Occassional thoughts about orienteering
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| okansas.blogspot.com Occassional thoughts about orienteering |
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Thursday, May 12, 2005 Funding for junior sportsSome discussion at Attackpoint inspired me to think about funding for junior sports. While I was running the hills at Wyandotte, I thought about how junior sports are funded in the U.S. and how orienteering fit in with that.It seems to me that there are three main source of significant funding: public subsidy, small sponsorship, and family spending. Public Subsidy Public subsidies for junior sports in the U.S. are huge. But the subisdies are, I think, mostly spending on facilities. I've got a 400 meter tartan track near my house. The track was built as part of a public school. The school district issued bonds to build the track. I pay taxes to pay off those bonds. Orienteering also benfits from a lot of "facility" public subsidies. Most of the place we orienteer are public parks. Small sponsorhips Every month or so I hear a knock on my front door. I open the door and see a couple of kids standing on my front steps. "We're from the _______ soccer team (or baseball team or swimming team or whatever) and we're selling ___________ to raise money for the team, would you like to buy one?" Unless I'm in a very bad mood, I say, "sure" and get out my checkbook. "What are you raising the money for?" "We're going to a tournament in St Louis in July." A few weeks later, the same kids knock on my door and deliver whatever I bought. This sort of small sponsorship can't be raising much money. But it is something. I suspect it is as much a way of getting the kids to understand that the sport costs money and that they can work together to raise money. Orienteering has similar small sponsorships. I haven't had any orienteers knock on my door, but I regularly buy food at O' meets to support juniors. Family spending Parents pay entry fees, buy gear, drive juniors to and from events. In the off season, parent pay to send kids to camp. The Bill Self Basketball Camp, for example, runs for about 3.5 days and runs $400. Orienteering is the same. Parents shell out money for entry fees, gear, travel and so on. There can't be many (any?) successful junior orienteers who don't owe a lot to the financial support of their parents. Others? Conclusions? I'm sure there are some other sources of funding for junior sports. I know, for example, that some of the teams have small-time sponsorship from local businesses. I think most of those sponsorships are essentially trivial. Maybe there are other significant sources I haven't thought of. What does it all mean for orienteering? I think it means that we should think of ways to encourage junior orienteering using the same sort of funding that other junior sports rely on (i.e. public subsidy of facilities, small sponsorships, and family spending). To expect something else is probably just a waste of time. posted by Michael | 8:40 PM 
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