As I was reading my email today, I came across probably the dumbest reply to a tournament invitation ever. It read, and I quote As a rule, we do not attend tournaments unless we set up a relationship with the club whereby that club send us equal numbers of teams to our tournament. You can check out our tournament info on our website at ….

Wow! I was floored! The ONLY way this tournament can attract teams to their event is by getting other clubs to agree to go to theirs? Why not just hand each other a check for the entry fee and be done with it. You go first.

Our Advice: Focus on making your tournament a MUST ATTEND event for your target market by being the best in your category. You won’t have to worry about attracting enough teams to compete in your tournament, but you might have to worry about how to turn some away. Read our marketing white paper.

However you celebrate (and even if you don’t – Jim in Canada, Jette, Peter, Helle, Cecilie, Christian, Werner, Ronnie, Helle and Christian in Denmark) we here at TourneyCentral and the Tournament Review wish you and yours a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving Holiday.

And Lisa in Texas, take Thursday off… everything will be ok on Friday regardless! Next week will be busy enough.

Our advice: Take a few moments, breeze into your team database and send all your teams a short, personal note to wish them a Happy Thanksgiving. Remember, you are on 365, 24/7!

Tourney Central recently was a major sponsor of the Montgomery County-Dayton (Ohio) Convention and Visitors Bureau Ambassador Awards Breakfast. This is a well established annual event recognizing community leaders who bring large events and visitors to the area. Several key figures were in attendance including past award winners, county commissioners, local media and CVB staff. The event was inspirational, filled with community pride and offered great networking opportunities. Eight individuals were recognized this year! They included conference planners to a Junior Olympic Volleyball tournament director. The audience was just as diverse; from National Park Service staff to members of the local hotel industry.

Our advice: Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you sponsor this event? These type of events offer a great opportunity to promote your soccer event, demonstrate civic pride and show dignitaries your event adds value to the local community. We did see representatives from a couple local soccer tournaments. In our opinion, this isn’t enough. Every tournament in the area should have attended. Tournament Directors should seek out local visitors bureau staff to discuss hotel trends, sponsorship patterns and collaborate on promoting your event. Consider attending or sponsoring community events in your area that can provide similar value.

As I was leaving the office yesterday, the phone rang. I was going to let it go to voicemail, but I picked it up. It was a friend of mine with a soccer magazine and he just had an advertiser move from a 1/4 page ad to a full page. Great news for him, but he now had a 1/4 hole he needed to fill and the magazine goes on the press Monday morning.

Would you be interested in putting an ad in? he asks. He offered me a deal I could not pass up. The only thing is he would need the artwork by end of business Friday and he needed to know it would pass preflight. Fortunately, I has some ad files all ready to go, so it was a matter of just emailing him the artwork.

Our advice: You never know when a great advertising deal will come up. Sometimes, you can even get a free ad from a newspaper, newsletter, blog, web site or other tournament program if you just had the ad copy ready to go. You should always have ads of different sizes (1/4, 1/2 and full page, black and white and full color along with web banners of 120×90, 728×90 and 468×60) ready to go at a moment’s notice.

Charlie Kadupski with The Sport Source explains what college coaches look for in student athletes and how soccer players and their parents can best prepare for college scholarships.

Listen to the podcast and then offer some feedback. Each feedback posting is eligible to win an iPod at the NSCAA and USYouth.

Marty Mankamyer, the tournament director for the Pikes Peak Invitational and Front Range Invitational, both in Colorado Springs, shares some thoughts on what makes for a profitable soccer tournament.

Listen to the podcast and then offer some feedback. Each feedback posting is eligible to win an iPod at the NSCAA and USYouth.

How profitable is your soccer tournament? Is it viable?

Before you answer that question, do a quick calculation. Add up all the volunteer hours that were donated by your parents and tournament stake holders. Multiply this figure by the minimum wage (use 6.85/hr as that will probably become the new minimum very shortly.) Then multiply this by 8.5% to account for SUTA and FUTA. (We won’t do worker’s compensation cost or anything like that, but if you want to be entirely accurate for your state, you might want to think about that.) This is your real labor cost.

Now add this to your expenses. Is your tournament still in the black? If it is not, your tournament is not viable.

Our advice: If your tournament is not viable, take a look at your team fees. Can you raise them without losing teams? If the answer is no, why not? Are you just another tournament? Examine everything your volunteers are doing. Are ALL these tasks necessary? Can you automate some of these tasks without reducing quality? While it may sound counter-intuitive, what would happen if you paid key people like your sponsor sales or hotel coordination? Would they produce more if compensated? If you spent some money on advertising, would you attract better teams or entire clubs?

The answers are not easy and one does not fit every tournament, but the questions do. And they don’t help you if you don’t ask them and answer them honestly.

Jack Taylor, the tournament director for the Arsenal Challenge Cup in Cincinnati, Ohio shares some thoughts on what makes for a successful advertising and sponsorship program for a soccer tournament.

Listen to the podcast and then offer some feedback. Each feedback posting is eligible to win an iPod at the NSCAA and USYouth.

We are now on iTunes with a weekly (well, that’s the plan) podcast, usually posted Wed-Thurs. On the weekly show, we will have an interesting conversation with someone who is either in the soccer tournament business, supplies to the industry or is just a fun guest to talk to about the game.

So, subscribe today by clicking on the icon at the top of this page. If you don’t have iTunes, get it also at the top of the page.

To kick off our iTunes podcasts, we are giving away two iPods at the NSCAA and USYouth Conventions. Every time you offer feedback on a posting in this blog, you will be entered into the drawing. (Your feedback does need to be meaningful. You can’t just say Good job or Nice site even thought that does make us feel good.)

We are booth number 1138 at the NSCAA in Indy and we’re still waiting on our booth number for the USYouth. Stop on by; we’ll be podcasting from the booth as well.

During the last six years, I have been fortunate to manage Special Olympics Soccer, Softball and Basketball tournaments for athletes with disabilities in Ohio. Our tournament committee takes pride in offering an event that promotes healthy competition and physical exercise while providing a festive atmosphere for all who participate. These events have quickly gained a postive reputation in eyes of many involved with Special Olympics in Ohio. There are so many reasons for this feeling, from professional staff and caring volunteers to unique entertainment for visitors between games. These are the more obvious ways our tournament staff contribute to this reputation. One of the more subtle, but most effectives techniques is: WE MAKE PEOPLE FEEL WELCOME

Our Advice: Imagine the team who drove across the state or country to attend your event. Maybe they got stuck in traffic, a player got sick on the van or the coach just got a phone call from a frustrated parent. Then they show up at YOUR EVENT to: check into their hotel, register their team and go to their first game. What kind of environment are they coming to? Are they showing up to an event that is generally excited they are there or do they deal with staff/volunteers counting down the minutes until their shift is over? Suggestions follow for creating a welcoming atmosphere. Creativity and attention to detail are important.

Greeters at your tournament hotels
Welcome banners at local businesses, city limit signs, game sites,exit ramps, etc.
Personalized good luck postcards in team rooms and banners at all game sites.
Display spirit center messages in the hotel lobby, registration site and field sites.
Host a welcome/registration reception

I saw the power of this at a Special Olympics Softball Tournament this summer. Ashtabula County(Northeast corner of Ohio) drove 5 hours to participate in the event hosted in Troy(Southwest Ohio). Their team was tired and stressed because of traffic and their team van got a flat tire. The registration volunteers dealt with them in a very professional manner answering any questions they had. Then they went to Diamond #1 to play their first game. Awaiting them at their dugout were two signs. One said Play Hard Ashtabula County and the other said Thanks for coming Ashtabula County. Their coach was overwhelmed to tears because of how welcome they felt. Quickly they forgot about their five hour drive and flat tire. This how you want teams to leave your event. They will come back!!

Every morning, I drive my daughter to school. Well, more correctly, she drives and I ride because she has a learner’s permit. And every morning, we pass by a housing development that is one house, a piece of gutted farmland and this sign that appears to the left.

The developer needed a sign and needed it high off the road. So he did what any good builder (but bad brand manager) did and made a big pile of dirt and put the sign on this big pile. On a conscious level, I know that it is a sign on a pile of dirt. But on a subconscious level, I can’t help but see a freshly dug grave with a headstone.

Morbid? Probably. But even as I KNOW it is just a sign, my subconscious mind keep making references to a grave site.. and the inevitable jokes about the housing market, where good homes go to die, and a whole lot of other tasteless jokes that probably are not really appropriate.

Our advice: Take an objective look at the signs, tents, displays, posters, flyers, mailers and yes, even your web site. Do you see any grave markers? Sometimes they are not so obvious to spot because you, like the home builder, just had a problem that needed a quick solution. When you find them (and you will) replace them with signs that are more in line with your tournament brand.

Multiplicity is a good title for a movie, but not regarding a tournament issue: coaches of multiple teams entering your tournament. This topic is coming up with tournaments more and more and more and more. One sentence(coach) for so many mores(teams):). You see the trend.

Do we allow coaches of multiple teams? How many teams can they coach? It is so frustrating to manage the potential conflicts and juggle the scheduling of games!!

The question becomes not one of customer service — which we all want to provide — but one of practical math. If you are running a tournament of 200 teams and 10% of them are coached by multiple coaches, that is only 20 teams or 10-16 games you can juggle. But when that number approaches 33-50%, that is 100 teams or 50 games at minimum that you must juggle to avoid conflicts. And, if you are using multiple venues, some of which may only have short-sided fields, the coach that does a U14 and U11 team will be disappointed in your efforts. What about finals? If both team emerge out of their brackets and the U14 and U11 finals are held at the same time, what do you do?

We all want to satisfy the customer, but as the customer makes decisions without regard for the practical limitations we all face, accommodating large numbers of multiple coached-teams may just be impossible. NOW is the time for your tournament to institute a policy regarding multiple coaches as more and more clubs move to paid coaches with responsibility for multiple teams.

Our advice: Keep track of coaches with multiple teams using the Applications Module. Edit your application disclaimer to include a statement about the coach resolving their multiple team issues as a condition of application. When you see a multiple-team coach, send him/her an email, reminding them that you will do all you can, but conflicts are theirs to resolve. In the beginning, it will be a bit painful for the tournament, but in the long run, the tournaments that don’t make unconditional commitments for multiple-team coaches will emerge as winners. You can’t fight math.