Have a 7 year old boy who wants to play basketball this winter (never played organized basketball before).
Has anyone had experience with either Round Rock's program vs. YMCA's? Any recommendations?

My boys played at the YMCA at Twin Lakes when they were little. I'm sure all the locations are pretty much the same though. For a 7 year old, it's perfect.

i9 is another option, but it's more of an instructional league for little kids. The games are somewhat stop/start. But you knock it all out in 1.5 hours, and the one season we did it, my son had fun.

Check town and country also.

One other note about the YMCA...if your kids are going to play multiple sports at the YMCA, you might consider buying an annual membership.

I dont remember the actual breakdown...each season was something like $35 for members, and $135 for non-members. We had two boys who played sports throughout the year, so it was cheaper for us to buy a membership, and enjoy the facilities as well (especially during the summer when the kids were out of school).

At that age check out this organization. They mix sports and church and we enjoyed the program

https://www.upward.org/

Ours quit at age 10 because the basketball dads are completely insane. Craziest bunch of nut jobs I've ever had to suffer. Made baseball parents look chill.

Good luck. Enjoy while you can.

BBall dads have NOTHING on the football dads. Trust me.

Thanks folks! Who knows what he'll end up sticking with. He does gymnastics and soccer and likes both. He wants to do flag football and basketball next. I'll keep letting him do whatever he enjoys. It's wild to see the amount of crazy sports parents there are.

YMCA is good for young beginners. But it is extremely non competitive which is bad in the long run.

Neighborhood sports is fun but difficult if you don't know people. Whole teams can sign up. If you sign up as an individual you end up on one team and get your butt kicked.

Clay madsen is dumb. Granted, we only played during the covid year. But it was disorganized. Communication was bad. And the refs were a little much. I'll give them grace for the covid year but we won't play there again if I can help it.

The best thing is if you can play with friends. Good luck.

Neighborhood sports does flag football too. Same deal with the team thing. It's best if you can play with friends and make sure you have some athletes.