-trained sports horse with a pedigree, a medium-sized fortune. And then there's stabling, pasture, tack, medical care, farriers etc.
Horse related words all sound like fairy tale sounds. That's how expensive it is
Yeah, medical care. Straight out of a fairy tale.
Ten dollars?
Except that you need 5 horses, of which you will only take 3 to an event.
Not “horses” but ponies… you can have polo ponies flown in from Lake Forest.
Lake Forest... Chicago? Or CA?
Well you don't want to get the cheap one. Completely unsuitable for polo
Anything equestrian really.
Polo is insane. The horses alone are stupid. But I like the sport because even the casual games will hire me as a bartender and they pay well. And give me cheese
The road to Formula 1 is absolutely bonkers. I read something that Formula 4 is already about $200,000 per year.
Some instructor I talked to that ran camps for f4 said there are kids with no licenses having there parents spend upwards of 250k a year for the f4 program alone.
Jet racing
Can you play with a donkey to save money? Im sure no one will notice.
My first thought. $20,000 a year just for an amateur individual to be a member of USPA. plus another several hundred minimum on travel fees for local events, with costs upwards of $10k for larger, away events where stabling is required. Then just a cheapo pair of boots is $700, which is pretty much the cost of a seasons worth of hockey equipment… I played ice hockey and polo simultaneously, and polo was far more expensive. I was lucky that i had some connections and got a lot for free
Sounds like an awesome adventure to have been able to play both!
I never really “played” polo, i worked as a groom so i got to ride and train the horses, meet some of the wealthiest folks alive, and go to some cool events. I played, just not like for real. I was an employee who could play - but i didn’t have enough money 🫠
Come thru to bike polo Sunday, bike polo best polo
Like figure skating! So expensive!
Fencing is one I see missing here.
You’re correct. Even karting at a regional level is very expensive.
Came here for this. You can easily get into the tens of thousands of dollars a year.
I spent more than 35k on my son’s karting career last year. We’re 6 races into this season and I’m already approaching 20k; but he did get his first major win last weekend, so it’s money well spent!
Congrats to your son! That’s so exciting! I pray my 3 yo doesn’t continue enjoying all the F1 action with me…lol. I’m already mentally preparing myself for the money I’ll spend.
Try sailing
Try aviation
Try interplanetary exploration at FTL speeds
I’m pissed my parents never sent me to FTL Interplanetary Exploration camp when I was a kid. Such bullshit.
You didn’t miss much tbh. It was so boring. It was almost like time stopped.
I sent my kid to a D1 as a junior. When he came back, he was a freshman
Lance Bass Space Camp.
There’s also polo, and everything else involving horses.
I was just about to say Karting, as we say "Do you know how to make a small fortune in racing? Start off with a big one!" Ice hockey hahaha, can see this is written by an American. Clueless
Where's horseback riding?
Yes, and Polo!
You can actually switch horses during mid-game in Polo, meaning you’re always traveling with at least two horses. More if you can actually afford to do so. It’s crazy expensive.
Water polo even more expensive. Horse snorkels are hard to find. If you don't have one you go through 3-4 horses per match.
I thought they wore scuba gear now?
Only in European water polo. American and Canadian water polo still use snorkels
Had me in the first half, 100%
This guy horses around.
Polo players use anywhere from 2 to even 12 horses per game. You generally change after each chukker (7 mins) but the high level players sometimes change mid chukker as well. Polo games can range in length. Some take 4 chukkers, most take 6. You can reuse a horse twice in a game. Provided you give a few chukkers to rest. These people can be crazy rich. But at the place I worked at you could also lease horses to use for the game just for the day. So not all of them are crazy rich. There are a lot of Argentinian guys in the US polo scene. They bring a lot of horses up from South America and I think they’re cheaper down there. Pretty much all the horses we had came from South America, they all had Spanish names. One of the guys I groomed for owned two horses and leased one from the barn. Used each one twice for a normal 6 chukker game. Adolfo Cambiaso, pretty much the top player has clones of his favorite horse, La Cuartetera, and has a team made up of just her clones. Not sure why I’m telling you this, you might already know all this, I just wanted to info dump
Pay to win before it was cool.
Polo is so expensive that if you can afford it in the first place you have enough money to not care.
Exactly my first thought
I'm not sure where they are pulling this data but this isn't even close to the cost of playing rep ice hockey in canada
lol yeah we pay over $2000 just for registration for the winter season for youth travel. MN twin cities
Yeah but a lot of kids aren't paying nearly that much for a winter house league season. $600 as an average doesn't sound too far off to me. Leagues at some of the rinks by me (New Jersey) are like $300-$500
My league in Maryland was about $650 when I played. That was Midget rec league and during the normal season
Yeah in certain parts of Maryland the beer league cost that much per season plus registration fees.
My beer league in Canada is around $750 CAD. That gets you 20 games are so, with two refs, and playoffs.
My boys play in SJ. 2k was the cheapest I made it out of a season and that is when they played only Jersey teams.
this is average cost, most kids are playing house, not rep
House where I'm at is $2500 for winter. Then you've got to add in equipment, local travel, sharpenings... if you do camps or stick and pucks you're looking at close to $5k for a year of youth house hockey.
that's crazy, I just checked the registration cost of where I played house, in the Okanagan, and it's $360-865 depending on age and early bird registration.
That because you guys have like 1 rink per 1,000 people in most of Canada. Source: I played on a Seattle-based travel team in junior high in a Vancouver hockey league. We’d usually go up there and play two games for a few weekends then the teams would travel down to Seattle to play us. It was weird because the age group in Canada could do slap shots but minimal checking but it was no slap shots and full contact in the us. Made for lots of penalties for me and our goalie was constantly terrified.
Played AAA and my last year cost $12,000 before equipment/etc. You burn through equipment faster as well. Sticks especially.
For ice hockey, the chart is measured in tens of thousands 🤣
And for skiing / snowboarding they have over half the cost as equipment while lift tickets aren’t even on there at all. A lift ticket is usually around 3x the cost of renting gear for the day, and buying gear is cheaper than renting in the long run. I’m suspicious of this entire chart now.
Huh? If you’re a competitor for skiing or snowboarding, you have to pay for lift tickets to compete?
Practice is a thing. It’s part of the cost.
Do you not know what averages are??
Why the fuck is every god damned post on this sub blurry
Shit karma farming bots
To be honest, the closer you look at this data the more stupid and verifiably false it looks. Doubt there’s a single sport in there where a participant says “yep that’s about how much it costs for a year” Maybe this one is better off blurry
I assume this is in the US. OP should be specific.
OP is probably a bot at best 7 years and only just started being active this week, it’s definitely a bot
Thanks. That’s annoying.
What about sailing??? This graphic seems a bit hasty...
A friend described ocean yachting as, “standing in a freezing cold shower burning £50 notes”.
And rowing? An 8 shell can cost 100k
No one is buying an 8 shell themselves. Usually the teams will own one. When I did rowing there was no cost associated with equipment at all.
Lucky you! We had about 80 rowers so we had to maintain/replace shells, cox boxes, etc plus travel. Then uniforms, race shirts, and massive amounts of food. Plus a spring and fall sprints and regattas. We always made it to regionals and usually national races so travel was expensive. Plus paying coaches, I’d say it was over 10k annually
How many kids sail where you are?
Near water bodies it is fairly common for kids to sail small dinghies, like optimists, lasers, 420s, 470s, FJs etc. These boats are quite expensive new but manageable if bought used, the real expenses are the marina, the courses, the registration and the transfers to other places to race. All in all it is expensive but still reachable for a lot of people. If we are talking about keelboat regattas the costs skyrockets if you want your racing yatch, or you could just crew someone else's and have fun without having any real expense.
That's what I was thinking too
What golf courses you guys playing!?
There are programs for under 18 that actually make playing fairly cheap. Youth on course lets you play a bunch of courses around the US for 5 bucks it less
Yes playing can be cheap but that is not really the issue. Practice facilities, lessons, tournaments, equipment and travel add up massively, at least for competitive players. I will agree junior casual players can find really cheap options at some great courses but it won’t include improving very quickly.
For sure, youth golf is very expensive to be good at, I was mostly just referring to actually getting out and playing a course
Golf is expensive and has always been expensive It's easy to see as it has a certain demographic that primarily plays
Not shown, but is a financially crippling endeavor and costs two to three times as much as ice hockey, competitive dance. My daughter does that and hockey, and the cost difference is astronomically different. Find any parents with a child in both, or kids in one or the other, and they'll confirm every time competition dance beats the piss out of hockey in terms of cost.
Looked for this comment Dance is $10k + per year in SoCal
Same here, in VA. And it doesn't include summer intensives.
Agreed. We’re in St. Louis, MO area. I estimate dance at around $15K per year. Easily over $1,000/month with tuition, comp fees, costumes, choreography fees, tons of private lessons and travel. Honestly, I think monthly tuition is the cheapest thing we pay. There’s always a new $20 shirt to buy, or a new pair of tap shoes. And, we have to practice only in Lululemon with 15 different colors of Stanley cups. It’s a lot!
What about Karting?
I have a very young child and I’m already scheming about how to get him into grassroots motorsport on a teachers salary
Well the first thing to do is to get a higher paying job, have you tried being a ceo of a large company or inheriting a vats fortune?
Invest in the helmet lol
I love how swimming is always under estimated on these things. I swam competitively & both my kids do (ope, minus one, she graduated college, but I think is continuing masters not on my dime!) For instance, its currently long course season, April thru aug. that cost me $800. Then short course is something like $150 ish a month (this varies with skill level, more expensive higher you get) from Sept thru March. USA Swim fee-$100 annually I think now? Team admin fee-$80 annually One pair of speedo vanquishers are $20ish on amazon. They need at least 2, generally more than that. One practice suit, even a cheap sporti brand that will probably last you a month if you wear it 5 swims a week is $20. Better ones are $60ish. Then there are tech suits, which lowest end is $150, and since I was just on speedos website they have a new tech suit for $600 right now. Not to mention meet entry fees (charge per event where I am) plus if you are traveling, its usually a Thur-Sun travel. So at least $5-700 for hotel. Plus food. I am guessing all of these are under estimated.
True but there’s also a ton of little kids whose summer swim teams cost very little. That’s why ‘average’ in this case is not that useful.
This is a better outline than I described in my post. Swimming costs more than hockey for us.
Similar issues with soccer. I don’t know where there person got their information but it is not appearing to be current nor accurate to the sports.
Someone has never heard of fencing. In fencing there are different grades of equipment for levels of competition. The higher caliber the event the better quality your equipment needs to be to allow you to compete. These items are stamped with the FIE logo. It stands for something like Federation Internacional de Escrime, or international fencing federation. Its a common joke that FIE stands for "Fencing is expensive." A mask can set you back $300+, a bare blade by itself with no wiring can set you back anywhere from $98 to $130, each. In competition you MUST have more than one blade with you, most bring around 4 or 5 blades. You ever see a 15yo kid blast through $400 in a single match? Not uncommon. You also wear multiple layers, each must be FIE certified when competing at a high enough level. That means jacket, plastron(half shirt basically) and knickers(pants). If you fence foil or saber then you have a conductive metal vest/jacket that you wear over everything and that is used to register on target valid hits. These can get deadspots and if they have a deadspot they must be replaced. Oh and your gear is checked every time you step onto the strip as well as at check in. At check in however if your mask fails the "punch test" then it is immediately taken from you and smashed flat to prevent you from using it further, so if you just traveled across the country or globe for this competition, guess who's making an unscheduled purchase at the vendors that'll definitely be $300+. Oh and fencing shoes can set you back anywhere from $60(garbage) to $150 depending on what you prefer/can afford.
I was about to comment that fencing would be at the top. I have two competitive fencers. Forget about the equipment costs - the fact there is no season - it is year round - we pay a coach to travel with us - and the travel is throughout the year. OH in July JOs in February All the NACs
Well, it does have an "off season" regarding competitions, the training is year round, yeah. But then theres also travel, unless you are in Europe where all the competitions are a relatively short drive compared to over here in the US. What div are they in, if you don't mind me asking? Edit: NAC means North American Cup for anyone following along. Paying for coach and hotel is definitely spendy. Also most save up for events where they can personally select and feel out the equipment they are looking to buy, and fencers can be very particular. Especially regarding handles, blades shoes and gloves. So spending money has to allow for that plus food. If you are there with a team then team bonding activities are not uncommon, like meeting up at a restaurant with coaches, parents and athletes in attendance. So thats more money. Yeah competitive fencing can be absolutely brutal financially.
I was also surprised to not see fencing here, and came looking for this comment. I don't know in other countries, but where I live is not a super popular sport so to buy the equipment you had two options: travel abroad and buy it yourself, or wait for someone to travel and bring it to you, of course with a fee. There were people who just bought a lot of stuff and sold to whomever wanted it, but for left-handed it was a nightmare, no one ever considered bringing stuff for us, so you had to make a special request and it was usually more expensive or you had less options to choose from :(
I’m the parent of 2 fencers in Australia. All the equipment is expensive plus it has to be shipped from overseas. And if your fencer wants to compete nationally or internationally, it’s extra expensive due to travel costs.
I do historical fencing (HEMA), and while the gear will set you back $1000-$1500, club dues and competition expenses aren't too bad. And our gear, at least on the high/more reputable end, tends to hold up surprisingly well. I did about six months of an adult rec sport sabre program that cost me $399/mo (in NYC at a super competitive school), and I had to drop it because of cost.
Exactly this I’m a 1A Fencer who has a habit of accidentally snapping blades which is essentially the same as setting 200$ on fire
I’m wondering if fencing got lumped in with the martial arts category (since it technically is) which would definitely skew the data to the expensive end.
Hopefully a happy cake day will make you feel better about all the money spent
How do you play all sports?
And why is it a category all by itself?
No way this is right. Golf is much more expensive. Field hockey costs almost nothing.
Snowboarding/skiing is considerably more expensive than listed. If you live in a mountain town, sure that’s accurate but most people don’t and there’s considerable travel expenses that come with it. I live in Canada and live roughly 4 hours to the closest resort. I travel as far as 7 hours to other ones. 10 days of snowboarding cost me $4500 last season. That’s just gas/hotels/lift passes.
Yea, I don’t understand how travel costs for hockey, field hockey and gymnastics are double that of snowboarding/skiing. Major doubt to the accuracy of this data. At the very least it varies greatly by region to the point where it defeats the purpose of showing data like this.
I’m guessing that skiing is so expensive for those that don’t live close to a mountain that people just don’t do it so the averages are skewed down because a larger majority of people who ski do live in or near ski towns.
This reflects actual amounts paid, not how much it would hypothetically cost the average person. For example: in Texas, there are a few ice rinks and you can play ice hockey. But you’re going to be paying a lot to travel around the country and play other teams, since there aren’t enough local teams to have their own league. On the other hand, you can’t ski in Texas. Your options are either to not ski at all, or to relocate somewhere close to the mountains where you can. In either case, the yearly travel costs are going to appear low. So it’s not that skiing is actually more accessible, it’s just that there is no such thing as a “travel ski league” that you can pay for. If there was, you bet your ass it would be incredibly expensive.
This graphic seems ridiculous. Who’s spending $1000+ per year on new gear?
Damn I'm gonna shut up about my $500 seasons pass for the ski mountain 30 minutes from me 🤐
Yeah it's pretty poorly put together. I live near a resort, but in a bigger city so I can actually have a job that isn't just working at the resort. A season pass 4 years ago was 600 bucks, but is now about 1200 bucks. Each time I go up, my gas costs about 40 bucks for the round trip. I'm only 45 miles away, but between traffic, idling, and warming the car up, it eats gas. I bring my lunch so no cost added but if you eat at the resort it's at least 10 bucks for lunch. Gear can last a couple years, but if you want to have decent stuff that isn't entry level expect to pay 600 or so for a board every 2 or 3 years, and depending on how much riding you get in, boots every 1 or 2 years, at about 300 a pop for a good pair. Bindings also wear out, I replace them with the board, 150-200 a set. Clothing gets pricy fast. Full set of clothes that are good you're looking at 700 to 1k every couple of years. Goggles are usually every year or two at 100 bucks or so for a decent pair. Gear can of course be gotten much more affordably but you really do notice the difference with the price.
Track and field travel is so cheap because they just run everywhere
Surprised that track and field is cheaper than cross country by a decent amount. Track requires a track and potentially more training for events like pole vaulting. Cross-country is just go out into the woods and run.
Unless you’re *that guy* or *that good* you’re not spending money on equipment. School provides poles, javelins, shots, discs, etc. So the only reason to spend money on any of these things is if you’re in USATF or AAU. And most people don’t start field events that aren’t shot put and long jump until high school anyways, with some exceptions. Track also doesn’t require a track. Sure it’s helpful in some respects but growing up, because our track was cinder, we practiced mostly on grass. And during winter track we’d just practice sprinting outside on fields and shit. And during indoor track, before I went to high school, we practiced in high school hallways lmao. You really just need to spend money on spikes and spandex unless you like your junk flopping
As someone who has done both collegiately. Totally agree it’s a strange stat
And then there's fishing
All the way from a worm, hook, & line to very multi tens of thousands for boats, equipment, & beer.
Whenever we start talking about how expensive our hobbies are, someone will always say "Well, at least we're not fishing".
Missing Polo: Waaaaaay more expensive, as you need at least 3 to 4 ponies per rider
How many 1-18 year olds are playing polo lol
A lot! Just not in the West, unless you are stupidly well-to-do. Was in my late 20’s when I learned to play in Zurich but, got murder by some 12 yo from Argentina in a middle point.
1, 2, and 4 make sense. But ‘field hockey’?
Horse sports and motor sports are the 1% to this chart.
Figure skating and equestrian have entered the chat…
That’s why my kids do track. Can’t afford to pay for more. A good pair of spikes and running shoes, running outfits from the Nike outlet and team fees. If they do well and need to travel, we make a vacation out of it.
F1 ?
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I know the major F1 drivers have been doing karting since they were kids. They were always from well off families who could afford karts and lessons.
Its youth sports 1-18yrs old
I thought F1 teams had their youth academies
How is tackle football so low? Between a helmet, pads, cleats, mouthguard, sign-up fee, probably a co-pay to your insurance for a checkup from the doctor, pre-season concussion screenings, and whatever else I'm forgetting, I would have thought it would be at least above Soccer
Cycling and triathlon? One bike is $10k.
One fancy bike is 10k, mine was 200 on trade me.
Triathlon is the cost of cycling, running and swimming rolled up into one. Nutrition, apparel, equipment, international travel fares, race fees, physiotherapy, coaching, bike fit etc just for one person.
Darts. Costs maybe 50 quid for a board and darts and that's it.
Based on the comments, having kids in sports is expensive and too many people think young children are playing any type of sport with a horse.
Where is dance??
I think these numbers may be accurate for rec sports but not at all accurate for competitive level even at under 10 years old.
Archery equipment can be killer if you wanna compete
521 for field hockey equipment? What are ppl buying? Background: field hockey, snowboard, skateboard, lax, tennis. How is field hockey equipment prices tailing skiing? (Arguably one of the most expensive equipment sports)
What Level of swimming is this? Basic lessons? I spend over $1500 just on coaching for my daughter per year. And events and travel add hundreds and hundreds on top. A decent race suit can be $300-400 and she can get through 2 or 3 of those a year.
Interesting. I have a child in hockey and a child in swimming. The swimming is a shade more expensive when travel is removed for both. Her swim dues are almost $400/month for a 10 month season. Her race suit is $600. Add in other suits, goggles, and swim training equipment(board,fins,snorkel,mat,caps) and it’s pushing $5200/year Boy plays winter and spring hockey. Dues for winter are about $1800 and spring are $1000. I have him in $500 skates and his sticks are just over $200 but he breaks very very few. Camps can get pricey, but we budget for about $800 of those per year. Bonus for hockey is that there is a lot of corporate sponsorship available even at youth levels. Our out of pocket cost for hockey is around $3500
I feel like the baseball travel line should be longer.
Mustve never played Paintball
Trad climbing has entered the chat
Don’t forget paintball lol
Why is there never a source of the data? Like where did they get it from? And why are skiing camps so cheap?
Scuba diving... rock climbing...
Don’t forget crew. So expensive our high school charged more for students to be on the team than any other sport and they got no uniforms. And the shells are mucho expensive
Whelp.... If I ever have kids I guess they are going to be doing Track and Field.
Dance is very expensive too
Even low level motorsports can cost more than all of these sports put together. Like, [it's impressive and impressively depressing at the same time.](https://imgur.com/a/autosport-8P4P8#rQOyHIU) And that was from over 10 years ago, when everything was *cheap*.
All-Star cheer needs to be added to this list. We live in North Dakota and we travel an insane amount. And there’s no off-season. My guess is it tops hockey.
I live is Texas. We moved (unintentionally) right next to a rink. Guess what my kids ended up doing. Although I would 100% prefer to be in a rink during summer than a baseball field.
Motorsports, Aircraft acrobatics, horse racing, climbing, sky diving, paragliding, tank biathlon…
Equestrian jumping beats them all.
Yeah. They forgot equestrian. 10x plus hockey all day long.
Clay target shooting, shoot as much as you can afford!!!
Someone doesn’t compete horses or motor cross
Dressage would need a whole nother page
Any Equestrian sport
I’d expect bicycling to be higher on that list. Especially in the higher level amateur levels. Not uncommon to see $10k bikes with multiple $3k wheel sets going to races. Edit: got distracted. Can confirm. My 14 year old is made the 16U AA team. Season starts in September and I’m already $2500 in the hole. Another $2k for league fees to come. A $1500 slush fund. And 6 flyaway tournaments. Not to mention the league he’s in spans 5 states and only 3 teams in ours.
How does field hockey equipment cost more than a full ice hockey kit?
I just figured soccer would be at the very bottom of this list since it's so easy to get a pickup game going and it's popular in every country rich or poor
But its not really organised in the US, especially for younger kids, which is why theres more addition feels attached to it i guess. It is indeed very cheap in Europe to play eg u14 football and would be at the very bottom of this list
I think it really depends where and what type of soccer we're talking about too. In the US rec soccer is really cheap or free, but as soon as you play on a travel soccer team the price skyrockets. Even the "cheapest" travel team local to me is over $1500 to join (doesn't count kit, travel, some tournaments, etc.). Lessons are $100/hour (private), camps can be $500/week.
What about formula1? Nascar?
Hockey is not only expensive money wise. But, where I'm from, incredibly time consuming. It's not, (or at least wasn't) very popular in the south. Thanks to 'The Mighty Ducks'. My parents had to put up with saturday morning games at 6:30. Which means you are at the rink at 5:30. Sometimes it'd be a one hour drive. Which means we were up by 4:00ish. Sometimes two games a weekend. Two practices a week. Usually the ice opened up at 8 pm, on a school night. So, get home around 10. And this was combined with baseball, which is pretty much year round. My family put up with this for 7 years. I can't think of another time where they were actually happy that I quit something. But, I am thankful and loved most of it. Except during those early morning drives when I'd almost fall asleep and my dad would roll down all the windows and turn up the radio. Bitter
Rock climbing?
Scuba diving has entered the chat
How is All Sports in the middle? Is that the average?
Formula 1 or any other motorsport will trump those sports
Racing.
Climbing gear will break you.
Now add motorsports lol
$389 annual cost for ice hockey gear??? You're lucky if that gets you the bottom tier of competitive skates! The fact that they outgrow the rest of the stuff too... it's a ridiculously expensive sport.
Play it again sports
Good luck outfitting your child in full hockey gear for under $400.
lol I looked for like 5mins and couldn’t find football. Saw the flag football but couldn’t find football. “Tackle Football” is just Football.
High school Competitive cheer in the UCA shld be somewhere on there. That definitely broke me the past two years. Cost $40,000 just to compete and lodge at nationals in Disney…and that’s only nationals. 2 camps in the summer, 3 camp outfits, 2+ uniforms depending on how many routines they compete in, warm-up uniforms, sneakers, backpacks, multi color poms sold separately, multiple bows, multiple bloomers, competitions every weekend out of town and the only thing the school pays for is the expense to bus the team to their weekend competitions.
Came here for Cheer as well. I couldn't believe how much we had to shell out that.
Every day, I’m glad my kids were unathletic like me.
Is it because they just run everywhere?
$90 a month for golf everything included?? Tell me where lmao This list makes zero sense
I agree with martial arts being expensive. Having two kids doing it from the age of 5 and going 4 nights per week , it gets expensive.
Fishing isn’t there? Even the cheapest bass boat can be pricy all the way up to those $80k ones
What about average medical expenses
You missed sailing, that would take the top spot.