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.

When first conceptualized three decades ago, tournament co-director Carol Maas said that about 50-60 teams were expected and 162 participated in the event.

“They came from all over,” she said.

Maas, who is now in her 25th year helping to oversee what is arguably the Dayton region’s premier youth soccer tournament, if not its premier youth sporting event, sees her participation with the adidas Warrior Classic as a true “labor of love.”

Asked if she has issues dealing with the complexities of managing the event Maas responded, “Some days yes, most days not.”

She went further to explain that from the very first tournament she knew she had “fallen in love” with the event as it was “very clear in my mind from the very first tournament we had.”

She has also been very pleased watching and observing a dedicated volunteer base grow in experience and dedication with the “progression of the tournament.”

This year the Warrior Soccer Club will add a fall event in October for the first time.

“We have had some people comment that they can see how what they have done for this event will work for the fall event,” Maas said.

Now about those numbers.
The event is expected to have an eight million dollar impact on the Dayton region, over 500 teams (about 512) are expected to participate in age division running from 6-years-old to adult, this is of course the 25th anniversary event, and five sites in two counties will host games. New to the event this year is the debut of the Warrior Soccer Complex off Fishburg Road in Huber Heights.

Maas said that the adidas Warrior Classic receives tremendous support from the city of Huber Heights, Montgomery County, and two primary sponsors, adidas and Kettering Medical Center’s Sports Medicine Center. Athletic apparel giant adidas came on board almost 20 years ago, and Kettering Medical has been on board from the outset, a fact drawing praise from Maas, “I think it is huge what Kettering Sports Medicine has done.”

As for her role, Maas does see a day in the not so distant future where she will be in a reduced role.

“I’m gradually trying to turn the jobs over,” she said. “When you get into an event with 500 teams there is a lot of work to do.”

Yet she said a personal motto has helped sustain her over the years when it comes to dealing with all of the work.
“You only eat an elephant one bite at a time,” she said.

Maas credits the support she has received from her family, including her husband Hank, who has worked as a scheduler and in field maintenance, as a blessing.

“My family is quite heavily involved,” she said, noting that her grandchildren are participating in the 2011 event. “It has been a family event.”

Though she has many memories from the past 24 events, two stand out, if not because of their significance but for their reminding her that without the dedicated support of adidas Warrior Classic volunteers there would be no event.

“We played over at fields at Wright-Patterson AFB until 9/11 (2001), and it was about 10th or 12th event,” she said, reminiscing. “At the Friday night registration event we had at the Dayton Marriot (a tradition that carries on to this day) we heard and saw the thunder and lightning moving into the area.

“The next day when we went to the fields at WPAFB (near the National Museum of the USAF) all of our tents had fallen down,” she said due to the storm the previous night. “Our volunteers took what they could find, using what was not damaged and we had what were lean-to’s to work out of.”

A storm at another event caused fields to be quite soggy, and back in the day when goal posts were made of steel, they were quite heavy. Tractors used to place the goals on the fields left the fields rutted, and unusable.

Thus Maas said, “25-30 people helped carry the goals to where they needed to go.”

She said she has a photograph of that event to remind her of the dedication of the volunteer spirit that permeates the event.

The adidas Warrior Soccer Classic runs May 27-30, 2011.

Twitter is a service that you can use to fire out quick updates or messages to your followers. This makes it a great tool for youth soccer tournaments and tournament directors because they can immediately announce game scores, special promotions or upcoming events on their smart phones, computers or via text messaging.

Here’s how to set up your Twitter soccer tournament account:

1. Go to twitter.com and push the “Sign Up” Button

2. Set up a Twitter user name using 20 characters max that reflects your tournament name. Don’t select these under an individual’s name. You will also have to select a password. You will need an email account that has not been used for another Twitter account, so if you have your own personal Twitter account, you may want to sign up for a Gmail account first.

3. Select other twitter accounts that you would like to follow. These could be other soccer or tournament related accounts. By following others, others will follow you.

4. With your first tweet, tell the world about your event in 140 characters or less.

5. Set up your profile. Here you will upload your tournament logo in a 200px x200px jpg format. You will also provide a name, location, website and a brief bio.

6. In the design step, you can customize the way Twitter looks for you and how your profile looks to others. Start with a pre-designed theme — and then, optionally, customize it with your own color scheme and background image.

7. Fill in your Twitter account in your Web Maintenance>Site Variables set up on your TourneyCentral website. Your Twitter badge will then display on the left rail so teams and their fans can follow you easily.

Our Advice: Use Twitter to Tweet updates before, during and after your event. Any time you post new content on your website, send a quick Tweet out along with a link back to your website.

Your TourneyCentral website is integrated with Twitter. When you update scores, you can send that update notice to your Twitter account. You can also fill in a Twitter account for your advertisers so that a Twitter button appears in their DEALS listing.

Send updates to Twitter during the event, such as sponsor coupons, reminders of lunch specials at concessions, lost and found, etc. Here is an example of what a soccer tournament Twitter account can look like.

This is the third in a five-part series on Social Media for Soccer Tournaments. Next up: Setting up YouTube and Flickr accounts.

Social media is a huge cloud of things like blogging, tweets, likes and status updates so it is easy to become overwhelmed and do nothing.

But you need to roll up your sleeves get in there. We’ll help you along the way with this “social media for soccer tournaments” series.*

Social media is becoming integrated into the online experience for most people, so if you have not learned to navigate these waters, you may be risking the reach of your tournament. Social media channels can help you reach coaches and teams where they live and help you keep them updated and interested in your event.

Do not assume Facebook and Twitter are for kids. The largest and fastest growing demographic for Facebook and Twitter is age 35-55. That means a player’s mom, dad or coach is more likely to “like” you on Facebook or “follow” you on Twitter. While most kids over 13 yrs old will have a Facebook account, they connect with their friends, not with brands. If they happen to take a cool photo at your tournament, they may or may not post it. But if they do post it, they will post on their profile, not your tournament page. It’s nothing personal; just how kids use Facebook. Their parents on the other hand, may be more likely to interact on your Facebook page.

Essential social media for soccer tournaments
Social media for soccer tournaments can be boiled down to a few core essential channels: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr. But keep this maxim in mind: Social media channels are OUTPOSTS designed to extend the reach of your tournament website and bring teams back to you. It is easy to start engaging in tangent conversation but remember all this data and information — once updated on these sites — does not belong to you. It is “rented space.”

Google is slow to index content on Facebook (better on the other channels) but the index points to that channel, not your website. Ultimately, you would like to rank high in a Google search so it is best if you push out content that Google indexes quickly. Updating your front page news on your TourneyCentral website is best, followed by tweets to Twitter, videos to YouTube and finally Facebook and Flickr.

Prep work
As with most things, good solid prep work makes the job easier. Do these four things:

1. Make a SQUARE 200px x 200px logo (avatar) for your tournament. Make sure it is consistent with your tournament logo.
2. Write a short description of your tournament not to exceed 140 characters. (really, under 140 characters) and
3. Set up a gmail.com account as the email account for all your social media channels.
4. Establish a process for securing passwords and access to each social media account. DO NOT establish under an individual’s name. Use your tournament and make the access board-level.

How to use each channel
Facebook: Set up a Facebook FAN PAGE — not a profile — using the name of your tournament. When you post some news about your tournament on the front page of your website, also update the status on Facebook. Do not copy the entire news item content, just a few key items. Then add a link back to your site. If you have an interesting photo, or video, publish that to Facebook as well, with a caption. Be sure to add a link back to your website.

Twitter: Set up a Twitter account using 20 characters max that reflects your tournament name. Your TourneyCentral website is integrated with Twitter. When you update scores, you can send that update notice to your Twitter account. Send quick updates to Twitter during the event, such as sponsor coupons, reminders of lunch specials at concessions, lost and found, etc.

YouTube: Take short videos of some behind-the-scenes, a welcome message from the tournament director, some short game footage etc and upload them to your YouTube account. You can also embed video into your front page and about page of you TourneyCentral website.

Flickr: A great place to upload photos of your tournament. Once there, you can share them with your Facebook and Twitter accounts. Again, make sure you caption them and link back to your tournament website.

In the next week or so, we will have a step-by-step how to on each of these channels, so be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

The 90 Minute Attention Span
At TourneyCentral, we like to refer to the time your teams are focused on your tournament as the “90 Minute Attention Span.” This isn’t a good or bad thing, it is just a way of saying that players, coaches and their families care about your event while they are there. Before that, they are busy with their lives. When they leave, they will again be busy with their lives. Your tournament may not ever enter their field of vision until next year.

The goal is to expand their 90 Minute Attention Span by a few seconds or even a full minute. Extend your reach into Facebook and Twitter by giving players and their families a place to “hook” into you as they stream their lives. If they are at your tournament, they should be tweeting “Having a great time at @yourevent” instead of saying “at a soccer tournament this weekend.” If you have a Twitter account, you get named. If not, you don’t.

Our Advice: Be on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr but make sure all the real action happens on your website. It can get easy to get caught up in the hype about “500 million users are on Facebook” and forget why YOU are there.

Make the social media channels a serious part of your marketing and engagement strategy. Do not delegate it off to a “kid in the club.” It is far too valuable to hand off to a kid. Learn social media as seriously as you would learn how to make a schedule.

There are also other channels that you can explore like Tumblr, Rededit, Digg etc. But Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Flickr provide a strong core of social media for your soccer tournament. Keep in mind that each channel requires more time and effort to maintain and you should only start with more if you are committed to keeping up these accounts.

This is the first in a five-part series on Social Media for Soccer Tournaments. Next up: Setting up a Facebook Page.

*Check back for some expanded services.

Soccer tournament directors are aware of the ways that tournaments reward teams who place in their event. This is a story of one recent tournament where one small detail really damaged the reputation of an otherwise fine event.

A team of U13 boys played very well in a third-place game and beat a team they had lost to quite soundly the week before. The tournament was giving out water bottles as a third-place trophy.

It was not long after the presentation that one of the boys walked up to his coach and said, “Hey coach, look at this.” On the water bottle, the words, “BELIEVE, ACHEIVE,” appeared wrapped around the tournament logo.

Only the the word “ACHIEVE” is spelled incorrectly.

While the coach was proud that his players had paid attention to their spelling lessons in school, he was amazed and embarrassed for the tournament organizers. It was all anybody could talk about.

A few weeks later, the tournament sent t-shirts to the boys as a replacement.

Our Advice: Work with a trusted vendor. Somewhere along the line, a busy tournament volunteer rubber-stamped the artwork for the water bottle without taking a real look at it. Bad enough, but a true vendor partner would have questioned the artwork regardless of the approval signature. The mistake was more costly than just the price of the water bottle and the replacement t-shirts. It became the stamp of the tournament.

The vendor should have picked up the phone.

The vendor should have picked up the phone.

In the world of on-line soccer tournament management systems, you get what you pay for. There are services available for tournament directors that come at no cost. One of the most common goals of any youth soccer tournament is to make as much money as possible for the host club. This tempts some to use free services or to depend on a guy in the club who can, “do websites.”

Peak times, like Sunday afternoons, are when you find out that cheap and free are really damaging and costly. That’s when everybody, including the guy in the club who is now watching his kids play, wants up-to-date scores and schedules. You may have saved a few bucks or reduced your entry fee, but the cost to your image and your tournament’s legacy can be devastating.

Our Advice: A website is no longer just “something over there for the tech guys.” It IS the event.

Work with a tournament web site host who has the bandwidth, the experience and the people who are willing to monitor your website for maximum performance, during the tournament, before and after. Your soccer tournament now is a 365 day a year, 24 hours a day, 7 day a week event. You want to work with someone who also understands that. Preferably someone you can email or call to solve problems as quickly as they arise.

Free and cheap rarely gets you that.

The graphic below shows an example of an unfriendly versus friendly layout.

Web-Unfriendly

Web-Friendly

Most of the time, your maps will come from a parks department or a graphic designer who has designed them to be great for printing in a program, but almost entirely unreadable on a web site. Make sure to specify that you need the maps to work across ALL media — online and in print. If need be, be ready to re-work them with large field numbers however you can if your graphics people can’t. Even if that means white sticky dots and a Sharpie.

Keep your field maps simple and readable. Big field numbers first, secondary information only if there is room. You can always have more detailed maps posted at the fields.

For a player, parent or coach visiting the tournament website, there is no reason to click on the logo if there is no additional information. They know all that is going to happen is a visit to the sponsor’s website. But they don’t know why they would go there other than being sold something, so they don’t click.

Sometimes the easiest thing to ask for is to “make the logo bigger” but the more effective strategy is to make the sponsorship footprint bigger. Think what your sponsor means to the player, parent or coach. Ask the sponsor what special information they have for your audience and make that the SuperDeal. Then ask for a flyer or coupon This does not even need to be a discount, just more information targeted to your tournament-goers and their fans. And a video never, ever hurts. It could even be the sponsor welcoming the teams to your tournament.

If you want to go further, you can post a news story on your front page and email it to the teams. If your sponsor relies on foot traffic during the event, you could send text messages from the Team Applications Module to the team contacts, sparingly of course. You could also tweet out offers using your twitter account.

Think about how you can increase your sponsor’s footprint instead of just their logo size. Chances are, if they have success in year one, they’ll keep coming back every year.

Late applications
With the expectation of online registration, many teams are waiting until the last week or so to apply to the tournament, especially those that require full payment up front with the application. While this affects planning and can create anxiety not knowing which teams are coming, quality soccer tournaments need not worry as your tournament has been on the team’s calendar.

Early bird discounts don’t work but perhaps scheduling preferences or coaching conflict resolution guarantees for teams that apply early might be more of an incentive.

Also, if you have a high percentage of teams that travel in, check your hotel reservations. Teams may not necessarily apply early, but many will book rooms early.

No early morning Saturdays
To save money, teams are trying not to stay at hotels on Friday night, instead opting to drive in that morning. Most wait until they have been accepted and send an email, saying “oh, by the way, we need a late Saturday start….” We have no resolution for this as most tournaments have to play two games per team on Saturday to fit in a third round and championship games on Sunday. State associations have rules against playing more than two games per day and the math just doesn’t work. You can’t create more fields and you can’t make more daylight. Moreover, the coach and parents should recognize the dangers of playing a team that is not well-rested. You may want to point that out to him/her or even deny them admission due to increased liability for the tournament.

Multiple team coaches, no conflicts
A few years back, it used to be that only a handful of coaches had multiple teams. Now, it seems every club is doing this. Many teams will wait until you have accepted them and THEN tell you their coach is coaching multiple teams. (Many of these coaches also are requesting all their games start later on Saturday, a double whammy.) Again, the math just doesn’t work.

Our advice: You need teams to hold a tournament, but you can’t have teams dictate the terms under which they will play. Spell out the terms of acceptance UP FRONT on your application form by telling the teams the tournament starts at 8:00am on Saturday and finishes after the last championship game is played on Sunday. If they can not commit to being available for the entire time, they need to apply elsewhere.

Also, coaches conflicts are theirs to resolve, not the tournament’s. While most tournaments will do what they can to avoid conflicts, the sheer number of coaches with multiple teams almost guarantees somebody will be unhappy.

You may also want to establish “convenience fees” for teams requesting special treatment. For example, no coaching conflicts; $300/team. Late Saturday start; $450/team. Publish these early, confirm on application with an email.

Remember, the teams are applying into YOUR soccer tournament because the tournament is a good fit for their team, not the other way around. If your product does not meet their expectations, there are enough soccer tournaments now that will — for a while until they can no longer accommodate the demands. Just make sure your tournament maintains its high standards you worked hard to achieve and all teams play by the same set of rules.