Early bird pricing specials

Tournaments

We generally get a lot of questions around this time from spring soccer tournaments regarding how to set things like early brid pricing or multiple team pricing, etc. The short answer is: The pricing is controlled in the Team Applications>Set Up Applications Groups/Fees>Go! Just set your pricing lower there for the divisions and on the deadline, set them back up.

The long, more substantive answer is we’ve never seen early bird or multiple discount pricing actually move the needle on attracting teams to a tournament. Teams who want to come play at your event will come because it is a great experience that fulfills the needs of their team development, not because it is a few bucks cheaper. Everyone SAYS that price determines their participation, but their actual behavior really doesn’t reflect that. For the few teams that it does, you will never be cheap enough anyway…

Generally, though, the teams are all applying later and later to the deadline. I think it is mostly because our culture is moving to a Just In Time mentality where everything is delivered next day, downloadable immediately, etc, etc. Soccer tournaments are just one more thing a coach can apply to today for a tomorrow deadline,.

Our Advice: Instead of giving an early bird pricing break, why not do a guarantee on something teams really value, like custom scheduling? For example, the first three teams to apply in each division guarantee a late Sat start or a multiple-coach schedule with no conflict,.. something like that? Then you have a legit “Sorry, we can’t accommodate your multiple team coach because you applied the day before the deadline” rationale.

The early bird gets the worm. So too should the early bird to apply to your soccer tournament.

Soccer tournaments looking forward to 2012

Tournaments

2012 will be our thirteenth year providing an end-to-end, comprehensive tournament system for soccer tournaments. With each year, we continue to add more features as the soccer market continues to evolve rapidly around the fastest-growing team sport worldwide. It’s an exciting time to be involved in the sport.

This year, our 2012 youth soccer tournament calendar is shaping up handsomely, with most of our top of the year events already taking applications. I opened the calendar this morning and already see a Jan 6 deadline for the Total Soccer College Showcase! That sure came fast

2012 will be the year mobile really starts taking off. For our part, we have outfitted all of our tournaments with QR Codes so parents with smartphones can take advantage of fast-loading scores, DEALS and news no matter where they are, on the field or off.

Next weekend, TourneyCentral will be at the NSCAA, THE SHOW to be at for anyone in the soccer industry. We are looking forward to meeting up with old friends and making new ones at the show. Stop on by and say hi!

Overall, 2012 is going to be a kicking year.

This blog post is part of a blog-off series with a group of bloggers from different professions and world views, each exploring a theme from his/her world view. This was about exploring the theme, what are you looking forward to in the new year? To explore how others handled the theme, check them out below. I will add links as they publish.

Trending and soccer tournaments

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I was going through the TourneyCentral traffic for the end of the year, making some recaps for the year and some predictions for the next. This is a typical cycle for the soccer tournament market.

Soccer Tournament Business Cycle

With some minor adjustments and some traffic increases, it looks remarkably like the 2010 cycle. And the 2009 cycle. And the 2008… you get the idea. The soccer tournament cycle for attention and activity has not changed in a very long time, even as soccer tournaments strive to be top of mind, 365/24/7 for the participants.

Here is a typical traffic pattern for a Labor Day soccer tournament. It looks like every other soccer tournament. Just plug your date in and you will typically see two traffic spikes — one when your schedule is published and the other the weekend of your event — with the rest of the traffic being flat or edging upwards slighting as your day approaches and then dropping precipitously when your event is over. It is what we’ve come to call the 90-Minute Attention Span.

Soccer Tournament Cycle

Again, we could go back years and see this has not changed vey much. There are only two major shifts we have seen in recent history. The first is a flattening of the traffic to include the day after, but when everyone got broadband, the day-after-traffic has gone away. It is likely we will see higher spikes during the event with smartphones and QR Codes, but the pattern will stay the same. The second is with online applications. We have seen more applications being submitted the last two weeks running up to the deadline. No amount of incentives have encouraged early registration.

Our Advice: Manage your soccer tournament with data you know, not the gut feel or common wisdom you think you know. Knowing the attention cycle of an event allows us to say things like “pricing incentives for early registration does not work” or “multiple-team incentives don’t work.” We’ve seen the traffic and registration patterns for tournaments with and without incentives. There is no variation.

But just because the cycle has not changed for a long time doesn’t mean it can’t. While the large trending cycle will probably stick around a long time, you may want to think about how you can engage your audience one more day longer or one more day sooner. Think about what you and your sponsors can do to grab just one more day of attention and what that would mean for your soccer tournament and your sponsor’s business.

The 90-Minute Attention Span is a very powerful force. Even grabbing one more minute of attention can move the needle for your soccer tournament. The trick, however, is to add real value to your participant’s lives, not gimmicks like Facebook likes or raffles.

And learn to use the different phases of your tournament wisely. Here are some publications that might help you get started.

Behind the scenes. Content for social media

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Jim Long @newmediajim

That is my social media buddy Jim Long in the photo above. As a cameraman for NBC news in Washington DC who covers the White House, he has got to have one of the coolest jobs in the world. He also goes on press junkets all over the world covering the First Lady, Hillary Clinton and others.

And he is very active on social media.

One of the things I love about Jim is all the “behind the scenes” photos he shares on Twitter and Google+. One of his recent photo galleries can be found here. Almost every morning, he “greets” me by posting a photo of the sunrise over the White House or a Foursquare check-in at his favorite coffee place or just a quip about life in general. It almost always makes me smile and makes me feel like I am standing right there with him.
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Simple is good

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Screen shot 2009-12-06 at 7.44.25 AM

A couple weeks ago, my hi-tech coffee maker broke. All the electronic stuff on it worked just fine, but it failed in the most basic way; the mechanism to bring the hot water from the reservoir through the grounds and into the carafe no longer moved the water. So, I went out to the local Kroger and bought a Melitta coffee cone and carafe for 12.00. I heat my water and pour it through the grounds. My coffee-making experience is now simple and will never break.

What does coffee have to do with a soccer tournament?
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Autoreply

Tournaments

I sent an email to Ritch Miller, one of the tournament directors for the adidas Thunder United Classic held this past weekend in Lebonan, Ohio. I immediately got this message back:

I am at a soccer tourney all weekend. I will get back to you on Tues. The better question is why aren’t you at a tourney?

Talk about knowing your audience, setting expectations and always marketing! We loved it so much, we had to blog about it.

What do YOUR guest teams get back from you when they email you during the tournament?

QR Codes come to soccer tournaments

News

TourneyCentral implemented an integration of QR Codes for youth soccer tournaments that lead directly to the web application version of the scores, sponsor DEALS and tournament news. The web app is cross-platform and can be used on any smart phone that has a web browser such as Android, iPhone, HTC and other full-screen smart phone. TourneyCentral is the first and only soccer tournament software provider to integrate QR codes for youth soccer tournaments.

“QR codes are basically speed-dial for smart phones,” says Gerard McLean, President of TourneyCentral. “Soccer fans just need to point and click on the code with a web-enabled smart phone to load the mobile site. Once loaded, they can look up scores, DEALS and the latest tournament news.”

The first soccer tournament to be outfitted with a QR code is the CUSA Cup in Centerville, Ohio over Labor Day weekend, September 3-5, 2011. The website is at http://www.cusacup.com The QR code is displayed on the sidebar of every page on the website. The CUSA Cup tournament is also printing the QR code on the cover of their program as well as displaying at on the scoring boards at each of their four sites.

“We’re excited about leading the technology for soccer tournaments,” says Dan Monahan, tournament director for the CUSA Cup, “… especially the tools that allow our families to be more mobile and access the tournament information quickly where they are. Being mobile helps us deliver a larger audience of ready customers to the advertisers and sponsors who support our soccer tournament.”

In addition to the QR codes to support the mobile strategy, the CUSA Cup has also established a twitter account and Facebook page. Both can be found on their website immediately above the QR code on the left sidebar. TourneyCentral has supported social media for the past year and actively advises soccer tournament directors on how to integrate the platforms for their soccer tournament.

All soccer tournaments in the TourneyCentral family will be outfited with their own QR code within the next month.

TourneyCentral mobile web app screen shots

Screen shots from the TourneyCentral mobile web app

ABOUT TOURNEYCENTRAL
TourneyCentral is the only fully integrated, event-focused online solution for youth soccer tournaments. Since 1999, TourneyCentral has been producing web sites that provide youth soccer tournaments with end-to-end integrated experience management for guest teams, from marketing through scoring. In addition, advertising tools provide tournaments with an increased opportunity for advertising and sponsorship revenue as a result of significantly increased traffic to the web site. For more information, visit www.tourneycentral.com.

TourneyCentral is owned by Rivershark Inc., based in Ohio. Companion and marketing partner properties consist of The Touchline, a blog and iTunes podcast for tournament directors, MyTournamentSpace, a photo-sharing site linked directly into the tournament game schedule and www.ticoscore.com, a single-source database and ranking system for soccer tournaments.

TourneyCentral will be attending the NSCAA Conference in Kansas City, MO in January 2011.

Contact for more information
Gerard McLean
gmclean [at] rivershark.com
937-836-6255

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Marketing your first-year soccer tournament

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Whenever we sign a soccer tournament that is just launching, we get asked a lot about how to get a lot of traffic to the web site that converts into team applications. While each soccer tournament event is slightly different, here is some of the collective advice we usually give out.

Offline marketing
First year tournaments are really difficult. There is usually a lot of offline hustle with the club coaches, within the league and at the state association level. Your club name will probably be the best thing to help you. Can you send out an email from the club list list? Also, make sure everyone in your club knows the website for your tournament. Every coach, every volunteer, every parent. Nothing says “dead lead” like someone from the club who does not know the web address.

Complete website
Make sure your TourneyCentral website is as complete as possible. That means your about page, rules, hotel policies, front page news, frequently asked questions are all full. It is a lot of work, but considering you only have about three seconds before a team will decide to click off your page or explore more, it is worth the investment.
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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.

Warrior Classic soccer tournament celebrates 25th year

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HUBER HEIGHTS – What do the numbers 8 million, 500, 25, and five have in common? They are all milestone numbers for the 25th annual adidas Warrior Classic, and the Warrior Soccer Club.

When first conceptualized three decades ago, tournament co-director Carol Maas said that about 50-60 teams were expected and 162 participated in the event.

“They came from all over,” she said.

Maas, who is now in her 25th year helping to oversee what is arguably the Dayton region’s premier youth soccer tournament, if not its premier youth sporting event, sees her participation with the adidas Warrior Classic as a true “labor of love.”

Asked if she has issues dealing with the complexities of managing the event Maas responded, “Some days yes, most days not.”
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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.
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