Article on high costs of ski racing

https://www.skiracing.com/premium/porino-theres-a-financial-crisis-in-junior-ski-racing

Steve Porino wrote this excellent editorial on the crazy high costs of ski racing and how little USSA  is getting for that $$$ in results at the World Cup level.  I agree with his thinking that costs are totally out of control and something needs to be done about it.  

My kid is not going to ski on the WC but ski racing does have many benefits in creating mature confident that can handle life challenges well.  This sport creates very tough determined people because it’s so fricking hard at the FIS level.  I would have not been able to handle what my kid is doing at his age and be on the honor roll in school. At least this is what I keep telling myself while shelling out cash.

I read this, and I recall Kerry Lynch talking about junior nordic combined skiers.  $25-$30k per year on the junior circuit if you've got ability and a shot at the big time.  Parents exhausting retirement savings and taking second mortgages on their houses.  Scary stuff.

Z wrote

. At least this is what I keep telling myself while shelling out cash.

It's amazing how people's interest in information is directly aligned with exactly what people want to be told.

Z: "Man, paying for my kid to go to ski racing school is expensive"
Also Z: "Hey everyone: check out this article that says ski racing is expensive"

Feels like Z's tendency to seek out information to reinforce his previously held beliefs has larger ramifications, but I'll leave that alone for now.

This is true for all youth sports. Skiing is an extreme version due to equipment, ski area/race fees and travel. Most of the kids on my daughter's teams will play the same 1 or 2 sports every month of the year. Currently, soccer and basketball seem to be the worst examples. Most of these kids will not even try out for the high school team.

Despite the article, ski racing has always been an expensive sport for participants, even back in the 1970s and 1980s. My high school in NJ had a ski team and I wanted to race, but my family could not afford to pay for the season pass, let alone a private ski academy. We were a skiing family and I already had equipment. I spent my winters in HS on the basketball team.

Unless you live in the mountains and have access to a ski area because your parents work at the area or are wealthy enough to afford to pay for your access, ski racing is not your sport.

Read Bode Miller’s story, his family had very little, but he had talent. What parents don’t understand is no amount of money will make up for lack of skill and talent. Practice and good coaching will get you 90% of the way there but 90% won’t get you to the top tier.

x10003q wrote

Unless you live in the mountains and have access to a ski area because your parents work at the area or are wealthy enough to afford to pay for your access, ski racing is not your sport.

Only if your definition of sport is exclusive and only includes professional and professional preparation as opposed to "sport" in all forms including those with no professional ambitions. There are many public high school and lower tier college programs in the northeast in which young ski racers get good instruction at not a very high cost and don't feel compelled to spend like crazy to be competitive.

That was a good book

USSA has some blame for the high cost with adopting FIS ski requirements a few years back.  Then NYSSRA drove up the U14 race program cost a couple of years ago when it separated it from the U10/U12s.  Also with NYSSRA, the U14s can get more points by racing the one SG race a year, this is a big cost adder.  High School racing is cheap, but the very best HS racer will only get just a little more training in verses worst racer.  HS racing is one size fits all; this gives rise to Club Racing which is not cheap.  

Every time I read a MC post I vow I need to quit this forum for good
Dude let’s make a deal
You avoid my posts and I’ll ignore yours

I don’t need Porino to tell me how expensive it is.  I’m paying for it all.

What I do like is him discussing how to fix this mess

PeeTex wrote

Read Bode Miller’s story, his family had very little, but he had talent. What parents don’t understand is no amount of money will make up for lack of skill and talent. Practice and good coaching will get you 90% of the way there but 90% won’t get you to the top tier.

I don’t want to de-mythologize Bode, because his is a great story, but the parents were hippies who were rejecting their own comfortable upbringings and the trappings of the modern world. His maternal grandparents started a very successful ski lodge and summer tennis camp just down the hill from the rugged, off grid cabin he grew up in. So there was some lineage and family money there.

Doesn’t make any of his accomplishments less impressive.

You can't ski with your kids while they're racing.

riverc0il wrote

x10003q wrote

Unless you live in the mountains and have access to a ski area because your parents work at the area or are wealthy enough to afford to pay for your access, ski racing is not your sport.

Only if your definition of sport is exclusive and only includes professional and professional preparation as opposed to "sport" in all forms including those with no professional ambitions. There are many public high school and lower tier college programs in the northeast in which young ski racers get good instruction at not a very high cost and don't feel compelled to spend like crazy to be competitive.

Certainly there are less expensive ways to race. It seems that the worst of it is in the age 12-16 group.

I raced in the equivalent of the USCSA when I was in college and my son raced for a USCSA university. The training for my team was uneven, but he had racing coaches for 2 nights of training per week. We both enjoyed it immensely.

No the worst of it is at the Fis level which is u19

I always wondered. Is that school/academy at Killington (or any other NE mountain that has one) any good academically? Or, hey, does it produce any racing talent, too? Seems like a narrow little world to expose your child to if you get neither.

Benny Profane wrote

I always wondered. Is that school/academy at Killington (or any other NE mountain that has one) any good academically? Or, hey, does it produce any racing talent, too? Seems like a narrow little world to expose your child to if you get neither.

Here is a profile of Waterville Valley Academy, it includes a list of colleges attended by recent graduates.

https://secureservercdn.net/198.71.233.44/kza.1fc.myftpupload.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/WVA-Profile-Final-2018-2019.pdf

As you can see, it is heavy on skiing locations. And academically all over the spectrum, from MIT to Sierra Nevada College (which has a billboard at Cannon).

Benny Profane wrote

I always wondered. Is that school/academy at Killington (or any other NE mountain that has one) any good academically? Or, hey, does it produce any racing talent, too? Seems like a narrow little world to expose your child to if you get neither.

One of our buddies went to the academy in LP, can't remember the name of it and I think it's closed now. Anyway, he won the JO's and made it to the US Ski Team so there's that.

Benny Profane wrote

I always wondered. Is that school/academy at Killington (or any other NE mountain that has one) any good academically? Or, hey, does it produce any racing talent, too? Seems like a narrow little world to expose your child to if you get neither.

I've seen blog posts written by Stratton Mountain School students with misspellings.  On the other hand, some teachers in my daughter's K-8 school misspelled stuff too.

Z wrote

No the worst of it is at the Fis level which is u19

At some point you just have to say no. You think ski racing is expensive- wait for college. If your blowing your wad on your kids ski racing, he would be much better served with a debt free college education and parents who have a decent retirement plan.

College is going to less painful than high school for us.  I might be the only person that has ever said that.
I’ve been funding a 529 since he was born and the market has certainly helped.  529 could have helped with private high school but we live in a state where a leftist socialist Gov reins supreme and he blocked use 529 for high school that was in the Trump tax cuts.
I only have one kid

To answer the earlier question about which ski program also have serious academic chops.  The way to look at this is the vast majority of these programs exist solely based on skiing.  There are 3 schools that are 100+ year old old school money top end boarding college prep schools and are strong in skiing.  Northwood in LP, Holderness and Procter both in NH

I don’t regret for even a second the tuition costs as this education I’m paying is far superior to the public high school and seeing how my son has progressed in his ability to think and learn has been totally worth it.  I’m not sure we would have bit that bullet without skiing forcing us to do so.  I just want the ski racing side to exhibit more financial sense.  

For example I asked back in the send of summer if buying Ikon passes would have saved money and no one had ever considered that mattered and couldn’t be bothered to even answer me.  We are definitely the bottom of the income spectrum in the sport at the Fis level and cutting cost corners is not in the sports DNA at this level.  What I like so much about the article I posted is Pino advocates for applying common sense to the sport

The sport, like the world, is more and more ruled and owned by the rich. It's why we can't have nice things anymore. I was at Alta yesterday, and found out those old hotels that have been there like forever and look it, are now getting 5-700 A NIGHT (with meals, of course). Junky old musty rooms, and I'll bet the food ain't that great. So, why? Well, wouldn't you want to wake up a walk away from the Collins lift on a Utah powder day? Yeah, I thought so. They ain't putting any more beds up there, so, supply and demand, and the rich win, again.