As a player or parent of a player, the end of the basketball season is here. You’ve searched social media and the local landscape looking for opportunities to continue playing basketball after the season. You’ve asked your coach or neighbors where you might find a travel basketball team to join, but your search has returned zero results.

All too often, players who want to continue to build their skills and competition level are stuck in a similar position. With some exceptions, travel basketball teams can play throughout the year all across the country. That means it’s never too late to join in on the fun.

When your player cannot find a suitable travel organization to join, they are most likely not alone. He or she is perhaps one of several players in your area searching for a basketball team. Now, it’s time to consider creating your own travel group.

How do you start a travel basketball team? While there are many different ways these organizations come to life, most groups follow this 10-step process to create a travel basketball team for their players.

1. Find a Coach

While this may seem like an obvious first choice, finding a coach is often the most-important step toward building a travel basketball team. Your coach is the person who will be working hand-in-hand with your players throughout the season and will determine (to some extent) how successful and enjoyable your travel basketball team’s experience will be.

Finding a good coach can be difficult. Start-up programs usually look to former local players that may not have coaching experience to serve as coaches. This is a great place to start; even if the individuals you approach do not accept the responsibility, they may refer you to other coaches who would be interested and available.

Before approaching individuals about coaching, be prepared to discuss payment. Travel basketball coaches do not become rich, but some compensation will help off-set this individual’s expenses. Unpaid volunteer coaches often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars out of their own pockets in driving to and from practices or tournaments, just as an example.

Whether you’ve decided to pay the coach or not, coaches must know they will be giving a lot of time and energy toward this endeavor that will be uncompensated. Finding a reliable person with an understanding family and/or job to take on this responsibility can be a long process, making the coach selection the best first step in building a travel basketball team.

2. Recruit Teammates

Unless your player is bringing his or her entire regular-season team with them, the coach will need to find players to participate for the upcoming travel basketball schedule. Having the coach involved in this process will help him or her identify what players should be included on the team as well as how many players should be on the roster.

Recruiting teammates for a travel basketball team is a mixture of skill and luck. Depending on the age, the coach can host a tryout over a one- or two-day period to solicit the players from the community. Posting the tryouts on community bulletin boards, on social media, and through other media like a local newspaper will help spread the word.

If the players are currently playing for a state-sanctioned sport – like middle or high school basketball – the coach should review the local state guidelines pertaining to player recruitment during the regular or post-season. If permissible, he or she may choose to visit other nearby schools to see what talented players would also be available for a travel basketball team.

3. Determine the Schedule

This step toward creating a basketball team is often one you’ll revisit multiple times during the travel season. However, putting together a tentative schedule as early as possible will help both the team organizer and coach in recruiting players. Plus, this is often one of the first questions parents will ask to determine how much travel will be expected.

Schedules are tentative for multiple reasons. Unless you’re team is an elite squad, tournaments that your travel basketball organization will participate in could have vacancies in your team’s specific age group. Almost all tournaments for development and competitive squads struggle to attract teams for every age group, and a replacement tournament is often necessary to fill gaps in the team’s travel schedule.

Further, other tournaments could spring up that would be closer to home or better-suited for your talent level. Having the flexibility to make changes to your travel team’s schedule is important to provide the best competition level possible. Finding tournaments with similar talent levels is important to keep your team’s morale high during the season.

The best spot to search for tournaments is in a Facebook group for travel basketball teams. Searching Facebook for “travel basketball in (your state name)” is an excellent starting point. Often, tournaments will post months in advance to help potential teams pencil in their tournament for these dates.

Regardless, setting a tentative schedule early for your travel basketball team is important for the next step …

4. Set the Price

Beyond the extent of travel, parents of potential’s players will almost assuredly ask how much money will it cost to participate on the travel team. This is the fee your travel organization should establish to off-set uniform costs as well as tournament fees, facility rent expenses, and/or coach’s reimbursement funds (for our comprehensive guide on how to price your travel team’s expenses, click here).

From a parent’s perspective, it’s easy to see why the expected price is at the forefront. In addition to the team fee, parents will incur significant expenses associated with travel to and from competitions. A single tournament, for example, could easily cost a family of four over $500 when the price of a hotel stay, dining, fuel and tournament admission fees are taken into account.

Setting the travel tournament team fees either too high or too low will hurt your team’s ability to recruit players. High-priced travel basketball organizations are often elite squads looking to play against some of the best competition in their region. These squads impose higher fees for multiple reasons, including buying uniform packages, renting practice facilities, and paying a coach’s fees to name a few.

Conversely, setting the price too low can also be problematic. The adage that you get what you pay for is a parent’s potential perception of the program. Low-priced fees for a travel basketball squad can be seen as inferior products to higher-priced counterparts, pushing some parents toward the supposed premium option.

Pricing the travel team fee too low is also a problem in terms of player retention and attention. Parents who spend $500-2,000 for team fees are more apt to ensure their child’s participation in every practice and tournament. To the contrary, travel organizations with cheaper team fees sometimes struggle with their player’s commitment, especially for practice.

5. Secure a Gym

On paper, this step seems to be one of the easiest in forming a travel basketball team. In reality, this can be one of the most troublesome steps you’ll face in organizing your squad.

If you look around your neighborhood, the chances of finding multiple gyms are high. Almost every middle and high school in the area will have one to two gyms inside. Additionally, some communities offer recreation centers with indoor basketball facilities. You can also find gymnasiums at churches or even at stand-alone exercise facilities.

Having access to multiple gyms is a smart practice for travel basketball teams. Often, gyms are booked in advance for multiple days or weeks at a time to host other events. To avoid missing practice for an entire week, the coach or team organizer should look for back-up locations to serve the basketball team’s practice needs.

Some gym owners will require your travel squad to carry accident insurance in the event one or more of your players are injured while at the gym. Travel basketball teams can obtain liability insurance online from multiple providers, giving both the organization and gym owners peace of mind if the unexpected happens. Policies start at just over $100 for the entire season and offer practice or competition accident insurance to cover coaches, certain support staff members and players.

6. Create a Practice Schedule

From experience, creating a practice schedule for when your travel basketball team will conduct workouts can be a nightmare. This can be problematic for multiple reasons, and coaches should address this item soon after securing the practice location.

The biggest problem with crafting a practice schedule is attempting to find common dates when most – if not all – players can participate. Some athletes will be dual-sport participants, and spring sporting events such as baseball or softball could limit player participation. As well, parents may have multiple children in their family who are simultaneously participating in other travel sports, creating another obstacle.

Secondary problems arise from the practice gym itself: when can your team participate based on the facility’s schedule? High schools, for example, will often reserve gym time for in-season and out-of-season athletes to use their gyms after hours, limiting the options or the facility’s availability.

Flexibility is often the key in crafting a practice schedule that works for everyone on your travel basketball team. While certain nights work well this week, other weeknights or even weekend workouts will best suit the coach and players’ schedules the following week. Parents should understand in advance that practice times will vary from week to week.

7. Order Uniforms

Selecting a uniform provider for your travel basketball team is another step that can seem overwhelming at first glance (we cover this topic in detail). Locally, apparel shops can help you place an order for uniforms. Online, hundreds of outfitter options exist, providing tools to create a custom look for your squad. Choosing a reputable provider should be the first order of business for the team.

Most tournaments will require teams to have two styles of uniforms – a light and dark color jersey. While travel tournaments are often at neutral sites for their participants, these competitions will establish a home (light color) and away (dark color) team theme for scoring purposes much like school-sanctioned activities.

Another consideration for team managers is to decide on reversible jerseys or multiple jersey options. Reversible jerseys will have both a light and dark color scheme for players; meanwhile, owning two separate jerseys also accomplishes this task for travel squads. With options starting at around $100 for both reversible and multiple sets, picking either style is merely a preference for each organization.

The final consideration should be the quality of the jersey material. Depending on the schedule, travel teams may play upwards of 50 games during their season. Having a quality jersey that can handle wear and tear from playing numerous games matters more in this instance. Travel squads playing in a handful of local tournaments and perhaps 12-15 games in total can opt for a lesser-quality jersey.

8. Collect Payments

While this step is a no-brainer, determining who and how your travel basketball team collects participant’s payments requires some initial thought. Setting a timeline for when all fees should be paid must be established from the get-go to ensure a smooth process.

As society trends toward online and plastic payment methods, creating a virtual payment center is a popular option. Most teams will accept payment via virtual payment platforms like CashApp, Venmo or PayPal. Others may create a more time-honored approach by setting up a team bank account and ask for cash or checks to deposit into it.

While either online or in-person payment methods are acceptable, each travel organization should establish which individual is responsible for collecting and recording the payments. Think of this as the team’s business manager. Depending on the size of the team or the fee, payments could exceed several thousands dollars and may require multiple individuals that are capable and trustworthy of the task.

Further, the individuals responsible for collecting payments will also be responsible for the inevitable and dreaded “collection” call to parents who have not paid. Travel basketball organizations should discuss in advance what penalties – such as revoking tournament privileges – players will be assessed for not paying established team fees to provide collectors with leverage to secure the payments.

9. Call the Tournament Directors

Once your travel basketball team has determined its schedule, the coach or team administrator should contact each tournament director at the beginning of the season. Primarily, this phone call will be to confirm that the published tournament dates and team entry fee are accurate. Ensuring the tournament does not have typos in its announcement is one way to avoid surprises later in the season.

Moreover, your coach and players need to know and understand the rules for each tournament. While most tournaments will have similar rules – length of quarters/halves, number of timeouts, size of roster – it’s important to know if a tournament has specific rules before showing up unprepared for your travel basketball team’s competition.

Finally, establishing contact with the tournament directors can be useful for new organizations. Often, travel tournament directors can provide their recommended travel arrangements nearby so teams can secure the best group rates or cleanest hotel accommodations. Knowing in advance where to stay will help parents plan accordingly.

10. Designate Support Staff

While this is the last step, that doesn’t mean designating a support staff for your travel basketball team is not one of the most important ones. Finding individuals who will volunteer their time to assist in team activities is a critical chore each season.

If you’re starting from scratch, your supporting roles will most likely be filled by parents or relatives of players on the team. In fact, almost all travel teams will look to players’ family members first as they are traveling to each tournament to support their basketball enthusiast. A first step for coaches is to meet with players’ families and find out if any have a background in the support role.

From keeping statistics at the game to who is video recording the event, knowing what roles need filled is another important part to creating a successful experience for your travel basketball team players, coaches and parents. In addition to on-court roles, most teams rely on a dedicated social media manager to broadcast individual and team success stories to followers during and after the competition.