Planning transportation that accommodates your entire team can be intimidating for even the most seasoned Director of Operations.
In order to fit travel into your sporting events calendar budget, there are a couple of different things that need to be ironed out like budget and transportation. Let’s break down everything that goes into planning travel for a sports team.
Sync Up Your Travel Budget To Your Sporting Events Calendar
Determine Your Budget
When it comes to planning travel budgets for major sporting events, it is important to determine your budget in advance or else costs could start to spiral out of control for your athletic department.
The biggest components of a travel budget for a collegiate athletic team are transportation, food, and hotel rooms. Another component that is often overlooked is time; Director of Operations and coaches spend hours creating budgets and calculating travel costs to build out sporting event calendars. Not to mention the time that travel itself takes, and factoring in their athletes’ academic schedules as well. With these costs in mind, it is easy to see how quickly a budget can get out of control.
Consider Your Transportation Options
Once you’ve determined your budget and the amount that your department can contribute to your team’s travel, the next step is to look at the transportation options available to you.
While chartering a private plane may not make sense for your team—or for your budget—it could make more sense for a collegiate athletic team that has a game across the country within a day. Deciding between the different forms of transportation is not so black and white: when using air transportation, ground transportation is still very needed to shuttle athletes to the airport, to the hotel, and to the stadium.
Besides being one of the most affordable options once the total cost is divided between the amount of players and distance traveled, charter buses are also one of the most efficient and enjoyable ways to travel via ground, as many of them now come equipped with outlets, satellite TV, and even WiFi.
The Logistics of Booking a Charter Bus
With a variety of charter bus options, teams of any size can find a bus that works for them. For smaller teams, sprinter vans and mini buses are a great option. Another popular choice among younger sports teams and parents is to charter a school bus for everything on their sporting events calendar.
While each bus comes with its own luggage allowance, coaches find that charter buses often have ample room for their team’s gear.
STM Driven Prioritizes Safety
Our team understands, and prides ourselves, on knowing the details of regulations, records, and reports of each vehicle and carrier that we partner with to ensure that they put safety first, too.
Our team is made up of experienced travel and operations coordinators that are available no matter the time of day or night, so you can hit the road as soon as you need to. Ready to roll? Submit a quote request today!
