Many sports games at FHS have gates where one has to pay to watch them, but not all. Golf, softball, baseball, tennis, badminton and soccer league competitions can be viewed for free. Football, flag football, volleyball, basketball, wrestling, cross country, water polo, track and field and swimming, on the other hand, cost money if you do not have an ASB card. The question is, why do only some sports have gate fees?
The Santa Clara Valley Athletic League is in charge of gate fees and their prices. They decide which sports have gate fees through a board of managers made up of school principals.
Once the decision about gate fees is made, the prices are posted on the SCVAL website. Right now, for all sports with gate fees, students and seniors pay $5 and children under five years old get in free. At flag football, volleyball, basketball and wrestling matches, adults cost $8, and any other game with a gate fee costs $10. The money from the games goes towards funding the host school’s athletic program, but the host school is in charge of sending receipts documenting how much money they raised to the SCVAL commissioner.
“[The] money comes into athletics to help support our programs internally,” FHS athletics director Daniel McCune said. “Either to general athletics or to the team specifically.”
The money from gate fees can be used for things like sports equipment and uniforms, traveling to and from games and paying coaches. Not all gate fee money goes directly to the school, though.
“The postseason stuff like, say, we host the league finals,” McCune said. “Those gate [fees] go directly to the SCVAL.”
Gate fees can sometimes be annoying if one goes to a lot of home games, but there are some ways to avoid them.
“We purchased a family pass at the beginning of the school year,” FHS parent Matthew Brunnings said. “And that got us into football and basketball games.”
If parents go to a lot of their children’s games, family passes can be a great way to avoid paying $8 per person at every game they go to. They cost $75 for four people and $50 for two people. Another way to get into home games for free at our school is through ASB cards. After buying one along with a yearbook for a total of $120, you can get free entry to sporting events, along with discounts at dances. In purchasing these passes, one can provide money to the school while not having to pay money every time one attends a sports game.
