Rob Salmon: Why Junior Tennis Needs A Financial Health Warning
Just how much do Junior Tennis journeys cost?
You’ll have seen products that come with government health warnings. Don’t do this or this might happen. My question is this, should the junior tennis journey come with a financial health warning? And I think the answer is YES!
If your player ends up spinning on the hamster wheel which is performance junior tennis, it is going to cost you. Individual lessons, group sessions, rackets, tournament fees, travel costs, strings, shoes, clothes…the list could (and does) go on and on.
The reason for this episode is that I don’t think anyone really warns parents of what the costs are going to be. And I think they absolutely should.
The journey goes something like this: you attend a fun day, the player has fun, they go to a group, they show promise, they start having individual lessons, they start competing locally, they develop their game, they start competing regionally, they develop their game, they may start competing nationally or even internationally. At every stage of the journey the costs mount. And you need to find the funds!
So what is the price of a tennis journey? Just as everyone’s journey is different, so everyone’s costs are different. But I want to put a marker in the sand to give some sort of indication of what you’ll be looking at. And that is the point of this episode.
Ahead of publication, I shared the costs listed in this episode with some tennis parents and asked them what they thought. The majority thought I had been conservative. That the journey costs more. I find the cost I came up with mind blowing - but the fact is it is probably on the conservative side for many families who are on this journey. That’s even more mind blowing.
I don’t want this to be a depressing episode - the benefits of a tennis journey are many and have been covered extensively on this podcast. And this absolutely isn’t me having a go at tennis coaches and their charges - coaches work incredibly hard often in unsocial hours and need to earn a living. I do, however, think parents whose children are starting on the journey should be aware of what could be in store cost wise.
Maybe in time we can do an episode on solutions to the problem of junior tennis costs - but for now let’s start with what the costs are…
