In 2003, the Warrior Soccer Club of Dayton, Ohio, donated uniforms, soccer boots and balls to Emthonjeni, a foundation that operates school and youth programs in Soweto and Sweetwaters, communities south of Johannesburg. More than 200 uniforms were donated.
In light of the renewed soccer focus on South Africa, I thought it would be a really cool idea to share these photos.
The story appeared originally in the Dayton Daily News
Every coach has always looked to save money on tournament fees, but with the economy where it is, there seems to be more pressure to go after the mulit-team discounts. The logic coaches use is that it is more cost-effective for you to take in multiple teams as your marketing costs are lower, your management time is less, etc. But that is a myth.
Here is why it is a bad investment for soccer tournaments.
Lower marketing costs
You have a quality soccer tournament event and the club knows it. That is primarily why they want to bring all their teams to your event, especially at the beginning and end of a season. Having all the teams together in one place bonds the players, the parents and makes for a stronger club. You have already made that investment and lowering your fees will not allow you to recoup that investment. Isn’t that why you invested marketing dollars, to attract multiple teams from the same club?
Lower management costs
The myth here is that it will take less effort to manage multiple teams from the same club because your management costs are lower. But, the opposite is actually true. A coach may have coaching responsibility for multiple teams, making scheduling more difficult as you work around coaching conflicts. Parents may have players on different teams who may also have a expectation that since their club is bringing you more business, they should be able to get preferential scheduling treatment as well. They may not ask for it, but they sure as heck will tell everyone on the touchline how they have to “choose” between kids because the tournament doesn’t care.
In addition, you still have the same number of team reps to deal with and most likely, the payments will come in slower because the teams have perceived “leverage.”
A team drops out
If one team drops out and you have already given the discount based on the number of teams they sent, but are no longer sending, do you then go back and ask for the full amount for each team? Not likely.
Hotel rooms
If the club is sending the teams to your soccer tournament as a bonding experience, most likely they will want hotel rooms close together. If you are not prepared to accommodate that or your hotel market can’t sustain that, you will be only offering the discounted teams an opportunity to gripe and complain all weekend long.
More discounts
The multiple team discount does not end with the team fees. It moves into comp rooms for coaches, comp apparel for coaches, special accommodations on the field and anything else the coach can think to ask for. After all, you gave in on the application fee discount.
Our advice: Discounts are almost always a bad idea. It leads to “privilege thinking,” additional management costs and little brand loyalty. It is always better to sink the investment money that you would have given away in discounts into building a better soccer tournament experience that teams and clubs would pay you EXTRA to participate in. (Of course, you would not accept bribes to consider an application, but it would be a nice touch.)
Servicing guest teams at a soccer tournament isn’t the same as packing multiple items shipped to the same address. The management cost does not decrease with each team; it increases. And, having a “bundle” of teams that are comprised of human beings all with separate expectations of the experience complicates that even more.
The coach may ask for a discount, but what s/he really wants is value, which includes respect. Focus on building value for your soccer tournament event and you will be able to charge more than what you ever thought you could. Recession or not.
What do bowling, soccer tournaments and the economy have in common? A lot, according to the Wall Street Journal. When the economy is down, people pick up a bowling ball and you have a lot of people coming into town for your soccer tournament.
This is a great opportunity for soccer tournaments to partner up with a local bowling center. You have kids and parents coming into town and looking for entertainment in the evenings and between games. Bowling centers are everywhere and a great way for the teams to keep “warmed up” between games.
When partnered with your TourneyCentral advertising DEALS, a listing of bowling centers in your local area as well as a deal to host a soccer team night or dedicated lanes is a win for the center, the community, your tournament and your guest teams. And, you may even be able to talk the bowling center manager into running our Real-Time Scores on one of their televisions to keep the teams in the loop.
Our advice: Call your local bowling centers and get some deals going. Fill their lanes, become a great community partner. Introduce a new sport to lots of kids and reintroduce it to their parents. Whether they bowl a perfect game or gutter balls, the social aspect of bowling makes it fun for just about everyone.
You can find bowling centers in your local area at the AMF Web site and at this great search engine Bowling2U.com.
Allison Stier with the Jaguar Invitational is interviewed by Larry Miller with Back of the Net.
Click here to listen to the podcast or access through iTunes.
WHEN: May 8-10, 2009
WHERE: Novi, Michigan
FEES: 6v6 and 8v8 $550 11v11 $625
APPLICATION DEADLINE: Friday, Mar 13, 2009
Click the postcard to view front and back in full size
A postcard for the Hershey Tournament and the Penn State 8v8 arrived earlier this week. It got my attention, not only because the two events are TourneyCentral.com tournaments, but because it was well designed and executed. Here’s why.
I knew what it was about quickly
I didn’t have to open a letter or fight with that low-grade postage wafer that tears most of the information off the top of the flyer folded in thirds. “2 great tournaments.” The logos were right there on top, leading the description.
5Ws
Who, What, When, Where, Why and How were listed in bullets points and were easy to read. No disclaimers were mixed in to “CYA” the tournament. Just the facts and where to go to get more.
Contact information front and center
The web address was right there as was the email AND PHONE NUMBER. Chances are most folks will go to the web site first, but there are a few coaches left who still feel more comfortable picking up the phone and getting a feel for how real the event is.
It is print
I’m an advocate for the Internet, but nothing replaces 4-color print — even if only a postcard — to let your guest teams know that you believe in your event enough to design a postcard, print it out and pay for postage to mail it to them. Print says “I am real.”
Good use of white space
The designer did not stuff every square inch of postcard space with crap. Get the basics out, push your audience to the web site where they can read more if they need to. Just the facts and lots of breathing room.
What I would have liked to see
– A human face, a soccer player or coach. A family that has been helped by the charity.
– The web address bigger for each event
– Rule of thirds and some offset. The tournament panels being side-by-side instead of flanking the middle content.
– A little more contrast between the actual soccer tournament events and the Kicks4Kids organization.
– More WIIFM (What’s in it for me) to the coach and less about the hosting organization.
– A TourneyCentral logo, showing that they are hosted by the best (but that is really selfish on my part.)
Please feel free to leave a comment if you disagree with my list.
Print and direct mail is not dead. Neither is the US Postal Service. A great soccer tournament will use a mix of email marketing, print and word-of-mouth to get the message out about their tournament.