The honest math

What it costs to play.

Club ball is a real investment, and we won't pretend otherwise. We keep it as low as we can — local-first scheduling, hosting our own tournaments, and team fundraisers all help. Here's the honest shape of it.

Year-one estimate · before fundraising
~$1,060 per player

Two kinds of fees: organization fees to the Fireballs non-profit, and team fees for our own equipment, uniforms, and tournaments. Both are collected once in the fall and once in the spring.

  • Organization fees Covers insurance, player registration, one uniform shirt, and operating costs. $150 in the fall, $200 in the spring. $350 / yr
  • Fall team fees Extra uniform shirt, belt & socks, sweatshirt, team equipment, the fall tournament, and the winter hitting-barn rental. ~$260
  • Spring team fees Team equipment plus our share of roughly seven spring/summer tournaments. ~$450
  • Winter extras Fieldhouse time (pitching, fielding, conditioning) is already covered by fees. Optional pitching instruction is available separately, priced per session. Optional

These are anticipated costs, not a final bill. What you actually pay depends on how many tournaments we play, how many we host ourselves, and how fundraising goes — we'll talk through the numbers together as a team before each season's fees are finalized.

Good to know

Winter (November–March) is entirely optional.

The Fireballs hold optional pitching/catching, fielding/conditioning, and hitting sessions over the winter for any player who wants extra reps. Fieldhouse time is already covered by the fees above; hitting-barn time is a small separate team expense we decide on together, and we can often split it with another team to bring the cost down. Nothing over the winter is required.

What families provide

  • Bat, glove, cleats & pants (whatever she's already using)
  • Water bottle

Helmets and backpacks are covered by the team. One heads-up: NAFA uses the NCAA bat standard rather than the USSSA standard some rec bats carry, so check with a coach before buying a new bat.

Fundraising helps

The Fireballs run two organization-wide fundraisers a year — a holiday wreath sale and a flower basket sale — plus team options like sponsorships. We're planning conservatively for year one and treating fundraising as a bonus on top of the numbers above, not something baked in.