What are the differences between Recreational (Rec), Travel, and Club soccer? This is a question that appears frequently on soccer parent group boards and there are many different opinions on the topic as well as regional differences. Frequently, the level of competition is brought up as a discernable difference between the three choices. Although it’s true the level of competition does tend to be different, it is a very subjective description. The amount of travel or distance between games is another factor frequently cited. But my son’s recreational teammates and coaches have traveled much further away than his club team to play games.
So what is the difference? Again, although there may be regional differences and I’m sure many more ‘categories’ folks have dreamt up to suit their needs, on this site and hopefully generally accepted most broadly.
- Recreational (Rec) League – Refers to a soccer organization or club where the coach is NOT paid and is a volunteer. Games are typically played between teams within the same club. The fees you pay are ‘generally’ minimal and go towards field maintenance, or rental time, uniforms, and referees.
- Travel – Refers to a soccer organization or club where the coach is NOT paid and is a volunteer. Games are typically played against teams from another club but within the same league. The fees you pay are ‘generally’ minimal and go towards field maintenance, or rental time, league fees, uniforms, and referees.
- Club – Refers to a soccer organization or club where the coach is a paid professional soccer coach. Games are typically played against other clubs within the same league or in tournaments. The fees you pay can vary significantly, but will typically be substantially more than rec or travel team fees because the coach is being paid for his time in addition to the field maintenance or rental time, uniforms, league fees, and referees.
So although ‘who you play’ and whether your coach is paid or not are the factors to determine the key differences between rec, travel, and club; there are other typical differences you could expect to see.
As mentioned before, the competition level does tend to increase as you move from rec to travel to club. To join a travel team, many but not all rec clubs will require a ‘tryout’ and only take the ‘best’ players. Whereas rec soccer tends to be amongst kids who all live in a neighborhood or community, travel will expand to play against kids from another neighborhood and only against their ‘best’ players. Most clubs will also host a ‘tryout’ to ensure players are good enough to join the team. But the kids on a club team can be from any neighborhood and frequently, based on the additional price will only have kids who are most committed and consequently better. Therefore club teams have more committed kids and professional coaching and consequently are better teams. But these are general expectations, many kids play travel and club, so the competition can be good or bad at any level depending on where you live.
In addition to the increased fees associated with club, the travel required tends to increase as well. With rec soccer, games are frequently all held at the same complex. In travel, your games will typically be against clubs within your general metro area and require travel typically 15 minutes to 1 hour away; again I’m sure this varies by region. For club, leagues tend to be regional or national, often inclusive of multiple metropolitan areas with travel anywhere from 1 hour to flights required distances apart.
We’ll expand on clubs more in other posts, but hopefully this provides a starting point to clarify the differences between rec, travel, and club soccer. Comments welcome!