How Much Does Running a Track and Field Club Cost?
July 8, 2021 4:16 PM Subscribe
Does anyone have any experience working for and/or running a club sports team (in America)? I am specifically curious about forming a USA Track and Field sanctioned club team primarily targeted at high school athletes looking to improve their skills. Could you share stories about the financial aspects of running said team? Could the head coach / director of the team make enough money to be their primary source of income in a moderate cost of living area? Thank you in advance!
I’m not familiar with track and field but unless there’s something I’m missing your costs will be:
- space - where are you training and what’s the rent? Change/washrooms? Utilities?
- equipment, including technology costs for phones, billing, etc., first aid
- insurance
- staffing
- whatever costs are associated with umbrella org (like track and field association) membership, competition fees etc.
- certification costs for staff
- salary, benefits
- taxes, including business and payroll
- marketing costs
Your revenue would be what your participants pay to train. I have no clue what that is in your field.
So what they pay x number of athletes. So if you wanted a salary of $70,000 a year, with payroll taxes etc. assume $85,000 (where I am that’s off but I’m guessing the US is lower?) you’d be looking at needing 85 members at $1,000/year (divided by seasons?) before you rent anything or pay for one hurdle or turn any lights on. For us rent is huge, think $3-4 a square foot, but if you can just rent track space for the critical hours it might be way less? But what if it rains? Etc.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:22 AM on July 9, 2021
- space - where are you training and what’s the rent? Change/washrooms? Utilities?
- equipment, including technology costs for phones, billing, etc., first aid
- insurance
- staffing
- whatever costs are associated with umbrella org (like track and field association) membership, competition fees etc.
- certification costs for staff
- salary, benefits
- taxes, including business and payroll
- marketing costs
Your revenue would be what your participants pay to train. I have no clue what that is in your field.
So what they pay x number of athletes. So if you wanted a salary of $70,000 a year, with payroll taxes etc. assume $85,000 (where I am that’s off but I’m guessing the US is lower?) you’d be looking at needing 85 members at $1,000/year (divided by seasons?) before you rent anything or pay for one hurdle or turn any lights on. For us rent is huge, think $3-4 a square foot, but if you can just rent track space for the critical hours it might be way less? But what if it rains? Etc.
posted by warriorqueen at 12:22 AM on July 9, 2021
I have known a few people that have run sports clubs although not track and field. In each case it supplemented their income rather than being the main source, and it was the stream of beginner young children for lessons at the club that made money, not the coaching of more serious athletes.
posted by plonkee at 12:41 AM on July 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by plonkee at 12:41 AM on July 9, 2021 [1 favorite]
Yeah my high school swim coach coached the team in the fall, ran a (national org affiliated) club team in the off-season, and I think had a day job. The kids soccer team I was on (AYSO, another national org) was coached by the dad of one of the kids who also had a day job that covered his expenses. There was no way that the $100 or so bucks a season each kid paid would cover anything like a living wage (nor was the work involved anything like full-time.)
posted by restless_nomad at 5:58 AM on July 9, 2021
posted by restless_nomad at 5:58 AM on July 9, 2021
In general, I believe it's rare for coaches below the college level to earn a living from coaching. There are some exceptions (there's a high school in Texas who just hired the former head football coach at Arkansas to coach high school ball, which is ridiculous), but everyone I've ever known who has coached kids has had a day job, and sometimes a few jobs. For example, my daughter's soccer coach, who's actually the director of youth development for a larger club, is also the head coach at a D-III school in town, and owns a company that puts on skills clinics. He's a hustler, man.
I think if you're interested in working with elite high schoolers, you'd be better off doing individual lessons rather than running a club. You could bill at a higher rate, you could give more individual attention, and therefore you could point to concrete examples of improvement, thereby marketing yourself more effectively. Also, since you're working in one- or two-hour blocks, you have some flexibility to do other work, either a day job or other T&F work (e.g., Youtube videos). Actually, you'd have more control over your schedule in general, since you wouldn't be traveling to meets or anything like that.
One other benefit is specialization. A track team comprises a lot of different skills. It's hard for one person to coach sprints, jumps, throws, and distance. You could try it, but it wouldn't have as much effect on your athletes, and that would hurt your marketing. Why would a kid pay you a couple thousand dollars to improve his sprinting if you're spending 3/4 of your time with jumpers, throwers, and distance runners? You'd have to hire assistants, which would drive costs up. As a one-on-one coach, you could focus on one of those events. It narrows your market, but deepens it.
Financially, if you're seeing 10 kids a week at a $100/session, that's $50k/year (assuming you have either the capability to train outdoors during the winter or access to an indoor facility so that you can train year-round). 20 kids at $200/session is $200k. You could also host camps, which allows you to attract more kids but for shorter periods. Still, a $200 camp for 20 kids twice a year would bring in $8000.
For expenses, it looks like USATF coaching certifications are a couple hundred dollars. I'd suggest certification as a personal trainer as well, which is another couple hundred. Some liability insurance, not sure about cost. Marketing stuff, including a website, maybe a thousand. Equipment would vary depending on specialty. Distance runners don't need much. Hurdlers and high jumpers do. The biggest expense is the track itself, which is a total question mark for me. Almost all tracks I'm aware of are on the property of schools, and I really don't know how schools would feel about a for-profit business using their facilities. It would probably vary by school or by district, too, further complicating the matter.
Ultimately, though, your biggest problem is going to be finding a market. I'm not sure that track is a sport that people are willing to spend money on the same way they do for football, baseball, basketball, or soccer. There are only about a quarter as many men's track scholarships as there are football scholarships, and most track scholarships are partial, meaning even a lot of elite track athletes are still going to be paying at least part of their tuition out of pocket. And there's not a minor league for track, so only the most elite of the elite ever go pro. The potential return on investment just isn't the same as it is in other sports. That's not to say there's zero market; there are innumerable terrible youth hockey players whose parents nonetheless spend thousands of dollars a year. Just that track doesn't have the same earning power as a higher-profile sport.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:38 AM on July 9, 2021
I think if you're interested in working with elite high schoolers, you'd be better off doing individual lessons rather than running a club. You could bill at a higher rate, you could give more individual attention, and therefore you could point to concrete examples of improvement, thereby marketing yourself more effectively. Also, since you're working in one- or two-hour blocks, you have some flexibility to do other work, either a day job or other T&F work (e.g., Youtube videos). Actually, you'd have more control over your schedule in general, since you wouldn't be traveling to meets or anything like that.
One other benefit is specialization. A track team comprises a lot of different skills. It's hard for one person to coach sprints, jumps, throws, and distance. You could try it, but it wouldn't have as much effect on your athletes, and that would hurt your marketing. Why would a kid pay you a couple thousand dollars to improve his sprinting if you're spending 3/4 of your time with jumpers, throwers, and distance runners? You'd have to hire assistants, which would drive costs up. As a one-on-one coach, you could focus on one of those events. It narrows your market, but deepens it.
Financially, if you're seeing 10 kids a week at a $100/session, that's $50k/year (assuming you have either the capability to train outdoors during the winter or access to an indoor facility so that you can train year-round). 20 kids at $200/session is $200k. You could also host camps, which allows you to attract more kids but for shorter periods. Still, a $200 camp for 20 kids twice a year would bring in $8000.
For expenses, it looks like USATF coaching certifications are a couple hundred dollars. I'd suggest certification as a personal trainer as well, which is another couple hundred. Some liability insurance, not sure about cost. Marketing stuff, including a website, maybe a thousand. Equipment would vary depending on specialty. Distance runners don't need much. Hurdlers and high jumpers do. The biggest expense is the track itself, which is a total question mark for me. Almost all tracks I'm aware of are on the property of schools, and I really don't know how schools would feel about a for-profit business using their facilities. It would probably vary by school or by district, too, further complicating the matter.
Ultimately, though, your biggest problem is going to be finding a market. I'm not sure that track is a sport that people are willing to spend money on the same way they do for football, baseball, basketball, or soccer. There are only about a quarter as many men's track scholarships as there are football scholarships, and most track scholarships are partial, meaning even a lot of elite track athletes are still going to be paying at least part of their tuition out of pocket. And there's not a minor league for track, so only the most elite of the elite ever go pro. The potential return on investment just isn't the same as it is in other sports. That's not to say there's zero market; there are innumerable terrible youth hockey players whose parents nonetheless spend thousands of dollars a year. Just that track doesn't have the same earning power as a higher-profile sport.
posted by kevinbelt at 11:38 AM on July 9, 2021
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That aside, I helped found a community association. We held meetings in our living room and provided refreshments. We were active for several years, and all we contributed was our time, and once $15 to make brochures.
We sometimes met with other groups and we found that they had little time for useful activities due to their incessant fundraising. They were also at the mercy of anyone with an agenda that opposed theirs, because they couldn't afford to turn down a 'donation.'
One of our members got excited about corporate donations and managed to derail everything by finding us a very unpleasant - but donated - space to hold meetings in and getting people to concentrate on money we had no use for. The dedicated people were quickly driven off by people who wanted to spend that money. It was about $700, all told.
Your situation may differ, but in my experience it's better not to have money at all, if you can avoid it.
posted by AugustusCrunch at 11:15 PM on July 8, 2021 [1 favorite]