Soccer Tournament Review

Soccer America has gone and done it again! They published an article we wrote for their Grassroots Soccer Biz newsletter entitled ‘Getting In The News: 8 Simple Rules For Success’.

I’m not going to print the whole thing here (you are subscribing to the newsletters, right??) but it starts out like this…

Your soccer organization - whether a club, tournament or team - requires press exposure to help you build value for your sponsors and potential player or team base. However, it can be much more than getting a team photo in the local sports section. It can include a leap onto the newspaper city pages or the A block of the television news.

Here are eight simple rules for getting your soccer organization the press coverage you want. Read the whole thing…

John Stevenson, noted columnist and formerly with Puma North America, discusses the ins and outs of manufacturer partnerships for tournaments and soccer organizations.

John can be reached at johnmstevenson@comcast.net or by subscribing to the newsletters at Soccer America.

Our press conference on the Labor Day soccer tournaments. Click on the video still to watch the conference OR click here to watch it full screen on YouTube. You can also leave comments for us!

It was lunchtime and Rufus and I swing into the local Wendy’s, pulled into the drive-through lane and ordered a #2, no ketchup, pickles, tomato or onions and a vanilla frosty. Rufus likes the frosty and he gets the second burger patty. There were four cars ahead of us. Not bad for lunchtime.

When we were the third car in line, there was a stall of some sort with an order. The cars started piling up behind us and eventually, cars would pull into the lot and pull right around to go somewhere else. We had ordered, so we waited for about five minutes. The guy in front of us had had enough, so he just pulled out of line. A minute afterwards, our van was in gear and we were gone as well. I’m pretty sure all the orders got out of synch for the people behind us. But we had waited long enough.

As I was sitting there, I also counted 17 cars that pulled into the lot and right out the other side after noticing the long line. A quick calculation on an average of $8.00 per meal, over the course of one lunch hour, that long line probably cost Wendy’s about $1,300.00 in sales. I’m guessing.

Our advice: Never, never, never let a line form at the concession stand. If you did a quick survey, you will find people have the patience for three customers deep, but no more. They will approach the line with the intention of standing there to order something, but if more than three people are in it, they will keep walking and go somewhere else. You have lost that sale.

Try putting a “greeter” at the end of the line when it gets too long; someone who can take orders and money and radio orders to the back. You only really need this extra person during breakfast and lunch rushes. Do ANYTHING you can to prevent the line from forming.

Gerard McLean, TourneyCentral