With Sports4E you can take control of the fan experience. You can access schedules online, so you know exactly when and where that special someone is playing. They don’t have to worry about getting you the info. You don’t have to bug them, or more likely, severely question the reliability of their response each week. You can know for certain by looking online, and plan accordingly.

Also, as a fan you can keep track of standings. This can undoubtedly be a conversation piece in the bleachers at the next game.

• “Does anyone know how we’re doing this year? Seems like the boys have lost like every game.”
• “Actually, we’re 1-3. Not great, but our last 4 games are against teams at or below .500, so we’ll be alright.”
• “Wow, thanks. I’m Olivia, Bobby’s husband.” (extends a warm, mitten-covered hand)
• “And I’m Jennifer, Felix’s fan club. Nice to meet you.”
• “Hey, we’re goin’ out to brunch after, y’all should come along.”
• “Thanks, that sounds good.”

Doesn’t that interaction sound nice? Nobody wants to sit through an hour long game on cold metal bleachers surrounded by people you don’t know. All you can think of is if you’re getting too low on eggs in the fridge, when Samantha’s friend’s birthday party starts, and if your husband is going to complain about his tweaked ankle all week or not. It’s much better to make connections to others by knowing the facts, being a true fan, not just someone dragged along without a clue.

And, a sure-fire way to impress that you-know-who is by utilizing Sports4E’s new stats feature.

“Hey babe, so it’s official, thanks to that grand salami you hit in the 5th inning on Sunday, you’re now officially in the homerun lead. Nice work big guy (squeezes his massive bicep). It’s true what they say I suppose, Chicks do dig the long ball.”

Now I don’t know a better way to get a guy goin’ than droppin’ his own stats on him. That’s the most primitive of all sports aphrodisiacs. This works in the dating scene especially. When you’re fighting other girls over that guy, this is the ultimate trump card. The x-factor. The Mariano Rivera cut fastball. Simply unfair.

Mom’s can look at pictures of their sons and daughters online. Buddies can watch videos of their friend’s ankle-breaking touchdown run. Fans can be connected to the teams of the people they love in their life. It’s a beautiful thing. So beautiful, you could sleep in until 11am on Saturday and still catch that 1pm gametime.

Pre-Season:

Ok, so you’re a player without a team but you want to compete in the upcoming season.  You could just show up on Day One and hope somebody picks you up.  Or you could submit your name to the league and let the ‘gods of flag football fate’ throw you on a roster.

Or, with Sports4E you create a profile online, showing a picture, details of your physique, leagues/teams you’ve previously played for, stats from seasons prior, and the type of team you are looking for.  Then, Coaches come looking for you.  They want a Adrian Peterson prototype, you happen to be 6’1” and 220lbs, perfect.  They need a shooter, and your stats list 42% on 3-pointers, Bingo.

Mid-Season:

Ok, now let’s suppose you are on a team with people you know, it’s no accident, you planned on gettin’ in there and winning the championship all along.  With Sports4E your Road to the Final can be so much easier, and more exciting at that.  With new features, you can access information that was nearly impossible before now.  *Here’s a few scenarios.

Standings

• “So who’s in first this year?”
• “I don’t know, but those Charleston Chuggers beat us pretty good, wouldn’t be surprised if they’re undefeated.”
• “You’d think, but I heard The Dunkers beat them by 20.”
• “What?  Seriously?  Didn’t we beat The Dunkers?  Wasn’t that the overtime game we had?”
• “No.  Overtime was against Coffee Break.  We suck.  Shoulda never gone to overtime against a team named Coffee Break.”

Nobody knows the standings.  It’s all postulation and conjecture.  Everybody has their own mental standings, and generally they are all wrong. With Sports4E, you can receive standing updates from your league or club so everyone is on the same page.

Stats:

• “So how’d you play last week?”
• “Pretty good, pretty good.  I mean I wasn’t keeping track, ya know, but I was feelin’ it.  Hit like 7 threes.  Dropped 43 points on ‘em.”
• “43?  Wow, that’s interesting.  I read on Sports4E that you had 6 points.  I mean, if you were gonna score like Ben Wallace you could have at least pulled down some boards.  I mean, 4?  C’mon.  You’re 250 pounds, show us something.”

With a new stats feature you can keep track of statistics for your friends, teammates, archrivals, and of course, yourself. You can also receive stats with levels of certification from your coach, league, fans, or third-party software. Players and fans can verify your stats to raise your legitimacy online.

Smack Talk

And finally, why not use the internet for ultimate evil and sports pleasure: trash-talking.  With Sports4E you can go up to that first place nemesis and give them the verbal beat down before the big showdown Thursday night.  Then you can talk about the pending effects of your comments to your boys like you were anchoring Pardon the Interruption:

“George from George’s Plumbing said that Team Touchdown better watch out Tuesday or he just might score 9 times against their sieve-like defense.  What do you think?  Over or Under: 9 touchdowns Tuesday?”

Get scouted, sign up, pay your fee, sign your waiver, keep track of game times and locations, follow the standings, analyze up-to-date stats, and dish out your best trash-talk you can muster, all in one place, Sports4E.  Transform that adult league experience into the real-deal, the closest thing to being in the pros you’ll ever see.

THE OLD WAY

Organization:

It’s one thing to be sitting around a t.v. watching Monday Night Football saying, “Gee Bobby, it sure would be fun to suit up like the good ‘ol days and play some ball again, wouldn’t it?” It’s entirely different, however, to actually find yourself on the field the first game with eleven guys, evenly dispersed among the various positions, all paid up and ready to play (with matching jerseys of course, self-anointed nicknames on the back, OF COURSE!).

The Reality:

• Everyone you talk to and attempt to persuade to join your team will half-commit, and nearly all will say, “Yeah, I’m pretty sure I have two or three guys I could call that would totally play!” So on your tentative sign-up sheet you see some 19-25 names. When game time comes however, you look around and find about 7 guys that claim they are on your team, and you hope and pray some vagabonds will be found unsigned hanging near the field that will play so you can avoid forfeiting your first game, starting the season 0-1.
• Once you do get commitments (supposing you didn’t have to forfeit your first 3 games), there are still aspects of organization that must be taken care of by you, the Coach. By this time, a good 50% of your team still haven’t paid (leaving you juggling your account like a circus clown, because you fronted the $400 bill).
• Players haven’t filled out the safety and security waiver, so you force them to sign it 3 minutes before the coin toss, and they don’t know their medical provider or doctor, and perhaps don’t have anyone to contact if they get hurt (you think, great, special teams for sure).

*Organizing a hodge-podge bunch of busy adults is about as easy as calculating the equation for Quarterback Rating; it can be done, but it’s much better to leave it to the experts.

Communication:

Each week, game times need to be relayed to players as well. Game locations need the same. Perhaps you, the ambitious Captain, want to set up a practice during the week. Yet another set of calls/emails must be sent regarding time and location.

The Reality

• You are trying to receive RSVPs and keep a mental checklist to know how many can make it, and then divide players into various positions to complete the roster.
• Inevitably you will end up with Joey, a 155 pound IT guy playing Offensive Line, or Steve, the 320 pound bartender, who couldn’t chase down a wounded sloth, playing free safety.

*Your ideal lineup never all shows up for the same game, I guarantee it.

THE NEW WAY

Organization

With Sports4E, Coaches can be in complete control of organization, rather than the proverbial chicken-with-it’s-head-cut-off-on-his-cellphone-at-all-times.

• Your team can be created on the website so your players can actually sign up online. They can tell their friends to sign up as well and you can chart the progress off your roster. Rather than guessing if you have enough players to field a team, you can know exactly who you have for Saturday’s big opener.
• You can even search for and contact players who need teams (free agents, if you will) and contact them to sign up with your team (signing bonus?).
• Once you get your squad, players can pay and sign waivers online, leaving you out of the picture for collecting forms and keeping track of checks, cash, and I.O.Us. The website takes care of it all. You can spend valuable time focusing on your playbook, exploiting mismatches, and practicing your touchdown dance (or Ace Dance, or Ground-Rule Double Dance, or Gutter-Ball Dance, depending on what sport you play).

Communication

Once your season begins, the website becomes the central hub for your team. Players will access the site to see upcoming games for times and locations.

• Hopefully you won’t get that 5-minute before tipoff phone call from Jim, your star player, saying, “8? I thought you said ‘LATE’ game, at noon. Ok, I’m on my way. Franklin Gym? I coulda swore it was at the YMCA! Welp, maybe I’ll see ya for the second half. Perhaps overtime.”

*I paint a pretty bleak picture, but I have yet to play in an adult league where these examples were not the reality. In fact, I have honestly played in and won 3 championship games on teams I DID NOT play for. I simply received a call from a coach-friend who could not guarantee enough players for the finale. I stepped in, wore a random reversible jersey, and received my free Championship t-shirt. No joke. Lack of organization and communication is absolutely the norm in adult leagues. But with Sports4E, that no longer needs to be the case.

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…

I’ve been a league coordinator for 12 years and have seen how much we love to play. But aside from the exercise, what keeps us playing? Typically, you don’t see a lot of awards in amateur athletics, and bragging rights don’t mean much when no one is listening. Ah, but the love of the game, that’s what forces me to continue even through the several days it takes my body to recover.

After doing some research, I have found that there are over 50 million adults and 40 million youth who are involved in some sort of sports league. Whether it’s Little League baseball or co-ed softball, team sports is a healthy part of living an active lifestyle. Then it hit me, what if there was something to play for in addition to the love of the game… a little bit of drama in amateur athletics?

What if league coordinators could write articles or blogs about how teams in their league play? Or, what if teams could find a way to scout each other? Well, I personally think it’s a crying shame that more leagues don’t offer elements in their league that make them unique. Then again, speaking as a league coordinator, I barely have time to put the league together, not to mention ranking top teams in my league, or writing about a championship game. If only leagues were as easy to set up as you would a fantasy team.

Enter Sports 4E. The founders of Sports 4E are passionate about the inner athlete in all of us and the good that competitive sports provide. We have spent years gathering feedback from coordinators and players and would like to share with you some of our ideas. Sports4E would like to…

• Provide a tool for League Coordinators to greatly reduce hours of setting up leagues, allowing them more time to do other things.
• Supply Coaches with a web page that communicates to past, present and future players.
• Give confidence to Players within a like-minded community to post their thoughts of the game, stats, and even talk a little smack.

Sports4E has entered the development phase and will be launching our beta site in March of 2008. If you are a league coordinator, coach, player, or fan take a minute to register with us and be a part of our beta launch. We welcome your thoughts and comments and hope you enjoy our blogs.