AAU Tournament Economics

I've gone to several AAU tournaments this spring and summer as a high school coach and have become extremely disappointed in how things are run.  I always hear, "It's about the kids." Well, it's not.  Someone is making a lot of money and they are lying when they say they are not.

I'll use a tournament that is going on in Minneapolis right as an example.  This isn't a knock on D1Minnesota AAU program.  I'm just using it as an example because it's going on right now.

72 teams entered the tournament (Three of their own organization are in the tourney, so 69 teams paid)

Revenue
- Cost per team is $500 - $34,500 for entry fees
- Each team brings roughly 16 people (easier for math) at minimum. I paid $10 today to get in, I don't know if there is a whole tournament fee.  If there is, let's say it's $25.  Now parents from the D1 program are paying that as well.  That's $400 per team for entrance fees.  That's $28,800 in admission fees.
- College Coaches' Packets usually are $100 for JUCO and D3, $150-$200 for D2, and $250-$350 for D1.  Now, I didn't see a ton of college coaches but I have to think they made at least $2,000 on those.

So, at the bare minimum (I think) they make $65,300 in revenue.

Expenses
- Facility Rental - I'm making a complete guess here but I'll say $5,000 total for all the gyms.
- Insurance - Another complete guess but I'll go with $2,000
- Athletic Trainer(s) - $2,000
- Referees - I would think the going rate is $25 per game per ref. So that's $50 per game. There are 156 games for the whole tourney (yes, I counted). That's $7,800
- Runners/Scorekeepers/etc - $2,000

So, there are roughly $17,800 in expenses for the tournament.

 $65,300
-$18,800
 $47, 500

That's a lot of money to make on a weekend even if I am off on rental fees or the costs of the referees.     I would think that a lot of this money will go back into the D1Minnesota AAU organization with coaching salaries, rental facilities for practice, gear for the kids, travel for organization to out of town tournaments, etc.

There are other tournaments like any NY2LA tourney that makes WAAYYYYYYY more than that because they have more teams, and way more college coaches. Also, NY2LA (there are many more like these series of tournaments but this is one most are familiar with) isn't tied to any AAU organization, so the money clearly isn't going back to the kids.