Tag Archives: Soccer

Prepping up the 2014 NSCAA

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TourneyCentral is pretty excited to be at the 2014 NSCAA again this year, housed in with the Premier Athletic Advertising folks and their family of tournaments in booth 839.

The show opens this evening, but here is a sneak peek at us getting things ready for you. Stop on by and say hi!

The dangers of a single-interest at a soccer tournament

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Five blind men with an elephant

There is an old joke about five blind men describing an elephant. The one who feels the tusks insist that an elephant is made up of hard stone, shaped to a pointy end. The man feeling the ears swears an elephant is a huge tarp. And so on, each forming his own opinion on what an elephant is based on his own personal experience. Of course, any seeing person would recognize the elephant is the sum total of all of these observations, even though each’s observations are entirely accurate.

This is what a soccer tournament is like sometimes. The referee assignor may be entirely focused on getting referees assigned that he forgets the game scheduler has coaches with special scheduling needs. The game scheduler may forget that the field coordinator has to work with restrictions on field use imposed by the parks department. The ad sales person may forget that the tournament director has profit considerations and can’t pay for the extra three field banners, and so on.

Gone are the days when a few coaches could get some teams together and play some games over the weekend and call it a tournament. The modern soccer tournament is less about soccer and more about building an event around soccer. It must be efficient, comprehensive, competitive and collaborative, both with the soccer community and the community at large.

Here at TourneyCentral, we think that is a very good thing. It shows that soccer is evolving into the mainstream of American culture.

Our Advice: A successful soccer tournament is a complicated organization with a lot of moving parts, many of which appear to be in conflict with each other. It needs a general manager (tournament director) who has the skills to motivate each “department” to excellence, but also keep the overall goal in mind and on track.

When the referee assignor, the college coach coordinator or the game scheduler is enabled to drive the mission of the tournament, s/he will most likely do so to the detriment of the other departments. We have seen tournaments go bust in the span of a year simply because the focus shifted to accommodate one person’s myopic vision.

Don’t be that kind of event. The teams come to your tournament with an overall expectation of excellence in ALL areas, from a website that is easy and quick to use to frictionless hotel accommodations to great scheduling and easy access to the fields. Your community expects your soccer tournament to reflect positively on it and produce guest teams that have a good experience visiting, win or lose.

In the end, your teams should never see the individual “departments” that make up your tournament.

Using Google Plus for your soccer tournament

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GooglePlus for Soccer Tournaments

The latest player in the suite of tools known as social media is Google Plus, or more commonly seen as G+ in buttons. While it can’t boast anywhere near the number of users Facebook and Twitter have, it has one advantage the others don’t — Google Search. However, it is growing fast.

Most Internet users start off a web session on google.com, whether or not they know the direct web address of the site they are looking for. Many simply type in keywords like “soccer tournaments in Ohio” or “soccer tournament software.” If these keywords are in your G+ posts, you have a greater chance of being found at or near the top of a search result.

Getting started is easy, but you need a Google Account. If you have a Gmail account, you are already there. Simply go to http://plus.google.com and set a profile for yourself.

Once you have a profile, you can then set up a Page for the soccer tournament. Underneath your name, you will see a page symbol. Click on that to “Manage your pages.” Create your soccer tournament page, upload your logo and start sharing. Be sure to add one more person as an administrator and secure the login/password as part of your tournament assets so that it can be seamlessly transferred to a new tournament director if need be later on.

The instructions for Google+ are sorta “discover as you go” but a good book to read is Google+ for Business by Chris Brogan.

Our Advice: Set up a Google Plus page for your soccer tournament. Repost your front page news, scores, sponsor offers and photos to your page. Don’t worry so much about interacting on your page as a social media channel just yet; that will probably come next year.

Be sure to include keywords in your post and photo captions as these keywords are pushed directly into the Google search engine. The sooner you start, the better head start you will have on all the other soccer tournaments who will discover and set up on Google Plus next year. Be first.

All TourneyCentral events support Google+ In your Admin>Web Site Maintenance Module>Variables you can add your G+ page to the social media sites on the left sidebar along with Twitter and Facebook. (See TheGameOfSoccer.com for a sample)

The TourneyCentral G+ page is here. We post photos, blog posts (including this one) as well as interesting photos fans may share.

This is part of a series on Social Media for Soccer Tournaments. We encourage you to read all the articles below.

Our TourneyCentral video

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Grandma and grandpa want to see their grandson Billy play in his first away soccer tournament. How will they find the right field and times Billy plays?

Fortunately, Billy's coach applied to a TourneyCentral soccer tournament so finding all this information was easy.
Billy's grandma went to the website, clicked on Schedules, found Billy's team name and got his schedule in seconds.

Our second video.. released July 30, 2012

Marcy has just been named her club's soccer tournament director. She searches for the best solution to help her manage all the tasks that go along with hosting a soccer tournament.

Speeding tickets and soccer tournaments

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Police stop at a soccer tournament

One Ohio soccer tournament made a bit of national news lately with a neighboring city setting up speed cameras and issuing over 900 tickets. The soccer tournament pled a good case, citing good will and economic impact for the city. The police from the neighboring city had not been in contact with them regarding this enforcement effort, even as the host city police were helping out directing traffic in and out of the park. That alone probably helped plead the case for “forgiving” the tickets.

Contrary to what most people think, the police don’t just ticket people for easy money. The first priority for the police is road safety and preventing accidents. When they see a car racing by at 40-50 mph on a road that is posted at 25 mph, they are going to do something about it. If they see many, many cars doing the same thing, they are going to sit there and pick you off, soccer tournament or not.
Continue reading →

Setting up a Twitter account for your soccer tournament

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twitter for soccer tournaments

Twitter is a service that you can use to fire out quick updates or messages to your followers. This makes it a great tool for youth soccer tournaments and tournament directors because they can immediately announce game scores, special promotions or upcoming events on their smart phones, computers or via text messaging.

Here’s how to set up your Twitter soccer tournament account:
Continue reading →

Setting up a Facebook page for your soccer tournament

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Facebook Logo

Facebook is becoming the de facto place to organize event information and share content within a circle of friends. While it will never rival the specialization of a soccer tournament website like TourneyCentral for registration, scheduling and scores, it makes sense that your soccer tournament is available on Facebook for your teams and their fans to find and connect up with you there if that is more convenient for them. It is an additional marketing channel you should not ignore.

However, you should always make sure the hub of your event is your tournament website. You publish content to your Facebook page in order to draw fans to your tournament site to support your sponsors, advertisers and centralize your communications to the teams to avoid confusion.

This post will walk you step-by-step through setting up a Facebook Fan Page to reach soccer coaches and teams to get them interested and keep them engaged in your youth soccer tournament.

Here’s how to set up your Facebook Fan Page:
Continue reading →

Social media for soccer tournaments; why you should jump in

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Social Media for Soccer Tournaments

Social media is a huge cloud of things like blogging, tweets, likes and status updates so it is easy to become overwhelmed and do nothing.

But you need to roll up your sleeves get in there. We’ll help you along the way with this “social media for soccer tournaments” series.*

Social media is becoming integrated into the online experience for most people, so if you have not learned to navigate these waters, you may be risking the reach of your tournament. Social media channels can help you reach coaches and teams where they live and help you keep them updated and interested in your event.

Do not assume Facebook and Twitter are for kids. The largest and fastest growing demographic for Facebook and Twitter is age 35-55. That means a player’s mom, dad or coach is more likely to “like” you on Facebook or “follow” you on Twitter. While most kids over 13 yrs old will have a Facebook account, they connect with their friends, not with brands. If they happen to take a cool photo at your tournament, they may or may not post it. But if they do post it, they will post on their profile, not your tournament page. It’s nothing personal; just how kids use Facebook. Their parents on the other hand, may be more likely to interact on your Facebook page.
Continue reading →

Make sure the “i” in your soccer tournament is in the right place

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water bottles as a trophy for a soccer tournament

Soccer tournament directors are aware of the ways that tournaments reward teams who place in their event. This is a story of one recent tournament where one small detail really damaged the reputation of an otherwise fine event.

A team of U13 boys played very well in a third-place game and beat a team they had lost to quite soundly the week before. The tournament was giving out water bottles as a third-place trophy.

It was not long after the presentation that one of the boys walked up to his coach and said, “Hey coach, look at this.” On the water bottle, the words, “BELIEVE, ACHEIVE,” appeared wrapped around the tournament logo.

Only the the word “ACHIEVE” is spelled incorrectly.

While the coach was proud that his players had paid attention to their spelling lessons in school, he was amazed and embarrassed for the tournament organizers. It was all anybody could talk about.

A few weeks later, the tournament sent t-shirts to the boys as a replacement.

Our Advice: Work with a trusted vendor. Somewhere along the line, a busy tournament volunteer rubber-stamped the artwork for the water bottle without taking a real look at it. Bad enough, but a true vendor partner would have questioned the artwork regardless of the approval signature. The mistake was more costly than just the price of the water bottle and the replacement t-shirts. It became the stamp of the tournament.

The vendor should have picked up the phone.

The vendor should have picked up the phone.

2010 Hershey Invitational Charity Soccer Tournament

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Special Olympics Hershey Soccer Club

The photograph above was taken at the Hershey Soccer Club meeting on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.

This donation was a result of the 2010 Hershey Invitational Charity Soccer Tournament played on June 19-20, 2010. The tournament raised $16,000 for the Special Olympics Area M and also $16,000 for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps. The Hershey Invitational is organized and run by Kicks 4 Kids Charity Soccer Tournaments. To date, Kicks 4 Kids has raised $177,618 for organizations that serve disadvantaged youth.

The 2011 Hershey Invitational will be played on the weekend of June 18-19, and will benefit the Special Olympics Area M and Ronald McDonald House of Hershey. The tournament is expected to host 230 teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

The Hershey Invitational website can be found here.

What business are you in?

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Soccer Tournaments Mean Business

There will be a special place in heaven for youth soccer tournament directors. These largely volunteer people give countless hours of their free time to help raise funds for their club and give kids a chance to play competitive soccer. They have to convince teams to play, armies of volunteers to work and sponsors to participate. There is no doubt that, at least on some level, tournament directors love the game of soccer.

But running a successful tournament needs more than just enthusiasm and “want to”. It requires the ability to remove yourself from the emotions and personalities and make real business decisions. Teams that sign up to play and the fans that follow them are real customers. Sponsors that support your event, even the ones who do it for good will purposes, are real business partners.

Our Advice: It’s time to realize that you are not in the Soccer Business. You are in the Event Management Business that happens to feature a youth soccer tournament. Highly successful events take a good hard look at every aspect of their event and make educated business decisions on what they should do, and what they should not. Those who leave things to chance, well, they leave things to chance. Being a volunteer does not mean you have to be an amateur.

The true cost of cheap and free

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I was poking around the other day, checking out popular soccer tournament calendars and I clicked on the one that is usually listed in the number one spot on a Google search for Soccer Tournaments. This came up and was there for several days.

Bandwidth exceeded screenshot

In the world of on-line soccer tournament management systems, you get what you pay for. There are services available for tournament directors that come at no cost. One of the most common goals of any youth soccer tournament is to make as much money as possible for the host club. This tempts some to use free services or to depend on a guy in the club who can, “do websites.”

Peak times, like Sunday afternoons, are when you find out that cheap and free are really damaging and costly. That’s when everybody, including the guy in the club who is now watching his kids play, wants up-to-date scores and schedules. You may have saved a few bucks or reduced your entry fee, but the cost to your image and your tournament’s legacy can be devastating.

Our Advice: A website is no longer just “something over there for the tech guys.” It IS the event.

Work with a tournament web site host who has the bandwidth, the experience and the people who are willing to monitor your website for maximum performance, during the tournament, before and after. Your soccer tournament now is a 365 day a year, 24 hours a day, 7 day a week event. You want to work with someone who also understands that. Preferably someone you can email or call to solve problems as quickly as they arise.

Free and cheap rarely gets you that.

Make your maps readable on the web

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Simple, readable maps go a long way toward getting your teams where they need to go with a minimum of confusion. On a soccer tournament web site, a readable layout with clearly marked field numbers is a must.

The graphic below shows an example of an unfriendly versus friendly layout.

Web-Unfriendly

soccer field map before

Web-Friendly

soccer field after

Most of the time, your maps will come from a parks department or a graphic designer who has designed them to be great for printing in a program, but almost entirely unreadable on a web site. Make sure to specify that you need the maps to work across ALL media — online and in print. If need be, be ready to re-work them with large field numbers however you can if your graphics people can’t. Even if that means white sticky dots and a Sharpie.

Keep your field maps simple and readable. Big field numbers first, secondary information only if there is room. You can always have more detailed maps posted at the fields.

What soccer tournament directors can learn from Charlie Sheen

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If you are like me, you’re probably getting a bit tired of hearing from or about Charlie Sheen. But hear me out on this one little thing. I promise, there is a good take-away.

Last night, Charlie decided he was going to take his message directly to the people with a live show streamed onto the Internet. You can watch it if you have an hour to kill. I’ve included a screen shot below to illustrate everything that was wrong with the show.

The lighting was bad. The sound bounced hard all over the room. Nobody was mic-ed. The cameras were positioned too low, Charlie did not get proper cues on which camera was live so he was frequently looking into the wrong one. The background was busy. The titles at the bottom covered the action. There were too many “branding” phrases thrown out. I could go on and on. There were a lot of things wrong with the show technically as well as contextually.

There is a reason there is a long list of people who get credit at the end of TV shows. I’m not taking anything away from Charlie Sheen’s talent and he brings a lot to shows like Two and a Half Men and Spin City. But when celebrities begin to think that they alone are responsible for their own fame and attempt to produce their own content, the public quickly finds out how very wrong they are.

Our Advice: Your tournament is run by a team, not just the tournament director. Your event may very well have a talented, dedicated leader and a team that is willing to give them all the credit. That is a good thing. But once the tournament director starts believing his/her own press, your event is headed for trouble.

You could argue that Charlie’s show was “real” and “genuine” or that your tournament is “fun” and “like family.” You would be wrong. What you see as fun, loose and ‘like being with family,’ your paying teams see as messy, unorganized and apathetic. It takes a lot of work (and acting skill) to appear nonchalant. The character of Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men) can pull it off. Charlie Sheen? Not so much.

Recognize and appreciate your team and their skills in their specialized area, from your sales team to your scheduling team to your website crew. Never think yourself bigger than the sum of them.

They made you great. Never underestimate their power to unmake you. Or — just like Charlie Sheen is doing before our eyes — you unmaking yourself.

Up Front Communication Key in Running Youth Soccer Tournaments

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There is no getting around it, running a youth soccer tournament is a lot of work. Even the most organized tournament directors with the best clubs and best software tools take on a huge responsibility. In the end, the hard work is balanced out by the rewards of seeing kids enjoying the game and putting a nice amount of money in the club’s accounts and the local economy. Everybody wants to be considered successful. When it comes to success, an old saying comes to mind, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A well thought out and executed communication plan, starting at the time of registration and acceptance, can help save headaches later, when you should be concentrating on something else.

Never assume that coaches who are accepted into your soccer tournament automatically know what the next step is. It is as simple as this: tell them what to do and when to do it. Starting with your acceptance letter, include a timeline or checklist of any items that need to be completed prior to the tourney. Be clear about the dates and if there is any further information or payment needed. Make sure that you also comply by sticking to stated dates.

Anticipate questions and make sure that your tournament website includes the answers. Push as much of the information and communication needs onto your website as possible. It is helpful if your soccer tournament website is more than just a static recruiting tool. A complete, end-to-end soccer tournament management system, like those offered by TourneyCentral, is well worth the investment. Cheap and free systems always have limitations which are more costly in the end.

This may seem like a lot of upfront work, but you’ll be thankful as your tournament dates get closer. It brings to mind another old saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”