‘Dreams are being sold’: Cost of kids’ sports tops $10,000
Some parents are spending more than $10,000 a year on their children’s sport, fuelled by young players joining expensive soccer and basketball academies to maximise their chances of getting into the A-League or National Basketball League.
A new study has found that children’s sports have become unaffordable for some families, particularly those in the country or whose children play individual sports such as golf, tennis, dance or gymnastics. The proliferation of intensive private academies for aspiring athletes has also put a rocket under prices for parents.
Renee Fortune is paying thousands of dollars a year for her children’s sports lessons. And now her son Jack, 15, wants to start playing soccer.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Costs rise with age and competition level, the Australian Sports Commission study found, while the cheapest sports are the ones that are low in equipment and facility expenses.
“When you start doing things like tennis or golf, you’re generally paying private coaching fees weekly. Dance, gymnastics, that can be a couple of hundred bucks a week,” said Rochelle Eime, co-author of the report, which is expected to be published in June.
“The coaches, that’s their income, that’s their business. So they’ll be telling the kids everything their parents want to hear, so they’ll come back more often and pay more money,” said Eime, a sport science professor at Federation University.
Hans Westerbeek, the other author of the report, said the study of 5000 people and more than 2000 clubs found the cost of children’s sport has soared by between 8 and 12 per cent a year since the start of the pandemic.
The researchers spoke to The Age and Sydney Morning Herald ahead of the release of the ASC report but could not provide the full data ahead of its publication.
“The highest competition level, state or national, can be seriously substantial – in excess of $10,000 a year if you add up all the costs including transport, which may include interstate and sometimes international travel,” said Westerbeek, professor of international sport business at Victoria University.
“I’m a little bit cynical in the way that dreams are being sold when the objective is to bring in as many kids as possible to make a profit.”
While private academies are charging huge fees, the study has found a high proportion of community sporting clubs are in financial deficit and rely on bar sales, grants and sponsorships to survive, as well as armies of volunteers.
Academic Hans Westerbeek says many sporting academies are selling expensive dreams to aspiring athletes.
“COVID has accelerated the loss of volunteers,” said Westerbeek. “Without those people, the whole grassroots sports system in this country would fall over.”
Eime questioned whether community clubs received significant benefits from the affiliation fees they or their members pay to national sporting bodies.
“We all pay registration fees and think it goes to support the clubs. But it really doesn’t – the club doesn’t really get much from their state or national body,” she said.
“A lot of national bodies, in my opinion, all they care about is their high-performance [divisions]. We need to investigate, where do these affiliation fees go to? And what are the provisions back to the local sport?”
Matildas star Sam Kerr has inspired a generation of young soccer players. Credit: Wolter Peeters
AusPlay data for last year shows most children do sport at some point – 71.4 per cent play at least once a year – although only 41 per cent play more than once a week.
The data showed children aged up to 14 paid a median $500 to participate in sport and a mean of $1065. For children aged 15 to 17, the median was $280 while the mean was $953.
The Australian Sports Commission report shows the total cost of sport is much higher when uniforms, equipment, travel and other costs are included.
The researchers say the cheapest sports for children to play are traditional ball sports run by parent volunteers where the club or team own the equipment and uniforms.
Renee Fortune with her son Jack, who is 15.Credit: Luis Enrique Ascui
Mother-of-three Renee Fortune pays thousands of dollars a year on her children’s sports activities. She says she loves the social side of children’s sport but the cost and time commitments can be a struggle.
She remembers receiving a big bill for her children’s tennis lessons a couple of years ago.
“I remember questioning why it was so much, and the club said [it was because] they hadn’t put their fees up for a long time ... and [now] they didn’t have a choice,” said Fortune, whose children are aged 15, 14 and four.
“It’s $30 per child per lesson, or $700 a term, just for coaching.”
Fortune’s children have taken swimming, tennis, AFL and basketball lessons over the years, and now her eldest wants to start soccer.
“I’m quite dreading the three-times-a-week training plus competition,” she said.
Another mother, Eavan Murphy, moved to Australia from Ireland and has chosen to prioritise swimming lessons for her children over other sports.
“For both of my kids to get a good dose of swimming lessons, it’s increasingly difficult to do it because it’s so expensive,” she said.
“We’ve had our own financial struggles over the past six months, but we’ve prioritised getting my son swimming lessons … it’s a necessary thing to do in Australia.”
Murphy said the cost of children’s sport was complicated when parents were not together or could not agree on who would pay or whether the sport was important enough to continue.
The Victorian government has a voucher system to encourage low-income families to enrol their children in sports, providing up to $200 to cover the costs of membership and registration. In NSW, families receiving Family Tax Benefits can apply for an Active and Creative Kids voucher, which provides $100 for sport, creative and cultural activities.
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