Participating in a lot of different sports can add up to a lot of money. Students and staff comment on how school sports can offer a cheaper alternative, especially with the 2021 additions to the athletic facilities.
Students in school sports are required to register and pay a fee in order to participate. This fee is then used to help cover the costs of that activity, such as: equipment costs, coaching wages, and uniforms.
As the school’s athletic director, Andrea Schmidt said, “In order to provide equitable programming all MSHSL sports are charged the same thing”. This means that the school can cover some of the costs that are necessary for the sport to run but due to the expensive nature of some sports they may have to rely on their booster clubs or outside funding to function at the level they want to.
It is common for many sports to decide that they want the extra benefit of additional funding coming from a booster club. Senior Lucy Sundberg said, “for my sports, booster clubs and team fundraising has been really important for funding materials and opportunities. The booster club and the teams work together to fundraise. The booster club provides opportunities while the team goes out and does the actual fundraising.”
Working together as a team to raise money can help provide better resources for the group and can be a fun team building activity. As Sundberg said, “I think doing these things together also helps build a team chemistry.”
But why is it so important for teams to raise money? Doesn’t the school help with the budget?
The answer is that they do; however, there is so much that needs to be paid for for all the sports to run at the level they want to that it is impossible for the school to cover everything.
The first thing that needs to be budgeted for is the coaching staff. Schmidt explains that “one coach on each level is covered by the schools budget. If programs think they need more coaches, their booster club will pay for the coaches.” All Roseville coaches are employed through the school and go through the hiring process; however, for any coaches other than the one the school pays for the booster club will have to reimburse the school.
There is also a fixed budget for the official uniforms the sports get to use. Like Schmidt said the budget is divided to be “equitable not equal. It takes a different amount of money to provide a full varsity gymnastics roster with new uniforms than it does to outfit the entire football team, so we make sure that we divide up the budget so each team gets what they need.”
Teams are on a five year rotation of when they receive new uniforms for their varsity levels and their old uniforms are often rotated down to the lower levels. This may make it appear that other schools are more supported based on uniforms or facilities however that is just them receiving extra support from their boosters.
“Roseville is actually in line with most other districts,” commented Schmidt about how our school divides up its sports budget. This also becomes apparent with recent additions to our playing fields and athletic campus. Because of how the campus expanded due to the referendum being passed in 2021, more teams are able to have better places to play and don’t have to spend any money to rent out or reserve practice fields elsewhere. The district in general is in charge of maintaining the facilities because they are also there for the general public, not just athletes, so the money for maintenance doesn’t come out of the sports budget.
The last major expense most teams face is for equipment. Each sport only receives $300 from the school each year to spend on equipment. This is not enough to cover everything, only what the team believes will be most necessary that year. Everything else has to be covered by the booster club or for personal equipment the players’ families. Like Sundberg says “the amount of gear we get adds up… it can be a lot of money”.
Although there may be some costs through the team that players are asked to pay, such as; warm up uniforms, tournaments, and any personal safety equipment, the school does everything it can to make sure that its sports remain accessible to everyone.
As Schmidt said, “We do our best to make sure that costs aren’t extravagant so that families who don’t have means can participate.” One way the school does this is by waiving registration fees for anyone who is also eligible for reduced or free lunches.
The ultimate goal of school sports is to allow everyone a chance to participate and not have any financial burden to stop people from having that chance. Like Sundberg said, “I feel like school sports are an affordable opportunity because you become part of a community that will provide you with what you need to participate and thrive. There are resources on every team that can help tackle the costs.”
