You equip a JV or freshman football staff the same way you equip varsity, just at a smaller scale: put the play caller, one sideline coach, and one press box or elevated spotter on the same channel, and everyone else works off the field. Most sub varsity staffs need two to four connected coaches, not eight. The cheapest reliable path for a second or third team is app based communication on phones and earbuds the coaches already carry, because it adds people without adding hardware.
Why do JV and freshman teams end up without sideline communication?
Almost every program buys communication for varsity first, and then the problem stops being a budget question and becomes an inventory question. Traditional radio systems are sold as fixed sets. A six headset system has six headsets. When the varsity staff uses all six on Friday, there is nothing left for the Thursday JV game or the Monday freshman game except whatever is broken, aging, or handed down.
That creates three predictable outcomes. Sub varsity coaches shout across the field. Sub varsity coaches use a phone call on speaker in a jacket pocket. Or the program buys a second full hardware set and doubles a capital expense to serve teams that play fewer games in front of smaller crowds.
None of those are good answers, and the third one is the reason many athletic directors say no. If you want the full picture on what a traditional system costs across its life, we broke that down in
What a Football Coaching Headset System Actually Costs (2026).
How many coaches does a JV or freshman staff actually need on the headset?
Fewer than you think. A sub varsity staff is usually three to six coaches total, and several of them are hands on with position groups the entire game. Putting all of them on a live channel creates noise, not clarity.
The working minimum for a sub varsity game is three connected people:
- Offensive play caller, on the sideline or in the box
- Defensive play caller, on the sideline
- One elevated coach with a view of the whole field, feeding down and distance, formation, and personnel
A fourth seat is worth adding when you have a dedicated special teams coordinator, or when the head JV coach wants to listen without calling. Beyond four, you are usually adding listeners rather than decision makers, and listeners can be added later once the workflow is settled.
We covered the general staffing math in
How Many Coaches Can Use Headsets on a Football Sideline?, and the same logic scales down cleanly.
What are the options for equipping a second and third football team?
| Approach |
Up front cost |
Who it fits |
Main drawback |
| Hand down old varsity radios |
None, plus repairs |
Programs with recently retired gear still in service |
Oldest equipment goes to the least experienced staff, and failures are common |
| Buy a second radio system |
Full system purchase, quote based |
Large programs with capital budget |
Doubles hardware, batteries, and repair exposure for teams that play fewer games |
| Wired belt pack setup |
Low |
Practice fields and small stadiums |
Cable runs limit where coaches can stand |
| App based licenses on existing phones |
Per coach subscription only |
Any program adding a second or third team |
Requires each coach to carry a charged phone and earbuds |
The structural difference matters more than the price tag. Radio systems scale by buying boxes. App based systems scale by adding people. When your constraint is “we need three more seats on Thursday,” adding people is the cheaper axis.
How do you handle a Thursday JV game and a Friday varsity game on the same system?
This is the question that decides whether a shared setup actually works. With hardware, sharing means physically moving cases, chargers, and headsets between coaching offices, and someone always forgets a battery. With an app based setup, the devices never move, because each coach uses their own phone.
A clean weekly pattern looks like this:
- Monday: freshman game, three connected coaches on their own channel
- Tuesday and Wednesday: practice, coordinators connected for install work across fields
- Thursday: JV game, three to four connected coaches
- Friday: varsity game, full staff connected
Two details keep it smooth. First, give each team its own channel so a Thursday JV conversation never lands in a varsity coach’s ear during a scout look. Second, name channels by team rather than by coach, so a substitute or a coach covering two levels joins the right room without asking.
If you have coaches who split time between levels, decide before the season which seat they occupy on each night. That single decision prevents most of the confusion in week one.
What does it cost to add JV and freshman to your communication setup?
The Headset App is $19.99 per user per month or $99.99 per user per year. Cost scales by the number of active users, not by the number of teams, which is why adding sub varsity levels is usually cheaper than coaches expect.
| Setup |
Connected coaches |
Monthly cost |
Annual cost |
| Minimum JV setup |
3 |
$59.97 |
$299.97 |
| JV with special teams seat |
4 |
$79.96 |
$399.96 |
| JV plus freshman, separate channels |
6 |
$119.94 |
$599.94 |
Two notes on reading that table. Monthly billing suits programs that only need coverage during the season, and a typical two user setup runs $120 to $160 for a three to four month season. Annual billing suits coaches who also work spring ball, camps, or a second sport, because the same license carries over.
There is no separate hardware line, because coaches use phones and earbuds they already own.
What should a sub varsity setup look like on game day?
- Every connected coach arrives with a phone above 70 percent and a charged set of earbuds
- One portable battery pack lives in the medical kit as the shared backup
- Coaches join the team channel during warmups, not at kickoff, so problems surface early
- The elevated coach confirms they can see the near sideline yard markers before the game starts
- One coach is designated to handle any reconnect so nobody is troubleshooting during a drive
Small school programs often run the same structure at the varsity level, and the playbook translates directly. We wrote it up in
Sideline Communication for 8-Man and Small School Football. Middle school staffs face an even tighter version of the same constraints, covered in
What Is the Best Sideline Communication Setup for Middle School Football.
Frequently asked questions
Can JV and varsity share the same channel during a game?
They should not. Two games are never happening at once, but practices often are, and shared channels create crosstalk during install periods. Separate channels per team cost nothing extra and remove the problem entirely.
Do freshman coaches need a press box seat?
Not a press box specifically, but they need elevation. Many freshman games are played on practice fields or stadiums with the box locked. A coach standing on the top row of the visiting bleachers with a phone and earbuds gets most of the value of a box seat.
What happens if a sub varsity coach leaves mid season?
With subscriptions tied to users rather than hardware, you reassign the seat instead of tracking down a headset. Nothing has to be returned, repaired, or inventoried.
Is it worth connecting a JV staff at all?
Sub varsity levels are where coaches learn to call games and where players learn the system. A JV coordinator who can hear a spotter call out formation and personnel develops faster than one shouting across forty yards, and so do the players getting cleaner instruction.
Getting your whole program connected
The reason sub varsity communication stays unsolved in most programs is that hardware pricing makes a third team look like a third purchase. When your system runs on phones your coaches already carry, adding the freshman staff is a line item, not a capital request. That is the model The Headset App is built on: per coach licensing, separate channels for each team, and no equipment to hand down. If you already run it on Friday nights, extending it to Monday and Thursday is the easiest upgrade in your program. For more on how the press box seat works in practice, start with
How Does Press Box to Sideline Communication Work in High School Football? 
