Tag Archives: Soccer Tournament

2016 NSCAA Coin

2016 NSCAA in Baltimore

We’ll be at the 2016 NSCAA in Baltimore, Booth #208

Stop by to say hi and pick up your commemorative coin. The double-wide booth is being hosting by Premier Athletic Advertising which is your complete soccer tournament solution, from managing your entire event through building community relationships in your local area. They also rely on the software TourneyCentral hosts to provide a seamless, quality experience for your guest teams.

We’ll also be featuring the authoritative book on using social media for your soccer tournament, The Game Through Glass.

Free coin, free snapchat sticker, great book at a reduced price. We’ll see you in Baltimore!

Meerkat for your soccer tournament

Editor note: Meerkat was killed off by its creators in 2016. It will be missed. Use Periscope for live streaming instead.

A couple months ago, a state soccer association asked how they might live-stream video from the site as the soccer games were being played at their tournaments. While possible, the costs to pull that off were over whelming.

Not so any more.

Introduced at this year’s SXSWi, Meerkat has been taking the Internet by storm, even being used by broadcast and cable TV to provide some behind-the-scenes look at how TV news comes together. It was even used by Kasie Hunt of NBC to interview the Press Secretary, Josh Earnest recently.

What is Meerkat?
Meerkat is an iPhone App (Android coming out soon hopefully) that turns any iPhone into a broadcast video camera. Basically, you download the app, log in with your twitter account and press the stream button. You can also get fancy and put in a title for your streaming session or enter a delay time to start counting down when your session will begin. When your twitter followers have also downloaded the stream and turned on notifications, they will get a notification that you are either live or you have set a delayed stream. They then click on the link in your twitter timeline to start watching whatever you are pointing your camera phone to.

There are other features like flipping the cameras around to point toward you, a chat button that functions like twitter (and goes out to their twitter timeline) as well as a like button. Once you are done streaming, you can save your stream to your camera or just let it disappear, much like Snapchat. It does not get saved onto the Meerkat servers (they say…) so everything is like live TV.

Our advice
Firstly, build out your networks. Since Meerkat relies on a strong twitter network, you should focus on there. Running up to your tournament, set up some behind-the-scenes meerkat sessions such as a welcome message from the tournament director or a Q&A session where you encourage questions be submitted live via meerkat.

Visit an advertiser/sponsor and meerkast the experience. Ask the owner/manager to invite the teams or welcome them. Do this before, during and after the tournament.

Invite parents to meerkast the games during the entire weekend. Post a large banner with the meerkat logo and a white space where anyone willing to meerkast can put their twitter handle (we’ll make a downloadable, printable PDF for you soon) so fans and players can connect and watch each others’ meerkast. Convert this into a front page, sticky story so people can find and follow the live video streams from your tournament.

Assign someone from your tournament to be the official meerkat stream from the tournament. Video games, the HQ, interview vendors, show the action, show the fun. Show the teams that decided to go to another tournament instead of yours how much fun they are missing!

I’m sure there are all sorts of other ways you can use meerkat for your event. Feel free to share them with us and we’ll post your creativity right here.

the front door of your soccer tournament

Finding the front door to your soccer tournament

The first thing a good real estate agent will tell you to do when listing your house is to paint the front door so it stands out from the rest of the house. A visible, easy-to-find front door says, “Welcome, this is the way in.”

Your tournament website should do the same thing. Unfortunately, many soccer tournament sites are so intent on fancy design, featuring sponsors and whatever else that they forget to paint the front door. A team is left searching around, wondering “How the heck do I apply to this tournament? When is it? WHERE is it?”

I often wonder how many teams just give up and apply somewhere else.

From time to time, we get requests from a tournament director to “jazz up” the front door, to make their tournament look different from everyone else.

“Why,” we ask, “are your applications slowing down? Are teams finding it difficult to apply?”

“To the contrary,” they say. “Applications are consistently up year over year. Your software is easy to use and everyone knows how to apply, get schedules, maps and scores easily.

“So why are you asking us to obscure your front door?”

Our Advice: Simplify. Remember your mission of making it easier to get teams to find you, apply quickly and find game schedules and results easily. On every contact point on a TourneyCentral website, we post the where, when and how much right at the top of the page. The Apply menu option is always on the main menu of every page. Nothing is more than one click away.

Instead of focusing on the next whizz-bang whirly-gig thing to set your tournament apart, focus on your content. Make sure your news is up-to-date and timely. Make sure your schedules are correct and posted as quickly as possible. Update your scores as soon as your can after the game ends. Promote your sponsors and advertisers. Use your social media channels (Twitter, Facebook, Instagram) often and earnestly.

Each of the TourneyCentral tournaments has the same tools. What you do with yours is what will set you apart.

Five free things to give your soccer dad for Father’s Day

It’s Father’s Day again and millions of soccer dads are gearing up to spend most of it at the soccer fields at a tournament somewhere. But before the magic day comes, there will be millions of soccer players coming off the fields, tired from playing two games. And they are stressed out because they still haven’t bought that perfect Father’s Day present.

If you are one of these soccer players, gather ’round; this article is for you.

As a soccer dad, I used to kinda dread Father’s Day. I always told my kids I needed nothing and really meant it. Nonetheless, we would almost always go out to a restaurant for dinner after a tournament — later if we won the final — with a bunch of other tired soccer dads who secretly just wanted to get home and nap.

So, kids, here are five free things you can give your soccer dad on Father’s Day that he will really like:

1. Be his Concession Gopher. Whatever your dad wants from the concession stand at the tournament, go get for him. No arguments, no “mom doesn’t want you eating that.” Really, just make it happen.

2. An early morning text saying “Happy Father’s Day. I love you.” If you can beat your siblings to it, all the better; you’ll be his favorite for the day (kidding…)

3. Staying quiet in the back seat even when he gets lost. Yes, he knows he is lost and you’ll be late and it is his fault, but not telling him will be a huge gift. Really.

4. Have fun on the field. Sure he’d like you to score and lead the team to victory, but he’d much rather you enjoyed your day at the tournament.

5. A hug before going to bed. You don’t even need to say anything.

Meeting friends at the NSCAA

Working hard at the booth. Annalisa Van Houten tournament director of the
Novi Jaguar Invitational and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.

Thursday night, we ran into our good friends Bobby Kramig, head coach for the Championship
Miami RedHawks and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.

Elizabeth Weimer of Site Search and Carol Maas, tournament director of the
adidas Warrior Classic and Fall Classic.