Where is my money going? Why controlling the money for your soccer tournament is key to success

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Often, we have requests from soccer tournament directors to set up their Web site so that the team fees go to this mailing address, the credit cards go to another, the t-shirt orders go off to yet another address and the pre-orders for the college showcase books go to another. While delegating different functions to different people is key to running an effective soccer tournament, delegating control of the money is not.

You don’t have to go very far to find a story about the trusted soccer club volunteer who was caught siphoning off the top. A soccer tournament pulls in a lot of cash. A lot of cash also goes out to pay referees, field fees, vendors, etc. For many organizations, acts of embezzlement can be the death of their club or tournament. And the less likely you think it will happen to you, the more at risk you place yourself.

When teams need you to research a lost check or provide a refund, they like to know that their funds are in the hands of you, the tournament director. They NEED to know there is a system of control in place.

Our Advice: Use one mailing address for ALL funds, from the team fees to the shirt pre-order to everything that the soccer tournament takes in. If you can send the money to a lock box at your local bank, that is even better. A PO Box is good, but checks should never be sent to someone’s home, especially when that person has a day job and their mail could potentially sit in an unattended mail box for hours.

Be transparent. Always have at least two people knowing about each transaction at all times.

An honest person would never object to tight controls in place. In fact, a prudent person would never want to handle or transport checks or cash alone or even at all.

Take control of the money. Always.

March 18, 2010 Update: Soccer America’s YouthSoccerInsider just published an article that is a must-read for all soccer tournament directors.

Tell me which teams have applied and I will apply to your soccer tournament if I like them

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We are seeing more and more requests from coaches for the soccer tournament to give them the list of teams that have already applied for them to “evaluate” whether or not the tournament would be a good fit for their team. This has us scratching our heads a bit.

Nobody likes to pay money to compete in a tournament only to get stuck in a division with top level teams or, in my opinion, stuck with teams that offer no competition. I get that. But I don’t get is why the guest team coach feels the need to evaluate the teams that have applied prior to applying to a tournament.

Perhaps it is an erosion of trust between soccer tournaments and soccer coaches. Perhaps it is an increased need for the coach to “control” every aspect of the game. Perhaps it is increased pressure from the parents on the coach to place their team in tournaments where they can be “competitive” (whatever that ultimately means.)

Chris Brogan, who is a bit of a guru in the Social Media space, wrote a book called Trust Agents. It deals primarily with trust in online social media spaces like Twitter, Facebook, etc. but it touches a bit on how trust is becoming a currency. As tournaments are becoming more sophisticated, they will need to learn also on how to deal in a trust economy. It’s a quick, easy read.

Our advice: Always be giving guest teams a reason to trust you. Post your schedule from last year and encourage them to take a look at the teams that applied and analyze the point spreads. Every TourneyCentral soccer tournament is a 365/24/7 event that has last year’s schedule available until the application deadline. Use that to your advantage.

Take a really hard, objective look at your seeding. Do your club teams seems to walk away with the trophies every year? Why? Do you have an opinion that your club teams should be able to win your own tournament? Why? Given the choice between bringing in competitive teams for your club teams to play and getting better versus winning a trophy by seeding your teams lower, which is more valuable for the long-term growth of your club? Your tournament? Do guest teams walk off grumbling about how “the fix is in” for the club teams to win? If so, change that.

Trust is everything and will only become more valuable. If teams don’t trust you to place them correctly in your tournament, they will eventually go elsewhere. When they trust you, they’ll quit asking and let your history and reputation speak for itself.

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.

Soccer Tournaments as a Cultural Concierge

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Soccer tournament directors, coaches and parents have a lot to think about when it comes to organizing and playing in youth soccer tournaments.  Finding fields, hiring referees, coordinating volunteers and finding sponsors are just a few of the things that directors deal with for a good chunk of the year, all in preparation for one weekend.  It is no wonder that many default to a cookie cutter, ready-made template approach and depend on the games themselves to ultimately define their event.  It’s not an easy request, but next time, look for opportunities to make your event a memorable human experience for all involved.

Soccer tournaments that enjoy a high success rate understand the importance of the experience to the players and families.  That experience extends past the games themselves. One of the more challenging aspects for coaches and parents is the question of what to do between games.  A really good soccer tournament recognizes that it an entertainment event and that ‘games’ off the pitch are just as important as games on the pitch.

Every soccer tournament director wants and needs teams and fans to stick around the tourney and concession stands as long as possible.  But it’s not reasonable to expect that to happen for five or six hours.  This is a great time to showcase and celebrate the unique aspects of the community in which you live, and on which your soccer tournament depends. Have information readily available of sites and activities that make sense for youth soccer players to do in between games.  Maybe it’s an educational tour, museum or local landmark.  If you try to monopolize their time, you’ll end up pushing them back to the hotel swimming pool, something they’ve already done ten times this year.  In a month or two, they won’t remember the games, but the world’s largest ball of twine?  That’s a memory!

Another important aspect to remember is that a youth soccer team, much like an army, travels on its stomach.  As soccer tournament blogger Alex Klos says, “Don’t forget the importance of eating.”

Try to have a variety of items available that strike a balance between concession margin and the overall experience.  Try to feature something unique to your city or state that drives people back to the event.  Maybe it’s a local favorite that literally features an ethnic flavor or maybe it’s just the way you package the dish.  One community with a Czechoslovakian heritage offers the “Kolacky”, a fruit stuffed pastry that is a hit with out-of-towners. Another tourney features their club nickname in common items i.e. the “Hawk-Go-Taco.” 

Don’t lose site of the fact that people will also be dining away from the soccer tournament.  You won’t be pushing customers away; you will be acting as a concierge to the team and family experience. That’s an image that leaves an indelible mark on the brain. This approach also opens a door for local eateries to become a supporter and even sponsor your event.

The key to a unique human experience is adding something different, valuable and memorable to the lives of the players, coaches and families.  Welcome them into your tournament, community and culture and they will return year after year. Here are a few suggestions to enhance the human experience:

-Incorporate a giveaway of a prize or small trinket that is a logo, mascot or something unique to your soccer tournament.  These things trigger powerful emotional responses and make the event memorable.  The trinket, like the memory, will last forever. Think of the collection of trading pins that people hold on to, and value, for life versus the endless pile of trophies that always end up in the trash.

-Along those lines, cater to the younger siblings with things like face painting, a roaming mascot, magician, clown, play area or games. If the little ones aren’t whining, the day is better for everyone.

-Have a “Chamber of Commerce” packet readily available. Better yet, get the Chamber of Commerce involved.

-Why not add the position of concierge to your already huge list of volunteer needs. When looking for someone to fill this post, refer to  Chamber of Commerce comment above or other community building clubs like Lion’s, Rotarians, Legion or VFW members. Make sure this kiosk has all the information it needs.

-Have some good suggestions in mind for various dining experiences in every price range. Keep in mind that these are soccer teams that may have to play again today.   The parents will thank you to remember their pocketbook.

-Get local restaurants involved to possibly offer coupons and directions to their establishments. You may be able to work out an arrangement in which they can run a stand at your soccer tournament, turning over some of the proceeds, of course.

-Set up a commons area to resemble a picnic or park atmosphere. A good sound system with music for all ages establishes a “this is the place to be” vibe.  Never think you have enough music in your playlist. Have a new playlist for everyday.

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.