Travel/Rec

Lately I’ve seen a bunch of new organizations pop up on Facebook who are advertising themselves as “Travel Rec” or “Rec Travel” programs.

Interesting marketing ploy—curious what it means.

Maybe a rec team that plays some local tournaments?

Could be a rec org that has an attached travel org. or even teams playing at the the rec all star level. Around here a lot of all Star teams will play a tournament or two after they are done with the state/regional playoffs (little league, babe Ruth etc.)

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RedeemerKing said:

Lately I’ve seen a bunch of new organizations pop up on Facebook who are advertising themselves as “Travel Rec” or “Rec Travel” programs.

Interesting marketing ploy—curious what it means.

Maybe a rec team that plays some local tournaments?

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That's how I read it. There's some programs here that do just that. They play in a local weekly rec level league and then will participate in local tournaments which may grab a couple out of town teams.

Our LL formed an in-house travel team which the girls had to tryout for. If they made the All-Star team they were also invited to play on this team. We typically would play in 3-4 tournaments during the spring before the LL All-Star tournament started. It was a way for our girls to get better prepared for All-Star competition. They also play a couple of fall tournaments, as well.

Vertigo said:

Our LL formed an in-house travel team which the girls had to tryout for. If they made the All-Star team they were also invited to play on this team. We typically would play in 3-4 tournaments during the spring before the LL All-Star tournament started. It was a way for our girls to get better prepared for All-Star competition. They also play a couple of fall tournaments, as well.

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Yeah, all of that violates LL rules. I’m sure you were unaware or wouldn’t have done so.

Lobster Birch said:

Yeah, all of that violates LL rules. I’m sure you were unaware or wouldn’t have done so.

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What rules did it violate? This was 7-8 years ago and as long as tryouts were held for the team there was no violation. Every LL in our district had the same exact set up. Once on the team there were separate fees paid for the tournaments by the parents on those teams. We had a separate account for those teams, as well. No LL funds were used to support those teams. Only thing was you had to play for our LL to play on the in-house travel team. Both baseball and softball did it in the District. In-house meaning made up of only our LL players. The teams also had their own BOD under a different org name.

The girls on the team played on the rec teams as well and played the full rec schedule. The travel team tourneys were on the weekends and the rec games were during the week. I’m sure if it was an issue our District Administrator would have shut it down in a heartbeat. Our LL, as well as many others, still have this kind of team.

Our organization had some teams that played in a league with teams from other towns. These teams would play a couple of tournaments each year.

Our local rec league has a summer travel program - basically a group of rec programs within 1 hour of each other and everyone travels to each other's fields for games. There are real travel teams (lower level B teams) who join this summer league and beat up on the rec teams to "boost their confidence", totally disgusting.

Our league has something similar to what Vertigo referenced. There are tryouts each season and you must be on a house/rec team in order to participate. We'll play a couple of tournaments and friendly doubleheaders against local B/C travel teams. It's great for the advanced house players who don't want the rigors of full blown travel. They get to experience the higher level of competition and have done quite well against some travel teams expecting a cakewalk. We'll have some leave house and go full time travel after getting a taste of it, but if that's what the player is looking for then the league did it's job getting the girls to that point.

KrisHur said:

Our local rec league has a summer travel program - basically a group of rec programs within 1 hour of each other and everyone travels to each other's fields for games. There are real travel teams (lower level B teams) who join this summer league and beat up on the rec teams to "boost their confidence", totally disgusting.

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Pretty common (and sleazy) way for mid-level, possibly new, programs to recruit players. They are not only chasing a trophy, they may be trying to find the "cubic zirconia in the rough" players that might not otherwise try out on a travel team.