Bg Fan wrote:
I teach and coach in Passaic County, NJ. I have coached about 65 seasons of various sports (soccer, XC, swim, track and field), so this is a rare topic I know a lot about.
State tournament games are in fact controlled by the state association (the NJSIAA) and they CAN charge for events, but do not always. It is certainly plenty common.
County tournaments (which are often a big deal in NJ) are governed by the COUNTY association. These too often charge, but it depends on the sport, and may just be for finals in sports like basketball and soccer. Early round games, or sports that don't get much attention may not charge at all.
Regular season games are at times dictated by a given league/conference, or the school itself.
*My school does NOT charge current students for HOME events unless the state mandates it.
A lot of this comes down to:
- Is it a sport where you get a good crowd (we have regular season football games where we have had over 5000 people!).
- Is it indoors where it's easy to funnel folks and make sure they have tickets, OR outside and maybe not "fenced in" where it's just hard to collect tickets.
- Is it gonna piss off local folks.
So long story short, it kind of differs all over in this part of NJ, but being charged is certainly not uncommom.
Off topic, but fuck the NJSIAA for getting rid of the Tournament of Champions. Post season games (Sectionals and Groups) are now completely meaningless. The whole post-season should be redesigned into a 32 team tournament for the top ranked teams, or something else where the best ranked teams are able to compete against each other.