The opportunity of running an organization that brings people together for the beautiful interaction of competitive sports can quickly be squelched by the realities of tedious and repetitive tasks. How can we as league and club administrators rise to the challenge against paperwork and ‘calling trees’? Likely, we are fierce competitors ourselves, and it’s time to rise victoriously against our opponents: copy machines, rain out lines, and rubber checks!

First, let’s identify the problems:

Creating a league

“I want to create a sports league,” you say. “Where do I start? I guess I’ll do what
I’ve seen done before …”

• Put a sign in a yard on a popular street corner with my phone number on it
• Tell my friends, and tell them to tell their friends
• Create a flier to hang in popular locations where I think players hang out -(print 100’s of copies)

There we go. All done… Not quite. What happens when someone becomes interested? What do I do if they call?

Here are some options:

• I will tell them to come to my “sign-up day” where I will collect checks and paper forms.
• I will give them a link to a website where they can fill out a form (that will email me), and pay through my PayPal account.
• I will tell them to come to a coaches meeting and bring a roster and check for the team.

Great! Now I have a bunch of checks and information on paper. Now I have to fill out a 75 line deposit slip (assuming everyone paid up front… not likely), and do a day’s worth of data entry into my ever-so-sophisticated spreadsheet!

Tools:

Well… Now I have a bunch of team and player information. What do I do with it? What are the current options?

• Create my own sophisticated spreadsheet
• Download and install some league management software

Okay, that wasn’t easy, but it gets us more structured information that we can share with our participants.

Communication

How do I get that information back out to my coaches and players?

• Make 100’s of copies to haul around the field on game day? $0.08 per copy.
• Mail them out? + $0.42 a pop…
• Email the info out? Will people ‘reply all’ to 100’s of recipients?
• Make dozens of phone calls to convey relative info to necessary parties?

This problem of getting this initial information distributed is the first example of an issue that will arise many times throughout the season. The available options are not ideal, to say the least.

Waivers (the legal hoops)

Oh yeah… I have to carry insurance to cover the liability of the league, and they require that people agree not to sue the league if they get hurt. Okay, I guess I’ll make a copy for everyone and get them to sign and return it. Then I’ll need a place to store all those paper copies year after year. Here my communication problems surface again… How am I going to get all of these out to all of my players? Better call another coaches meeting. We all know those coaches have nothing better to do.

Money…

Hmm… It turns out not everyone paid at the original coaches meeting, or after the first game. Let me go through my league list and team rosters to see if I can remember who has paid me… Sound familiar? Then when (or if) I figure it out, I’ll harass them by email until they pay up. I didn’t think running a league would promote me to collections agent. Maybe I’m a little ahead of the game, and my league management tool lets me check off who has paid, but this means that I can’t deposit the checks until I go to the one computer that has this software, dig through the pile of checks again, and mark off each team.

Now that we’ve identified some problems that arise in running a sports organization …

Let’s dream of a perfect world.

Creating a league

I dream that I could have access to a community of people who I knew were in my area and of the right demographic for my league. People who are the right age, gender, and level of interest and who play the right sport. I dream that all I would have to do is write a message and hit send to my dream group. Even better, I dream that I just describe my league or club, and my dream participants find me… and I can choose whether or not to accept them in my all-too-dreamy league that inevitably too many people will want to join.

Tools

I dream that I had a tool that would automatically create a season for me based on the time-slots and locations I have available and how many people I have approved to join. Communication I dream that all the information for my league is in an accessible place to all my participants and that they get notified (by email or SMS) when information that is relevant to them has been updated.

Waivers

I dream that when my invited participants accept my invitation, they digitally sign my waiver so I never have to touch it, carry it around the field, print it, mail it, or store it. I also dream that I can easily provide my insurance company with the evidence they need that all participants have accepted the leagues terms and conditions (waivers).

Money

I dream that participants can pay the league fee online and cannot become active members of my league until they have paid. I also dream that I can easily track the payment status of all participants.

Dreams do come true!

We at Sports4E look forward to making your dreams come true. We want to make your very important and valuable job more enjoyable and simplified for you. We provide you with powerful management tools backed by a social network that enables shared information, payment processing, digital waiver signatures, and much more, all tied together the way you want your league run. 
Stay tuned…