Category Archives: Tournaments

Don’t make your teams work so hard

There was an article in the Wall Street Journal today (and on CNN, and FOX News, and on every other news program everywhere) about Amazon.com opening up their new music store. The BIG news is that the music would be free from DRM (Digital Rights Management) software and would be cheaper than Apple’s iTunes store. (Currently, iTunes has about 90% market share of digital music; the iPod has about 70% market share of digital music players.) All of these news people were giddy about someone finally toppling Apple as the market leader.

It won’t work and here’s why: When you buy an iPod and music from iTunes, you just plug in your iPod and your purchased music just transfers to your iPod. No saving, copying, transferring, etc. To the average user, it just all happens magically with iTunes. With Amazon.com, you purchase, download, mount your music player, transfer your song…. you get the idea.

What does this have to do with running a soccer tournament? What if you invited teams to play and undercut all the other tournaments in your area by $100.00. You would probably get a lot of teams. But when they showed up to play, they had to line their own fields, hang and anchor their nets, contract their own referees, inflate the ball… you get the idea.

Our advice: Like Apple, recognize the value of the entertainment you are providing and price it accordingly. Don’t back off your price and don’t compete on price. But, follow through with the value the teams expect. If you are a higher price point in your market, make sure the fields are manicured, the registration is top-notch, the referees are qualified, the fields are lined and the staff (volunteer or paid) is courteous and knowledgeable. Oh, and a really kick-butt soccer tournament web site wouldn’t hurt either!

Is your message being RECEIVED?

On my daily afternoon walk with my dog, Rufus, we came across this empty lot with one tree on it. Taped to the tree was a letter from the City of Englewood claiming the RESIDENT was in violation of some ordinance or other that regulates grass longer than 8 inches. (The grass wasn’t, we are coming out of a long period of no rain, but that is another post entirely!)

If you ask the City, they will have claimed that the message was duly delivered to the property in accordance with the statute governing the delivery of notices, blah, blah, blah… But, the reality is it is a letter taped to a TREE! Any reasonable person would quickly come to the conclusion that the notice was not really delivered to the person intended to receive it.

How does this matter to a soccer tournament? Quite simply, the rules of message delivery have changed and continues to change. Pre-Internet, we had the US Postal Service and Ma Bell. Yesterday, we had email. But tomorrow, email will become as unreliable as taping a letter to a tree. You can send the email, but there is is an ever-increasing chance the recipient won’t get it. Coaches change emails, set spam-filters way too-high, get temporary emails just for the tournaments, don’t pick up email anymore, etc. And, with social networking sites like Facebook and MySpace, email is becoming less and less relevant or wanted except as a notification message.

Our Advice: Don’t tape letters to trees with your email notices. If you send out a notice that asks people to reply or do something, track compliance. Most people will act within hours of being asked to do something simple via email. Then, for those that don’t, start your follow-up process, which might be another email, a phone call, etc. (The TourneyCentral.com sites are being outfitted with some really cool alternative systems.. stay tuned!) You don’t need to over-communicate with your guest teams by sending out volumes of email, just the right communication at the right time. And, delivered to the right tree… I mean, person.

Real-time just got VERY real-time

The soccer tournaments just hit a tipping point with real-time scores this weekend. Over 14% of the traffic in the past three days (Fri, Sat and Sun) was generated by smart phones such as Blackberrys, iPhones, Treos and other web-enabled phones. This is up from almost nothing Memorial Day weekend.

This is a tipping point at such a low percentage because we saw the same thing with the adoption of broadband, which pushed the high-traffic-day from the day after the tournament at work to consistently high levels throughout the event. Almost overnight, the day shifted back as more homes got broadband. Similarly, we saw the same thing with photo sales decline as a result of lower-prices consumer cameras that were capable of taking high-quality photos. A double-digit percentage of use indicates a major behavioral shift.

Teams are sending emails to the tournament FROM THE FIELDS if the scores are not now updated within minutes of the games ending. The tolerance for most people appears to be about an hour and a half wait-time at this point, but by this time next year, that will be about half, if at all.

Typical patterns for people who send complaint emails tend to be a very targeted search for specific division results. While not entirely pinpoint accurate, the pattern appears to be a constant reloading of the results page every 30 seconds or so after the conclusion of the game. When the scores do not appear to be updated regularly, the emails start.

Our Advice: If you don’t have a system to report scores in real-time, GET ONE NOW! The internet is no longer confined to a computer people check when they get back home. Your teams are always on-line so treat your web site as something teams will be accessing all day, every day. Tournaments will be divided by the haves (real-time scores) and the have-nots (no real-time scores) rapidly. (www.tourneycentral.com web sites have real-time scores built into the modules.)

Soccer America has done it again!

Soccer America has gone and done it again! They published an article we wrote for their Grassroots Soccer Biz newsletter entitled ‘Getting In The News: 8 Simple Rules For Success’.

I’m not going to print the whole thing here (you are subscribing to the newsletters, right??) but it starts out like this…

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. Read the whole thing…

Long lines equal no sales

It was lunchtime and Rufus and I swing into the local Wendy’s, pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered a #2, no ketchup, pickles, tomato or onions and a vanilla frosty. Rufus likes the frosty and he gets the second burger patty. There were four cars ahead of us. Not bad for lunchtime.

When we were the third car in line, there was a stall of some sort with an order. The cars started piling up behind us and eventually, cars would pull into the lot and pull right around to go somewhere else. We had ordered, so we waited for about five minutes. The guy in front of us had had enough, so he just pulled out of line. A minute afterwards, our van was in gear and we were gone as well. I’m pretty sure all the orders got out of synch for the people behind us. But we had waited long enough.

As I was sitting there, I also counted 17 cars that pulled into the lot and right out the other side after noticing the long line. A quick calculation on an average of $8.00 per meal, over the course of one lunch hour, that long line probably cost Wendy’s about $1,300.00 in sales. I’m guessing.

Our advice: Never, never, never let a line form at the concession stand. If you did a quick survey, you will find people have the patience for three customers deep, but no more. They will approach the line with the intention of standing there to order something, but if more than three people are in it, they will keep walking and go somewhere else. You have lost that sale.

Try putting a greeter at the end of the line when it gets too long; someone who can take orders and money and radio orders to the back. You only really need this extra person during breakfast and lunch rushes. Do ANYTHING you can to prevent the line from forming.

TourneyCentral soccer tournament sites are 100% compatible with iPhone

TourneyCentral.com announces that the family of youth soccer tournaments are 100% compatible with iPhone, making iPhone the perfect on-venue mobile device for updating scores and news.

TourneyCentral.com announced today that the web sites that deliver real-time information about youth soccer tournaments are 100% compatible with iPhone. The mobile devices ship with MacOS X’s Safari web browser and allows the user to view the full web site instead of a specially formatted one as used by other popular so-called smart phones such as Blackberry and Treo.

What this really means for tournament directors, McLean adds, is that they will be able to manage their web site in real-time at the venues or en route without worrying about whether or not they have an Internet connection. Since TourneyCentral sites have web-based scoring and news modules, including email broadcast, a tournament director is now always in touch with their guest teams.

Legislating sportsmanship

Over the past year, we have seen an increase in tournaments attempting to legislate good sportsmanship, either through rewarding a good sport on the other team with a patch, medal or trophy or by penalizing the team by taking away points on red and yellow cards. Has this increased sportsmanship?

No.

What it has done is increase the amount of administration that the tournaments needs to manage the event. Players are either good sports — or they are not. Sportsmanship at the cost of winning is either a character trait or it is not. Ultimately, winning is rewarded. How you got there almost never plays a role. It may not be fair; it may not be ethical but it is ultimately what we measure.

Our advice: Stop trying to legislate sportsmanship with the teams that you have accepted into your tournament. And don’t over-complicate your standings and tie breakers with points off for bad behavior. The red card has its own penalties and players and coaches understand them.

What you can do, however, is RESEARCH the teams that apply a little bit more in-depth. On teams that show some aggression (you know, the ones with the pushy team manager or the cocky coach,) call around to tournaments they have played in recently. Did the team behave? Were they responsible for a large percentage of red cards? Their state association would also have that information. If they gave other events trouble, chances are they will do the same for you.

Also, on every TourneyCentral web site, you have the ability to record notes on the teams to reference for next year. Use this frequently! A whole year erodes memory, whereas a short note in a database lives forever.

Soccer America publishes our article.. check it out

Soccer America published an article submitted when launching their new newsletter, Grassroots Soccer Biz

It starts out…
When people start talking about brand, the talk immediately turns to logo design. While a good logo is part of your brand, it is not THE BRAND. The brand is how people feel about and view your soccer organization (league, club or tournament). Your brand is what you can leverage to sponsors, advertisers, guest teams, potential players, potential coaches and the media. (Links to read the rest of the article are below.)

Our advice: Read the article and subscribe to Soccer America for upcoming newsletters.

TourneyCentral soccer tournament sites are 100% compatible with iPhone

TourneyCentral.com announces that the family of youth soccer tournaments are 100% compatible with iPhone, making iPhone the perfect on-venue mobile device for updating scores and news.

TourneyCentral.com announced today that the web sites that deliver real-time information about youth soccer tournaments are 100% compatible with iPhone. The mobile devices ship with MacOS X’s Safari web browser and allows the user to view the full web site instead of a specially formatted one as used by other popular so-called smart phones such as Blackberry and Treo.

“We have always developed on the the MacOS platform,” says Gerard McLean, president and CEO of Rivershark, Inc., TourneyCentral’s parent company. “The Safari web browser is a standards-compliant platform and it makes sense to make sure our web-based application reaches as many people as possible without requiring they use any particular web browser.” McLean adds that the display is adjusted to make sure the software also works on Microsoft’s Internet Explorer.

Since it began development in 1998, TourneyCentral has used Mac-based software to design the web-based interface of its web site as well as organize, correct and catalog photos quickly for the tournament web sites using AppleScript, an Apple software product designed to automate repetitive tasks. With the release of MacOS X and the UNIX underpinnings, development was accelerated even more as programmers were able to test in a UNIX/MySQL environment locally on an Xserve, Apple’s server platform, before moving the software to the production-ready servers.

“What this really means for tournament directors,” McLean adds, “is that they will be able to manage their web site in real-time at the venues or en route without worrying about whether or not they have an Internet connection.” Since TourneyCentral sites have web-based scoring and news modules, including email broadcast, a tournament director is now always in touch with the guest teams.

For more information about Apple’s iPhone, visit Apple.com

About TourneyCentral
TourneyCentral.com provides comprehensive, event-focused, web-based solutions for youth soccer tournaments and is wholly owned by Rivershark, Inc. an Ohio Corporation. 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, the advertising tools provide the 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.

Companion and marketing partner properties consist of: The Soccer Tournament Review, 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.

Visit us at the 2009 NSCAA in St. Louis, MO.

Have you voluntarily separated from your luggage?

Over the past couple days, I found myself traveling to Denmark and dealing with a lot of airport people. Two events stick out in my mind.

The first was an interaction between a Northwest ticket agent and a passenger who voluntarily took an earlier flight to help NWA with an overbooked situation. In short, she did them a favor. And because no good deed goes unpunished, her bags were not taken off the flight and sent along with her new flight as promised, but rather kept on the plane so she would now have wait until her original flight came in. When she asked where her bags were, the gate agent kept asking her the same question: Have you voluntarily separated from your luggage? By her definition (and every other common sense definition) she had not. But, by the rules or policy of NWA, she had. She got more and more irritated by this rather stupid person who could not or would not deviate from the policy to employ common sense and help her out.

The second event happened in Amsterdam when the people in London forced me to check a carry-on. I was not staying in Holland nor was I leaving the airport. Yet, since my bag was on the other side of customs, I had to go through when I landed in Amsterdam. The agent asked me Are you staying for one day? I, of course, answered: I am staying one hour until I catch my flight to Denmark. He wrinkled up his eyebrows as if he did not understand and then asked again, Are you staying for one day? I finally understood that the only answers allowed were Yes or No. I answered Yes because No meant I would be staying longer. He stamped my passport. (I may get a letter from the Dutch government asking why I only spent an hour in Amsterdam, but I will deal with that later.)

Our advice: When creating systems for your volunteers, guest teams or other people you deal with, speak in a language they understand. Remove as much jargon as possible. Also, ask yourself if what you are expecting makes common sense. Most teams – especially newly formed ones – only know they want to play in your tournament and give you money for the experience. If they ask stupid questions it is probably because they know what they want, but just don’t know how to ask for it in a way that makes sense for the policy or within the jargon of a tournament. Be patient with them and they will remember you as the only one who stopped and really listened to them.

The perfect logo

On my way to other things, I stumbled upon the perfect logo. It is posted to the left of this text. Let me explain why the logo is perfect.

First, it is simple. Secondly, it reflects the culture of Wilkipedia; high, passionate energy by people who are passionate about human knowledge. Thirdly, it reflects the location of the conference; Taiwan. Look up the traditional Taiwanese flag and you’ll see it is red, white and blue whereas the Chinese Taiwan flag is red and yellow. Wikipedia is giving Taiwan a nod without saying a word.

Our advice: Resist the urge to literally put everything about your tournament in your logo or design. Think about simple shapes that convey the culture of your event and work with those. The most effective logos are those that are simple and allow the organization to shape their energy. If Wikipedia did not have passionate people, the logo would just be a scribble. But, because it does, the logo is a W and M that leaps off the page at you.

If you have not yet read anything by Seth Godin, start today. Start with his blog post about logos.

Don’t make them wait in line

I found myself in the Detroit airport at 8:00am today, having first boarded in Mosinee, WI at 5:00am. As anyone who has ever taken a flight in the morning can attest, there are only two types of people in the airport that early; those who need coffee and those who are lying about their need for coffee. I belong to the former.

After landing, I make a beeline for the nearest coffee place, which happened to be an Einstein Bros. There were eight of us in line and the line moved something like this.

One person was taking orders and there were two people taking payments. Person one steps up, gazes at the menu for a few moments, ordered a hot breakfast sandwich, with an extra slice of cheese on an everything bagel… then asks about the selection of tea.. thinks a bit, orders something.. steps to the right to pay. Next person orders coffee, black, large. Third person steps up, coffee, large, muffin… next person asked about the hot dog bagel things.. then asked if they could have lean bacon on the sandwich.. then asked about, etc, etc… Meanwhile, I just wanted a cup of coffee and a chair. To add to the frustration, the two people taking payments were idle most of the time.

Einstein Bros, if you are listening: Between 5:00 am and 10:00 am, set up a coffee-muffin only line and you will not lose the people who only want coffee, but don’t want to wait in line. Again, coffee-muffins only line.

Our advice: Take a look around your event, especially at registration and concessions. Are there long lines forming around opportunities to create express lines? People do not want to wait when they know exactly what they want and perceive it to be a dispense-themselves item, like soda and coffee.

Do you send your referees to the concessions line with a ticket for their lunch? Why? When they are there, waiting in line cuts into their decompress time as well as increases the line congestion for your guest teams. Why not consider doing a catering to the referee tent, i.e., having a volunteer take the orders and run them from the concession stand back to the ref tent. Or, better yet, get a ref tent sponsor from a local restaurant.

Quick turn is the secret to increased profitability with your concessions.

Gerard McLean, TourneyCentral