Cost of Scouting vs Cost of Sports

[NealOnWheels]

Ran across this interesting article today.  There have been a lot of complaints on the rising cost of Scouting driving families away.  Seems that youth sports are also seeing rising costs..

https://www.foxnews.com/media/youth-sports-crisis-skyrocketing-costs-price-out-parents-threaten-childhood-health

 

Edited December 17, 2025 by NealOnWheels

[swilliams]

For us, the comparison between sports and scouting comes up with scouting being far more expensive, but my kids don't do 'club' sports.  They all participated in high school sports, with all three swimming (for at least two years), and my daughter doing track and fencing after she dropped swimming.  Youngest son is in marching band.

Swimming is least expensive.  For my youngest son (high school), it's a $200 athletic fee to the school, goggles, and gas money, since our high school doesn't have their own pool.  For my older son (collegiate swimmer), it's $80 goggles and a $350 tech suit, plus non-mandatory things like a team towel with his name on it ($60) and a sweatshirt ($45).

Fencing required a lot up front for equipment, then my daughter injured her hip before the first meet and her fencing days were over before they began.  Sad.

Marching band shares the $200 athletic fee with swimming.  We buy shirt, wool knee socks and shoes - around $75. (Our band wears a traditional winter wool kilt on the bottom.  Tops change depending on the music/theme for the year.  The school provides Scottish military parade jackets and plaids for parades. There isn't much else you have to buy, but it's a huge time commitment for parents.  We are required to solicit donations for our Pageant of the Bands and spring basket raffle, and everyone has to work part (or all) of the Pageant, as well as take at least one shift as a chaperone or doing pit crew.

Scouts...  oh boy.  Uniform - hideously expensive for what it is.  $135 to Council and National.   $150 to the Troop.  $35-250 for each monthly camping trip, depending on what we're doing.  ($35 for regular camping trip to the local scout camp or other low-cost areas.  $250 is for a trip we're taking this coming January to Vermont for X-Country skiing, fat bikes, and dogsledding.)  I just spent some Christmas money to get a new insulated sleeping pad, since I have to sleep outside most times (female SM for a boy's troop), and we've purchased backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, mess kits and so on.  And then there's always stuff that I do as Scoutmaster that I either forget to submit for reimbursement or figure it's not worth submitting.  Scouting is easily our most expensive activity.  

The troop does have some gear we can lend, and we have a policy of any scout who needs financial help not needing to pay, but most families aren't in that situation, we're just okay enough for it to hurt a bit.

[Tron]

On 12/17/2025 at 2:02 PM, NealOnWheels said:

Ran across this interesting article today.  There have been a lot of complaints on the rising cost of Scouting driving families away.  Seems that youth sports are also seeing rising costs..

https://www.foxnews.com/media/youth-sports-crisis-skyrocketing-costs-price-out-parents-threaten-childhood-health

 

LOL travel leagues $1000 a year! That's not even close to what a travel league costs for 8 weeks in my region (YES REGION!). 

On 12/30/2025 at 4:34 PM, swilliams said:

For us, the comparison between sports and scouting comes up with scouting being far more expensive, but my kids don't do 'club' sports.  They all participated in high school sports, with all three swimming (for at least two years), and my daughter doing track and fencing after she dropped swimming.  Youngest son is in marching band.

Swimming is least expensive.  For my youngest son (high school), it's a $200 athletic fee to the school, goggles, and gas money, since our high school doesn't have their own pool.  For my older son (collegiate swimmer), it's $80 goggles and a $350 tech suit, plus non-mandatory things like a team towel with his name on it ($60) and a sweatshirt ($45).

Fencing required a lot up front for equipment, then my daughter injured her hip before the first meet and her fencing days were over before they began.  Sad.

Marching band shares the $200 athletic fee with swimming.  We buy shirt, wool knee socks and shoes - around $75. (Our band wears a traditional winter wool kilt on the bottom.  Tops change depending on the music/theme for the year.  The school provides Scottish military parade jackets and plaids for parades. There isn't much else you have to buy, but it's a huge time commitment for parents.  We are required to solicit donations for our Pageant of the Bands and spring basket raffle, and everyone has to work part (or all) of the Pageant, as well as take at least one shift as a chaperone or doing pit crew.

Scouts...  oh boy.  Uniform - hideously expensive for what it is.  $135 to Council and National.   $150 to the Troop.  $35-250 for each monthly camping trip, depending on what we're doing.  ($35 for regular camping trip to the local scout camp or other low-cost areas.  $250 is for a trip we're taking this coming January to Vermont for X-Country skiing, fat bikes, and dogsledding.)  I just spent some Christmas money to get a new insulated sleeping pad, since I have to sleep outside most times (female SM for a boy's troop), and we've purchased backpacks, tents, sleeping bags, mess kits and so on.  And then there's always stuff that I do as Scoutmaster that I either forget to submit for reimbursement or figure it's not worth submitting.  Scouting is easily our most expensive activity.  

The troop does have some gear we can lend, and we have a policy of any scout who needs financial help not needing to pay, but most families aren't in that situation, we're just okay enough for it to hurt a bit.

Those prices are outrageous. Our troop is one of the largest in our district and we're charging $25 for a weekend outing. No troop dues. If the PLC picks a big fancy expensive trip it's AD HOC to the regular monthly weekend outing to prevent pricing families out of any needed monthly campouts. 

[yknot]

21 hours ago, Tron said:

LOL travel leagues $1000 a year! That's not even close to what a travel league costs for 8 weeks in my region (YES REGION!). 

Those prices are outrageous. Our troop is one of the largest in our district and we're charging $25 for a weekend outing. No troop dues. If the PLC picks a big fancy expensive trip it's AD HOC to the regular monthly weekend outing to prevent pricing families out of any needed monthly campouts. 

There is no point comparing the costs of scouts to sports, it's a waste of time and not relevant to why most people pursue either activity.  The costs for both are all over the map depending 1) where on the map you are, and 2) what level of involvement you are at. You can absolutely find travel leagues that are less than scouting. There are many access points and participation tiers. You can spend $10K or you can spend $1K. In many cases when you break down the fees and the hours involved in each activity, scouting has a higher per hour cost than sports and that's why a lot of families see it as a better value and use of their time. Both activities are great for kids at whatever level you can afford them and dependent on their interests and how that fits in with the family time and budget. Scouting needs to focus on listening to why more kids don't choose it. 

[Tron]

On 1/1/2026 at 5:56 PM, yknot said:

There is no point comparing the costs of scouts to sports, it's a waste of time and not relevant to why most people pursue either activity.  The costs for both are all over the map depending 1) where on the map you are, and 2) what level of involvement you are at. You can absolutely find travel leagues that are less than scouting. There are many access points and participation tiers. You can spend $10K or you can spend $1K. In many cases when you break down the fees and the hours involved in each activity, scouting has a higher per hour cost than sports and that's why a lot of families see it as a better value and use of their time. Both activities are great for kids at whatever level you can afford them and dependent on their interests and how that fits in with the family time and budget. Scouting needs to focus on listening to why more kids don't choose it. 

You should take some time to understand that in the market basket of extracurricular activities scouting is competing with everything from a pack of kids in a basement playing dungeons and dragons to $400 a week private league sports. If people are getting a good return on their time and money, they will spend the money. League sports are growing 43% year-over-year while scouting is shrinking and currently at 20% of it's peak membership. 

 

[InquisitiveScouter]

Sorry, I put this in the wrong thread...

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The biggest unadvertised cost of Scouting is the amount of volunteer adult support it takes to make a good unit level program happen.

No "pitch" that I have ever heard (outside of our unit) tells parents that "We welcome your kids, but you have to come along, too, to help us put on the program."

When you do get them to agree to help, then explain that "help" means a variety of getting trained, learning Scout skills so that you know what 'right' looks like, being a merit badge counselor, serving on the committee to help with budget, managing adult training, onboarding, advancement, uniforming, equipment, fundraising, etc, etc, etc,   Oh, and we need drivers and adults for camping, too. 

Once they learn those needs, many are out.  They want to take their kids to programs where they can dump and run, or show up occasionally with a tray of orange slices and some juice boxes.

Once upon a time, when I served Uncle Sam, our mantra in the Air Force was "We recruit Airmen, but we retain families."  And we did PR, ads, benefits, and programs to support that.  Attract individuals, but make our environment such that, as they start a family while serving (which many do), we make it comfortable for their family to have the service member stay in.   (This mindset varies across the services, though many of the family programs and benefits are duplicated in all services.  Health care, base housing, commissary and exchange, MWR [morale, welfare, and recreation], etc. )

Scouting should be, "We recruit families, but we retain the Scout."  Get the family on board, and give them benefits for their Scouts (a program of adventure) , and the youth will stay, keeping the parents involved.