Tag Archives: Soccer Tournament

A few trends we’re seeing at soccer tournaments

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As we watch the questions that come in from guest teams and track trending patterns from team applications, we’re noticing a few trends forming that we think soccer tournament directors should be aware of. Some of the behaviors are based on the economy and some just based on cultural shifts overall. All will affect the way you manage and market your soccer tournament.

Late applications
With the expectation of online registration, many teams are waiting until the last week or so to apply to the tournament, especially those that require full payment up front with the application. While this affects planning and can create anxiety not knowing which teams are coming, quality soccer tournaments need not worry as your tournament has been on the team’s calendar.

Early bird discounts don’t work but perhaps scheduling preferences or coaching conflict resolution guarantees for teams that apply early might be more of an incentive.

Also, if you have a high percentage of teams that travel in, check your hotel reservations. Teams may not necessarily apply early, but many will book rooms early.

No early morning Saturdays
To save money, teams are trying not to stay at hotels on Friday night, instead opting to drive in that morning. Most wait until they have been accepted and send an email, saying “oh, by the way, we need a late Saturday start….” We have no resolution for this as most tournaments have to play two games per team on Saturday to fit in a third round and championship games on Sunday. State associations have rules against playing more than two games per day and the math just doesn’t work. You can’t create more fields and you can’t make more daylight. Moreover, the coach and parents should recognize the dangers of playing a team that is not well-rested. You may want to point that out to him/her or even deny them admission due to increased liability for the tournament.

Multiple team coaches, no conflicts
A few years back, it used to be that only a handful of coaches had multiple teams. Now, it seems every club is doing this. Many teams will wait until you have accepted them and THEN tell you their coach is coaching multiple teams. (Many of these coaches also are requesting all their games start later on Saturday, a double whammy.) Again, the math just doesn’t work.

Our advice: You need teams to hold a tournament, but you can’t have teams dictate the terms under which they will play. Spell out the terms of acceptance UP FRONT on your application form by telling the teams the tournament starts at 8:00am on Saturday and finishes after the last championship game is played on Sunday. If they can not commit to being available for the entire time, they need to apply elsewhere.

Also, coaches conflicts are theirs to resolve, not the tournament’s. While most tournaments will do what they can to avoid conflicts, the sheer number of coaches with multiple teams almost guarantees somebody will be unhappy.

You may also want to establish “convenience fees” for teams requesting special treatment. For example, no coaching conflicts; $300/team. Late Saturday start; $450/team. Publish these early, confirm on application with an email.

Remember, the teams are applying into YOUR soccer tournament because the tournament is a good fit for their team, not the other way around. If your product does not meet their expectations, there are enough soccer tournaments now that will — for a while until they can no longer accommodate the demands. Just make sure your tournament maintains its high standards you worked hard to achieve and all teams play by the same set of rules.

No scheduling conflicts and late Sat games

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With the recession pulling into it’s second (or third) year, we’re seeing a lot of teams request a late Saturday morning start so they don’t have to book rooms into a hotel for Friday night. As you can imagine, accommodating this request puts a serious strain on the scheduling as most of the time, the start times are determined by the number of fields and the number of daylight hours available. While you can sometimes squeak out another field somewhere, tacking another hour of sunlight on the end of a day is impossible.

So what to do? You don’t want to turn away a team if you don’t have to, but re-writing the laws of nature to fit an economic reality is just not going to happen. When most teams are now asking for a late Saturday start, it become mathematically impossible to grant the request.

Our advice: Publish a cut off date for late Saturday start requests. Instead of trying an Early Bird discount or other pricing scheme to get teams to apply early, have a date or volume cut off. Perhaps only the first two teams for each age group can request a late Saturday start. Once those requests are used up, there are no more. And, while you are at it, do the same for multiple-team coaches. It rewards the teams with special requests to apply early without compromising the price and value of your tournament.

Be sure to promote visibly and keep track of the number of requests. Reward the requester handsomely and make it crystal clear that the reason you are honoring (or denying) the request is because they applied and paid early (or not.) Once you start doing this, competition for special considerations next year will be fierce.

Measure for soccer tournament success. Then do it again, and again

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Is your soccer tournament better off this year than it was last year? How do you know?

Unless you measure against goals and benchmarks, you really have no way of knowing. While you may have more money in the bank, was it because you sold more t-shirts or was it because the teams increased over last year? Or maybe your schedule was tighter. Or maybe your team numbers increased over last year, but you somehow found yourself with less money? How could that be?

Unless you are running your soccer tournament like a business with financial tools such as profit and loss (P&L) statements, budgets, cash flow projections, revenue and expense reports and other measurement tools like rankings and surveys, you really have no way of knowing. Because the goals of each soccer tournament vary from event to event, there are no right or wrong measurements, but here are a few things to measure as you move through the various phases of your soccer tournament.

1. Project and watch cash flow.
Starting with day one to day 365, you should have cash flow projections. Day one is defined as the day after this year’s tournament and the start of next year’s tournament cycle. (You didn’t take the day after your tournament off, did you?) You will probably wish to divide up the cash flow projections into months, but project out on the same income and expense cycle as the previous year so that you can compare cycles year to year. As an example, Labor Day may fall in the same month each year, but the number of days preceding it in September may be different year to year. Now, comparing your cash in and out for the previous year, are you operating a more positive cash flow each month? While a more positive cash flow is important, don’t give up asset purchases for short-term cash goals.

2. Track profit performance as a percentage.
Always measure profitability as a percentage rather than a dollar figure so you will have an accurate yardstick year to year. Keep in mind that the soccer tournament business has a cycle. You may have a run of three incredibly profitable years and then the next two may dip down a bit, then move up. Once you have a longer history, you will be able to predict profitability and plan inventories (like concessions, shirts, etc) accordingly.

3. Know your demographic metrics.
How many times have you had a tournament where one year you have far too many of one age group and then next year, you are struggling to get a division together for that same age group? Did you check the overall birth rates in your local area or from areas you pull from? Or maybe a league installed a new age-based requirement? If you are able to predict the flow of players year to year, you are better prepared to either market to them or prepare a smaller division and focus your attention on the more populous ages.

Age is just one metric you can use, but there are many others, including travel costs from certain regions, school schedules, league requirements, state association rules, etc. The point here is to know your target market; don’t just shotgun out your marketing and see what sticks.

4. Measure happiness.
Revenue is what happens when people buy things. Profitability is what happens when happy people are eager to buy your soccer tournament experience. MEASURE HAPPINESS. Most of the teams competing in your soccer tournament will not take home trophies, so only a fraction of happiness can be attributed to winning. The majority of teams will judge your soccer tournament on whether or not they had fun.

While measuring fun is a very elusive metric, the three big factors appear to be a) hotel quality, b) food quality and c) respect. Hotels and food are fairly straightforward to measure and control, but measuring and influencing respect is slippery. It all comes down to the attitude of the volunteers, the HQ tent, the flow at registration, the way the coaches were talked to, the way the referees controlled the game and how much of your “frugality” was exposed during the tournament.

Encourage teams to give you feedback, whether that is directly via email or gathered through ranking and feedback systems such as www.gotsoccer.com, www.ticoscore.com or bulletin boards like www.backofthenet.com. Then, when “unhappiness trends” appear, DO SOMETHING to fix it. Don’t ignore it.

If a few are willing to complain, many more are willing to just keep silent and simply not come back.

A soccer tournament is a business. While your goals may be to give the soccer community a fun experience, you need to be able to stay in business to accomplish that goal. These are just some of the measurements you should be using for your soccer tournament, but is by no means a complete list. Knowing more about what makes your event profitable within your niche or target market area is your competitive advantage that you should be honing with each season. But, you can only know how far you have come by knowing where you have already been.

Gerard McLean is President/CEO of Rivershark, Inc. the parent company of www.tourneycentral.com. TourneyCentral produces an end-to-end, web-based soccer tournament management system that handles everything from registration through scheduling and scoring. McLean is also the editor and host of the companion podcast and blog, The Touchline. His Fortune 500 experience with Target Stores and Huffy Corporation, along with various positions at private companies, has forever sealed his obsession with constantly measuring success performance.

How to run your soccer tournament like a pro

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At some point, you may need to break your soccer tournament free from the “mom and pop” pack, ditch the volunteer economics and fundraiser-based budgets and start running it like a “real company.” You will most likely be looking to do business with other companies that are “real companies” with employees, voicemail systems, receptionists, conference rooms and offices. And, these offices won’t resemble anything like a dining room table piled high with soccer gear.

Here are some quick tips in dealing with “real companies.”

1. Soccer is most likely not their passion. 
Chances are, soccer is not their passion. While it is always best to work with companies who understand soccer and know the game, that should not be enough of a criterion to do business with them. Nor should the lack of soccer smarts be a criterion to exclude them. You are seeking out professional services and you will be better served if they understand their business and you remain the soccer expert. Unless, of course, you are seeking soccer marketing services; then, soccer better be their passion.

2. Prepare to pay market rates. 
True professionals know the value of their goods and services and are less inclined to bargain that value away. While you may attempt to persuade the company to support your local club, league or soccer tournament with a sponsorship, advertisement or discount, only a few will likely oblige. If you pay less than market rates, you will most likely only get the value of goods or services you pay for, which may not be enough to get what you really need.

3. Prepare to do business during business hours. 
When dealing with a “real company,” chances are they will not be there to discuss the changes you need done to your web site, brochure or accounting program at 11:00 a.m. on a Sunday morning like your volunteer was. Also, lunch hour does not qualify as business hours, even though it is in the middle of the day. Be prepared to discuss your project, take phone calls and do meetings during business hours. And, if you can’t, make sure someone in your soccer tournament with authority can. There are a few things more annoying to professionals than constant project delays due to the client’s inability to meet or give approvals in a timely fashion.

4. Pay your invoices on time and in full. 
Among the many things that keep “real companies” from doing business with volunteer-based management groups is the fear that getting invoices paid on time and in full will be an issue. Being a 501c(3) does not give you a pass on paying on time. Nor does the excuse that your treasurer is out of the country on vacation and can’t be reached qualify as a legitimate explanation. If you take no other advice from this article, take this point to heart.

5. It’s not personal. 
A “real company” cares about providing the very best service that they can. After all, it is their reputation on the line as well. Sometimes, they will tell you things that you may not want to hear, but you need to know to bring your tournament to the next level. Value that, even if their comments sound like a stinging insult. It’s not personal.

So, get out there and do business with “real companies,” but expect to be treated like you are also a “real company.”

Gerard McLean is President/CEO of Rivershark Inc., a “real company” that develops database-driven web-based applications like jo bbank engines, membership databases, etc. for trade groups and the retail services industry. Rivershark also owns www.TourneyCentral.com, which provides soccer tournament services to soccer clubs. While most soccer tournaments are not yet “real businesses,” he claims it is a lot of fun. And since he is the boss, they keep doing it. McLean is convinced that soccer tournaments will eventually become “real business” and wants to be part of that when it happens.

Are you having a soccer tournament in 2010?

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The number one question we are seeing right now is: “Are you having a soccer tournament in 2010?”

Many teams do their Spring season planning over the Holidays, so if your Web site is not updated with your 2010 information, you may risk losing some of these teams. If you haven’t already updated and you are having a tournament in 2010, now is the time to do it.

Hurry. We’re waiting.

Getting Your Soccer Tournament In The News: 8 Simple Rules For Success

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Your soccer organization – whether a club, tournament or team – requires press exposure to help you build value for your sponsors and potential player or team base. However, it can be much more than getting a team photo in the local sports section. It can include a leap onto the newspaper city pages or the A block of the television news.

Here are eight simple rules for getting your soccer organization the press coverage you want. There are more, but these are the big ones.

Rule 1: Nobody cares about you.
What people do care about is what your organization does for your community, not just for kids who play soccer. They also care about the people behind the club or tournament. Think in terms of how your soccer organization contributes to your community, how it changes the world and write your story from a third person point of view. Think beyond soccer and frame the story from the perspective of someone who doesn’t know the sport or the players in the sport.

Rule 2: Know your journalists.
What do they care about? What kind of story bends their ear? Write your story as if you are telling your news only to them. Respect their time by putting the Who, What, Why, When and Where in the first paragraph. If they can’t tell what the story is about in the first few sentences, they won’t read further.

Rule 3: Advertising and editorial don’t mix. Ever.
The editorial staff at the newspaper, television station, magazine or web site does not care how much advertising you buy or if you buy any at all. The criteria for them are the newsworthiness of your story. And don’t ever “remind” the editorial staff that you buy advertising or suggest that the sale of their news product will increase if they tell your story. Doing so is disrespectful and unprofessional and almost guarantees your news won’t run.

Rule 4: Write your press releases in AP Style.
If you are not familiar with AP Style, buy the AP Stylebook (apstylebook.com) and live by it. Your story will stand a better chance of being published if editors don’t have to rewrite it. The stylebook is a yearly edition, so be sure to keep up-to-date.

Rule 5: Be tenacious, but not annoying.
Remember rule one. If your story doesn’t run, it probably means that it wasn’t newsworthy enough, even if it was near and dear to your heart. Keep refining the stories you tell and tell a lot of them. Editors are human beings and sometimes they just give people a break for sticking with it against all odds.

Rule 6: Never, never, never tell a news organization who else published your story.
While it may be great news to your soccer organization that you were featured on ESPN2, to an editorial department, you just told them your story is old news.

Rule 7: Think hyper-local.
Newspapers especially are focused on becoming the hyper-local voice of their community and your soccer organization has built-in hyper-localism. Keep your stories focused on the local community. The more personal, the better.

Rule 8: Keep making news.
Most soccer organizations will just send out a press release before their tournament or tryouts and wonder why they don’t get press. A soccer organization is a 365/24/7 operation that makes news all year long. Keep telling these stories.

I may have misled you a bit about the “simple” part in the headline. Getting your soccer organization in the news is as simple as saying you just need to find a bunch of kids to make a soccer club. Like your soccer organization, it takes discipline, a plan, dedication and hard work. The rules are simple, but it is work. The reward is a stronger, and more recognizable brand to potential sponsors, government organizations and your community at large, which helps you achieve your soccer organization goals a little more comfortably.

Are you using unemployment data to guide your soccer tournament marketing?

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The average soccer tournament pulls teams from 3-5 states, including adjoining states and the home state. For many, their home state is the largest draw, followed by a primary state. With the recession in full swing, it may be affecting your ability to draw teams from states that have traditionally sent lots of teams but now has a high unemployment rate.

For example, the average competitive tournament in Ohio typically pulls a large contingent of teams from Michigan. But if you take a quick look at some unemployment statistics, it should not come as a shock that convincing teams that normally came down without question is getting harder to do. In addition, you may have to resort to discounting for multiple teams, juggle the schedule to work around a hotel minimum stay; all effective short-term tactics, but long-term strangulation for your tournament brand.

A better approach may be a more well-rounded, distributed marketing plan where one state’s financial plight does not adversely affect your tournament planning. In short, spread your marketing dollars around to states one over; those that may be in a better financial position to attend. You’ll get some fresh blood in your tournament and you will be less dependent on the unemployment rate.

The time to start marketing to other states in before you need teams from financially healthy states. Hoping and praying the teams from distressed states will still come is not a marketing plan.

Parents will always spend money on their kids, but there are limits. Many are cutting the number of tournaments and only putting one or two travel events on the calendar. Make sure yours is in the mix by making sure they know you are there.

The economy will recover eventually and when it does, your marketing efforts will continue to pay back as newer teams who could not afford it during the recession try your soccer tournament out. And, as sure as the recovery is coming, so too is another recession. Be ready by always marketing smart.

Watch the trends. Sometimes being a great soccer program is just not enough.

How is your soccer tournament like Apple?

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This week, the Washington Post published an article on Apple, it’s new product line and how it is kicking butt all over the computer world despite being in a recession. In the article, it concedes that Apple’s success are not merely driven by Apple fanatics who will buy anything Apple makes, but by a sound, well-thought out value strategy.

Quite simply, Apple produces a quality product and makes no compromises on design and user interface. They set the price high enough to generate a profit to ensure research and development dollars for future products and don’t apologize for it nor do they adjust it based on whether or not we are in a recession. Their products don’t appeal to everyone, but the audience to which they appeal are loyal and expect quality; first time, every time.

And they are onto something. As the average PC maker continues to be squeezed by their customers who shop on price, they have fewer and fewer dollars left to innovate and improve. When a recession happens, many low-cost producers simply go out of business because they can’t afford to weather the storm. They did not prepare.

Is your soccer tournament an Apple or a PC? Is your fee/vendor/sponsorship agreements set high enough to claim value and ensure enough profitability to assure your guest teams that you will be around next year? Or in some cases, even this year? Do you take care of your guest teams enough to justify your fees?

Our advice: Set your team fees high enough to make sure there is enough profit to operate at a high-quality level. Don’t cave to arguments of teams not being able to afford your tournament. You are providing quality soccer competition and entertainment at a fair price that reflects your value. If some teams have problems affording you but have pegged your tournament as a “must attend” event, then perhaps they need to make cost-cuts elsewhere.

And don’t compromise your vendor relationships — including hotels and concessions — to make your tournament more affordable to guest teams. Don’t undervalue your volunteers and staff by cutting perks. Don’t buy cheaper awards. Don’t compromise your marketing.

And don’t cave to scheduling demands that compromises revenue. If that means shrinking the number of teams you accept in order to maintain your quality and profitability goals, then do it. If you are profitable, you can always grow in stronger economic years.

Your ultimate goal is to build a soccer tournament event that is sustainable and will benefit your soccer organization and your local community over a long period of time. Making price deals just to satisfy short-term team counts does not contribute to that goal.

Almost ready for St. Louis and the NSCAA

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Just in case you were following along with us, checking off the dates until the big NSCAA soccer conference in St. Louis, here is our booth status. Almost ready!

Our TourneyCentral.com NSCAA booth. A little more nip and tuck, but we're almost there.

Our TourneyCentral.com NSCAA booth. A little more nip and tuck, but we're almost there.

Meet us in St. Louis for the NSCAA.
We’re in booth 1735 and we won’t even try to sell you anything, so you can stay and chat as long as you want. Really. And, if you want to make a podcast promoting your soccer tournament, Back of the Net will help you with that. You don’t even need to be a TourneyCentral tournament.

Soccer Tournament Travel Stats Analysis

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I was going through some old documents during a New Year cleaning and discovered this analysis given to a tournament several years ago. It is all still very relevant; perhaps even more so given the larger soccer tournament audience on the Internet.

I hope it provides some insight, especially the opportunities sections.

1. It is important to note that most searches are done by TEAM MANAGERS or COACHES who are acting on behalf of their entire team. The average player represents 2.4 visitors to a tournament. The average number of players per team is 16 with tournaments who host teams over U14 (14 for teams who stop at U14)

When calculating the impact of the searches, you should use the number of searches done, in this case, at the peak of 51, as being (51×16)x2.4 or 1,958 individual users. There will be some statistical variance on this as there are some teams who pass along the web site information prior to the event to parents and these parents are individual searches, but even at 80% of the searches being done by team managers and coaches, the number is still significant. (1,566) The question here is: Would a local restaurant be happy with and additional 1,500 visitors on a weekend, some with return visits? Average lunch at 5.00×1566=$7,830.

2. The searches that are the most significant and immediate are: (in order: Coupons, Hotels, Restaurants.) The searches are more or less significant depending on the point in the tournament cycle.
Pre acceptance: Hotel searches are seen at about 6 weeks out, when applications start picking up. This is most likely due to a task-orientation form the coach or team manager. However, the traffic, while it peaks, is mostly spread over a period of 2 weeks. We see another traffic lift when the acceptance is sent out, but significant traffic is seen when the schedule is posted.

We have no independent data to support this activity. However, we believe, through anecdotal data, that team managers are “in the zone” after the schedule is posted and they are looking for confirmation data, maybe switching to a hotel that is closer to their games or searching for directions as they put together their travel packs for the parents. Again, judging from the limited number of individual IP addresses used for the searches, we believe that most of the hotel searches are done by the team manager or coach, not the players and/or their parents.

Opportunities:
1) Knowing that people search for and find hotels on this schedule gives hotels an opportunity to market at acceptance and schedule.

2) The application process can perhaps ask if they have booked into a hotel and get a confirmation number.

3) The tournament can maybe offer directed email marketing to teams who have not confirmed a hotel booking and offer these contacts to hotels for a “last minute” offer, etc. NOTE: The tournament should NEVER give out email or mailing addresses of coaches or teams. All advertising opportunities should be handled by the tournament. Great use of Twitter or SMS.

Restaurant/Coupon Searches: People love a good deal. We promote the coupons through a fixed placement button along the left rail of any page on the site, which accounts for 80%+ of our searches for coupons. With the v.3 upgrade, our searches will be even more targeted to establishments that support the tournament through web-based advertising. Again, great use of Twitter.

Traffic is steady for the coupons the month previous and bumps up about a month before the event. We see peek traffic following the acceptance and again at the schedule, much the same traffic patterns as the hotel. The coupons do have some sustainability during the event, however, whereas the hotel searches dropped off on Friday, the coupon searches continued, though not at the rate they did the week prior to the tournament.

The traffic patterns of the tournament were imposed against a similar tournament, but one that sold 22 web-based coupons. A significantly different pattern was formed: 1) 62% of searches looked on multiple deals. 2) traffic at the peaks were 256% higher than the peaks shown for the tournament and 3) peaks were not are sharply defined by “lulls” of non search days, i.e., traffic was highly sustained the 2 weeks prior to the tournament, and rose sharply the week previous. The more deals there were, the more people searched.

We also saw a significant number of repeat visitors’ search almost daily the week prior to the tournament. However, since there were no deals to look at, the traffic did not sustain or grow.

Opportunities:
1) Until now, restaurants were always hard to get advertising dollars from as they felt they would always get “their fair share of the traffic.” This was true as most food decisions were a matter of luck. After the game, the players would get into the car, take a random right or left turn out of the park and see what looked good. Now, restaurants can have players and their families COMMITTED to them BEFORE they get to the tournament.

2) Restaurants can offer a “pre-booking” or even take orders and payment for food BEFORE the team even gets into town. Imagine if the restaurant put up a web page, linked from the expanded listing on the tournament web site, that took a seating reservation, menu order and credit card payment BEFORE the team came into town. There would be no waiting in the huge mob in the lobby, no waiting for food orders and the team could leave when they were done eating, instead of waiting for the check.. then waiting in line to pay.

3) Follow up and customer loyalty. The restaurant could tie in their order to a particular team and have the tournament then send out a follow up coupon deal for an establishment in their local town.. Example: Eat at a Perkins in Evansville and then when you get home to Dayton, there is a coupon offer in your email, good for the local Dayton Perkins, which expires in 2 weeks.

Churches/Worship: HUGE opportunity to sell advertising here… Not a whole lot of searching, but this is a growing market segment, especially the Christian, nondenominational segment.

Family Entertainment: Again, pretty much the same pattern as coupons and restaurants. Many of the same opportunities exist for this sector as well.

Traffic and search patterns are typical of what we see in other tournament events, with the exception of marked “lulls” in the coupon area. But this is easily solved by selling more web-based advertising.

The soccer tournament market is on line and wants to be on line. They like the ability to search for deals, research hotels and other places of interest on the same site as everything else is happening.

It is important to note that while the tournament can give their advertisers, sponsors and supporters GREAT visibility through the web site, they can also make businesses who don’t support the tournament, invisible. When presented with rich travel information that is concise and appears complete, why would a team manager, coach, parent or player search any other travel database for a city they are unfamiliar with?

They wouldn’t and won’t.

The spring season has already begun

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Since Thanksgiving, we have seen a marked increase in the number of applications to the spring soccer tournaments. In the past week over Christmas and going into the New Year, the applications have more than tripled.

Are you ready?

If you are running a soccer tournament that is scheduled before July, 2009 and you have not already started marketing and updating your Web site, you are already late.

Our advice: Make sure your Web site it up-to-date with your rules, sanctioning form, dates and costs. If your state association has not yet approved your spring tournament, make a lot of noise. Teams are deciding NOW which tournaments they are attending and your state is putting your event at a disadvantage.

Get your marketing out there in bulletin boards like Back of the Net. Make sure you do a podcast for additional media coverage. Print up postcards and business cards and ask your club coaches to hand them out at every opportunity.

The NSCAA Convention is in St. Loius this year and Midwest teams travel more easily than coastal clubs. Make sure you advertise in publications that will distribute at the show.

And lastly, but most importantly, make sure all your club coaches, parents and players know when and where your soccer tournament will be held. Make sure they have the basics like what kid of teams you host, how many and where they come from. Your largest marketing department is right there in your backyard. And, they are free!

The recession will affect soccer tournaments

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Make no mistake about it; the current recession will hurt some soccer tournaments. Attendance will be down as teams will travel to fewer and fewer tournaments. And some tournaments, especially the ones that attract teams from more affluent areas where wealth is based on stocks and high home value may feel especially high pressure to limit soccer tournament travel.

The only bright light in this whole financial mess is the low cost of gasoline. Or, is it?

While teams may be cutting the number of tournaments in their schedule, it really only matters if they cut yours. If you have worked to create a must-attend tournament event, most likely you will survive the cut.

Here are some must-attend qualities:

1. You have consistently worked to make the teams feel at home while they are guests at your event.
Have you worked to make sure their questions were answered quickly via email? If they have had hotel problems, did you help to resolve them? When there were disputes about scoring, rules, etc, did you work with each party to resolve for a win-win-win? Are your volunteers cheerful and helpful? At the end of the tournament, did the most loosingest team remark in some fashion, “We lost every game, but had a blast! We’ll be back next year!”

2. Your organization is solid.
You have control of your data and everyone knows what is going on, from the host coach at a league game to the advertising coordinator to the person in charge of registering the teams. Your web site is up-to-date at all times, even to the minute during the tournament weekend. Your front page has news, maybe even hourly during the competition.

3. You have solid sponsors
This may seem like a little thing, but adidas doesn’t just sponsor anyone. And, once you get their sponsorship, you don’t get to keep it forever without working hard at it, especially in this economy. Parents and coaches are fairly savvy about what it takes to convince a corporation to spend sponsorship dollars at a youth soccer event that only takes place for 2-3 days in a limited geographic area. A display of some well-heeled sponsors get you respect.

4. Games are played on time and are well-controlled
Don’t underestimate the power of keeping a tight control of the games on the field. Many teams have been to a lot of tournaments where nobody seems to be in charge, games are played when referees stroll onto the field and all sorts of loosey-goosey standards. Don’t be one of those events! Expect everyone to show up on time, schedule enough referees to over-cover the games and make sure the volunteer field marshals know the times, locations and duties. And, if you can’t find volunteers, pay your field marshals. They are that important, for safe play and for your brand protection.

5. Advertise and market, market, market
A lot of soccer tournaments are going to be scared of this economy and pull back their advertising. DON’T LET YOUR TOURNAMENT BE ONE OF THEM! NOW is the time to go out and become visible. Now is the time to grab market share. Now is the time to be bold. Make sure your TICO Score is up-to-date, your tournament is listed correctly at your state association and your other media like podcasts and bulletin board advertising is intact. And, get some postcards/business cards for all your coaches to hand out (ask for Don Denny.)

6. Web site
I saved this for last, but it really is the most important of all. Make sure your web site is up-to-date, and uses the latest technology to bring your guest teams real-time information including scores and standings. We recommend any and all tournaments on this list. Your web site is your front door so it should be easy to find out information. (Who, What, Where, When, How Much does this cost) The application form should be readily accessible and work without any fancy log-ins, pre registration, etc. All TourneyCentral soccer tournaments have these capabilities built in from the ground up.

Our advice: Firstly, if you don’t already have a TourneyCentral web site, get one. Secondly, if you do, make sure it is turned on and ready for 2009. Thirdly, be visible everywhere. If you can, go to the NSCAA in St. Louis. Make sure your TICO Score is current. Advertise and get cards to hand out. But mostly, believe in your event and make sure your club/host coaches, teams, parents and players are your greatest champions and they know and love your tournament as much as you do.

2009 could be make or break for a lot of events. Make sure yours is on the “make” list.

Meet us in St. Louis for the NSCAA.
We’re in booth 1735 and we won’t even try to sell you anything, so you can stay and chat as long as you want. Really. And, if you want to make a podcast promoting your soccer tournament, Back of the Net will help you with that. You don’t even need to be a TourneyCentral tournament.

Consistent design matters

Tournaments, , , , ,

Every so often, a tournament looking to join the TourneyCentral family calls up and says something along the lines of:

We’re a very different tournament and we wany you to design a totally different web site for us. We want to look and act different than everyone else in your calendar.

When pressed, they admit that:

  • They have soccer teams apply
  • They accept soccer teams to play
  • They schedule two soccer teams against each other to play in a match to see who is the winner
  • They keep score to see who advances to take a trophy
  • They accept advertising and sponsorship
  • They are basically running a soccer tournament where they need to get large numbers of players, parents, coaches and fans to a field at a particular date and time.

So, I ask, what sort of “different” did you need? Well, we just want a different LOOK, we want menu choices to be different, we want to do our own thing.

But the irony of the matter is your guest teams don’t want you to do your own thing. They want to know how to read about your soccer tournament, they want to know how to apply easily, they want to know where the schedule is posted, they want to know how to find the scores. In short, they want to know, not guess.

Recently, I ran across this blog post that explains the whole point rather nicely. In short, a hotel decided that they wanted to be different and were going to design their hotel room card keys with the branding DOWN and the swipe strip UP. Anyone who has ever stayed in a hotel knows that the strip goes down, you look for the little arrow and insert the card with the arrow pointing toward the door. Because this has been standardized, if it doesn’t work that way, you would think it is broken, just like the author did. Valuable time and hotel resources were wasted on a customer who didn’t “understand” the hotel difference. I suspect that there was more than one confused customer on every night the hotel entertained guests.

Our Advice: Different is good, but focus different on where it makes the most sense for a soccer tournament; on your competition, your game format, the helpfulness of your staff, a high level of guest service, great pairings, etc. Different with your web site only adds to confusion and increases your tournament costs and, in some instances, drives a team away. If you hide the front door, how do you expect a team to enter?

A system like TourneyCentral has been “battle-tested” and gives teams a level of comfort that they are entering a well-managed soccer tournament. When they see that top graphic, top menu, side bar and look and feel of a “TourneyCentral” site, they know immediately they are in good hands. (a word of caution, we have developed such a solid brand over the past ten years that many events are copying our look and feel… look for the Powered By TourneyCentral.com seal at the bottom)

We continue to change and add new features to make your event stand out, but we do it in subtle ways to keep that high level of comfort and trust your guest teams have with your event.

Be different, but not weird. Different is good; weird just costs your soccer tournament time, money and teams.

Pasta Hut vs Real Pasta

Tournaments,

My daughter had a high school tournament to play this weekend on she asked for pasta for Friday night dinner. I remembered the Pizza Hut commercials where they showed these big trays of “3 pounds of pasta.” So, I ordered the Tuscan chicken alfredo, thinking that it would be somewhat delicious. Everyone on the commercial seemed happy enough.

We got the box of pasta, flipped open the lid and were let down almost immediately. The pasta was not a deep dish of cheesy goodness, smothered in rich, creamy alfredo sauce like they showed on TV. Instead, it was a single layer of helpless, lifeless, over-cooked pasta curls with some quasi-grilled chicken barely there on top. It tasted like pizza and had the texture of oatmeal. Rufus enjoyed most of it the day after.

Our advice: Don’t oversell your tournament! Make sure what you deliver at least looks like the product you are advertising. You may be able to get one or two teams to buy a really good sales job, but they won’t be back. And, chance are, they will tell friends.