The game baseball is not one unknown to people as it is quite popular among adults and kids who love to throw a ball with all their force.
It’s one of those kinds of sports that kids can start learning from an early age, and rightly so, since the game involves holding the bat, running, and throwing the ball, all of which seem like favorite things to do for kids.
However, being this popular, especially among kids, makes it difficult for a team to stand out. While many players want to grow out of smaller teams, the smaller leagues aren’t able to support them entirely due to a lack of resources.
This is precisely where travel baseball comes to the rescue! What exactly is that you may be wondering? If you want to know what travel baseball is and how to start a travel baseball team, look no more, as you are exactly at the right place!
What is travel baseball?
Travel baseball is also commonly known as premier, select, elite, and club baseball. As the name suggests, it refers to an organized form of baseball characterized by travel and competitive play. If explained in simpler words, it can easily be considered an intermediate step between little league and high school baseball.
A travel baseball team is one which doesn’t stay in a single place and is not limited to the fields of an organized youth baseball club or league. They can easily travel from one city to another, within different states, and even out of state when needed.
Additionally, a single governing organization is not responsible for travel baseball, but there are a variety of facilities and organizations that can host such tournaments with varying criteria. Additionally, since competitive play is the main focus of travel baseball, there is no open registration, and instead, players are required to try out for a travel team themselves.
This means the players in a travel baseball team are not bound to be from a single region. Still, they can easily be from different states or even all over the country to create the best competitive team possible that can stand out among the competitors.
Read: How Long is a Minor League Baseball Game
How to start a travel baseball team?
Here are a few of the steps that you need to follow to start a travel baseball team:
1- Get Hold of Volunteers and Coaches:
No team can play its best without proper support from volunteers and coaches, and the travel baseball team is no exception. So, where should you get hold of such volunteers and coaches that can have a serious commitment to helping with your program? Well, here are the options:
- Parents and other family members of the kids you are selecting for your team can help big time; this is where most of the volunteers and coaches come from. Having parents get to work can be the most useful for you since most of them will already be present to see their kids’ practice, and meanwhile, they can quickly assist you with your tasks.
- For coaching purposes, you can also connect with former coaches who are always looking for ways to still be associated with the game. What makes this a better option is the fact that these former coaches already have excellent expertise in helping the players and leading other volunteers.
- Since volunteers and former coaches may not always be available whenever you need them, you can also have former or current players, who mainly belonged to high school teams as older players, as fill-ins when necessary. This will also give the younger players more motivation to work hard since they know they can turn out to be in their place one day or another.
Once you are done talking and selecting suitable individuals as volunteers and coaches, you can conduct a meeting where you share with them the responsibilities they have to look after. After that, you need to move to the next step.
2- Finalizing Budget for the upcoming season:
Since a travel baseball team needs to travel, as the name suggests, it is essential to understand the costs you will need to invest in. Here are the important things that will require money, so you know beforehand.
- With all of the traveling, players’ uniforms and baseball equipment can easily get worn out during the season. Therefore, always invest in uniforms and equipment that may not be very expensive but are for sure durable so that you don’t have to invest extra money on replacements.
- Securing a practice facility may also require much of your Budget. Many public parks may allow field rental per hour or day, so you need to plan your practice schedule ahead of time so that you have your options intact.
- Most importantly, understand the amount of time and money required to travel with your baseball team. Plan out each season or tournament beforehand so that you can easily avoid unexpected costs.
Once you are clear on all these points, work on designating the team fees and player fees which always come down to clear communication. You can also get help in raising money through fundraising and sponsorships from local businesses or more prominent national brands.
Read: How fast is a softball pitch compared to a baseball
3- Come up with a brand name:
In order to make the public realize that you exist, it is essential that you come up with an excellent brand name to gain all the attention. Here are the things you need to do to achieve the public’s attention:
- Along with creating the brand’s name, it also makes an excellent logo. This is a perfect way to market your baseball team to get the attention that you require.
- Another way to gain attention is by setting up a website for your travel baseball team. It can help you build credibility for your brand, schedule and manage all administrative tasks like payment collection, and promote your team in future sessions.
4- Promote Baseball Travel Team:
Since now you are done with sidelining your Budget and forming a website, you can work on promoting your team. Here are some of the marketing tactics that you can take help from:
- Build relationships with local schools, especially if they have either high school programs or youth programs since the administrators and coaches of these programs usually have contact with athletes and other public figures.
- For online promotion, use google keywords so that if something related to that keyword is searched on google, your website also pops up and gets clicks from users.
5- Register your team:
Now that you are done with all the primary responsibilities, it is high time that you register your team to become a recognized travel baseball team. The recognition of the team is required because in order to participate in tournaments and the team can only get recognized by registering officially.
Frequently Asked Questions about Travel baseball Team:
1- Is travel baseball worth the money?
Travel baseball is definitely the way to go, especially when you are in search of finding talented baseball players. This is because many of the high-level baseball players have been found from travel baseball teams since they are always seen attending baseball tournaments no matter if within the region or state or even outside of it.
2- What age should your players be in travel baseball?
Travel baseball is usually considered to be standard for elite youth players who are looking to continue their baseball career either in college or even on a professional level. The age requirements vary from organization to organization which may easily range from players aged 6 to 18 years old.
Read: Why baseball is better than basketball
3- What to expect at the travel baseball tryout?
Although the tryouts may vary from team to team and progress differently, here are a few of the significant aspects that you can expect from a baseball tryout:
- The coach or team captain will lead the team through a warm-up session.
- You may be asked to do a 60-yard dash which is required to see which prospects are fast and athletic.
- You may be asked to warm up your arms by playing catch.
- The focus will also be given to position-specific skills. The infielder and the pitcher will be asked to carry out their tasks for practicing purposes.
- Batting practice will be done by giving each player the bat to play hitting.
Conclusion:
You may have heard of baseball teams playing locally, but there is more to this exciting game than just this. There is a travel baseball team that consists of excellent players selected through competition who are then asked to travel regionally or even out of state to win baseball games. But how does it all start? You may be wondering if you are thinking about starting one. In this article, we have collected all the necessary information starting from what travel baseball is and, finally, how to create a travel baseball team to provide you with all the essential information that you need.
