Soccer Tournament Review

I watched Gracie yesterday with my daughter. The movie, like most soccer games, moved incredibly slow, there were no climaxes, anti-climaxes and “slam dunk” plot points like there were in Will Ferrell’s “Kicking and Screaming” It was almost painful to watch, but I pushed through the dip.

Despite my initial reaction to the movie, the paragraph above is actually a compliment to the actors, directors and the producers who probably had to be convinced that soccer people would “get” the film. The plot moved like a soccer game does, sometimes moving forward, sometimes dropping back with the score only being a few points ahead or behind at any given moment. It was actually brilliantly written and directed without tending to over-arching social statements and absurd hyperbole for comic or dramatic effect.

What does all this have to do with running a tournament? Like Gracie and any good soccer game, a soccer tournament is not “won” or “lost” by anything huge that you do, but by doing all the really small things really well. And, knowing when to drop back and knowing when to push through and make a run. And, of course, not giving up… and NOT listening to the critics who tell you that dropping back is giving up. Dropping back is just another strategy for ultimately moving the ball forward.

The only bad thing about the Gracie is that it is a soccer film. That is a shame, because it is more about the Universal Idea (or Human Condition for us older English Literature folks). A lot of people who could use a good view would not ever watch it because it is soccer. (The same about The Devil Wears Prada.. not about fashion…)

Our Advice: First, watch the three films mentioned above. Will Ferrell for how NOT to look at life, and the other two on a deeper understanding of the Universal Idea. Second, soccer and soccer tournaments are all about playing smart, honing your craft and being tenacious, not about being the biggest and strongest. In the end, the game always falls to the clever and agile.

I received this email from a coach/team rep for a tournament coming up:

Do you expect any more changes to the schedules? …. I just want to make sure this new schedule is safe to distribute.

Wow. Team reps and coaches printing off tournament schedules for parents instead of sending them to the tournament web site is a bit like getting a telegram and then gathering everyone in the town to read it to them in the town square using a megaphone.

Our Advice: At every opportunity, encourage the coaches and team reps to send their parents to your tournament web site. When there are changes (almost always are!) the coach/rep just needs to tell them there is a change via the phone tree or email and not print off the schedule, make more copies, distribute them, make sure all old copies are destroyed… you get the idea.

At TourneyCentral, we will be installing some tools that allow parents to be notified when a change occurs in the schedule, hoping to save your coaches and team reps some additional work and stress. Stay tuned.

Do you pay attention to the email address domains that coaches and team reps use when they apply to your soccer tournament? Maybe you should. While the vast majority of applications come in with yahoo.com, msn.com, gmail.com, aol.com, etc. addresses, a sizable percentage come in from corporate email.

Here is the thought: If your guest team had a good time at the soccer tournament over the weekend, who do they tell? Practically anyone in their office who will also not want to get to work right away on a Monday morning (or Tuesday morning after a holiday Monday). This is hidden marketing as these folks are your champions. If they had a miserable time, keep in mind they will most likely tell seven times more as many people, even those people who don’t want to listen, including posts to Internet blogs and chat boards.

Our Advice: Pay attention to the email addresses when accepting, scheduling and other activities that will affect the personal comfort of the team rep or coach. Reach out with a personal thank you note after the tournament. Build that relationship slowly because if done right, it could lead to other contacts within their company that may blossom into sponsorships. At the very least, you’ll have a stronger champion around the water cooler on Monday morning.

With a short post on Back of the Net, Larry Miller let the cat out of the bag on TICO Score. Yes, folks it is coming and it will be insanely great.

In short, Larry’s post was:

For a few months BOTN has been telling you that a superior tournament ranking system to the one currently in place will be coming. BOTN is happy to be able to give you the first look to TICO scores, a system for ranking tournaments without the influence of advertising, or ownership of rankings by tournaments.

Independent, free of politics, honest.

The scoring analogy of TICO scores is your FICO Credit Score. It has a base number and a ceiling number. It can go up or down depending on your credit performance. TICO scores works the same way.

Parents/Player and Coaches will be the people evaluating your tournament. If they have good things to say your score goes up and if not it goes down. No outside influence from sponsors, friends, etc… Just your input from a detailed on-line form.

BOTN is excited to give our community a first look at TICO scores. The links at the the top of the page are “hot” to help you navigate. Please understand the complete TICO Score website will not be ready for another month or two.

So, just keep watching for the latest TICO Score news.

The really short answer is no. Most teams do not find soccer tournaments by searching on Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com etc. Now, for the really long explanation and supporting documentation.

First an article by Bob Carrigan, president of IDG Communications that appears in the October issue of OMMA Magazine, the sort of beacon for the online marketing world (banners, ads, search engines placement, etc.)

With all the discussion — and anxiety among media companies — about “world domination” by the major search companies, you might think that nearly all activity on the Web begins with search. While the amount of traffic from search engines is clearly on the rise, many of the sites at my company, IDG, are starting to see a trend that a lot of publishers whom I speak with are also seeing: Traffic from organic search is leveling off as a percentage of total traffic, while traffic from direct-navigation visits is increasing.

If you need to take a few minutes to read the whole thing, go ahead; we’ll still be here.

Basically, the search engine traffic we are seeing from the search engines is a search on your tournament name. We are also seeing searches for common locations, like the name of the park you are playing in, the key sponsor, etc. But, all of this traffic is generated because the team knows where they want to play and is searching for YOU, not something like “soccer tournaments in Ohio in May.”

Our advice: If your soccer tournament does not already have a separate domain that is specific and similar to your tournament name, get one. And make sure it is what your teams know you as. For example, your “official” tournament name might be “The ABC Corporation Kick the Grass Soccer Invitational”, but if your guest teams are saying thing like, “Are you going to the Kick Grass this year?” you probably want to register www.kickgrass.com (don’t search for that name, it is already taken and parked by a cyber-squatter hoping to make a few bucks.)

Do not rely on your soccer club web site to market your soccer tournament. The fastest way to get your soccer tournament to show up in the search engines is to use a domain that specifically describes your soccer tournament to your potential audience. And make sure your web pages use your name frequently and in the title of every page. Or, just sign up with TourneyCentral and we’ll take care of all these details for you.

In the Internet world, we have a term called “stickiness” which means: Something about the Web site compels the reader to stay longer, read more pages, bookmark you, etc. The test of stickiness of a soccer tournament is: do they come back, do they bookmark, do they remember you.

Today, an email came across my desk sent from a coach who played in the 2007 Ohio Cup in July. It read:

“Just wanted to let you know that I am down to my last game of regular season. We are currently 8-3-4. Two of our losses went to the same team in some very close games. I just wanted to thank you for your inspiration at the beginning of my season. It has been a wonderful year and I just felt the need to say thank you!!!”

Wow! Whatever the Ohio Cup did for that coach we all should aspire to. To be remembered as the tournament that sparked a great season is a goal that we should all look to achieve. To have a coach drop an email three months later is perhaps the ultimate testament to the achievement of that goal.

Our Advice: Be memorable! Whatever your goals are; to be the first of the season, to be the largest, to attract the most State Cup winners, to be.. whatever, first and foremost in that list of goals should to be memorable.

I ran across this post from another blog and it got me thinking about how close we are to serving up sponsor ads and DEALS to mobile devices.

Make My World Clickable by Steve Smith. It’s a good read.