Sports Team Fundraising
Stop selling popcorn. Sell one $100 ticket — raise $7,500+ in a single drawing.
Little League, youth soccer, high school booster clubs, dance and cheer teams, hockey, swim, lacrosse — if your program is grinding through candy-bar sales and car washes, the $100 Golden Ticket is the upgrade. Zero up-front cost. One drawing. A bucket-list trip your parents actually want to win.
The math is brutal
Your parents are exhausted. Your kids barely raise enough to cover travel.
Most youth sports programs are stuck running the same low-margin fundraisers their parents ran in the 90s — and burning out volunteers for a few thousand bucks. There's a better way.
The old way
Door-to-door, table-by-table, bake-sale-after-bake-sale. Hundreds of volunteer hours for a few thousand dollars at razor-thin margin.
- Popcorn tins≈ 40% margin
- Candy bars & cookie dough≈ 50% margin
- Beef jerky≈ 40% margin
- Car washesAll-day labor for $5/car
- Discount cards≈ 50% margin
- Wrapping paper / catalogs≈ 40% margin
A 50-player team running a popcorn fundraiser typically nets $3,000–$5,000 — after weeks of selling and dozens of parent hours.
The HGA $100 Golden Ticket
One ticket. One bucket-list trip. A few weeks of selling. Cash in the bank without the volunteer burnout.
- One $100 ticket = roughly 12 tubs of popcorn in a single sale
- Sell from anywhere — texts, Venmo, social, the bleachers
- Drawn at your next big game, banquet, or end-of-season night
- Zero up-front cost — you only pay our reserve when a winner is drawn
- Volunteer hours go from hundreds to a few
- Parents WANT to buy it — they'd actually use the trip
Net per drawing: $7,500–$27,500 — in one event, with one prize.
Run the numbers
One $100 Golden Ticket vs. a season of popcorn.
Same revenue goal. Two completely different amounts of work.
And you have to do it all over again next season.
Better number on the bottom line. Roughly 1/20 the work.
How it works
Four steps from "let's try this" to "let's count the money."
Reserve your prize for free
We hold a Golden Ticket prize package for your team — Hawaii, Tuscany, the Masters, a luxury villa for 6, and more. Zero up-front cost.
We send you the full marketing kit
Posters, signage, a promo video, social graphics, and parent-group templates. Plug your team name in, hit send, start selling.
Sell $100 tickets to your community
Parents, grandparents, sponsors, alumni, neighbors. Most teams sell 100-300 tickets in a few weeks of texting, posting, and tabling.
Draw the winner. Pay only the reserve.
Pull the ticket at your banquet, championship, or season closer. After the event, pay our reserve cost out of the proceeds — keep every dollar above it.
The prize
One Golden Ticket. The winner picks the trip.
The Golden Ticket prize bundles 3+ bucket-list trips behind one package — Hawaii, Tuscany, Mediterranean villas, and more — and the winner has up to 2 full years to pick which one they want and book it.
The $100 Golden Ticket
The flagship Golden Ticket. Winner gets 3+ bucket-list trip options bundled into one package (Hawaii, Tuscany, Mediterranean villas, and more) and has up to 2 full years to choose and book.
See the prize packageWant to run a higher-tier ticket too? See the $250 Golden Ticket — many teams sell both.
Why HGA
Built for nonprofits and teams that can't afford to lose money trying.
Zero risk consignment
You only pay our reserve cost when a winner is drawn. If you don't sell a single ticket, you owe nothing. Period.
High-margin by design
$100 in, ~$75 to your team after our reserve. That's a margin no popcorn or jerky fundraiser can touch.
We do the heavy lifting
We supply the prize, the marketing kit, and the booking team. Your parents focus on selling tickets — we handle everything else.
Reserve your team's Golden Ticket
Tell us about your team. We'll do the rest.
A Golden Ticket specialist will reach out within one business day with the marketing kit, the reserve hold, and a recommended ticket cap based on your community size.
Frequently asked
Sports team Golden Ticket questions, answered.
- Who is this for?
- Youth sports programs of every kind — Little League and travel baseball, youth soccer clubs, Pop Warner football, high school booster clubs, dance and cheer teams, hockey associations, swim clubs, lacrosse and rugby, club volleyball. If you're trying to fund equipment, travel, tournaments, scholarships, or facilities, the Golden Ticket replaces popcorn / cookie dough / car washes.
- How does the $100 Golden Ticket actually work?
- Your team or booster club sells a capped run of $100 tickets to parents, family, friends, sponsors, and the community. At your end-of-season banquet, championship game, or season-opener, one ticket is drawn at random. The Golden Ticket prize bundles 3+ bucket-list trip options into one package (Hawaii, Tuscany, Mediterranean villas, and more depending on the package), and the winner has up to 2 full years to choose which one they want and book it.
- How much can our team realistically raise?
- A typical team sells 100-300 tickets. At 100 tickets that's $10,000 gross — and after HGA's reserve on the trip the winner picks (varies by package, but a couple thousand dollars is typical), your program nets the rest. At 300 tickets it's $30,000 gross with the same single reserve cost coming out. Compare that to a popcorn fundraiser where you'd need to sell 1,800-3,500 tubs to net the same.
- Do we have to pay anything up front?
- No. There is zero up-front cost. We reserve the prize for your team for free. You only pay our reserve cost — which varies by which trip the winner ultimately picks — AFTER the winner is drawn and ticket revenue is in your bank. You keep 100% of every dollar above that reserve.
- Do we have to call it a raffle?
- Not necessarily. State-by-state rules vary on raffles and drawings — and youth sports programs in particular sometimes have to navigate booster-club regulations. The Golden Ticket mechanic works under either structure. Run it as a raffle or a drawing — whichever your state and your program rules allow. We provide the marketing kit; your program decides the legal structure.
- What marketing do we get?
- Every team gets a full media kit: poster, table-top signage, a promo video for social and texting, ready-to-share graphics for parents, and copy templates. Most teams hit their cap by sending the assets out to the parent group chat and posting on their team's Instagram and Facebook.
- What if we don't sell every ticket?
- You only need ONE ticket sold to legally draw a winner — and you only owe HGA our reserve cost out of the proceeds. There's no penalty for selling fewer than your cap. (Most teams sell out and end up wishing they'd printed more.)
- How long does it take to set up?
- There is no minimum lead time. Because every marketing material is digital, our turnaround is as fast or as far out as your team wants it to be — we have launched programs the same week. Most teams go from first call to launching their ticket sale in under two weeks. If you want the parent network to have a comfortable runway to spread it, 4–8 weeks of selling is ideal — but it's not required.