Survey Results! Youth Hockey: A Game for the Rich?

Results are in from the latest Beeski survey on the cost of youth hockey.

Inspired by an article by James Mirtle of The Globe and Mail, I asked you what you spent on youth hockey in a recently completed season. I wanted to find out if hockey has become, as the article says, "a game strictly for the rich".

Results after the jump.

The short answer to the question at hand appears to be ... um, yes. Youth hockey is at the very least a game for the "comfortable". But before I get to the income comparisons, let's cover some ground rules and look at the costs.

I asked you to consider costs over a (roughly) 12 month period from the start of one season to the start of the next. Most responses were based on the time period from the first game of the 2012-13 season to the first game of the 2013-14 season. That included any camps or clinics in the summer of 2013.

I asked you to think of your costs for one child only. Six people took the survey more than once, answering for one child at a time.

There were 48 responses in total. That's a pretty good result for the first time doing this. It's enough data to make some high level conclusions, not enough to drill down in a lot of detail. If you're reading this but didn't respond to the survey, be sure to follow us on Facebook so you're aware of the next survey. I hope you'll share this with others too - that's the best way to increase future participation.

Responses were mainly for Squirts, Peewees, and Bantams, with a smattering of other ages. The most responses were for A-level players, but there was a decent distribution across levels.

Of course I wanted to see the difference in costs for goalies versus non-goalies. Five goalie parents responded to the survey.

Costs

The overall average amount that the 48 respondents spent on hockey was $5,429 - for one child in one 12-month period. That works out to $4,985 on average for the non-goalie parents, and a whopping $9,245 for the goalie parents. Here's the breakdown by category:

Looking at the differences in costs between goalie parents and the rest of us, the differences in the cost of equipment and camps/clinics/private instruction are understandable. The differences in average registration fees and travel costs seem to be driven by a high proportion of Tier 1 goalies - 2 of the 5, or 40% of the goalie respondents. In contrast, only 20% of the overall respondents were Tier 1 parents.

How do costs vary by level you ask? Take a look.

As expected, average costs are significantly higher for Tier 1 players. This is mainly driven by the higher registration fees and travel costs. But the Tier 1 parents who responded also tended to spend more on equipment and camps/clinics/private instruction than their peers.

Some conclusions from the section on costs:

• Friends don't let friends raise goalies.
• The average expenditures for youth hockey are crazy! Or are they? There's research online that indicates some parents spend just as much or more on sports like football, baseball, and volleyball. 
• One thing that stands out for me though is the cost for in-house hockey at $950 per season. I should note that there was only one response in that category, but still that's a lot of money for the most basic level of ice hockey. To make the leap to developmental travel hockey, you're looking at much higher costs - thousands of dollars more.
• Is the big increase in costs for Tier 1 hockey worth it? Many friends tell me, yes, it is. They cite the higher quality coaching and competition, ice time, and off-ice training. Even the travel costs can be worth it, they say - hockey trips with your family and teammates are the things memories are made of.
• It's pretty clear from these results that your average American family probably wouldn't be able to afford the cost of youth hockey (travel hockey for sure). I don't know if I'd say that youth hockey is a game "strictly for the rich" but it's certainly not a game for the poor.

Income

For the section on income, 38 of the 48 respondents provided an estimate of their annual household income for the hockey season in question. Of those, 6 were second-time respondents (answering for a second child). I've removed those duplicates from the averages here to avoid skewing the results.

One of the things mentioned in the article that inspired this survey was that the hockey parents surveyed in a "confidential survey commissioned by Hockey Canada" had an average household income roughly 15 percent higher than the national median. The results of this survey were much more dramatic:

• The average annual household income from all respondents was $153,531.
• The national median household income* in 2012 inflation-adjusted dollars was $51,371. That means the respondents in this survey had an average household income roughly triple the national median!
• The national mean household income* in 2012 inflation-adjusted dollars was $71,317, less than half that of our respondents.
• Since most of the responses were from PA/NJ:
• Looking only at the Northeast Region of the U.S., the median and mean household incomes* were $58,147 and $81,426, respectively.
• Looking only at the Middle Atlantic Division of the U.S., the median and mean household incomes* were $56,817 and $80,170, respectively.

*Source: 2012 American Community Survey 1-Year Estimates

Any way you cut it, our respondents brought home significantly more than their peers.

I also looked at income results by zip code. This next table shows the zip codes I got responses from, along with the corresponding median and mean incomes for residents in those zip codes. In every case, the median income is higher than the national median, and in most cases the mean income is higher than the national average.

The data indicates that hockey parents tend to earn more and live in higher income areas than their peers nationally and regionally. But even at the zip code level, our respondents outperformed. Of the respondents who provided both income and zip code information, 56% earned more than the mean income for their own zip code. Is youth hockey a game for the richest of the rich?

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Interesting results for the first Beeski survey on the cost of youth hockey. Thanks to all who participated. I'm going to skip making any judgments about whether the cost is worth it - after all, I'm a hockey parent so I must think it is. I have to admit though, I was surprised by how high both the average annual cost and the average annual income were.

What did you think? Share your reaction in a comment.

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