Tag Archives: trust

sunrise over soccer fields

Soccer in the trust economy

Who do you trust?

It’s not an idle question for us. From the very first day we launched TourneyCentral, we wanted the tournament systems we created to be about the tournament event, not our own self-promotion. Our mission has always been an attempt to solve one problem; get that one player to the right game at the right time. When we do that well, everything else falls into place.

We vowed back then — 19 years ago — that each event would own its own data, its own advertising and sponsors. We would never resell or share your hard-earned data in any way.

Our rock-solid software and support would be OUR branding, that we would support your marketing efforts; because your success is our success. Your branding of quick scoring, accurate scheduling and the information teams need to attend and compete readily available would keep them coming back — win, lose or draw. While we sometimes take some heat for being a “template” solution, we know deep in our bones that the teams breathe a sign of relief when they get to your tournament website and see everything there, with no nonsense to get what they need to do; apply, register, view the schedule and maps and get their scores.

You deserve to trust that when you have a question or issue about your event site (or just want some advice) we are there to help you; not as an email 48 hours later, but a human being who cares as much about your event as you do.

It has paid off and we continue to support these values even as the trend has been to collect and monetize data. That’s just not how we roll. We will never sell your data.

With that in mind, we hope you’ll check out and support the tournaments we care for each season. The QR Code below will bring you to our calendar.

We’ll see you on the pitch!

Tell me which teams have applied and I will apply to your soccer tournament if I like them

We are seeing more and more requests from coaches for the soccer tournament to give them the list of teams that have already applied for them to “evaluate” whether or not the tournament would be a good fit for their team. This has us scratching our heads a bit.

Nobody likes to pay money to compete in a tournament only to get stuck in a division with top level teams or, in my opinion, stuck with teams that offer no competition. I get that. But I don’t get is why the guest team coach feels the need to evaluate the teams that have applied prior to applying to a tournament.

Perhaps it is an erosion of trust between soccer tournaments and soccer coaches. Perhaps it is an increased need for the coach to “control” every aspect of the game. Perhaps it is increased pressure from the parents on the coach to place their team in tournaments where they can be “competitive” (whatever that ultimately means.)

Chris Brogan, who is a bit of a guru in the Social Media space, wrote a book called Trust Agents. It deals primarily with trust in online social media spaces like Twitter, Facebook, etc. but it touches a bit on how trust is becoming a currency. As tournaments are becoming more sophisticated, they will need to learn also on how to deal in a trust economy. It’s a quick, easy read.

Our advice: Always be giving guest teams a reason to trust you. Post your schedule from last year and encourage them to take a look at the teams that applied and analyze the point spreads. Every TourneyCentral soccer tournament is a 365/24/7 event that has last year’s schedule available until the application deadline. Use that to your advantage.

Take a really hard, objective look at your seeding. Do your club teams seems to walk away with the trophies every year? Why? Do you have an opinion that your club teams should be able to win your own tournament? Why? Given the choice between bringing in competitive teams for your club teams to play and getting better versus winning a trophy by seeding your teams lower, which is more valuable for the long-term growth of your club? Your tournament? Do guest teams walk off grumbling about how “the fix is in” for the club teams to win? If so, change that.

Trust is everything and will only become more valuable. If teams don’t trust you to place them correctly in your tournament, they will eventually go elsewhere. When they trust you, they’ll quit asking and let your history and reputation speak for itself.