For many grassroots football clubs, the annual tournament is the major fund raiser. The club’s finances are reliant on setting the tournament’s Team Entry fees right. In this post I’ll talk about market pricing for team entry fees. Staying in line with market pricing works simply because a day out playing football is such fun that the team entry fee is actually still good value for money.
With planning for the 2024 tournament market well underway, we are seeing
If you are organising a tournament you need to set a team entry price. Too little and the club doesn’t raise enough funds. Too much and visiting teams shy away. You should probably look at the market and see what other football clubs charge, but that takes time. I can save you that time because I have looked at dozens of U7 to Youth age group tournaments, each with competitions for multiple age groups.
Team entry price averages
I see a trend for Team Entry fee pricing higher than last year. Published* prices range from £35 to £80.
So, what is the average price for a football team to enter a junior tournament? It turns out £51.62p is the average entry price published on Clubtournament.co.uk listings for a junior football team to enter a 2024 grassroots club tournament. To get these figures for grassroots football clubs, I have excluded certain types of tournaments – see the footnotes for details.
For tournaments with Girl-only competitions the average price is a few pounds lower at £48.53 to enter a team. It is a very similar picture for tournaments running “Colts” competitions (for teams that are not playing in the top division of their league). On average it costs £48.57 to enter a Colts team this year.
If you want to delve deeper for any particular junior age group you can see the range of entry prices by selecting the relevant tile on the marketplace page.
Discounting
After the pandemic, places at tournaments were in high demand. Most Tournament Organisers stopped offering discounts – because they didn’t need to. In 2024 I see discounts returning with a few tournaments offering lower entry fees for booking early (“early bird discount”) and/or for entering teams in two or more age groups. However the amount of discounting is still much less than pre-pandemic. Perhaps this is a sign the market is returning to normality very. very slowly.
Foot notes – How we define Grassroots football club tournaments
To provide relevant guidance to grassroots football Club tournament organisers, I have looked at tournaments where the competition for an age group lasts one day maximum. Many clubs run tournaments over a weekend, however any single age group will only be on one day so these tournament are counted in the analysis.
*Team entry prices as published on this Listing website.
These tournaments have not been included in the grassroots club analysis:
- Commercial tournament organisers offering events at prestigious venues or stadiums with other benefits. These can justify charging more (typically a few hundred pounds).
- Residential tournaments with accommodation or where a team will be playing on two or more days.