SICS Baseball

01 / The foundation

What transfers from Alliance: individual + team dues, two competition pathways, education, profiles, recognition, regional coordination and partner opportunities. What must be redesigned: baseball age bands, pitching workload, equipment/field rules, roster eligibility, provider contracts and sustainable delivery costs.

Pricing review / Anthony’s proposed annual athlete dues

October 4, 2026 · Pricing adopted for the working model. $60 / $80 / $100 / $125 / $150 is a defensible premium-development hypothesis, but not yet demonstrated market willingness to pay. These are now the model’s baseline prices; continue to test demand; do not sell a higher-priced copy of a basic registration package. Membership tables and calculators now use these athlete fees, $200 per coach and $250 per team annually.

Research findings

Alliance’s official 2027 FAQ, rechecked October 4, publishes athlete dues of $30 (8U–10U), $42 (12U) and $62 (14U–18U), plus coach and team fees. Your 9U–10U proposal is 2.67× its overlapping benchmark, 11U–12U is 2.38× its 12U rate, 13U–14U is 2.02× its 14U rate, and $150 is 2.42× its older youth rate. Age bands and sport differ; 6U–7U and adults have no matching rate in this schedule. Alliance already advertises insurance, education, profiles and partner offers, so those alone do not establish SICS’s premium.

PONY’s official organization-fee article, linked from its current homepage, lists Foal–Colt league-team registration at $50 for one team, falling to $18.50 per team at ten or more teams in an age group. However, the article was last modified in August 2021: use it only as evidence of a team-based affiliation model, not a verified 2027 quote or a comparable individual development package. Do not confuse team affiliation with a family’s full local league cost.

Research limitations: AAU pages were blocked by a browser challenge; the USA Baseball education endpoint returned an error and its alternative site did not expose usable offer details. No prices or benefits from those sources are asserted. This research does not establish a comprehensive current baseball market price range. Local parent/team interviews and actual vendor quotes are still required.

What families actually pay

With 12 players, 3 coaches at $200 each and a $250 team fee: 6U–8U Coach Pitch totals $1,570 ($130.83 per family); 9U–10U $1,810 ($150.83); 11U–12U $2,050 ($170.83); 13U–14U $2,350 ($195.83); 15U & up $2,650 ($220.83). These membership-only allocations exclude tournaments, travel and other expenses. Regional and national pathways use the same team fee.

Economic test, not a profit forecast

For 100 identical 15U-and-up teams, each with 12 unique athletes and 3 unique coaches, the selected fees generate $265,000 in annual dues. Keeping the sandbox’s illustrative 20% regional allocation, 3% processing, $15 insurance and $8 technology/support per participant, $25 screening per coach and $75,000 fixed cost gives $87,050 operating contribution and 47-team break-even. An additional $30 per athlete in service delivery reduces contribution to $51,050 and moves break-even to 60 teams. These cost assumptions are not vendor quotes; higher coach fees must be supported by meaningful coach services, not screening alone.

Rock’s recommendation

Use the proposed ladder as a target for a richer membership, contingent on costed deliverables and demand testing. Pilot with founding teams, show the exact all-in cost, test paid intent rather than compliments, and measure activation, delivery cost and renewal. Keep young-player access affordable through a budgeted sibling/need-based policy. Charge more because the service becomes more valuable—not merely because the athlete gets older. No new insurance, clinics, evaluations or partner services are promised until secured.

02 / Proposed membership architecture

Annual USD prices below are v1 modeling assumptions, selected working-model prices, not an open enrollment offer. Use one published season window with a transparent late-join/refund policy; dates remain to be decided.

Team fees are additional to individual fees

$250 per team annually across all five age bands and both available pathways. National competition remains unavailable for the 6U–8U and 9U–10U pilot groups; this does not waive the team fee.

Adaptation note: Alliance's verified fee bands are 12U and 14U–18U. SICS now uses 6U–8U Coach Pitch, 9U–10U, 11U–12U, 13U–14U and 15U & up. The model now uses Anthony’s selected athlete fees of $60, $80, $100, $125 and $150 respectively, plus $200 per coach and $250 per team. These are SICS hypotheses, not Alliance facts.

Proposed rules: one individual fee per season across SICS teams; free-agent membership allowed; administrative transfers without duplicate dues; competition eligibility reviewed separately. Use at least nine active athletes as a baseball roster-planning minimum, not as a claimed insurance requirement. Actual insurer and event roster thresholds must be contracted.

03 / Benefits: define the promise before selling it

Alliance’s vendors and discount percentages do not automatically transfer to SICS. SICS must negotiate its own relationships; no vendor endorsement is implied.

04 / Baseball competition framework

Baseball-specific rules to ratify

• Age and eligibility: publish birthdate cutoff, grade exceptions if any, roster locks, guest-player rules and verification/appeals. No cutoff adopted yet.
• Coach pitch: define coach-pitch rules, safety distances and transition standards specifically for 6U–8U before events launch.
• Pitcher health: adopt qualified, age-specific pitch-count/rest guidance; track workload across teams/events where feasible. Publish enforcement, reporting and return-to-play responsibilities.
• Field and equipment: specify age-specific mound/base distances, bat certifications, protective equipment and local venue exceptions before sanctioning events.
• Competition integrity: roster verification, balanced classification, conflict-of-interest controls, umpire standards and a clear protest process.
• Data integrity: define scoring standards, minimum sample sizes, correction windows and safeguards against ranking manipulation.
• Recruiting and exposure: age-appropriate education with guardian controls. No promises of scholarships, college attention or professional placement.

These are design requirements, not medical advice or adopted playing rules. Final standards need qualified baseball, safeguarding, insurance and legal review.

05 / Operating model and launch gates

Required before accepting paid members

1. Clear the SICS name, legal entity, trademarks and governing documents.
2. Approve season dates, pricing, refunds, benefit terms and regional agreements.
3. Secure insurance and compliance contracts; verify actual unit costs.
4. Complete child safeguarding, guardian consent, privacy, photo/video consent and reporting processes. Obtain jurisdiction-specific legal review, including U.S. child-data requirements where applicable.
5. Adopt baseball rules and train staff, coaches, officials and hosts.
6. Test registration, payment, roster, support and data flows end to end.
7. Run a bounded pilot and measure retention, costs, support demand and benefit usage before expanding.

International expansion: jurisdiction-by-jurisdiction planning for insurance, local baseball bodies, data transfers, currency/tax, safeguarding and event operations. No cross-border coverage or recognition is assumed.

06 / Team budget sandbox

Editable proposed fees, not a live membership quote. Your changes and notes can be saved in this browser only. They are not sent to Rock or shared with other users.

07 / Coalition economics sandbox

Illustrative assumptions—not researched SICS costs or a forecast. This blended-cohort model uses the team sandbox’s athlete, coach and team fees. It assumes each athlete and coach is unique across teams; reduce coach counts if shared. It does not include event revenue, event costs, sponsorship, grants, merchandise or taxes. Operating contribution is not net profit.

Council benchmarking / What established models actually support

Official-source review · October 4, 2026. This is a component benchmark, not evidence that the full SICS model has been proven. Sources below were read live. Organizational claims and published prices are attributed to their sources; SICS applications are recommendations. No affiliation or endorsement is implied.

1 / ABCA: the closest direct baseball-coaching benchmark

Verified: the American Baseball Coaches Association publishes $75 annual dues for September 1–August 31. Benefits include 1,000+ on-demand coaching clinics, six annual Inside Pitch magazine issues, practical charts/documents, a weekly podcast, webinars, a member app and free member attendance at Barnstormers regional clinics. Eligible U.S. members receive advertised $1 million personal liability coverage, subject to the policy. This is not the same as SICS’s uncontracted participant/team-insurance concept.

Its 2027 convention is a four-day event with advertised 60+ clinics/Q&As and 400+ exhibitors. Published registration tiers are $90 through October 8, $100 October 9–November 12, $120 November 13–December 10 and $150 December 11–January 9. Membership and convention registration are separate; travel and other extras are not included in this comparison.

Implication for SICS: a $200 coach membership is 2.67× ABCA’s dues. At the checked early-bird rate, ABCA membership plus convention registration totals $165 before travel/extras—less than SICS membership alone. SICS cannot justify its price merely with podcasts, a video library and a convention invitation. Its differentiator should be facilitated position-specific case work, actionable feedback, collaborative resources and a genuine voice in practice recommendations. These are proposed services whose capacity and cost must be tested.

Borrow: one umbrella media brand, reusable event recordings, practical coach resources, one convention with multiple tracks and separate event pricing. Do not copy: a mature organization’s production volume or economics as a startup assumption. Its library and reported 15,000+ membership reflect scale SICS does not yet have.

ABCA dues · ABCA benefits · 2027 convention

2 / Wenger-Trayner: what makes this a real community of practice

Verified: their foundational introduction identifies three elements: a shared domain, a community that interacts and learns together, and a shared practice of tools, stories and approaches. A website or a common job title alone does not make a community of practice. Their leadership-groups resource treats leadership as service and distributes stewardship of learning among participants. These are learning-design frameworks, not a baseball association’s fee schedule or proof of commercial success.

Implication for SICS: the seven-person board should enable participation, not monopolize expertise. Give non-board coaches recurring opportunities to submit cases, lead facilitated discussions, pilot drills and co-author resources. Watching a podcast is useful audience engagement, but not sufficient community participation.

Recommended council learning cycle: identify one coaching problem → discuss member cases → try a documented method in practice → compare observations with context → revise a shared resource → report what changed. Protect athlete privacy and do not mistake uncontrolled field observations for causal scientific evidence.

Community-of-practice framework (June 2015) · Leadership groups

3 / ACSM: how respected training guidance earns authority

Verified: the American College of Sports Medicine describes Position Stands as evidence-based official pronouncements. Its published process includes PICOT questions, systematic literature review, study bias evaluation and grading overall evidence strength. It specifies 5–7 external content reviewers, two rounds of external peer review, a Pronouncements Committee recommendation and final Board of Trustees approval. Its stated goal is publication within 18 months of approval. Current Position Stands and Joint Position Statements are publicly available.

Implication for SICS: distinguish three outputs: (1) educational resources, (2) clearly labeled expert-consensus practice recommendations and (3) formal evidence-reviewed position statements. A board vote does not turn coaching opinion into scientific evidence. Monthly podcasts can discuss practice; serious standards must follow an appropriate review timeline rather than a content quota.

Recommended change: begin with one narrowly scoped recommendation per council, not a broad claim to set every industry standard. Engage external research-methods expertise and qualified medical reviewers when health claims are involved. Make final recommendations, references, limitations and revisions public. Do not imply ACSM review or recognition.

ACSM methodology and review process

4 / IEEE Standards Association: authority needs a process beyond the board

Verified: IEEE identifies direct participation, due process, broad consensus, balance, transparency and broad openness among its standards-development principles. It describes six stages: initiating a project, mobilizing a working group, drafting, balloting, final approval and maintenance. Its standards-development page also describes governance oversight, policies, financial reporting and audit arrangements.

Implication for SICS: treat the seven directors as council stewards and approvers, while broader working groups include coaches from different settings and independent specialists. Record comments and their resolution, conflicts and dissent; maintain an appeal route and revision schedule. Sponsor or academy dominance would undermine credibility.

Boundary: IEEE is a technical standards body, not a baseball membership-price comparator. Adopting useful process principles does not make SICS accredited, IEEE-affiliated or an industry-wide governing authority. SICS’s proposed five-of-seven approval rule remains our custom rule—not a verified IEEE rule.

IEEE standards-development principles and life cycle

Apply the benchmark to all five councils

These project choices are SICS recommendations—not requirements published by the benchmark organizations.

What I would retain, revise and defer

• Retain: your five councils and seven seats including one leader, access across all councils for coach members, shared production/administration, transparent reviews and one convention with five tracks.
• Revise: favor named working groups and regular coach interaction over a director-only content pipeline. Build value through facilitation and usable field tools, not only a resource library.
• Scale the launch cadence: my recommendation is two umbrella podcast episodes per month total, rotating positions; one facilitated member session per council per month; one field-tested resource per council per quarter. This is a proposed lower-volume launch—not an observed competitor requirement or an approved change to the existing mature-state plan.
• Separate publishing levels: label education, expert consensus and formal reviewed statements differently. Annual evidence statements should not be confused with monthly content output.
• Defer: a major in-person convention and competency credential until demand, staffing, assessment quality and event economics are demonstrated. Start with a virtual summit.
• Keep price, test value: the selected $200 coach fee remains unchanged; test whether coaches pay and renew for this differentiated service. Benchmarking is not proof of willingness to pay.

Budget: what the benchmark does and does not validate

No reviewed source validates the original $102,000 council estimate, specific stipend rates, volunteer assumptions or a cost per podcast. Public member benefits and organizational scale do not reveal the actual operating cost of comparable committees. This is not a financial audit; no compensation survey, comparable council P&Ls, vendor quotes or interviews were obtained.

All scenarios exclude the physical convention and retain unquoted assumptions. Volunteer recruitment and capacity are unproven. Validate workshop facilitation, resource production, accessibility, benefits/payroll overhead, platform costs, legal/safety review and staff overlap; the figures are not complete fixed-price offers. Compensation remains your decision. I recommend budgeting paid delivery work explicitly and deciding governance compensation separately, not assuming every board seat must be paid or every expert will volunteer.

Next evidence needed before commitment: a line-item statement of work from a producer, a realistic coordinator workload, reviewer/curriculum quotes, director time commitments and pilot coach paid-intent interviews. Reconcile these costs against existing SICS staffing so the model neither omits nor double-counts them.

Research limitations and unchanged decisions

NSCA specialty-group pages, ASTM, ANSI and MLB Pitch Smart could not be verified in this review because the requests were blocked/challenged. An initial ACSM member-community path returned a missing page; verified ACSM findings above come from its actual Position Stands page, not navigation text. No detailed claims about those inaccessible sources are used.

No exact established counterpart to five seven-member baseball position councils was identified in the sources reviewed. This is not proof none exists. The SICS model remains a custom combination informed by credible component benchmarks. Membership fees, council seat counts, stipend decisions and calculator defaults were not changed by this report.

09 / SICS Position Councils

Proposed operating model · v1.3 · October 4, 2026. Five communities of practice, each governed by a seven-person board including one chair: Pitchers, Catchers, Middle Infield, Outfield and 1st/3rd. That is 35 board seats, including five chairs—not seven members plus a leader. No appointments, accreditation, outside endorsement or industry-wide authority are claimed.

The promise: every active $200/year SICS coach member can participate in all five council communities. Membership is access to learning, discussion and contribution—not an automatic board seat, certification, speaking slot or endorsement. Earn authority through useful work, transparent evidence and consistent delivery.

One governance structure, five specialties

Staff support: a shared SICS program manager, producer/editor and platform administrator serve all councils outside the 35 voting seats. External clinicians, researchers, umpires and guest coaches advise without adding voting seats.

Appointments, voting and accountability

• Founding boards: open nominations, disclosed selection rubric, verified experience/references and safeguarding review. SICS appoints the first cohort; no bought seats.
• Seek a mix of youth-development, school/college/professional practice, research and community coaching experience. Fame alone is not a qualification; require teaching ability, evidence literacy and service capacity.
• Proposed terms: two years, staggered after the founding term; maximum two consecutive terms. Each board elects its chair annually from its seven members; subsequent seats use a published member-nomination and selection process.
• Quorum: five eligible, non-recused directors. Routine decisions: majority of non-recused votes cast, with at least three affirmative votes; ties fail. Practice-standard approval requires five non-recused affirmative votes and completed independent review.
• Disclose financial relationships and recuse from relevant decisions. If recusals prevent quorum or five-vote approval, defer and resolve through the published SICS governance process—not sponsor influence.
• Publish attendance, minutes, decisions, conflicts and annual outputs. Three consecutive unexplained missed meetings triggers review, notice and an opportunity to respond. Written removal, vacancy and appeal procedures must be adopted before appointments.
• The five chairs meet monthly as a coordination group—not a sixth position council—to align shared language and resolve overlaps. SICS retains legal, safeguarding and budget oversight.

Included in coach membership vs. separate purchases

All council benefits are planned, not currently staffed services. Facilitated feedback is educational—not individualized medical diagnosis. Participant consent, guardian permissions for minors, secure video handling and retention rules are prerequisites.

Five council operating blueprints

Age-banded training expectations

Every published drill must specify: purpose, suitable age/readiness, setup/equipment, safety precautions, progression/regression, suggested practice dose with rationale, coaching cues, success criteria and known limitations. A coach adapts the exercise; a rubric is not a medical clearance or a universal talent cutoff.

How recommendations become trusted standards

1. Define the problem: a member submits a practical coaching question with target age and setting.
2. Review evidence: distinguish research-supported recommendations, expert consensus and experimental practice. Publish sources, uncertainty and conflicts.
3. Draft: write age-banded guidance with implementation examples and measurable, repeatable assessment methods.
4. Independent review: at least two qualified reviewers outside the drafting team; include an appropriately licensed clinician for health-related claims. No implied endorsement without consent.
5. Field pilot: test usability and measurement consistency with consenting teams. An uncontrolled pilot does not prove injury prevention or causal performance gains.
6. Member consultation: proposed 30-day comment window, a response-to-comments log and a documented revision.
7. Approve and publish: five of seven eligible board votes, completed reviews and SICS legal/safety release review. Publish version, scope, authors, dissent and review date.
8. Maintain: annual review, correction channel, immediate safety pause when warranted, and archived superseded versions.

Call early outputs SICS Practice Recommendations. “Industry standard” status must be earned through independent use, validation and recognition; SICS cannot declare itself a governing body for all baseball. Do not make unsupported injury-prevention claims or mandate one mechanically “perfect” technique.

Podcast and publication engine

Proposed mature cadence per council: one 30–45 minute public podcast, one member workshop, one case-review/office-hours session, and one reviewed practice resource each month. Use one umbrella SICS podcast feed with five labeled series to share production and audience. Five monthly episodes across the entity—not five separate weekly production commitments.

Episode template: coaching question → guest perspective and conflicts → evidence/context → practical age-specific application → limitations → downloadable notes. Publish captions/transcripts, references and corrections. No identifiable athlete film or stories without appropriate permissions. Sponsors cannot buy a favorable recommendation, board seat or credential.

Annual output target per council after ramp-up: 12 podcasts, 12 workshops, 12 case sessions, 12 reviewed resources and one State of the Position report, plus the council’s convention track. Initial launch output is deliberately smaller until staffing and quality gates are met.

Convention model: one event, five tracks

SICS Baseball Practice Congress: one proposed annual two-day in-person convention with five position tracks—not five costly standalone conventions. Pair a lower-cost annual virtual summit with it; the virtual summit is included in coach membership, while in-person tickets and travel are separate.

• Day 1: common safeguarding/evidence keynote; council state-of-practice briefings; position-track classroom sessions; facilitated case rounds; joint pitcher/catcher and infield/outfield coordination panels.
• Day 2: supervised field labs; assessment calibration; coaching demonstrations; standards consultation; published next-year priorities.
• Each track needs a chair, program lead, qualified presenters, trained field staff, accessible alternatives and an event-specific safety plan. Any youth demonstrators require guardian consent, safeguarding and appropriate supervision.
• Speaker selection is merit-based with published disclosures; separate sponsor exhibits from editorial sessions. Attendance certificates are not competency certifications.
• Run an event-specific P&L, insurance/venue review and presale go/no-go decision. Do not commit to a venue before minimum attendance, funding and delivery capacity are established.

Credential pathway—optional future layer

Start with participation records. Later, pilot a SICS-issued position-coaching credential based on coursework, scenario assessment, observed teaching, safety requirements and periodic renewal. Publish assessment rubrics, assessor training and appeal procedures. It would be a private SICS credential—not government licensure, medical certification or externally accredited status unless separately obtained. Credential fees and delivery costs require their own approval.

Making this financially deliverable

Illustrative annual council program budget, not quotes or an approved spend:

These stipends are not full-time salaries; validate whether qualified directors can deliver the workload. Legal, tax, employment classification, insurance and other costs may require additional budget. Workshops and resources rely on the stated shared staff/board capacity; do not assume unlimited volunteer labor.

At 300 unique coaches paying $200, gross coach dues are $60,000—less than this council allowance even before screening, insurance, processing, support or regional allocations. At 1,000 coaches, gross coach dues are $200,000, but only the remaining contribution after those costs can fund councils. Dividing $102,000 by $200 yields 510 coaches as a gross-revenue comparison only, not true break-even.

Important financial-model boundary: the council allowance is not automatically included in the calculator’s current $75,000 fixed-cost default. If fully incremental, change fixed costs to $177,000. In the existing example of 100 teams at 15U-and-up fees, the previously modeled $87,050 contribution becomes a $14,950 loss before physical convention costs. If existing staffing overlaps, reconcile line by line rather than double-counting or assuming the program is free.

Credibility scorecard

• Delivery: scheduled vs. published outputs, review completion and response times—not just follower count.
• Participation: unique active coaches per quarter, repeat attendance, working-group contributions and regional reach.
• Practice adoption: coaches using the resources, independent organizations referencing recommendations and documented implementation feedback.
• Quality: assessor agreement, transparent corrections, member complaints resolved and absence of unsupported claims.
• Member value: benefit usage, renewal intent and actual renewal, cost per active coach and reasons for non-use.
• Independence: disclosed conflicts, external reviewers and separation of sponsorship from technical decisions.

Set numeric targets after a pilot baseline; do not fabricate outcome improvements or treat injury counts without context as proof of safety.

First 90 days

1. Days 1–30: approve charters and budget; recruit five chairs and 30 directors; publish role expectations, conflicts policy and member participation rules.
2. Days 31–60: onboard a small consenting pilot coach cohort; each council drafts one age-banded resource and assessment template, records one pilot podcast and runs one workshop.
3. Days 61–90: collect feedback, obtain independent review, publish the first reviewed recommendations, and release the next-quarter calendar. Decide whether to scale cadence and begin convention feasibility—not a premature event commitment.

Positioning: “SICS Position Councils: practical coaching knowledge, openly reviewed, tested in the field.” The long-term goal is to become the go-to resource because coaches trust and use the work.

08 / Revision board

Version 1.2 uses the selected SICS player, coach and flat team fees as the new starting point. These are open decisions—not assumed approvals.

Version history

v1.3 · October 4, 2026: added five seven-seat Position Councils, coach-member participation, specialty curricula, media/convention operations, standards review, governance, 90-day launch plan and a separately identified council budget. Membership fees and financial calculator defaults are unchanged; council funding must be reconciled before launch.

v1.2 · October 4, 2026: adopted $60/$80/$100/$125/$150 athlete fees, $200 coach dues and $250 flat team dues. Updated calculators, family cost examples and economics. Browser scenarios use a new version key so prior saved fees do not override the revised defaults; previous locally saved scenarios remain untouched.

v1.2 · October 4, 2026: membership tables, team-fee bands and calculator updated to five baseball age groups: 6U–8U Coach Pitch, 9U–10U, 11U–12U, 13U–14U and 15U & up. Draft prices retained; coach-pitch price remains provisional. No upper age cap imposed on the final band; adult rules and insurance require separate definition.

v1 · October 4, 2026: baseball-first membership architecture, proposed benefits, regional/national pathways, baseball requirements, launch gates, editable team and coalition models, and revision priorities.

View preserved Alliance research and source links →