MAG ratio of girls program to boys program

[gracyomalley]

Spin off from another thread. I am wondering what is the "normal" ratio of number of girls team (ish - could include team track, TOPS, etc) to boys team members around the country. I know that in any successful gym the recreational program will be the largest and the place a gym makes the money to support the team program and coaches, but I am wondering if other areas have a situation where a men's program actually "pays for itself" or if it is the norm that a gym decides to have a men's program and puts the resources there because its in the gyms mission statement (plan, desire, whatever) to support men's gymnastics.

As an aside, I guess I'd ask is the cost always the same per hour for mens and womens team? How do smaller programs support having high quality men's training with proportionally smaller teams? Or do they just not do that....(ie higher inexperienced coaches for the boys, or share coaches, etc.) Just wondering what's reasonable to ask for/expect with optional level boys....

 

[2G1B]

According to the gym owner, my DS's gym loses more money monthly on the girls' team that he does in the boys' team. Like WAY more. The gym has a huge rec group, so I guess that their model is that they deal with losing some on team since they make it up with rec. The good team brings them recognition, which brings in more rec kids. They are super picky in who can go on team (more so with girls than boys), I'd guess that this is partly because once you move to team you are costing them money rather than making it. I'd wager that the boys' team loses less money than the girls' team because the coaches cost more for the girls (they have elite girls, so have the $$$ coaches that go with that) plus that the girls team is bigger. But, based on the numbers presented, they do lose more per team girl than they do per team boy.

At our previous gym, I'm pretty sure that the owner did NOT lose money on team. She would have dropped them if it weren't a straight up money maker (not viewed it as team brings in rec). There were fewer coaches for boys, and even those coaches coached some rec and some girls' team, so I suspect that it was less expensive per boy there too. Again because coaching costs were less.

But, in the end, less boys do gymnastics than girls. DS doing gymnastics all these years has had only a couple of friends ever end up going to their parents and saying that it seems fun and they want to try it. In the flip side, DDs' have had quite a few friends decide that they want to try it. So having team girls seems to bring in more rec girls, where having team boys doesn't always bring in more boys. Add in the extra equipment needed and it might just not be worth it for a lot of owners.

 

[MILgymFAM]

Side question: 3 out of 4 gyms that my DD has trained at didn't have a boys team at all. My question is how common is it to have both in a gym?

 

[ZJsMom]

I was surprised in that thread about numbers how small most of the boys teams are. Around here it seems like there are some gyms where the boys team is as big as girls. There are some places that are stronger on the boys side and i think that attracts more.

 

[duyetanh]

Don't know much about the boys team as it is rather a separate entity that keeps to itself, but it's about a 3:1 ratio in favor of the girls...?

 

[sce]

Side question: 3 out of 4 gyms that my DD has trained at didn't have a boys team at all. My question is how common is it to have both in a gym?

I was surprised in that thread about numbers how small most of the boys teams are. Around here it seems like there are some gyms where the boys team is as big as girls. There are some places that are stronger on the boys side and i think that attracts more.

It is less common for gyms to have both boys and girls teams. As well, most of the gyms around us have a much smaller boys team than girls team.

Currently my gym has 11 boys and 28 girls. Our girls numbers are pretty low for us and the boys numbers are the highest ever.

 

[skschlag]

REc at our gym is huge. TONS of girls....boys much less. Compulsary is similar. I think the girls have 44 levels 3-5, and the boys have 14 or so. Optionals, the girls are at about 20, boys have 4. There are a couple of gyms around here where the boys are much bigger, but up where we are, the boys' programs tend to be smaller.

 

[notthatmom]

Our gym has NO boys team. We have 2 beginner boys rec classes, and that's it. I don't even think the boys class has anyone in it this session.

 

[momnipotent]

Side question: 3 out of 4 gyms that my DD has trained at didn't have a boys team at all. My question is how common is it to have both in a gym?

In our experience, most gyms have just a girls team. For my boys, when they did artistic, we drove past at least 5 gyms to get to a gym where they had a boys team-and that doesn't even count the other surrounding gyms (at least another 5) that were closer than the gym we went to but in different directions. Within a 45 minute drive of our house, there are likely 20 gyms with girls teams, but only 3 with boys teams.

 

[raenndrops]

Our gym has NO boys team. We have 2 beginner boys rec classes, and that's it. I don't even think the boys class has anyone in it this session.

We don't have a boys team either. We have a MAX of 4 boys that do the boys rec classes. Preschool level, they have class with the girls. At age 5, they can choose to separate. We have one boy in Boys Advanced rec. He should be going to a gym with a team. His parents are considering it, but in the meantime, he is working with our male coach (who used to be a gymnast himself). They are doing a lot of conditioning and drills and skills. There are at least MAG team programs within 45 minutes of our gym, but I don't know much about them.

 

[strawberries]

This is only my impression from my local area. Take it with a grain of salt.

I know a lot of gyms that have both girls and boys teams, however it seems extremely rare to have strong teams in both. Almost all the exceptional boys programs (lev 10's that place well at big meets) have mediocre girls programs, and the stand-out girls programs (ones consistently training elites) generally don't offer boys at all. I can think of one exception.
Also, boys programs tend to have better coaching from the get-go. Where girls work their way up through the levels, dreaming of being w/ HC one day, boys are often w/ HC from L4.

 

[buttercup]

Our boys team is about half the size of our girls team. It's currently the biggest it has been since my DS started training- but it still is only 14 for all provincial levels. And while we may be small- we are the only club with a boys comp program around. Next closest is an hour away.

 

[profmom]

We are lucky to be in a gym with both a good boys' and girls' JO program. The girls' team is a good deal larger than the boys' team, but for the first time in a while, this year we will have a substantial optional boys' team. There's only one other boys' team in our immediate area, and that team does not have any optional boys. Some of our boys come from pretty far away.

 

[chalkbowl]

We have approximately 10 boys on team & 35 girls on JO team. Add to that another 2 dozen girls on Xcel and the girls outnumber the boys by a huge margin!

 

[momto2js]

We just moved gyms. At the last one the boys team was the money maker, but only because it was FAR under coached. Training groups of 15-25 to one were common. Last year there was approximately 40 boys levels 4-10, maybe 10 more in the preteam program. The girls program was about 70 but they had training groups of 6-8.

At the new gym. The girls program is about 125 and the boys are about 10. However, here those 10 boys have 2-3 coaches. The difference is night and day. I asked how on earth this made any sense, and was told not to worry, the girls program was large enough to support the boys program.

 

[CoachS]

Comparing the two programs we have:

41 Total in our USAG Women's Program (Level's 4-9)
10 Total in our USAG Men's Program (Level's 4-5)

I didn't include the USAIGC Women's because honestly I don't know their numbers.

(P.S. - I didn't realize we were are almost a quarter of the size of the women's USAG program, I was so happy when I got the results of the math, lol)

 

[Deleted member 10727]

We are at a gym with both strong girl's and boy's programs. The boy's team is huge, and there is a coach for every level, except at optionals. The ratio is anywhere from 15-1 to 10-1.
I don't know the girls ratios. The gym is huge.