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? Well, for one, it fuels a lot of tournament directors, volunteers and soccer moms/dads for early-morning games, but the real correlation here is the lesson to keep things simple and down to its most basic requirements.

It might seem odd that a technology company would advocate for simple gravity instead of a hi-tech coffee-maker, but that doesn’t really seem odd to us. Even when we’re developing soccer tournament web sites and software, we always ask the question, What is the simplest way to do this? Based on the over-loaded technology web site of the average soccer site, keeping things simple is some advice a lot of them could use.

Our advice: Keep it simple, make it work. Nobody cares that you employ the latest AJAX, Java, whatever scoring system on your soccer tournament web site if they can’t find the scores and when they do, they can’t view them on their Blackberry. Apply this to everything, from your sponsorship packages to your web site to the game schedule to your standings and tiebreakers. People understand and accept simple. Like my coffee maker, it can have all the best time-keeping, auto-coffee-making, coffee-to-water-ratio-measuring technology in the world, but if it can’t pour water through coffee grounds, it is a piece of junk. Do the basics well. Keep the rest simple.

Very few people like complexity and fewer still like unnecessary complexity. In an article in the Washington Post examining why Apple is successful, the author states:

Apple’s success doesn’t come from those cute Hi, I’m a Mac ads. It’s a product of a consistent focus on simplicity and elegance…

The emphasis is mine.

Our Advice: Keep your systems SIMPLE and make sure they work. Teams only want a few things from your tournament: 1) To register easily, 2) to find deals and hotels quickly and effortlessly and 3) to find scores, standings and photos with more ease and effort than finding a hotel.

That’s it! There is nothing else to deliver to your guest teams at a soccer tournament. Anything beyond that is a complication the teams won’t accept, regardless of how important you or your sponsors feel it is. So, given that, the challenge is to work within those needs. Serve up ads within the context of scores or email messages. Don’t allow advertising to complicate the system. Don’t force viewers to register to view the scores or photos. Don’t make teams register first to see the available hotels. Don’t make every field on your application required. Get out of their way so they can get to you faster.

Also, keep your systems simple for your staff and volunteers. Entering scores should be a one-click and done action, not a click-click-wait-click-verify-click… you get the idea. A TourneyCentral system keeps everything simple, uncomplicated and just plain works.

Ironically, the simpler the software is to use for the guest teams and your staff, the more time and effort goes into writing it. But, that is where TourneyCentral shines and will continue to do so in an ongoing effort to un-complicate processes as the soccer tournament industry develops.

I watched Gracie yesterday with my daughter. The movie, like most soccer games, moved incredibly slow, there were no climaxes, anti-climaxes and slam dunk plot points like there were in Will Ferrell’s Kicking and Screaming It was almost painful to watch, but I pushed through the dip.

Despite my initial reaction to the movie, the paragraph above is actually a compliment to the actors, directors and the producers who probably had to be convinced that soccer people would get the film. The plot moved like a soccer game does, sometimes moving forward, sometimes dropping back with the score only being a few points ahead or behind at any given moment. It was actually brilliantly written and directed without tending to over-arching social statements and absurd hyperbole for comic or dramatic effect.

What does all this have to do with running a tournament? Like Gracie and any good soccer game, a soccer tournament is not won or lost by anything huge that you do, but by doing all the really small things really well. And, knowing when to drop back and knowing when to push through and make a run. And, of course, not giving up… and NOT listening to the critics who tell you that dropping back is giving up. Dropping back is just another strategy for ultimately moving the ball forward.

The only bad thing about the Gracie is that it is a soccer film. That is a shame, because it is more about the Universal Idea (or Human Condition for us older English Literature folks). A lot of people who could use a good view would not ever watch it because it is soccer. (The same about The Devil Wears Prada.. not about fashion…)

Our Advice: First, watch the three films mentioned above. Will Ferrell for how NOT to look at life, and the other two on a deeper understanding of the Universal Idea. Second, soccer and soccer tournaments are all about playing smart, honing your craft and being tenacious, not about being the biggest and strongest. In the end, the game always falls to the clever and agile.

I received this email from a coach/team rep for a tournament coming up:

Do you expect any more changes to the schedules? …. I just want to make sure this new schedule is safe to distribute.

Wow. Team reps and coaches printing off tournament schedules for parents instead of sending them to the tournament web site is a bit like getting a telegram and then gathering everyone in the town to read it to them in the town square using a megaphone.

Our Advice: At every opportunity, encourage the coaches and team reps to send their parents to your tournament web site. When there are changes (almost always are!) the coach/rep just needs to tell them there is a change via the phone tree or email and not print off the schedule, make more copies, distribute them, make sure all old copies are destroyed… you get the idea.

At TourneyCentral, we will be installing some tools that allow parents to be notified when a change occurs in the schedule, hoping to save your coaches and team reps some additional work and stress. Stay tuned.

Do you pay attention to the email address domains that coaches and team reps use when they apply to your soccer tournament? Maybe you should. While the vast majority of applications come in with yahoo.com, msn.com, gmail.com, aol.com, etc. addresses, a sizable percentage come in from corporate email.

Here is the thought: If your guest team had a good time at the soccer tournament over the weekend, who do they tell? Practically anyone in their office who will also not want to get to work right away on a Monday morning (or Tuesday morning after a holiday Monday). This is hidden marketing as these folks are your champions. If they had a miserable time, keep in mind they will most likely tell seven times more as many people, even those people who don’t want to listen, including posts to Internet blogs and chat boards.

Our Advice: Pay attention to the email addresses when accepting, scheduling and other activities that will affect the personal comfort of the team rep or coach. Reach out with a personal thank you note after the tournament. Build that relationship slowly because if done right, it could lead to other contacts within their company that may blossom into sponsorships. At the very least, you’ll have a stronger champion around the water cooler on Monday morning.