Names and identifying details of every student here are changed, as they are everywhere on the blog.
Yulia’s son is 9 and he wants hockey. Not soccer, which is what the school offers, and not swimming, which is what she wants, because the pool is four blocks away. Hockey. Her husband is delighted. She came to me with a number in her head, $600 a year, which she got from a mother at pickup, and asked whether that sounds right.
It does not. So we sat down with the actual numbers, the national ones and the local ones, and by the end she had a different plan, and the boy still gets his hockey.
Actual family spending
The Aspen Institute has been surveying sports parents for years, with two universities, and the headline number is this. In 2024 the average family spent $1,016 on one child’s primary sport, which is 46 percent more than five years earlier. Add the second activity and it comes to about $1,500 a year per child, and city families in that survey put their own number slightly higher than suburban ones.
That is the average across everything, which is why it feels wrong to anybody in an expensive sport. Soccer went from $537 to $910 in those five years. Baseball is over $1,100. And hockey keeps coming out as the most expensive mainstream sport in these surveys, around $2,500 and up.
One more thing about that average, because averages lie in both directions. There are hockey families who spend well under it, on a house league with borrowed gear, and hockey families who spend several times it, and both of them are in that one number. Nobody at pickup says their own figure out loud either.
Three sports, side by side
| Sport | Typical yearly cost | What drives it | The cheaper route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Soccer | About $910 on average | Club fees, tournaments, travel | City and park league, one season at a time |
| Ice hockey | $2,500 and up | Ice time, equipment, tournament travel | Learn-to-play programs, used gear, house league |
| Swimming | No national average published | Lesson packages, club dues, meet fees | City pools, lessons in a block, off-season pause |
Here in Los Angeles the city runs learn-to-swim programs at its own pools and advertises them as free to low cost, and the YMCA runs group lessons at its centers, at prices that depend on the center and are listed in each center’s own schedule. Weekly year-round lessons are the other end, and an industry review this spring put those at $1,000 to $2,300 a year, which lands right on the national average for any one activity.
Nobody budgets for this line
Travel. In the same survey it is the single biggest category, averaging about $260 per child per sport, and that is an average that includes families who never leave their zip code. A hockey family with two tournaments out of town is not in that average, she is well past it.
Registration is the number they tell you. Travel is the number that decides whether you can actually afford the season.
Then the quiet ones. Skates that stop fitting in March. A second stick. The team hoodie that is not optional socially even when it is optional officially. Gas and parking at a rink 40 minutes away, twice a week, for eight months.
Scholarships exist and almost nobody asks. City leagues have fee waivers, hockey associations run gear drives and learn-to-play grants, and swim programs have sliding scales. It is rarely advertised at the sign-up table, and it is a question you can ask in one sentence at the front desk.
What Yulia decided
Learn-to-play first, the beginner program, where the gear is often included or rented and nobody has bought anything yet. One season, not a year. No travel team until the boy has been on the ice for at least two seasons and still wants it in April, not only in October when the season is new.
And swimming stayed, because it is four blocks away and costs almost nothing at the city pool, and because in this family the mother makes one decision too.
Spending goes up with age anyway, by that same survey. Families of teenagers 15 to 18 spend close to $2,000 a year, and the question by then is not the registration, it is whether anybody still wants to drive to the rink.
My own version of this
In Rosario I asked for the football club at 8 and did not get it, because the uniform and the shoes were the problem and nobody said that out loud. What they said was that girls in that club were not serious. I found out the real reason at 20, from my mother, in a completely different conversation.
So when a mother in my chair says the number out loud, the whole number, I think that is already better than what I got.
Courses at Palme School
Russian for bilingual children
When a kid understands Russian and answers in English
School of reading
Reading and writing for kids who already speak Russian
Free materials
Things to print and do at the kitchen table
Frequently asked questions
According to the Aspen Institute's national parent survey, families spent an average of $1,016 on one child's primary sport in 2024, a 46 percent increase over five years, and close to $1,500 per child across all sports and activities.
Ice hockey has been the most expensive mainstream youth sport in these surveys, at roughly $2,500 a year and up, driven by ice time, equipment and tournament travel.
Average annual family spending on soccer rose from about $537 in 2019 to about $910 in 2024, according to reporting on the same survey.
National surveys do not publish a separate average for swimming. In Los Angeles the city advertises free to low-cost lessons at its pools, YMCA group lesson prices vary by center, and year-round weekly lessons were estimated at $1,000 to $2,300 a year in a 2026 industry review.
Travel. In the same survey it averaged about $260 per child per sport, the largest single category, and that average includes families who never travel for games.
Palme School: Russian for bilingual children · School of reading · Free materials for families
Monica Perez is from Rosario, Argentina. These days she does nails in Los Angeles, and her regulars are mostly Russian-speaking, which is how these stories reach her before they reach anyone else.
