Best Equipment for Football Kickers: What You Actually Need
A complete kit list in priority order — what to buy first, what can wait, and what most kickers waste money on.
Buy in this order: a tee at your legal height, then a ball, then a net, then cones. That is your entire essential setup and it costs less than most single pieces of football equipment. Everything after that is refinement, not necessity.
The net is the one people delay and shouldn’t. Without one you spend half your session walking to fetch balls. With one you can take three times as many reps in the same hour — which is the single biggest multiplier on your improvement rate.
📋 What’s in this guide
Buy In This Order
New kickers routinely buy the wrong things first. Here is the sequence that actually serves your development.
| Priority | Item | Why now |
|---|---|---|
| 1st | Kicking tee | Consistent ball position — nothing else works without it |
| 2nd | Football (right size) | Wrong size ball teaches wrong technique |
| 3rd | Kicking net | Triples your reps per session |
| 4th | Cones | Plant foot and target work |
| 5th | Kicking shoe | Matters once technique is stable |
| 6th | Tee bag / carry bag | Convenience — genuinely last |
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The 6 Essentials
Football Kicking Tee
Buy This First
Your foundation. A tee gives you the same ball position on every rep, which is what makes repetition meaningful. Heavy rubber grips the turf, survives cold, and lasts seasons. Confirm your league’s legal height before buying — commonly 2 inches for high school, 1 inch for college and pro.
✅ What’s good
- The single highest-value purchase
- Cheap relative to its impact
- Rubber lasts years
- Legal heights widely available
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Must match your league rules
- Black ones get lost in grass
- Kickoff and placement types differ
👤 Best for: Every kicker, at every level, before anything else. See our complete tee guide.
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Football (Correct Size)
Buy This Second
Ball size is graded by age, and using the wrong one actively teaches wrong technique. A youth kicker on an adult ball compensates with poor mechanics that then need unlearning. Match the size to your age group and use the same ball consistently.
✅ What’s good
- Correct size builds correct technique
- Consistent feel across sessions
- Practise balls can be cheaper than game balls
- Owning several saves retrieval time
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Wrong size embeds bad habits
- Leather needs breaking in
- Cheap balls lose shape
👤 Best for: Everyone. If you currently borrow a ball each session, this is your next purchase.
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Kicking Net
The Biggest Time Multiplier
The most underrated purchase in kicking. Without a net you spend most of your session retrieving balls; with one you stay in rhythm and take far more reps per hour. Look for wind-resistant construction and a frame that handles repeated hard strikes.
✅ What’s good
- Dramatically more reps per session
- Keeps you in rhythm
- Usable in a backyard
- Works for both kicking and punting
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Bulkier to transport
- Heavier models need two people
- Cheap frames bend in wind
👤 Best for: Anyone practising alone. This is what turns a 30-minute session into a productive one.
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Training Cones
Cheap and Genuinely Useful
Cones let you mark plant foot position, set target lines, and build the angle ladder drill. The plant-foot cone drill is one of the highest-value things a developing kicker can do, and it needs nothing else.
✅ What’s good
- Enables the best plant-foot drill
- Marks angles and targets
- Trivially cheap
- Packs flat
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Light cones blow away in wind
- Easily left behind on fields
- Nothing glamorous about them
👤 Best for: Every kicker working on accuracy or plant foot consistency.
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Kicking Shoe
Once Your Technique Is Stable
A dedicated kicking shoe has a flatter, firmer striking surface than a normal cleat, which gives a more consistent contact feel. Worth buying once your mechanics are settled — before that, it will not fix anything.
✅ What’s good
- More consistent contact surface
- Firmer feel through the strike
- Many kickers prefer a snug fit
- Used widely at higher levels
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Will not fix technique faults
- Extra item to carry
- Unnecessary for beginners
👤 Best for: Kickers past the beginner stage whose mechanics are consistent enough to notice the difference.
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Kicker Gloves & Carry Bag
Comfort and Convenience
Gloves matter in genuinely cold weather — cold hands affect your holder more than you, but a kicker who is cold everywhere kicks worse. A carry bag keeps your tee, cones and ball together so nothing is forgotten before a session.
✅ What’s good
- Gloves help in genuine cold
- Bag stops you losing tees
- Keeps kit together for travel
- Inexpensive
⚠️ Keep in mind
- Neither improves technique
- Gloves unnecessary in mild weather
- Easy to over-buy here
👤 Best for: Kickers training through winter, and anyone who has already lost two tees this season.
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Comparison Table
| Item | Priority | Impact on improvement | Who needs it |
|---|---|---|---|
| Kicking tee | 1st | Very high | Everyone |
| Football | 2nd | Very high | Everyone |
| Kicking net | 3rd | High (time multiplier) | Solo practisers |
| Cones | 4th | Moderate | Accuracy work |
| Kicking shoe | 5th | Low–moderate | Past beginner stage |
| Gloves / bag | 6th | Low | Cold climates |
Browse everything we cover, filtered by category and level, in the Kicking Gear Database. If you would rather buy a complete setup at once, the Kit Bundles group items by level and goal.
What You Can Skip
Being honest about what not to buy is more useful than another product recommendation.
- Expensive game balls for practice. Practice balls take a beating. Save the good ball for games.
- Multiple tee heights before you know your rule. Confirm your legal height, buy that, add the second one later if you are training across levels.
- Gimmick training aids. Devices promising to fix your swing rarely survive contact with reality. A phone camera and a cone do more.
- Portable goalposts, early on. Expensive and bulky. A net plus a target does the same job for a fraction of the cost.
- A kicking shoe as a beginner. It will not fix mechanics you have not built yet.
⚠️ The pattern to avoid: buying equipment instead of practising. New kickers often spend on gear when the actual bottleneck is reps. If you are choosing between a fifth piece of kit and three more sessions a week, take the sessions.
Building a Kit on a Budget
You can equip yourself properly without spending much, if you sequence it.
- Month 1: tee and ball only. This is enough for every drill in our beginner drills guide. Do not buy anything else until you are training consistently.
- Month 2: cones. Cheap, and they unlock the plant-foot and angle drills that matter most at this stage.
- Month 3: net. Once you know you are sticking with it, this is the purchase that transforms session efficiency.
- Later: shoe, gloves, bag. Comfort and refinement, once the fundamentals are in place.
- Always: a spare tee. Cheap insurance. Tees vanish constantly.
💡 Ask your program first. Many school teams have tees, nets and balls already. You may only need your own kit for practising at home — and a home setup can be minimal.
Making Equipment Last
- Rinse mud off tees after wet sessions — dried mud in the ridges stops the ball seating properly
- Do not store gear in a hot car — sustained heat warps rubber over time
- Keep balls properly inflated — under-inflated balls change how contact feels and teach you the wrong thing
- Take nets down in high wind if they are not rated for it — bent frames rarely recover
- Mark everything with your initials — in a shared equipment room, unmarked gear becomes communal
- Check tees for cracks each pre-season and replace when the grip goes
Frequently Asked Questions
What equipment does a beginner kicker actually need?
A tee at your legal height and a correctly sized football. That is genuinely enough for the first month or two, and covers every drill a beginner should be doing.
Add cones next, then a net once you know you are committed. Do not let missing equipment be the reason you have not started.
Is a kicking net worth the money?
For anyone practising alone, yes — it is probably the best value item after the tee itself. Without a net, most of your session time goes on walking to retrieve balls.
With one you stay in rhythm and take roughly three times as many reps in the same period. More quality reps is the entire mechanism by which kickers improve.
Do I need special kicking shoes?
Not as a beginner. A dedicated kicking shoe offers a flatter, firmer striking surface and a more consistent contact feel, which is genuinely useful — but only once your mechanics are stable enough to notice the difference.
Buy one when your technique is consistent, not before. It will not fix faults you have not resolved yet.
What size football should I practise with?
The size used by your age group and league, and ideally the same size as your game ball. Football sizes are graded by age, and practising with the wrong one teaches compensations you will later have to unlearn.
If in doubt, ask your coach which size your level uses.
How many footballs should I own?
If you have a net, one is workable. Without a net, three to five transforms your session — you kick several in a row, then retrieve once, rather than walking after every single kick.
Practice balls do not need to be expensive. Save the good ball for games.
Should I buy a portable goalpost?
Not early on. They are expensive, bulky and awkward to store, and a net with a marked target gives you most of the training benefit for a fraction of the cost.
Consider one much later, if you have space and are training seriously enough to need a genuine target rather than a general one.
Equipment for Different Budgets
Three realistic starting points depending on what you can spend.
| Budget level | Buy this | Skip for now |
|---|---|---|
| Minimal | Tee at legal height, one ball | Everything else — this is genuinely enough |
| Moderate | Add cones and a spare tee | Net, shoe, gloves |
| Committed | Add a net and extra balls | Portable posts, novelty aids |
| Full setup | Add kicking shoe, both tee heights | Nothing — you are equipped |
The important point is that the minimal setup is not a compromised version of kicking practice. Every drill in our beginner guide works with a tee, a ball and some cones. Equipment beyond that buys efficiency, not capability.
What Your Program Probably Already Has
Before buying anything, ask. Most school programmes hold more equipment than kickers realise.
- Tees — often several, though not always at the height you want for training.
- Balls — usually plentiful, though game balls may be restricted.
- Nets — frequently available and rarely used by anyone but specialists.
- Cones — always available in quantity.
What you generally do need to own personally is a tee for home practice, since that is where most of your development happens, and a spare so a lost tee never costs you a session.
Replacing Worn Equipment
Knowing when gear has stopped helping is as useful as knowing what to buy.
| Item | Replace when | Typical life |
|---|---|---|
| Kicking tee | Cracks appear, base warps, ball shifts | Several seasons |
| Football | Loses shape, will not hold pressure | 1–2 seasons of heavy use |
| Net | Frame bends, netting tears | 2–4 seasons |
| Cones | Cracked or gone brittle | Several seasons |
| Kicking shoe | Striking surface deforms | 1–2 seasons |
The one worth watching most closely is the tee. A worn tee lets the ball shift fractionally at contact, which costs accuracy in a way that is almost impossible to detect by feel — you will blame your technique instead.
A Sensible Buying Order Over a Season
Spread across a first season rather than bought at once, the whole setup is very manageable.
- Before you start: tee at your legal height, one ball. This covers every beginner drill.
- Week 3–4: cones, once you have started plant-foot and angle work.
- Month 2: a spare tee, once you have lost the first one or nearly have.
- Month 3: a net, once you know you are committed and are frustrated by ball retrieval.
- Month 4–6: extra balls, then a kicking shoe once your technique has settled.
- Season 2: a second tee height if you are training toward the next level.
Buying in that order means every purchase solves a problem you have actually encountered, rather than one you were told you would have.
Equipment Mistakes That Cost Money
❌ Buying gear before establishing the habit
Full kit purchased in week one, abandoned by week six. Common and expensive.
✅ Fix: Tee and ball first. Buy more once you have trained consistently for a month.
❌ Buying premium before buying correct
An expensive tee at the wrong height is worth less than a cheap one at the right height.
✅ Fix: Confirm legality first, then consider quality.
❌ Not asking what the program already has
Many teams hold nets, balls and tees that specialists never think to ask about.
✅ Fix: Ask your coach before spending anything.
One Last Word on Priorities
If you remember nothing else from this guide, remember the order: tee, ball, net, cones, then everything else. That sequence reflects what actually limits a developing kicker. Without a tee you cannot repeat anything. Without the right ball you learn the wrong feel. Without a net you spend half your session walking. Cones unlock the two drills that fix the most common faults.
Everything after those four is comfort and refinement. A kicker with a tee, a ball, a net and some cones has no equipment excuse left — and that is a genuinely good position to be in, because it means the only variable remaining is how consistently you turn up.
📚 Worth restating. The most common equipment error among developing kickers is not buying the wrong item — it is buying the right items in the wrong order, and then having nothing left in the budget for the one that actually mattered. Tee first, ball second, net third. Those three cover the overwhelming majority of what limits your practice quality, and none of them is expensive. Everything else can wait until you have trained consistently for long enough to know what you are missing.
If you are starting from nothing today
Buy a tee at your legal height and a correctly sized ball. That is it — genuinely enough for every drill a developing kicker should be running. Add cones in a few weeks, a net once you are tired of retrieving balls, and everything else only when a specific frustration tells you it is needed rather than because a list said so.
Spend on correctness and durability rather than on prestige, buy in the order your practice actually demands, and remember that no amount of equipment substitutes for turning up three times a week.
💡 The one-sentence version: a tee at your legal height and a correctly sized ball will take you through your entire first season of serious practice, and the money you were going to spend on everything else is better kept until a specific frustration tells you exactly which item would solve it.
Buy the tee, buy the ball, and get on with practising — the rest of the list will tell you when it is needed.
Kit Checklist
- Kicking tee at your league’s confirmed legal height
- Spare tee in the bag
- Football in the correct size for your age group
- Two or more practice balls if you have no net
- Kicking net if you practise alone
- Six to ten cones for plant-foot and angle work
- Everything marked with your initials
- Kicking shoe — only once technique is stable
- Gloves if you train through genuine cold
- Bag so nothing gets left behind
- Checked what your program already supplies before buying
The bottom line: a tee and a ball get you started, and a net is what makes your sessions efficient. Beyond that, most kicking equipment is refinement rather than necessity. If you are weighing a fifth purchase against three more practice sessions per week, the sessions will do more for you every time.
Keep Going
🔍 Gear DatabaseFilter every item by category and level
🎁 Kit BundlesComplete setups by level and goal
🏈 Beginner DrillsPut your new kit to work
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