One Ohio soccer tournament made a bit of national news lately with a neighboring city setting up speed cameras and issuing over 900 tickets. The soccer tournament pled a good case, citing good will and economic impact for the city. The police from the neighboring city had not been in contact with them regarding this enforcement effort, even as the host city police were helping out directing traffic in and out of the park. That alone probably helped plead the case for “forgiving” the tickets.

Contrary to what most people think, the police don’t just ticket people for easy money. The first priority for the police is road safety and preventing accidents. When they see a car racing by at 40-50 mph on a road that is posted at 25 mph, they are going to do something about it. If they see many, many cars doing the same thing, they are going to sit there and pick you off, soccer tournament or not.

What the police know about soccer parents
I have driven to more away soccer tournaments with my kids than I care to recall. Here is what typically happens. We have an 8:00am game, but the coach says we should be at the field at 7:30. No problem. We live an hour away, so we leave at 6:15 am. Plenty of time. Everyone wakes up at 5:50, shower, pack, someone can’t find the left shinguard, oops.. it is now 6:25. No problem, we’ll make up time.

We get on the road, but swing into the Tim Horton’s for coffee. It is now 6:43 and we’re still an hour away. We “make up” a bit of time on the freeway and get to the city the tournament is in at 7:28. But there is a very, very long line of cars waiting to get into the park. It is a one-way turn onto a gravel road. A panicky thirteen year-old is screaming at me that she will be late and the coach will make her run if I don’t get moving. And she has to pee.

I am not paying attention to the road, to the cars around me or anything else except my phone buzzing with text messages from the OneCallNow service, reminding me to have my kid who is screaming at me from the back seat, on the field eight minutes ago. I am a ball of stress who has no business behind the wheel of this much moving steel.

We get to the field, but I narrowly miss a gang of parents and their kids ambling across the parking lot with a popup tent, three coolers and a portable grill.

“It was only fair,” I console myself. “They weren’t paying attention as well.”

After the game, we fast-walk back to the car so we can drive into town and get some breakfast. There is only one road out of the park and twenty-two other teams who also had 8:00am games all have the same idea. We pull out of the parking spot, drive 20 feet and wait. And wait. And wait. By the time we get to the road out, we gun the engine and race to the main road. I know the speed limit was posted at something less than what I was doing, but I was too pissed off to be paying attention to the road. I wanted OUT.

Our advice: I suspect that the police will set up the cameras again next year, but this time post very large signs letting parents know that they will be ticketed if they speed. The speed limit is posted for a reason that has nothing to do with your soccer tournament being held at the park once a year. So, you have to work with that.

Talk to neighboring cities Make sure the police department is on the same page as you are with your event. Approach them with the attitude that you want all of your teams to arrive and leave safely. They will respond to your concern. They do not want to deal with fender-benders or worse, accidents that involve injuries, especially when kids are involved.

Talk to your teams Make sure they are aware of all posted speed limits and that — while the police are there to keep them safe — they will get a ticket for speeding. Most parents will be extra cautious if they know of “speed traps” ahead of time. Use your website, email and social media networks. Post large signs at the park exits, especially if the exit is a long straightaway road that is a temptation to speed.

Direct traffic Have some volunteers direct traffic out of the park to keep the “you go, I go” rule fair. Make sure they wear really bring shirts and reflective gear.

The police and cities want your teams back, but they don’t want to clean up traffic messes. And parents also want to arrive and leave safely. A little bit of prep work, a lot of communication and mutual respect go a long way toward making sure everyone feels welcome and secure.

And then if an impatient parent chooses to speed, I guarantee that the rest of the team parents won’t have much empathy for that decision.

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.

The photograph above was taken at the Hershey Soccer Club meeting on Tuesday, March 15, 2011.

This donation was a result of the 2010 Hershey Invitational Charity Soccer Tournament played on June 19-20, 2010. The tournament raised $16,000 for the Special Olympics Area M and also $16,000 for the Hole in the Wall Gang Camps. The Hershey Invitational is organized and run by Kicks 4 Kids Charity Soccer Tournaments. To date, Kicks 4 Kids has raised $177,618 for organizations that serve disadvantaged youth.

The 2011 Hershey Invitational will be played on the weekend of June 18-19, and will benefit the Special Olympics Area M and Ronald McDonald House of Hershey. The tournament is expected to host 230 teams from Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Maryland, Delaware and Virginia.

The Hershey Invitational website can be found here.

There will be a special place in heaven for youth soccer tournament directors. These largely volunteer people give countless hours of their free time to help raise funds for their club and give kids a chance to play competitive soccer. They have to convince teams to play, armies of volunteers to work and sponsors to participate. There is no doubt that, at least on some level, tournament directors love the game of soccer.

But running a successful tournament needs more than just enthusiasm and “want to”. It requires the ability to remove yourself from the emotions and personalities and make real business decisions. Teams that sign up to play and the fans that follow them are real customers. Sponsors that support your event, even the ones who do it for good will purposes, are real business partners.

Our Advice: It’s time to realize that you are not in the Soccer Business. You are in the Event Management Business that happens to feature a youth soccer tournament. Highly successful events take a good hard look at every aspect of their event and make educated business decisions on what they should do, and what they should not. Those who leave things to chance, well, they leave things to chance. Being a volunteer does not mean you have to be an amateur.

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.

Last night, Charlie decided he was going to take his message directly to the people with a live show streamed onto the Internet. You can watch it if you have an hour to kill. I’ve included a screen shot below to illustrate everything that was wrong with the show.

The lighting was bad. The sound bounced hard all over the room. Nobody was mic-ed. The cameras were positioned too low, Charlie did not get proper cues on which camera was live so he was frequently looking into the wrong one. The background was busy. The titles at the bottom covered the action. There were too many “branding” phrases thrown out. I could go on and on. There were a lot of things wrong with the show technically as well as contextually.

There is a reason there is a long list of people who get credit at the end of TV shows. I’m not taking anything away from Charlie Sheen’s talent and he brings a lot to shows like Two and a Half Men and Spin City. But when celebrities begin to think that they alone are responsible for their own fame and attempt to produce their own content, the public quickly finds out how very wrong they are.

Our Advice: Your tournament is run by a team, not just the tournament director. Your event may very well have a talented, dedicated leader and a team that is willing to give them all the credit. That is a good thing. But once the tournament director starts believing his/her own press, your event is headed for trouble.

You could argue that Charlie’s show was “real” and “genuine” or that your tournament is “fun” and “like family.” You would be wrong. What you see as fun, loose and ‘like being with family,’ your paying teams see as messy, unorganized and apathetic. It takes a lot of work (and acting skill) to appear nonchalant. The character of Charlie Harper (Two and a Half Men) can pull it off. Charlie Sheen? Not so much.

Recognize and appreciate your team and their skills in their specialized area, from your sales team to your scheduling team to your website crew. Never think yourself bigger than the sum of them.

They made you great. Never underestimate their power to unmake you. Or — just like Charlie Sheen is doing before our eyes — you unmaking yourself.

There is no getting around it, running a youth soccer tournament is a lot of work. Even the most organized tournament directors with the best clubs and best software tools take on a huge responsibility. In the end, the hard work is balanced out by the rewards of seeing kids enjoying the game and putting a nice amount of money in the club’s accounts and the local economy. Everybody wants to be considered successful. When it comes to success, an old saying comes to mind, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.” A well thought out and executed communication plan, starting at the time of registration and acceptance, can help save headaches later, when you should be concentrating on something else.

Never assume that coaches who are accepted into your soccer tournament automatically know what the next step is. It is as simple as this: tell them what to do and when to do it. Starting with your acceptance letter, include a timeline or checklist of any items that need to be completed prior to the tourney. Be clear about the dates and if there is any further information or payment needed. Make sure that you also comply by sticking to stated dates.

Anticipate questions and make sure that your tournament website includes the answers. Push as much of the information and communication needs onto your website as possible. It is helpful if your soccer tournament website is more than just a static recruiting tool. A complete, end-to-end soccer tournament management system, like those offered by TourneyCentral, is well worth the investment. Cheap and free systems always have limitations which are more costly in the end.

This may seem like a lot of upfront work, but you’ll be thankful as your tournament dates get closer. It brings to mind another old saying, “You can pay me now, or you can pay me later.”

For many soccer tournaments, the immediate goal is to make money for the club or the league. That has to be done for the tournament to continue year after year. But beyond making money, think about how your event is leaving a legacy for each soccer player who participates, each coach who brings their team to play another and each parent who spends the weekend with their kid in the company of other kids and parents. Think about how your tournament shapes your community and contributes to its legacy.

Will your tournament be the subject of a story around the Thanksgiving table that starts out as, “Remember when we went to …” and ends with uncontrollable fits of laughter, followed by knowing glances and wistful sighs?

Our advice: Think about the intangibles about twice as much as you think about the operational parts of your tournament. These things include fair play, good referees, short lines at the concession stand, quality hotels, fun things to do between games, good communication with coaches, friendly field marshals and cheerful volunteers. Update scores as fast as you can. Make sure your maps are clear and correct. Never assume everyone knows what “you are here” means. And perform random acts of kindness, no matter how tired you are or how late it is.

Tell compelling, positive stories about your tournament and the players, coaches and families to anyone who will listen. Share them on your website or blog.

Stay humble and never forget the teams who are playing at your tournament are your guests who chose to come to your event among a large and growing market.

These are the things that create a soccer tournament legacy worth passing on.

This blog post is part of a blog-off series with a group of bloggers from different professions and world views, each exploring a theme from his/her world view. This was about “answering the question, “What is legacy?”” To explore how others handled the theme, check them out below. I will add links as they publish.

Most youth soccer tournaments are run by volunteers who generously dedicate huge chunks of their time, talent and sometimes even their own money because they love the game and love to see kids get a chance to compete on a high level. But a youth soccer tournament represents big business to the clubs that sponsor them and to the business community in host cities.

There is a new resource for directors of these events and all others who want to share their knowledge or perhaps pick up a thing or two. If you have not already done so, join the Soccer Tournaments Mean Business Group on LinkedIn and start to share thoughts and network with other like-minded, dedicated soccer folks.

Social media is picking up momentum as a means of communication for business professionals in all walks of life. LinkedIn is the recognized leader for people who would rather separate their business interests from their other social networking activity on Facebook and Twitter.

Sharing ideas and making contacts with tournament directors from around the world can put your event on the forefront of using the latest and best tools, software and procedures that will make your event more attractive to youth soccer teams and to the sponsors who want their name and business attached to a winner.

The group was started by TourneyCentral, a provider of integrated online solution for youth soccer tournaments, but is open to everyone in the youth soccer tournament world who wants to dial up the professionalism of their event.

Mark Peebles checks the smoker in his Englewood restaurant.

The adidas Warrior Soccer Classic soccer tournament, one of the largest youth soccer tournaments in the United States, will see a new food vendor in 2010.

Oink-A-Doodle-Moo, a bar-b-que restaurant in Englewood is testing the waters so to speak, and will be at Thomas Cloud Park in Huber Heights, near Dayton, Ohio, for the event on Memorial Day Weekend.

“This is another avenue to get exposure,” said Mark Peebles, Oink-A-Doodle-Moo’s president and founder. “We like being part of the community and supporting youth sports teams.”

This is the second youth soccer tournament that Oink-A-Doodle-Moo will be at tempting tourney attendees with items from is savory menu. And if Peebles has his way, the passion emanating from Carol Maas, Director of the adidas Warrior Soccer Classic, and Gerard McLean of TourneyCentral will lead to other forays at youth soccer tournaments in the Dayton, Ohio area.

“I didn’t grow up playing soccer, but when I see Gerard and Carol and see their passion, it gets you excited to be associated with something like this,” Peebles said.

Plus, being at an event where participants and attendees come from literally all over the USA is beneficial for business.

“We are gaining exposure in the local area, but because we have a franchise plan set up we are able to possibly recruit people from other cities as well,” Peebles said.

Oink-A-Doodle-Moo conservatively estimates it will sell in excess of 200 pounds of meat, and go through a dozen or more gallons of sauce.